Since last year, I’ve had a fair number of enquiries from people looking to buy a cleaning robot, commonly referred to as a robot vacuum cleaner. The needs for social distancing and staying at home, as well as the fact that many of us now work from home full-time, have made this product segment much more interesting, especially for those with tight schedules and little time or energy to devote to keeping the home clean. While there have been some notable launches in the segment from brands such as Xiaomi and Milagrow, one product has stood out despite the lack of fanfare around it.
The 360 S7 is a robot vacuum-mop cleaner that isn’t too well known. Not many will have heard of the brand or product; I found out about this robot cleaner by word of mouth myself. It’s usually available to buy quite easily on major e-commerce stores, and as its name suggests, the S7 can vacuum and mop simultaneously. However, at Rs. 34,990 or thereabouts, the 360 S7 is quite expensive, especially for a product from a brand that barely has a presence in India.
That said, this is a very well-equipped and technically adept robot cleaner for a number of reasons, which I’ll explore in this review. Is this the best robot vacuum cleaner that you can buy today? Read on to find out.
There’s just a single brush for sweeping, but this does a decent job of pushing dirt towards the vacuum intake
What is the 360 S7, and what’s in the box?
Like some of the popular options I’ve reviewed in the past few months, the 360 S7 is primarily a robot vacuum cleaner, but also has the ability to mop simultaneously using a separate external fitting. The device has a single rotating brush on its right side, which pushes dirt towards the centre for the 2,000pa-rated vacuum suction to pick up. As with most devices of its kind, the 360 S7 uses mechanised wheels to move around.
Included in the sales package are the robot itself, the external mop fitting, a mop cloth for the fitting, the charging dock, and the power adapter. There are a few removable components inside the robot itself, including the main roller brush, the dust bin, the sweeping brush, the replaceable EPA filter for the dust bin, and a tool that includes a small brush to clean the bin manually and a blade to cut away stubborn tangles around the main brush.
The external mop fitting is essentially a small water tank that fixes onto the bottom of the 360 S7, and electronically drips water onto the floor for the mop cloth to wipe over. Attaching it allows the device to activate mopping mode, and simply removing it will ensure that the device only vacuums. A small speaker on the 360 S7 provides voice prompts that let you know what the device is doing.
The top of the 360 S7 has two physical buttons to control it – one to start or stop cleaning, and a second to order the device to return to its charging dock. You can use the 360 S7 on its own by simply pressing the buttons and allowing the device to self-navigate and clean all accessible areas, but it’s a lot better to set up the app to more closely monitor cleaning, select specific cleaning modes and areas, and more.
The 360 S7 has just two buttons on the top – one to start or pause cleaning, and the other to send it back to the charging dock
360 S7 navigation and mapping
The 360 S7 uses laser navigation so it knows where to go; a module at the top of the device scans the surroundings and detects walls and obstacles. This is a technologically advanced method of navigation that is as cool as it sounds, and works just as well as on competing devices such as the Mi Robot Vacuum-Mop P and Milagrow iMap 10.0, if not better.
Navigation accuracy is excellent, and the 360 S7 almost always spots any obstacle, large or small, and manages to move around it. As a result, the device hardly ever bumped into anything in my home, and only on rare occasions did it get stuck due to objects getting caught in the main brush. That said, you will have to ensure that loose carpets or rugs with tassels are put away when you run the 360 S7, and you’ll also have to manually define carpeted areas as no-go zones when using the mopping function.
The 360 S7 moves quickly and precisely in straight lines when vacuuming and mopping. It was usually able to simultaneously vacuum and mop my 600-square-foot home completely in around 30 minutes, or take around the same amount of time for each task if I ran the vacuuming and mopping functions separately, which I often found resulted in much more thorough cleaning.
360 S7 app
Although the basics of the 360 S7 cleaning robot can be controlled simply by pushing its physical buttons and attaching or detaching the mop fitting, the 360Robot app (available for iOS and Android) gives you much more specific control over how the device works. Not only that, you can also control the cleaning robot from anywhere using the app, as long as the robot is connected to your home Wi-Fi and the smartphone you’re using has Internet connectivity as well.
The app is feature filled, and gives you a lot of control over how you can use the 360 S7
Linking and setup of the 360 S7 with the app isn’t a very simple process, and does take around 10 minutes to complete. Once done, you’ll be able to see a set of controls, and after the robot has had a chance to scan and map your home, you’ll also be able to see a detailed map with markings for the last completed cleaning task. You can then define specific room markings, select no-go zones which the device will avoid moving into, set the order of cleaning tasks and vacuum power level for each specific room, and more. When the mop fitting is attached, you can also choose to both vacuum and mop, or only mop.
