MOVA Mobius 60 Initial Thoughts
MOVA sent the Mobius 60 for me to test out and review. All statements are my own!
A Little About Me:
I’m a Tech Enthusiast, Beta Tester, and just really enjoy the world of robotics including vacuums/mowers/wet/dry mops, etc. I’ve owned and used many brands over the years in my personal home and use robot vacuums on a daily basis to make my life easier. I’ll tell you, my wife has been so happy to have the help of robot vacuums to maintain our home, as we both work full time jobs. My next endeavor is the world of robot mowers to help maintain my yard with the limited time we have between work, kids activities, and traveling!
I have been conducting testing with the Mobius 60 for the last few weeks and will post more updates soon.
These were just some initial thoughts and my first impression of the MOVA Mobius 60 after receiving it a few weeks ago.
Unboxing:
The Mobius 60 was well packaged and provided a handy quick reference start up guide, which is an excellent idea to make setup as easy as possible especially for someone with no prior robot vacuum experience. There is information pertaining to the 3 year warranty and a product safety manual as well. Included were 2 bottles of floor cleaner: 1 Multi-Purpose Cleaner and 1 Wood Care Cleaner, 2 sets of mop pads, and an extra vacuum bag. I didn’t find any additional side brushes as pictured on the box (2x), so it’s possible they may have accidentally been left out. I’ll check with MOVA to see if they are to be included. If so, I will see if they can send those for me.
This is a large, modern looking base station that stands taller than the MOVA Z60 Ultra Roller Complete that I own. It is also deeper as well. I’ve already noticed the additional height of the base station makes it easier to lift the clean and dirty water tanks out of it.
Regarding the clean and dirty water tanks: they are of large size (4.0L Clean and 3.5L Dirty water tank) and will not need to be refilled or emptied every single day. This will go a long way to providing a low maintenance experience.
The base station is almost fully assembled out of the shipping box. The only items that need to be attached are the ramp (which clicks in place) to the base station, the mop pads will need to be inserted behind the front door in to their respective position, and the cleaning detergents will need to be poured into the detergent tank. Also, the clean water tank obviously needed to be filled with clean water. There was some protective packing that needed removing from the robot and base station before you can install the robot on to the base station.
Setup:
I had no issues with connecting the robot to my Wi-Fi. I already had the MOVA app downloaded and the setup process for the Mobius 60 was very easy and I was up and mapping in no time after. There was a firmware update that was triggered after I connected the Mobius 60 to my WiFi and that downloaded in a matter of a few minutes.
Mapping:
Mapping was very quick and thorough. I turned on all of the lights and opened all of the doors to the rooms for mapping. I believe it took a matter of 20 minutes roughly to map my entire downstairs area. I still need to map the upstairs area so I can test the Mobius 60 on my carpet in my bonus room. It did a great job with mapping my layout and I only had to make a few slight adjustments to some of the rooms such as merging/dividing a few rooms, along with renaming a couple of rooms. I didn’t notice any discrepancies with “ghost” or “missing” areas.There’s 2D or 3D map viewing mode as well.
Build quality:
The base station feels well designed and feels like it should stand the test of time. It’s made with thick material that should really hold up well. It feels hefty, not flimsy all while looking cool and modern!
There are 2 handles: one on each side in order to lift the base station. This is a thoughtful and necessary design addition. The clean and dirty water tanks feel solid. The robot itself looks and feels well-built and shares some similarities with the Z60. It’s approximately 2lbs heavier than the Z60. Obviously, they both use very different mopping systems.
App:
If you have never used the MOVA app before, it is one of the best on the market for robot vacuums. There are a lot of features offered in the app that make for high customization. I would say the MOVA app ranks in the top in my experience. Scheduled cleanings are easy to set up, along with a simple zone cleaning in the event you made a small mess in the kitchen that you need quickly cleaned up! I will say, if you’re new to robot vacuums,since the app is so feature rich it might be a slight learning curve for you.
However, what I noticed is MOVA has included some nice guides in the app to help you move along and understand what each selection does. So, it’s very simple to get off and running.
