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Tired of washing your windows? Or do you just ignore them and wonder why it's always so dark in your house or apartment? Either way, you'll want to know all about the slick little Hobot 198 window cleaning robot. Featuring a vacuum suction drive system that lets you clean even the outside of windows at the top of a tall building and a remote control to manage what's happening, the Hobot 198 is pretty impressive.
Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ tried out the Hobot-198 in a variety of different settings and found that it's great for some things and not so great for others. It also has some design hiccups you'll want to know about before you make a purchase decision. And clean the pads occasionally. Just trust us on this tip. :-)
Check it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2DhxmF8
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0:00
Is this how you're going to clean windows in the future? Let's have a look
0:10
Dave Taylor here and I'm looking at this. This is the Hobot 198 window cleaning bot and comes
0:17
with remote control and there's an app but we won't even talk about that so much because it's
0:22
really about does this clean. Now I have an outside window and I haven't cleaned this for a while so
0:28
what they recommend is that for the first pass you want to do it without any liquid. You want to
0:33
just let it pick up all the dust so let's do that. Now you'll notice that the device has this rope
0:40
and this is actually if you're using it outside on your 34th story up condo window or something
0:46
you tie this to something so if this thing fails and falls off it doesn't plummet and get destroyed
0:52
In this situation if something bad happens I can just grab it so we don't need that. Now the device
0:58
needs to be plugged in but it has a very nice 16 foot cord and you can of course use extension
1:05
cords too so you can really run this in a wide variety of different environments. I'm outside
1:10
I have a convenient outlet just a few feet behind me so that makes it easy but not too bad at all
1:16
Now I'm going to turn it on and then I'm going to put it on the window and it uses a vacuum technology
1:23
to be able to stay on the window so there's no magnet on the other side. The magnet on the other
1:29
side stuff is bad. You don't want to deal with that. That's super complicated. This is so much
1:33
easier and we have our remote so I shall simply push the button and it will start working
1:43
And the way it works is this sort of alternates spinning one wheel and then spinning the other
1:47
wheel and it just sort of works its way up and down the window. Now over time let's get it to
1:53
come back down a little bit. Maybe. Well here we go it's coming back down good. Oh maybe it's not
2:04
So it automatically detects edges. It does all sorts of smart things and it will take a while
2:09
to do this and what I'm going to do is in a minute I'm going to zoom back and you'll be able to see
2:13
the whole process but it basically is going to go through this and one of the things I want to show
2:18
you. So first off let's get this back where you can see it. Right. So let's do this and then
2:27
if for some reason it loses power you're in luck. It doesn't actually fall off because there's a
2:34
battery inside of this that can keep it on the window for up to 20 minutes which is really
2:40
important because you might lose power. You might have someone trip over the wire and you don't want
2:45
this thing to just fall and crash. Right. Plug it back in. Push the button and it should be back to
2:53
work. There we go. So it works with any thickness glass because there's no magnet or anything
2:59
involved and it is sort of wandering down the window here. So I'll just step back a little bit
3:07
No magnets. It's pretty quiet considering it's using a vacuum to keep this two pound device
3:13
on the actual window and notice it detected the edge and it's just now heading back
3:18
That's fine. Has three different cleaning programs but really that's kind of a misnomer because
3:24
there's like the upward oriented or the left oriented or the right oriented but they really
3:29
do the same thing. I don't know why they even bother with that. So it's doing a 70 rpm rotation
3:37
on the wheel that's actually turning and the yellow part, let me show you this, they actually
3:44
we will turn it off and now when you turn it off of course it just falls off. But so now let's look
3:49
at this a little bit. So the yellow part actually comes off of the wheels. Oops then the wheels come
3:56
off too and they come with extras. But the yellow part, the pad comes off and you can toss this in
4:01
your washing machine. I would recommend not using very hot water and I would recommend probably just
4:06
letting it dry naturally rather than putting it in the dryer because if it shrinks too much
4:11
obviously you have a problem. So we'll put this wheel back on. Hopefully not too hard. Let's see
4:20
See whenever you do things live you never know exactly what's going to happen but let's see. There we go. So the well the wheel was almost on
4:34
There we go. So the wheel's back on and the suction happens in the middle here which is kind of
4:39
interesting and then let's just double check it's on securely. So then we will put this back on
4:45
and we'll be ready to go. And now what I want to do is I want to demonstrate using it for
4:49
with a window cleaner. Now some people have seen spray the window but I don't think that's a great
4:57
idea because if you get your window too slippery then it's possible this won't be able to stay on
5:03
properly. What they recommend is they recommend that you actually spray the device itself
5:08
and you want to spray around the edge. So I'm using seventh generation window cleaner. There
5:14
you go. A little product plug there. If you prefer something like Windex you can use that
5:19
So we'll do that and I will again put it on the window which picked up a little bit but whatever
5:25
No big deal. And again unfortunately there's no way to just have it start all by itself. So you
5:31
really need the remote control which is pretty rudimentary but what I will say is that you can
5:37
duplicate this functionality with your smartphone with their app. It doesn't do anything additional
5:43
but it is handy if you happen to lose your remote. So let's go ahead and have this thing start
5:48
