This robot vacuum solves my kitchen stool problem

Robot vacuums are great at keeping your floors clean, but there are a few areas they fall down on the job — stairs being one. Another is chairs and stools.

You know the scenario: You have a row of stools at a kitchen table, or chairs tucked under a dining table, and the robovac just can’t get in and around them, leaving a dust bunny bonanza. Plus, as these are generally areas where you eat, crumbs and food debris can quickly accumulate.

Of course you can move the chairs out to let the robot roam, but then the chair legs are still grungy, and you’ve had to do half the work. Mova has a solution.

Its latest robot vacuum and mop — the V70 Ultra Complete ($1,299.99), launching today — features a mop on an articulating arm that can reach almost 7 inches out from the robot, along with a side brush that extends 5 inches.

Combined with its relatively compact size, these appendages allow the V70 to clean under and around the stool legs at my kitchen counter, extending its mop to get up to the edges of each leg and using its brush to sweep up debris under the stools. It was impressive to watch it work.

After about 5 minutes on max suction, the Mova demolished the dust bunnies under my counter thanks to its 42,000Pa suction and dual roller brushes, and the area around the stools was squeaky clean. I can also see the mop arm being handy at getting the grime just under the fridge, along the TV console, and in those hard-to-reach corners.

Mova is a sub-brand of Dreame, the company that pioneered one of my favorite mopping solutions: the mop splits. This is where the mop pads extend outwards from underneath the robot to get along baseboards and edges better. The Mova V70 takes that concept to the next level, adding a robotic mop arm that can reach out and scrub under and around things much like you would when cleaning by hand.

Mova isn’t the only one doing this. Dreame showed its version of this technology earlier this year on the X60 Pro, but with what appears to be a much larger mop and a more maneuverable arm. It hasn’t launched in the US yet.

I have only spent a day testing the Mova V70, but I really like this innovation; it’s a more useful application of a robotic appendage than picking up shoes or sprouting legs to climb stairs.

The V70 comes with a multifunction base station that cleans and dries its mop and empties its bin, and it doesn’t use disposable bags; instead, it has a canister you just empty over the trash when full. It uses lidar for navigation along with cameras for obstacle detection, and it can lift itself up over thresholds of around 3 and a half inches and remove its mops when vacuuming carpet.

At $1,300, it’s one of Mova’s more expensive models, and its build quality isn’t as premium as Dreame’s $1,500 flagship X60 Max Ultra Complete. But its compact size and impressive mopping skills make it worth checking out if grungy floors under your tables and counters are a problem you want a robot to solve.

Photos and video by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge