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Mint 4200 floor polisher is another smart mop. Now with gps

On the New Year's Eve, one of my friends, who works in a cellular phone salon and completely worn out with constant dirt from visitors, asked me to pick up a robot- police cleaner at the store. Like, will drive, mopping the floors, round the clock cleanliness and order guaranteed.
As it turned out, the task of cleaning this room can perform two types of devices. And if the habrasoobshchestvo already managed to acquaint with robots vacuum cleaners in several reviews ( time , two , three ), then about robots-polisher somehow unfairly kept silent.
As it is easy to guess, my choice with the purchase fell on the second device, more specifically - on the flooring robot Mint 4200, produced by the American company Evolution Robotics . On the reasons for this choice, as well as a brief overview of the device read under the cut.

Completeness and appearance


Before us is a very compact (compared to vacuum cleaner robots) device with a rather attractive appearance. Most vacuum cleaning robots are round. In contrast, the Mint 4200 has a rectangular case with an extended lower part on one side. With such an interesting solution, the designers increased the cleaning area, and, moreover, thanks to this, Mint 4200, unlike its round counterparts, has no problems with cleaning corners and other hard-to-reach places.
The body is made of durable dark plastic, on top - a glossy white coating. In the center is a strange black window that performs a purely decorative function. At first it seemed that it would be logical to place the display here, but later it became clear that the display is basically not needed for this device. The simplicity of control (three buttons) and the absence of a display with a bunch of displayed parameters are just advantages of the Mint 4200. A sort of iPhone with one key.
The device is delivered in a small box, it weighs quite a bit, it is quite possible even to carry it on your two. Included we have:
The kit includes an American power supply with the appropriate connector (flat American plug), designed for a voltage range of 110-240 V, that is, it is possible to connect the power supply to our outlet with a standard adapter. An adapter is included in the package, so there will be no problems with connecting the power supply unit.
The NorthStar navigation unit is one of the interesting features of the Mint 4200. The presence of an external navigation unit essentially only improves the positioning accuracy of the robot, which allows you to build a more accurate map of the room and, importantly, when cleaning dirty rooms, do not leave uncleaned places on the floor. When cleaning with the NorthStar turned on, the robot also cleans the surfaces of the walls and furniture with the side of a cleaning cloth, with the navigation unit turned off, Mint just circles the room, tapping the walls.
The cleaning rags included in the kit can be washed. However, if you intend to use the robot for cleaning actively polluted premises (shops, offices, children's rooms), then it will be more logical to use disposable napkins (you can buy them in any hozmage).

Specifications


The manufacturer claims the following device specifications:
Let us dwell on each of the points.
The dimensions of the device allow it to move freely around the house, crawling between the legs of the tables and chairs. Due to the absence of an intake mechanism, the device has a relatively small height, which allows the device to penetrate under sofas and chairs, unlike high-vacuum cleaner robots.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to find the data on the level of noise, it would be interesting to compare them with those declared for vacuum cleaner robots. With this parameter, there is absolutely no complaint about the device - the noise is so quiet that in one room with the Mint 4200 you can sleep comfortably during the cleaning. However, at the end of the cleaning, the robot will return to its initial position and will make a low sound. In addition, bumping bumper against furniture and walls, the robot makes quiet sounds of light, dull thumps, but it is unlikely to wake you. I am sure that night cleaning even in the nursery will not disturb its inhabitants. In general, according to this indicator, the device can not be compared with the humming robot vacuum cleaners.
The battery life is more than enough for cleaning two or three medium-sized rooms, provided that the robot can move freely between these rooms. Alas, but to overcome the thresholds and carpeting Mint 4200 can not. On the other hand, he will not try to wash your carpet, but just carefully go round it.
A standard battery of six 1.2 volt nickel-metal hydride battery cells is used as batteries, that is, replacing batteries in the event of aging will not be a problem.

