REVIEW: The MOVA N1 Window Cleaning Robot – Making things crystal clear

Window cleaning – It is one of those jobs you put off and put off. Then when you finally get the motivation to tackle it you quickly realise why you put it off in the first place.

It’s time consuming, dirty, frustrating and just when you think the hard work has paid off, the sun starts to set and you see what a poor job you did.

If you’re anything like me, the thought of “getting the guys in” smacks as failure on your behalf. So you continue to tackle these jobs yourself and regret it.

Getting professionals in has it’s own drawbacks. Will they turn up? Will they do a good job? What will they charge?

So I was interested to get my hands on the MOVA N1 window cleaner to find out just how well it can do it’s job.

As usual lets look at the specs to see what the N1 promises so we can determine whether it achieves those objectives

MOVA state the N1 has the following attributes

• Multisurface Cleaning in a single robot
• Compact design – Equipped with a miniaturized fan, its compact 215 x 215mm build and ultra-thin 59mm profile fit small or multi-pane windows, slip through narrow grilles, and store neatly to save space
• Adaptive Cleaning
• Dual-Wing Mist-Cleaning System – delivering high-pressure micron-level spray to dissolve dirt reducing drips. Paired with a high-retention microfiber cloth, it wipes evenly in real time. The 120ml large water tank can clean 32㎡ of windows in one go
• Intelligent Path Planning
• Smart Obstacle Avoidance
• Custom Cleaning Modes
• Reliable Safety Protection –  12 layers of safety protection provide comprehensive and considerate safeguarding, integrating electronic safety, mechanical safety, and physical safety into one.
• One-Touch Start – With just a single tap, the device attaches itself to the window and gets to work—no complicated setup required. Choose from three control methods: the onboard button, a wireless remote and app control.
• Quiet Operation

What’s in the box?

Let me start by saying the box was much smaller than I anticipated. This is a compact little machine measuring 215 mm X 215 mm and weighing in at 1.3 kg.

As this was my first look at a robot window cleaner I was surprised the unit came with a long cable plus an extension. For some reason, after seeing so many cordless robot devices I expected this was the same but although it comes with a built-in battery, that is designed merely to keep the N1 stuck to your windows in the event of the power being turned off or lost which gives you a chance to retrieve it before it falls. MOVA states that the battery is designed to maintain the robot on the glass for up to 30 minutes without power.

Also inside the box is a quick start guide, two cleaning pads, a remote control, a tether rope and a 100ml bottle of cleaning solution

Setup

As you would expect you need to download the Mova app (iOS or Android) and add the device to an account you set up. Scanning the barcode under the robot adds the device via Bluetooth

After scrolling through the introductory screens which outline the various features, a 15 minute battery charge, a rinse and fitting of one of the mopping pads and a fill of the water tanks I was ready to give this a whirl.

I mention tank(s) as although the documentation talks about a 120 ml water tank, the unit has two reservoirs. That initial fill exhausted the 100 ml cleaning fluid on the first few runs.

As soon as you power up the N1, a sweet voice welcomes you to the world of MOVA and tells you to ensure you secure the rope. This tether is designed to catch the robot should it fail to adhere properly. As tempted as I was to just skip this step I did as I was told. Do you really need the tether? Yes and No. More to come.

A press and hold of the start button whilst pressing against the glass and you are away. The robot informs you that the glass will be cleaned in Quick mode and away it goes.

Modes

At this point it is probably time to explain the modes and I was fascinated watching it do it’s thing

Quick Mode – For normal panes of glass the robot goes from side to side, usually from the top working its way left to right til it completes a pass, occasionally spraying the cleaning fluid to keep the mopping pad wet. On narrow windows (approx. 400mm wide) the default pattern was up and down traversing across the window.

Deep Cleaning Mode – Performs a criss cross pattern, left to right then again up and down

Edge Cleaning Mode – As it says on the box it cleans the edges

Thorough Cleaning Mode – Recommended for heavily soiled glass that hasn’t been cleaned in a while (That’s mine). It deep cleans but also concentrates around the edges

It is a weird thing but try as I might I could not find a way to start the robot in anything other than quick mode, then change it to deep or thorough AFTER it starts. Not with the remote or the app. I would have liked the option of choosing my favourite mode and starting the robot there rather than running for the app and changing the starting quick mode. When done the robot announces it has finished and you are invited to hold the start/stop button again whilst the motor spins down.

TIP: When removing the robot try and pull downwards to essentially wipe the pad on the window. If you pull the robot off at a 90 degree angle you can easily leave a wet patch.

Performance

Now when you get this unit you are going to be enthralled watching it, anticipating whether it will do a good job or not. I know I was. Will it do a better job than I could? How long will it take?

I mentioned before that we always put these jobs off because they take so long. Well even using the MOVA N1, cleaning an entire house will still take several hours as although I knew I had a few window panes, I never counted them before. It turns out I have 48 panes inside and of course that is duplicated outside where they tend to be dirtier. But would I rather clean them all with a squeegee and a bucket of suds or get up from my chair every few minutes just to move the robot from one pane to another? I will take option 2 any day.