The app displays the battery level of the 360 S7. It also lets you manage a multi-storey space by saving multiple map layouts, and you can manually control the device through remote control mode as well as update the firmware, among other things. It’s a feature-filled app with lots of control and customisation options for the user, and usually worked well with the 360 S7.
360 S7 cleaning
The 360 S7 cleaning robot can sweep, vacuum, and mop, offering a complete solution to cleaning your floors. The sweeping functionality is admittedly basic and purely meant to push dirt towards the vacuum intake, but the single brush does a decent job at this. It’s positioned on the right side and therefore allows the robot to sweep dirt away from the edges and corners of areas being vacuumed. However, like the other cleaning robots I’ve reviewed, the 360 S7 can’t quite get all the dirt out of corners and edges.
It is, however, quite good at everyday cleaning, and can even tackle the occasional dry spill such as food crumbs. Peak suction power isn’t quite as high as on the Milagrow iMap 10.0, but the 2,000pa rated suction power is enough to pick up dirt in a regular household. Homes with pets could make the 360 S7 struggle, though.
The higher you set the suction power, the better, and I was able to get a very effective clean after setting the 360 S7 to its maximum power level. The device does get very noisy at this level, but you can interestingly use the app to set different power levels for different rooms. This meant that I could have the device run quietly in some rooms that didn’t necessarily need as heavy cleaning, while letting the device run stronger in the more actively used rooms of my home.
The water reservoir on the mop fitting isn’t too big, but should be enough to mop most small homes in one go
Mopping with the 360 S7 cleaning robot is adequate in terms of effectiveness, but it’s far from as good as on a dedicated mopping robot such as the iRobot Braava Jet M6 or even the Mi Robot Vacuum-Mop P with its unique Y-shaped mopping pattern. The 360 S7 does a reasonable enough job though, and my floor was fairly clean after running the mop function separately after vacuuming.
The mop fitting doesn’t hold a lot of water because of its size, and there’s no way to control how much water is released by the device while it’s running. This wasn’t a problem for a home the size of mine, but the low capacity could mean that the 360 S7 will run out of water and need to be refilled while mopping larger homes. The fitting itself is easy to attach and detach, so this isn’t too inconvenient.
Like most robot cleaners, the 360 S7 will need a fair amount of maintenance to run efficiently. This includes emptying out the dustbin periodically, washing the mop cloth, and removing tangles and other types of garbage stuck in the vacuum roller and sweeping brush. Neglecting this does affect the cleaning efficiency, so it’s something to watch out for.
360 S7 battery and charging
The battery on the 360 S7 has a capacity of 3,200mAh, which is enough to clean around 1400-1500 square feet of floor space – both vacuuming and mopping simultaneously – in one go. Although not the biggest battery you can find on cleaning robots in this segment, it’s more than enough for most Indian homes, and I never had trouble with the battery running out before a job was completed during my time with the device.
A single cleaning of my 600 square foot home would see the battery drop from full to around 60 percent, while running the vacuuming and mopping functions separately one after the other would see the level drop to around 35 percent. The robot usually took around three hours to charge back up to full from this point, and was ready to go for a second round of cleaning later in the day if needed. Like other robots in this segment, the 360 S7 is capable of remembering where it left off and resuming a cleaning task in case it runs low on power and needs to return to its dock in the middle of cleaning.
The docking station isn’t very large and can be conveniently placed on the floor near a power socket; I had it set up under a sofa, which meant it stayed out of sight and out of the way when not in use. The 360 S7 can dock itself to the station, and pretty much always returned there on its own from anywhere in my home when needed, relying on its excellent navigation and mapping system to find the way.
Verdict
The 360 S7 cleaning robot isn’t a very well known option, and many might find its asking price of Rs. 34,990 to be a bit expensive for a product from such an unfamiliar brand. It’s neither objectively the best cleaning robot available in India right now, nor is it the most affordable for the feature set it offers. However, it’s an excellent product that has everything you need, and works reliably to clean your home without too many complications.
Although the mopping functionality fell a bit short, the vacuuming function, navigation, app-based controls, and general proficiency in getting the job done make this a worthwhile option to consider. It is a bit more expensive than the Mi Robot Vacuum-Mop P, but the feature set and capabilities do make up for this to some extent.
Price: Rs. 34,990
Rating: 8/10
Pros:
- Very effective vacuuming
- Decent battery life
- Excellent app, lots of app-based controls and features
- Very accurate navigation, works quickly
Cons:
- Mopping is basic, low water reservoir capacity
- Needs frequent cleaning
- A bit expensive