Welcome to a Vacuum Cleaner Battery specialist of the iRobot Roomba Battery
Remember the annoying analogies? We’ve got a new one for you: Moneual Rydis is to iRobot Roomba as PC is to Mac. It’s an apt analogy for a lot of reasons; Korean manufacturer Moneual, best known for making high-end home theater PC cases, has branched into robot vacuums. Their first effort, the Rydis, is pretty cool, if maybe a bit wonkier and less intuitive than those produced by robot vac juggernaut iRobot.
For the most part, the Rydis ($299) sticks pretty closely to the robot vacuum formula made popular by the Roomba. It has the same familiar disk shape with top-mounted controls, a front bumper and infrared sensor visor, with a pair of outboard drive wheels underneath. Moneual made a few tweaks to the usual design, though. They’ve opted for a pair of spinning corner brushes (one on each side), compared to the Roomba’s one, and a single soft rubber pickup roller in the vacuum unit where most Roombas have both a bristle brush and rubber roller. The dirt box with included HEPA filter is mounted inside, hidden under a removable circular plate.
Beyond the shape of the bot itself, Moneual’s thrown plenty of goodies in with the standard Rydis that are upgrades or just plain not available on the competition. Included in the box is a radio-frequency remote control (which means no line-of-sight to the unit is required), a drive-on charging dock, a multi-function beacon unit (similar to Roomba’s virtual wall, but with significant differences), and a detachable microfiber dry-mop for hard floors. Under the hood, the Rydis sports an ample 2800mAh lithium iron phosphate battery such as iRobot Roomba 80501 Battery , iRobot Roomba 500 Battery , iRobot Roomba 510 Battery , iRobot Roomba 530 Battery , iRobot Roomba 560 Battery , iRobot Roomba 580 Battery , iRobot Roomba 600 Battery , iRobot Roomba 700 Battery , iRobot Scooba 5800 Battery , iRobot Scooba 5900 Battery , iRobot Scooba 6000 Battery , iRobot Scooba 350 Battery good for about 100 minutes of cleaning time and over a thousand charge cycles; a nice upgrade from the bulky and temperamental NiMh batteries used in most Roombas.
The on-device controls consist of three buttons on top: power, mode select, and start/stop. There’s a fairly complex indicator system to support all the different operating modes, many of which are only accessible via the included remote. Moneual’s made a couple of welcome additions here, though: a battery meter, and an actual power switch on the back of the unit; the only way to truly power off a Roomba is to dismantle it and remove the battery.
We see the Rydis appealing mostly to PC people. More flexibility and features than a Mac, er, Roomba, at the cost of a little polish on some things. A greater investment of time to figure out how to use all that flexibility is required, but your efforts will be rewarded. It’s on pretty even footing with a Roomba in most areas, and surpasses it in some; all the more impressive since it’s less than three hundred bucks. The motion-control is just plain fun, and all the various operating modes make it a versatile device with something for everyone. If the intended user is a little less technical but still wants a robot vacuum, it might be best to stick with a Roomba.