Testing


Honestly, immediately after the purchase, I came up with several tests to assess the quality of cleaning. The first test is the quality of cleaning of various types of pollution. The second test is cleaning in hard-to-reach places (in the corners, near the legs of tables, chairs). The third test is the “patency” test of the robot through various obstacles (wires, toys, etc.).
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Cleaning garbage

In the dry cleaning mode, the Mint 4200 collects almost all the small debris and dust, but something remains at the walls and near the furniture. It is recommended to turn on the wet cleaning mode for heavily polluted floors according to the instructions after dry cleaning, I completely agree with this, because on the heavily dirty floor Mint will only smear the dirt in an even layer.
In general, it is logical to use the robot for daily cleaning, because the floor does not have time to get very dirty during the day, and as a result of cleaning with our robot, we get perfectly clean floors. Here I mean cleaning at home, in office premises to maintain order requires a double (or even three) launch of the robot during the day. That is, the algorithm of work when buying a new device is like this - we buy a robot, we launch it several times in a row, we get a perfectly clean floor, which will always remain that way with daily cleaning.

Cleaning in hard to reach places

The quality of cleaning in hard-to-reach places, such as corners, places around the thin legs of tables and chairs, as well as large objects (furniture) was checked.
To my surprise, I discovered that on all points the robot chose more or less adequate trajectories of motion. The robot motion algorithm is as follows. The cleaning starts from the open space on the right side of the robot, then the areas to the left are cleaned. After cleaning the open space, the robot proceeds to clean the furniture (which, when cleaning open areas, Mint recognized it as an “obstacle”, i.e. something heavy and non-moving) and the walls using the lateral sides of the napkin. At the end of the cleaning, the robot returns to the position from which it began cleaning.

Passability test

Mint 4200 will not fall from the stairs, it is able to detect a sudden decrease in the level of the floor and safely drive around this place. This allows you to use it for cleaning interbridge platforms, tables, cabinets and other furniture. It is especially convenient to “land” the Mint 4200 on high cabinets, shelves and mezzanines - in the wet cleaning mode, the robot will remove all the dust there without any problems.
However, there are certain problems with overcoming the obstacles lying on the floor - the robot is able to stop a conventional wire (if it is fixed at both ends, otherwise Mint will simply roll it back to the wall), which is not surprising, since the clearance of a flooring robot should be zero by definition .
Small items lying on the floor (toys, shoes, clothes) Mint in the process of cleaning easily pushes against the wall. Heavy objects are defined as obstacles, and cleaning is carried out closely around them.

Conclusion


In Moscow, at the time of purchase, the Mint 4200 was available in two online stores for about 15,000 rubles. The toad took its toll , and I bought a Mint 4200 for 13,500 rubles in the store nrobots.ru , having also paid 250 rubles for delivery. What do we get for this money?
This gadget is designed for cleaning only hard surfaces, so you should only buy it if your home / office / store has a large part of the floor covered with hard surfaces - tile / parquet / linoleum. It makes sense to take it "in the appendage" to your dry vacuum cleaner, if you already have one, or even purchase a pair of "dry" robot vacuum cleaner + "wet" robot floor polisher, since the price of such a kit is quite comparable to the price of "wet" the robot vacuum cleaner (and with the cleaning of solid surfaces, the floor polisher obviously copes better than washing vacuum cleaners).
Thus, the Mint 4200 is a device that boldly competes with any “dry” robot vacuum cleaner (when cleaning hard surfaces) and is certainly not comparable to expensive wet vacuum cleaners (the average price for a washing robot vacuum cleaner is around 25,000 rubles).
In addition, this is a great hi-tech gadget with a cool “lotion” in the form of an external navigation unit, which can always surprise a geek friend.
At the moment, the device I bought regularly works in one of the mobile phone shops, continually jumping under customers' feet and entertaining children. Initially, it was not planned to use such a robot, it was understood that the cleaning would be done after the end of the working day, but the pilot launch of the unit with visitors turned out to be successful - in the worst case, it slightly hits the buyer’s leg and immediately leaves the guilty look :)
Finally - a couple of links to the video from the manufacturer’s website with a description of the robot (do not forget to include subtitles):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deTxILHDJwI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJZe5LfYBqU

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/137597/

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