Introducing the new Mint Plus!

Evolution Robotics has newly introduced the Mint Plus. It is bigger than then original Mint Cleaner and has faster charging, longer run time and thus cleans a wider area.

The Mint Plus comes with Pro-Clean System which is able to mops longer and better than its predecessor, Mint Cleaner introduced in 2010.

There is a special reservoir cleaning pad which dispenses liquid throughout the cleaning cycle and thus refreshes the Pro-Clean microfiber cloth with fresh cleaning fluid.

Mint Plus can covers up to 350 square feet in a single cleaning cycle. Besides that, Mint Plus can also charges in as fast as 4 hours with the included adapter or in just 2 hours with the Turbo Charge Cradle.

The most important feature of all is that it comes with a Start/Pause button. Mint Plus can be paused mid-cycle to change cleaning cloths, retain its map and resume cleaning with an area not yet covered! I definitely wish my Mint Cleaner has this feature too!

Mint Cleaner mops dirty floor

Mint Cleaner in action. Observe at how Mint mops the dirty floor. It is able to mop the dust away from the dusty floor.

Comparison between Roomba and Mint Cleaner Part 2

In this issue, I will want to discuss about another important aspect of cleaning capabilities of Roomba and Mint Cleaner.


Roomba was built as a "robotic" vacuum cleaner. Being robotic means it enables the vacuum cleaner to moves like a artificial human beings maneuvering the vacuum cleaner to every little corner and area to vacuum the dirt. This definitely leaves a dust free area for your house.

The recent times has brought another waves of innovation which is being the micro fiber clothes which claimed to replace your broom. Micro fiber has proven itself over the time that it is effective in cleaning your floor without the use of detergent as the tiny micro fiber is able to picks up the tiniest dirt including grease, hairs and dust. Mint Cleaner makes use of this innovative breakthrough technology with the use of Starfiber cloth.

I am going to list down my evaluation on the Cleaning effectiveness into the following categories:


Effectiveness in picking up dirt (dust, hairs)
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Roomba 535

Excellent - Most dirt has been picked up by Roomba. Roomba is able to move to most corners to search for dust. Without the use of NorthStar indoor GPS, Roomba does not really knows the area that it has covered and may keep cleaning on certain spots. After Roomba has finished his rounds, the floor feels quite clean but may feels greasy at times as there is no mopping features in Roomba. Scooba by iRobot will have to be deployed.


Mint Cleaner

Very Good - When Mint cleaner is used under "Mop" mode, it mimics the human action of mopping the floor with a sideway to and fro motion. Most of the dirt has been picked up by Mint StarFiber cloth. However, you will also need to look out for some clumps of dirt that has been collected by the microfiber cloth.

Conclusion.

Mint Cleaner serves a strong competitor to Roomba. WIth its smart indoor GPS, Mint Cleaner is able to cover all areas with minimal risk of entanglement with wires and awful places. Mint is effective in mopping your house with hard floorings with absolute silence and graceful movements leaving your house clean and matches your house interior with it minimalistic design.

Comparison between Roomba and Mint Cleaner Part 1

Today, I am going to talk about the difference between Roomba and Mint Cleaner. As you all may know, Roomba has been introduced to us since 2002. Roomba was manufactured by iRobot and has been the leading Robotic Vacuum cleaner of all time. There have been some competitors like Electrolux Trilobite, Karcher RoboCleaner but over the time, they have been overtaken by Roomba.


Mint Cleaner, however was introduced recently to the market in Aug 2010 and is relatively new when compared to Roomba.


I will be spending time on this blog to discuss and compare the differences between Roomba and Mint cleaner so that consumer has a better idea and make better decision in purchasing them. For your information, I have been using Roomba since 2005 and has never turned back. The newly introduced Mint Cleaner has made me rethink about the possibilities of adding new robot to my current family. Besides that, I also owned Rovio, the telepresence robot that allows you to be in two places at the same time! However, I will save this page dedicated to Mint Cleaner and Roomba discussion though.


