Robot vacuums are incredible. They can keep pet hair at bay, mop up small spills, and otherwise keep your home tidy and dust-free between regular thorough cleanings. For the most part, a robot vacuum or robot mop can be set-it-and-forget-it: you can schedule cleanings to happen automatically, and even have certain rooms cleaned on certain days.
But what if you have a pesky rug, pet feeding areas, or odd-shaped piece of furniture that keeps snagging your bot until it runs low on battery and dies without completing its mission? Or if you want the machine to stay out of particular rooms or areas? Today’s robot vacuums are quite intelligent, and you can easily manage where they can and cannot travel in your house. Here’s what you should know.
How to set up boundaries and virtual barriers for robot vacuums and mops
There are many methods for preventing a robot vacuum from entering certain areas of your house. Depending on the age of the robot and the technology it came with, you have a few different options.
Use the app to set up virtual walls or boundaries
The most recent robot vacuums and mops are intelligent. They can “see” their way around your home and produce a very thorough map of your area on their first runs since they are equipped with cameras or lasers. After the mapping is done, you may view it within the robot vacuum’s app. You may identify rooms, make changes to sections, and build virtual fences, no-go zones, and out-of-bounds zones .
Setting up no-go zones in a robot vacuum app
Most robot vacuum makers make it simple to regulate your area and how it’s cleaned. Some apps let you draw simple lines, while others use pinch-to-size digital boxes to allow you to draw out areas on your virtual home map where you would rather your robot vacuum not venture. Each manufacturer’s app is different, but usually you’ll just need to enter your home’s map then look for terms like Virtual Wall, Virtual Boundary, No-Go Zone, or Keep-Out Zone to enable and adjust these options.
Benefits of setting up virtual barriers and no-go zones for robot vacuums
You may prevent your gadget from entering if you want to prohibit your robot vacuum from spilling the dog’s water dish or if you have a bothersome couch that your bot keeps getting jammed beneath. Other common reasons for setting up virtual barriers and keep-out zones include needing to keep the bot from getting stuck on low-hanging draperies, or to prevent it from getting caught up in the pile of clothes that’s usually on the floor of the laundry room, for example.
Most robot vacuum makers have made this procedure easy and user-friendly, especially with the more popular and well-known models.
Use magnetic boundary tape
Several older or low-cost vacuums provide hardware or manual options for preventing a robot vacuum from entering a certain area.
Within the packaging, you may discover a roll of flat plastic material; this is magnetic boundary tape. While this is a tangible and visible manner of designating where your robot vacuum should not go, it is not ideal. This magnetic boundary tape tends to be fairly thick and has to be adhered with double-sided tape to keep it in place. If you don’t do it right, it can become a tripping hazard, but in the best case scenario it is a simple and effective barrier that your robot vacuum will not cross. Several robot vacuum firms have phased this out in favor of other choices since it may be ugly.
Robot vacuum ‘Lighthouses’
Small, battery-powered devices known as virtual wall lighthouses (VWLH) used to be included in some older robot vacuums like iRobot Roomba devices, and you might still encounter them if you’re buying a used bot off Craigslist. These lighthouses are little cylinders that are put around the home or at doors to block off regions that you don’t want your robot to enter.
In some cases, these devices can be switched on to create an infrared gate, allowing you to control the bot’s entry into spaces. These lighthouses have mostly been phased out now that new mapping technology is more robust, and that mapping tech is now showing up on more and more simple and affordable robot vacuums and mops now too.
Well, you can seal your doors, install a baby gate, or set up a sentry line of heavy cans to keep your robot vacuum from getting into mischief. Yet we prefer to rely on technological wizardry to keep our robot cleaning army on track – and out of trouble.
Related Questions
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Will any magnetic tape work for robot vacuum?
Magnetic strips are compatible with all manufacturers of robot vacuums. As long as your robot vacuum comes with a sensor that can detect the magnetic strip, you can use any magnetic boundary tapes to set the cleaning zones.
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Will magnetic tape work with Roomba?
Yes, the XFasten Magnetic Tape emits a medium duty magnetic field which a robot vacuum cleaner, especially the Roomba type can sense. This will be a clever approach for your cleaner to mark off limits.
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How do you set boundaries on a robot vacuum?
Use magnetic boundary tape
This magnetic boundary tape tends to be fairly thick and has to be adhered with double-sided tape to keep it in place. If you don’t do it right, it can become a tripping hazard, but in the best case scenario it is a simple and effective barrier that your robot vacuum will not cross.