In today article, we compare 3 mopping robots from iRobot: Braava Jet 240 vs 380t vs M6. After doing individual in-depth research and reviews of each robot, we’ll go over all those results and pick a winner and explain the differences between all three.
The decision to which one of these is the best kind comes down to how you plan on using them.
Braava Jet 240 vs 380t vs M6: What are they?
First, let’s go through the contestants.
- iRobot Braava Jet 240 is the budget version. Read more Braava Jet 240 review we’ve made a couple of days ago.
- iRobot Braava 380T is a little bit more expensive.
- iRobot Braava M6 is the top of the line model. Read more Braava M6 Review.
They all are mopping robots only, meaning that they’re not meant to be used to vacuum the floors even though all of them do have a dry or dusty mode which they can dust the floor with an included dry pad.
However, if there’s any large debris, it’s just going to push them out of the way. In other words, the dusty mode is honestly only so useful and the Braava do a really good job at mopping floors much better than the robot vacuum slash mops.
There are quite a lot of differences between these three models, so the best way to show this is to start talking about them one by one.
iRobot Braava Jet 240 Reviews
Beginning with the budget model of the 240 IRobot, the cheapest Braava operates by filling an internal tank with up to 0.15 liters of water.
You then attach one of the included disposable mopping pads which are designated as dry, damp or wet. The little card on the back of the pad is read by the robot and it automatically adjusts the water spray amount depending on which pad was inserted.
iRobot offers proprietary washable reusable pads which are sold separately. It mops by spraying a little bit of water in front of the unit and then making an odd sort of back-and-forth Y-shaped path to clean the area though in dry mode its path is basically straight back-and-forth lines.
In our various mopping research where we use all kinds of material from wet spills to dry non-grape and vegetable juice, the Bravaa jet 240 was incredibly good. In comparison with researching a lot of robot vacuum mop combos, none of those come close to the mopping power of the 240.
It just gets tougher stains and gets them in fewer passes than any non-Braava personally researched. Also, it is unique among Braava’s since it’s the only one to have a vibrating mop head to further loosens stuck on debris.
The Braava jet 240 has a surprisingly sophisticated navigational algorithm to make the best use of it. You place it on the left side of a small to medium sized room and it will find its way to cover the entire area while navigating around obstacles.
In fact, it did pretty good with this on our research. iRobot says the 240 can cover 150 square feet in mopping mode and about 350 square feet in Dustin mode. Like all Braava’s, it has sensors that prevent it from going on carpets and rugs which is really fantastic feature.
Even our very flimsy bathroom mat was avoided. You can also prevent it from going past a certain area with the so-called virtual wall mode where you basically hold down the button until you see this blue line. Intelligently, it won’t go past that invisible line which is behind its starting point.
The 240 usually comes with one removable battery and it’s also easy to find replacements for or extras online. iRobot claims that it can get 180 minutes on a single charge, which is a pretty good amount.
But It should be weighed against the fact that it takes these mopping bots longer to cover an area in mopping mode. For example, it took almost 60 minutes to clear our room, which is about double what it would take a typical robot vacuum.
iRobot Braava Jet 380T Reviews
The next model is the 380T, which is technically the middle tier option in terms of price but was actually released before the 240 was.
In any case, the main niche that the 380T fills in the Braava’s lineup is its ability to clean larger areas than the 240. Since it has a little more battery life than the 240 but the battery on the 380T is internal. Thus, to recharge it, you have to put it on its charging dock manually, which is a little more inconvenient.
They included something they called the navigation cube with a 380T. Meaningly, you place in the middle of the cleaning area and it will act as a kind of radio beacon allowing the bot to systematically clean larger areas. According to their specs, it generates an extra 50 square feet of coverage over the 240 in mopping mode.
Frankly, you could buy more navigation cubes and overlap them to cover even larger areas. It is said that the 380T also seems to have the same basic default navigational algorithm as the 240 so if you didn’t have the cube you could just set it down on the left side of the room and it would more or less operate exactly as the 240 did.