And it did a great job, even when the cleaning fluid was used up and replaced with just water. As long as you monitor the water level you won’t see any steaks. I would have liked to see a low water level alert incorporated.  I do suggest however that it is worthwhile running a damp sponge around the edge BEFORE you clean as it cannot get to all the edges perfectly. But it does do very well.

Better than the professionals with their fancy squeegee skills? No but much better than I can do it. This was evident when it did struggle to clean both glass roller doors. My insect screens meant that the robot sensors (one in each corner) did not sense a barrier before the body hit the screen door. So I decided I would clean those two by hand and yes as the sun set I realised just how good a job the N1 did on the adjoining windows and what a lousy window cleaner I am. It did however do quite well moving around the door handle

Operational stats

Measured on the same window measuring 800 mm X 1300 mm the time taken in minutes:seconds was

Quick mode – 4m:55 s

Deep Mode – 8m: 52 s

Thorough Mode – 11m : 25 s

The Edge Cleaning Only option is much quicker but I don’t see a big demand for it.

So you can see that’s still going to take time to clean your entire house plus washing of the mops and refilling the reservoirs.

I measured the noise level at a relatively quiet 65db – whilst there will always be some noise from an 8000Pa motor holding a 1.3 kg machine to a vertical surface it was surprisingly quiet 

The remote control

Yes it came with a remote control which allows you to not only select your modes after starting but also to “drive” the robot to get those areas that might need extra attention. It is mentioned in the manual however that whilst this model does come with the remote, future models will have this functionality built into the app. That’s good and bad as the switch from the default quick mode to deep, thorough or edge cleaning modes is possible through the app but you need to be close to maintain the Bluetooth signal plus you need to open the app, choose the new mode and then confirm you really want to change modes. A single click of a remote button is easier but honestly it is peak first-world problem

Can it clean all windows and doors?

As mentioned before it did not cope well where the sensors could not reach the edge of the glass door. Nor could it get under the door handles. I can live with that. Otherwise it’s obstacle avoidance skills did quite well, stopping only occasionally as it tried to move over hinges or handles. MOVA also state it is not recommended on windows that are less than 300 mm wide and they suggest that windows that are greater than 2 m X 3 m are not suitable. I am not sure why but my largest windows were 2 m X 1.8 m so I couldn’t give it a try. If you have windows that large you would probably need more of a commercial cleaner or get the professionals in

What about pool fences and shower screens?

This is where the answer is both yes and no. There are two main reasons I think the N1 has a bit of development work to do when it comes to these types of glass. Firstly they tend to be the dirtiest of the glass you encounter. I don’t think the dragging of a cloth pad adequately copes with such surfaces. A shower needs a scrub and glass pool fences are out in the elements and tend to be just too dirty for the N1 to clean it sufficiently

These two types of surfaces also tend to possess characteristics that also challenged this robot. Frameless glass

The pool fence

As I watched and held on to the tether for dear life in case the little guy jumped off the top of the fence I needn’t had been worried. The guys at MOVA have designed the 4 corner roller sensors to sense the edge and move the robot so the cleaning pad just edges along the glass panel. Unfortunately my confidence level dropped somewhat when it reached the lower sections of the fence. The corner sensor dropped just a little too far and gravity did the rest. Try as it might it couldn’t get purchase and I had the rescue it. So it did the hard part of not jumping from a height of 1.2 m but didn’t fare well only centimetres off the ground.

So for frameless glass I was careful to use the tether but for every other pane of glass it got in the way. I am sorry MOVA, your robot does such a great job of sticking to glass at times I “forgot” to tie it up. I was that confident it wouldn’t fall

Shower screens

If you thought I was scared when I tackled the frameless pool fence that is nothing compared to the trepidation of placing the cleaner on my shower screen. Initially all was going well, especially where the aluminium frame is prominent but when it got to a section of frameless glass lets just say it tried a swan dive and the tether saved the day. It didn’t however save my phone as I was taking the photo at the time and it landed face down on the tiles. One broken phone case but no broken phone

Cleaning the cleaner

I have washed my fair share of mopping pads from robot vacuums and I could never get them back to looking like new no matter how hard I scrubbed or soaked. The N1 pads however cleaned up a treat and a soak then scrub with a brush in soapy water got them back looking great. And as you don’t have to wait for them to dry to use them (you start with a wet mop wrung out of excess water) you can throw one pad on the robot whilst the other one is getting cleaned.

The Verdict

When it comes to performance it does an outstanding job on traditional framed windows. Much better than you could do yourself but on heavily soiled, soap scum affected shower glass it does an ok job if you can cope with the anxiety of cleaning frameless glass. For frameless glass panels it certainly isn’t a set and forget til it’s finished proposition.

The good

• The MOVA N1 is designed to clean glass and at that it does an outstanding job. No streaks
• Whilst the time taken to clean all glass is probably similar to other methods you get to rest between panes
• Comes with global coverage with accident protection during the warranty period
• Quiet

The not so good

• No way to choose your desired mode before you start cleaning
• Not so good at cleaning heavily soiled shower glass or pool fences
• Cleaning frameless glass panels was stressful
• The power cable and tether rope can easily get tangled
• No indicator as to when the water level is low

The MOVA N1 is available now at the MOVA Australia Website for $499