Navigation:
I had the opportunity to send the Mobius 60 out on a room cleaning the first night I unboxed it. It was late at night and a low light scenario which can sometimes give robot vacuums a hard time with navigation. This wasn’t the case with the Mobius 60. It does have a front headlight which came on a few times in the darker areas.
What I noticed is quick decision making, long cleaning paths, smooth turns, and very good cleaning coverage with the extension of the mop. There were no weird navigation issues, such as it making circles randomly in the middle of the room or hesitation in its cleaning decisions. I’ve owned a lot of robot vacuums and the Mobius 60’s navigation looks very good so far. I did not observe bumping in to walls, furniture, or trim. This cleaning was conducted using the Custom mode, and not with CleanGenius.
The next morning, I had some more time to really test the Mobius 60 and watch it navigate my house. This time I wanted to try it out with CleanGenius enabled. I sent it out on a whole home cleaning and it was quite graceful to watch. No bumping in to cabinets or furniture, etc.
It did a nice job with the side brush extending in to 90° corners. Also, the mop extended well along the edge of my trim and underneath cabinets. One thing I noticed with the Mobius 60 and same with the Z60 is both robots are a little too wide to fit under my barstools, vs a few narrower robot vacuums that I own.
This is just a physical limitation, as there’s just not quite enough space between the legs of the barstools.
So, if you’re seriously looking at the MOVA Mobius 60 as an option, you might check the width of your furniture legs to make sure it will fit. Another option is to simply move the barstools out of the way like I do on occasion, so my robots can thoroughly clean the area. I have a young son that can make quite the mess! However, the Mobius 60 was able to easily fit under my kitchen table chair legs and clean my area rug and tile in the area.
MopSwap:
This is really neat to watch. Now, there’s a lot of moving parts here so we will see how it holds up over time, but so far I have had no issues with the system attaching mop pads. AI recommends 1 of the 3 mop pads based on room detection from mapping. This is customizable in the app and you can change the recommended mop pad for any room. Also, it’s recommended that you clean rooms based on what type mod pad is to be used. You can also select the order for mop pad color cleaning based off grouping: red, yellow, blue. This is a smart idea to cut down on excess mop switching between rooms. So, for instance right now my kitchen, pantry, and living room are set to use the red ThermoHold mop pads. My current mopping order is ThermoHold (red), followed by HyperClean (blue) and then Plush (yellow).
The Mobius 60 will attach the ThermoHold mop pads first since this is the first group, clean the rooms that are in this group and then come back when these areas are finished to attach the HyperClean mop pads and next Plush mop pads will be installed for the rooms at the end.
I haven’t had an opportunity to thoroughly test the mop cleaning performance with substances like coffee or soy sauce, but I will certainly be testing these scenarios out. We cook a lot at home, so my kitchen gets cleaned at least 2x per day and sometimes more. So, I’ll certainly be sending the Mobius 60 out for kitchen room cleanings as well as whole home cleanings.
At first glance, mop pad material does look similar, but there are some slight variations in the materials that are used between red, blue, and yellow or ThermoHold, HyperClean, and Plush. The ThermoHold mop pad has different stitching on the underneath side and appears it may be a slightly thicker pad for heat retention. There’s also a visible difference in the threads of the HyperClean and Plush pads. I had to take a second look, as I missed these differences on first glance.
Noise Level:
The Mobius 60 is very quiet on standard mode. It came in around 63db on Standard vacuum suction mode. I’m certain this will be higher on Max suction power.
Battery Life:
So far, battery life was good and the Mobius 60 was able to clean around 800 sq. ft before needing to return to the docking station for recharging. I’ll continue monitoring this as I test the unit more. I would say this is about average of when I would typically expect one of my robot vacuums to return for a charge.
Final Thoughts:
Well, for now that gives you an idea of the Mobius 60. It has only been a few days since I unboxed and set it up, but so far it seems like a solidly built robot. One of the things I look for is long term reliability with these units, so I will be testing it daily to see how well it holds up! Reliability seems like a widespread issue with every manufacturer.
The great thing is MOVA does offer a 3-year warranty. I did reach out to MOVA support with a possible issue on my Z60 and they responded quickly and had a resolution for me in no time. So, that was good to see their support network is set up and quick to respond!