The other main difference between the 380T and the others is that instead of using a sprayer shooting water in front of its mopping path, they used a detachable mopping plate having a water reservoir on top where the water just soaks into the pad at a fixed rate.
After actually ing this not only once but twice, it is found that this shooing water method is quite effective as long as the pad was sufficiently saturated with water. It found difficult in removing dried vegetable juice stains in just one pass just like the 240.
Basically, it was about the same as the 240 but it was crucial to get that pad entirely saturated.
One advantage with the 380T over the others is that since there is no sprayer, there’s no spray adjustment system connected to the type of pads that you use so it is available to use any kind of microfiber material as long as it’s cut in a similar fashion to the included pads.
In other words, the 380T has the biggest upside with regard to operational costs since you don’t have to use exclusive iRobot products.
iRobot Braava Jet M6 Reviews
The Braava Jet M6 is the newest and most advanced mop of this brand, especially iRobot went back to the tried-and-true water spray method. In this case, the water tank is removable but it’s the same basic idea where you fill it up and attach either a dry or a wet pad, which can be either disposable or reusable, but in any case, it will detect the mopping mode automatically.
However, in this case you can actually use the app to further dial in the amount of water you want it to spray and a few other options. It does clean a bit differently than the others and it no longer has a Y-shaped pattern, just more straight back-and-forth even in mopping mode and vibrating head like on the 240 is also removed.
Nevertheless, the net result is a very similar cleaning ability to the 240 models. In other words, it’s really good and hardly to say which was better, but it has been the same basic top tier mopping ability so far which is the best you can get with a mopping robot.
The real difference between the M6 and the other Braava’s is its navigational features. The M6 is the first pure mopping robot having a camera which it uses to map out your house and clean systematically room by room while giving the full suites of app options from iRobot’s imprint, smart mapping technologies.
For example, keeping-out-zones function where you draw little boxes on the map and the app to keep it out of places you don’t want it to go. It also has room-select where you can tell it to clean this room and not that room, which is actually going to be important later on. It can also be used it in tandem with any Roomba that has imprint mapping like the i7 or s9 regular robot vacuums.
Basically, you can tell those regular robots to start cleaning and when they finish they will send a signal to the M6 to start its mopping job. The main point though is that the other Braava’s are bots requiring your involvement. They need to be physically brought them into the room that you want it to clean.
Neither of the 240 or the 380 will come anywhere close to systematically clean your entire home, let alone giving the option to tell it which rooms to clean and which ones not to.
The other advantage is that the M6 automatically returns to the doctor recharge itself. Since it’s a smart navigation robot, it has a feature called recharge-and-resume. In other words, if it does run low on battery it will return to the base to recharge and then resume cleaning when it’s charged up exactly on the place on its map that it left off. Therefore, battery life is a lot less of an issue with the M6.
Some of the downsides to the M6 really apply to all the brothers but are more noticeable with the M6. For example, all Bravos are pretty bad at crossing over even very low floor transitions because they are programmed not to go over carpets and rugs and even minor floor transitions.
This isn’t usually a complaint with the other two cheaper Braava’s since people don’t really expect those to clean the entire house where they would encounter lots of transitions and other obstacles. But with the M6, there are high demands because they expect it to be able to navigate the entire house transitions and it quite simply won’t cross significant transitions.
Similarly, in our opinion, all of the Braava’s are great to a point where their mopping pad gets too dirty then it’s just going to leave streaks. That is why you will need to change pad to avoid streaks which sometimes show up as tire marks. Again, this is an issue with the M6 precisely because the idea is for the M6 to be able to clean the entire house. Nonetheless, in most cases that means it will have a pretty dirty mopping pad by the end of its run. One solution would be to have it scheduled to clean only one or two rooms a day, and then to change the mopping pad every morning. The solution is only possible thanks to the advanced software on the M6.
Braava Jet 240 vs 380t vs M6: Our Final Verdict
In summary, though, our recommendation is mostly for the cheaper Braava Jet 240. It’s simpler and doesn’t have all the cool navigational features, it’s at least as good and possibly even better than the M6 with pure mopping ability.
