LIDAR is still way cooler, though —

The 2019 Roomba gets an all-new design, companion mop-bot

Roomba gets a D-shaped design, and iRobot finally makes a modern mopping robot.

iRobot recently announced its yearly cleaning robot upgrades, and as usual, there is a new Roomba robo-vac, the Roomba S9+. This year, the company is also releasing a new, full-sized mop-bot, the Braava Jet M6.

First up, the vacuum. The big upgrade in the S9+ is an all-new shape. The Roomba ditches the iconic round puck design for a "D" shaped robot. This is copied straight from iRobot's main rival, Neato Robotics, and as Neato has been saying for years, the D shape allows the robot to better get into the corners of your house.

The underside of the Roomba S9+ looks just like a Neato, with a cleaning brush pushed out to the edge of the robot and a corner-mounted rotary sweeper. In its round designs, iRobot would have to put the cleaning brush in between the wheels of the robot, and the D shaped design allows for a much wider brush and larger cleaning area. The Roomba's original round design happened as a navigation aid—it's a lot harder for a round robot to get stuck—so now that the S9+ has corners it will be swinging around, it will need to be smarter about movement.

That's it. The new, Neato-style design seems to be the only new thing the Roomba is bringing to the table this year. The robot did get a massive upgrade last year, though, and all of those features are still on the S9+. These include an awesome new dock system that will actually empty out the dust bin for you via its own vacuum system, dust bin, and a special cleaning port on the bottom of the robot. There's also the returning navigation, Wi-Fi connectivity, and app system, which all combine to do things like map your home and allow you to name each room. You can then give commands like "go clean the kitchen," and the device will clean only that room without the need for awkward lighthouses or magnetic strips. The bot supports Google and Alexa assistants, so you can actually tell it "clean the kitchen," and your robot minion will get to work.

The bad news is the price—one thousand dollars! Wait, that's without the fancy dock, which is another $349 when purchased separately. The whole package together is $1,299. We haven't even mopped the floors yet!

For longtime robot owners, the iRobot's robo-mop is the really big deal this year. The Braava Jet M6 represents iRobot's first full-size mop design in some time. The company's previous full-size mop bot was the Roomba Braava 380T, which launched all the way back in 2013, and it wasn't even an iRobot design. In 2012, iRobot bought Evolution Robotics, makers of the Mint robo-mop. iRobot promptly silk screened a new logo onto the "Mint Plus 5200," called it the "Braava 380T" bot, and sold the thing, unchanged, for six straight years.

The 380T was not a great mop bot. It didn't spray water where it was needed, and it didn't really have an internal water reservoir at all. The cleaning cloth holder carried a few ounces of water for the cloth to wick away, and that was it. For navigation, it needed a weird satellite cube powered by two "C" batteries, and it couldn't charge itself halfway through a cleaning job and resume. Heck, it couldn't dock and charge itself at all. When the battery died, it would just beep at you and you would need to pick it up and plug it in. There was no app, no intelligence, and really no redeeming qualities at all. It dragged a wet rag across the floor, and that was it. Again, though, this was pretty neat in 2013, and, with little robo-mop competition to speak of, iRobot could just keep selling the Evolution Robotics design year after year.

With the Braava Jet M6, iRobot is finally producing a modern mop bot, taking a lot of cues from the new Roomba line and the tiny bathroom cleaning Braava Jet 240. For starters, the mop-bot actually carries water inside the robot body and has a front sprayer. iRobot doesn't say how much liquid the new Braava will carry (or how many square feet it will clean) but it is clearly a lot, as the water reservoir (the large silver disk) now takes up the majority of the bot's body. The new Braava navigates just like the vacuums, with proper SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) functionality, meaning it maps the room as it mops, mops in straight lines, and can identify and mop only certain rooms if you tell it to. The satellite cube-based navigation of the old Mint bot is dead. And there's now a charging dock that the device will automatically park itself in, and if it runs out of power during a cleaning session, it can charge up and resume where it left off.

The new Braava and Roomba robots share an app and can share maps of your home. Like the Roomba, the new Braava even has Wi-Fi, so in addition to ordering them around via the app, you can also shout at your Google or Alexa assistants and tell your robots to get to work. If you buy both of iRobot's new cleaning bots, they will actually work together with a feature iRobot is calling "Imprint Link Technology," which just means the mop will turn on after the vacuum finishes.

The Braava Jet M6 is retailing for $499, so if you want to actually use this Imprint Link Technology, that's $1,800 for the beginnings of your robot cleaning army. Both robots are for sale today on

Correction: I originally called this iRobot's first full size mop design, not counting the acquired Evolution Robotics products. I forgot about the Scooba line, which was actually an iRobot-developed mop bot that was cancelled in favor of the Mint bot.

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