Comparision number 1:

1) Noise Level

Roomba is noisy. Come on, let's admit it. I have once owned Roomba Discovery and now is a convert to Roomba 535. You can easily locate Roomba when it venture around the house. Why? Because its very noisy. The latest series of Roomba is less noisy when compared to Roomba Discovery but it is still noisy. Mint Cleaner has an advantage over Roomba on its noise level as it is very very quiet. It is so quiet that you sometimes could not locate on where it is hiding! You can check on my previous youtube video to hear how quiet it is.

All about StarFiber Microfiber cloth (Used in Mint Cleaner)

Extracted from http://http://www.starfibers.com/

What is Microfiber?

Microfiber consists of very fine threads of polyester and polyamide (nylon) that combine to form a single thread. Microfibers are so thin (100 times thinner than a single strand of human hair) that when they are woven together they create a surface area 40 times more than that of a regular fiber – creating an expanded surface area with dramatically enhanced absorbing power due to the capillary action of the fine threads. Microfiber is traditionally defined as a fiber with a denier of less than one. Denier is a measure of thinness of fiber and is the weight in grams of a continuous fiber of 9,000 meters.

As each microfiber strand may be smaller than the bacteria it is attracting, it is able to penetrate microscopic particles of dirt and grease on a surface. Split microfiber possesses numerous wedges instead of the rounded surfaces on ordinary cloth, sweeping underneath the particles and trapping them inside. In addition, the rounded fibers on most cloths only push the dirt around, whereas the wedge-shaped microfibers grab the particles of dirt and pull the dirt into its dense internal structure. Furthermore, chemicals only become necessary as a disinfectant, as the bonding agent is no longer necessary to keep the dirt on the fiber.

Microfiber has two polymers. Polyester is lyophilic, or has an affinity to oil, so that oil and grease adhere directly to the fibers. Polyamide is hydrophilic, which means it has an affinity to water. As a result, any type of dirt is very quickly and completed removed with microfiber, leaving a sparkling clean, streak-free surface. Microfiber cleans without streaking, smearing, scratching or leaving lint. Microfiber is safe to use on all delicate surfaces. It will clean without scratching or harming the surface in any way.

Ordinary cleaning towels move or push dirt and dust from one place to another - microfiber actually lifts or scoops the dirt and stores the dirt particles in the towel, until it is washed. Microfiber can absorb up to seven times its weight in fluids. Microfiber cloths are also extremely durable. They can be washed up to 1000 times and still maintain their effectiveness. This makes it an extremely cost effective product. Machine wash or hand-wash microfiber with mild soapy water.

That explains why you do not need to add soap/floor detergent onto the microfiber cleaning pads and also the reason on why some of them in the market are not so effective.

What Mint Cleaner is and is not..

Recently, I had received some questions about the comparison between Mint Cleaner and Roomba. I will hereby like to provide the information based on Mint Cleaner manual:

What Mint is not?

1) Mint is not a toy.

2) Mint do not pick up large debris, liquid spills, bleach and paint.

3) Mint does not work on carpet.



What Mint is?

1) Mint is for indoor household use only.

2) Mint is for hard surface floors use only.




Thus, Mint cleaner does not work like Roomba in the first place and is not designed to be one either. Mint sweeps and mops your floor. You do not need Roomba and Scooba to achieve that.

Mint Cleaner - Mopping action with fStarFibre microfibre cloth

I have just performed some testing on Mint Cleaner using "sweep" and "mop" option. Both works great!  It was amazing to see robotics technology has advanced further to provide feasible solution on our daily chores. Soon, manual floor sweeping and mopping will be a thing of a past. Hello Robots.. Good bye broom and mops!

Below is the video that I had captured on Mint while using "mop" option. Also for this time round, Northstar Navigation cube was turned on to ensure Mint cleaner got good information on its current coordinates and cleans the room efficiently by constantly mapping the area that it had covered. Also do note that the microfibre cloth that comes with Mint Cleaner is from StarFibre. You can read about StarFibre from here.