And so now it's actually using the window cleaning liquid. Now obviously those couple of
5:54
sprays I gave is going to be insufficient for a window this size but we'll do this just to get
5:59
it started. And I don't know if you can tell because of the reflections but my cat is just
6:04
inside the window and he's having very curious and skeptical looks at this little robot. But as far
6:10
as I'm concerned it's not very fast but oh the glory of having a robot clean windows. I'm not a
6:16
big fan of cleaning windows. Now the next thing I want to do is I want to switch this around to
6:20
inside so you can see from the inside how this is working. So let's do that
6:27
All right you can see a lot better from here exactly how it's working
6:31
And it's just pretty straightforward. It just bounces, hits the edge and then it works its
6:36
way down a little bit and now it's going to keep going to the side as it slowly but surely cleans
6:44
the outside of my windows. Now obviously you can see that the inside needs some cleaning too
6:50
We'll get to that. Now we're on the inside let's give it a chance to actually do some real cleaning
7:07
So one of the other things your Hobot 198 can do is it can clean floors
7:12
Now I thought we could give it a shot but quite honestly I don't think this is its optimal use
7:17
case. So my experience with cleaning floors was that it didn't cover everything and it's
7:24
slow as you can see. So I wasn't super impressed with that. Since the Hobot can clean any glass
7:32
surface I'm going to go ahead and have it clean my bathroom mirror. Now you can see I have
7:37
strategically sprayed window cleaner and a couple of spots to help it out
7:41
But let's go ahead and get this thing started. Now it's going to be dreadfully boring to watch this thing at regular speed because
7:53
it's going to take a little while. This is not a really fast device. In fact it only cleans
7:59
one square meter every approximately four minutes. So a window like this or a mirror like this is
8:06
going to take it probably 15 minutes or so. So let's speed up the film because we can. So
8:35
well it did an okay job. It's interesting to see how it covers the surface but here's the issue
8:41
The issue is I really needed to change this between all these different tests and I accepted
8:47
that part of this issue is mine. That was just simple user laziness. But it still gives you
8:55
the opportunity to see how the Hobot 198 works and it's a pretty interesting device. These clearly
9:02
are a little dirty and need to be washed before I use it again. That's entirely fair. Now let me
9:09
just tell you that you saw that it stays. It didn't fall off in all the different tests I did
9:15
and it does gradually cover all of the air surface area. You know maybe plus or minus two percent
9:23
And it's not super fast. This took I don't know 10-12 minutes to clean just this one window. So
9:28
if you have a house with big big windows you can imagine this is something you turn on and then
9:33
you want to do something else. You know probably pay a little bit of attention to it in case it
9:37
gets caught up. Like the cords clearly did not like being on my bathroom sink. Kind of no way
9:43
around that because there's no way to run this without the cord. But I will say that I wish they
9:48
had designed this safety rope. I love it. It's a great idea but I wish there was like a little
9:53
clip that made it super easy for me to clip it in when I needed it and pop it off when I don't
9:58
Because there's no reason for it to be dragging this extra weight around and as you saw in certain
10:03
situations it definitely gets in the way. Okay so it is 12 inches by 6 inches by 5 inches and it
10:10
weighs 2 pounds so it's pretty easy to work with. And like I said you've got to keep it plugged in
10:16
but as you can see with all this wire it is a pretty long cord. So it's about 14 feet to here
10:23
and then you have this heavy power transformer and you're going to need to have that on the ground
10:28
There's no way this is going to be able to carry that additional weight but that gives you 14 feet
10:33
of play and then you can still have an extension cord so you can have it further from the outlet
10:38
as needed. So not super challenging in that regard. So the only thing left to talk about is the price
10:44
and whether it's worth the price. But before we get there let me ask if you can subscribe to my
10:49
channel. I review all sorts of gadgets and electronics and gizmos. Anything that you can
10:55
buy at somewhere like Walmart or Best Buy in the electronics section I've probably looked at or I'm
10:59
about to look at. So subscribe really appreciate it. Now this, let's pull this up, this Hobot 198
11:08
window cleaning bot is $399 at amazon.com. Now I will say that it does come with an extra set of
11:16
pads so you have two sets. I think they used to ship with more but now the one I got had two sets
11:21
of pads and all the wires and everything you need to get rolling with this and of course the remote
11:26
control. But that gets to the question of is it really worth $399? Is this really worth 400 bucks
11:34
to clean your windows? I could have cleaned this mirror faster and probably a little better actually
11:40
but the answer is that a there's a novelty factor here. I mean you'll be the only one of your
11:45
friends with a cool window cleaning robot and that might be worth something to you
11:49
And with outdoor windows as you can see if you can reach around and put it outside on your window
11:56
it'll eventually cover and clean that entire outer surface even if you're on the fourth or fifth or
12:02
27th floor and that's pretty cool. Now I would definitely in those situations be using my safety
12:09
harness because you don't want it to plummet to the ground and take someone out. That is not going to
12:14
be something that's going to be received well but I guess I have sort of a limited enthusiasm for
12:20
this. I think it's a really cool idea and I think maybe another generation or two and these will be
12:25
really cool because I'd like it to kind of run a little faster and maybe be a little bit smarter
12:30
and how it does the edges. But for now if you're looking for a way to clean your windows without
12:35
you having to go through all the hassle you might want to check out this. This is the Hobot 198
12:41
This is Dave Taylor. This is my bathroom mirror and I'll catch you in my next video
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