The Tapo RV30 Plus robot, from the manufacturer TP-Link, is a vacuum cleaner in the shape of a large black and white washer, with a diameter of 341 mm and 95 mm in height. At the front, a small rotating brush that protrudes allows it to extend its reach and bring dust and small debris back to its main brush.
A compartment at the back can hold 300ml of water, which soaks a fabric attached with velcro that must be cleaned after each use. This set adds a mop function to the Tapo RV30 Plus. The charging station to which the robot automatically returns also allows it to empty. It takes months of daily cleaning – 70 days, according to the manufacturer – before you need to change your 4-litre bag.
Now let’s talk about his intelligence.
After downloading the Tapo app, configuring its account and adding the RV30 Plus, the robot performs a first mapping of its new playground. Nice surprise, it is quiet, barely 55 dB, less than a microwave. This robot is equipped with a Lidar which allows it to have better precision, even in the dark.
We can thus create three maps, one per floor, for example, which we can then edit with the name of the rooms. It will then be possible to launch a cleaning for a single room or for the entire floor. “Virtual walls” and “no go zones” can be added to the map, if the robot is in danger of getting into a jumble of wires or getting stuck somewhere.
So what is he worth as a domestic helper? In our first experiences, it kept getting stuck in two places and couldn’t cross two thresholds, those giving access to the entrance and the kitchen on the ground floor. It was therefore necessary to prohibit him from these areas in the maps. It is also necessary to remove from its path all the bags, shoes and boxes lying around. Once these preliminaries were settled, we had the great pleasure of seeing him prowl everywhere, slipping between the legs of chairs and under the sofa to do a very respectable cleaning. It can be tracked on the mobile application, which shows in a pale area the places where the robot has passed.
It goes into turbo mode when it passes over a carpet and has cleaned 95% of the space adequately. It’s no mystery he can’t go anywhere that doesn’t have at least 35cm of space. The plain water wash does an honest job, but not as flawlessly as a mop, human arms and a little detergent.
In theory, several operations can be triggered with the voice assistants Alexa and Google Assistant. We managed to start and stop it (by making it return to its base) this way, and that’s it.
Programming the RV30 Plus gave us some trouble. For example, he decided after half a dozen passages to no longer clean a quarter of the dining room. We had to erase the map and ask him to rediscover the whole ground floor.
Our main floor with its two steps and three rooms caused a lot of headaches for our robot, which had to be helped to cross.
Our RV30 Plus repeatedly got stuck under a piece of furniture that barely allowed it to pass, and fell down a flight of stairs after catching the rollers in a towel on the floor. A virtual wall solved the problem.
At $899.99 exclusively at Best Buy, the RV30 Plus is expensive. However, it is in the good price range of robot mops, some models of which retail for up to $2,000. Note that the slightly smaller RV10 Plus with the same features sells for a more reasonable price of $599.99.
We can debate for a long time the relevance of paying so much for a food processor. Some find them useless, others love them. Despite some bugs and its limitations, we were pretty pleased with our test overall: it’s a well-designed device that gave us a cleaner bottom floor than ever. It takes a good learning curve to set it up, make sure there are no obstacles in the way, but it does its job well.
Fabricant : TP-Link
Price: $899.99
Rating: 7 out of 10