As I continue to test the Z60 through Mova’s #GetYourZ60 program, one area that’s stood out to me as a strong suit for this robot is its obstacle avoidance and general ability to navigate through tight spaces.
Probably the most confusing/annoying space to navigate in my apartment is my dining table. It’s not a very large table, so as you can see in the pictures I attached, the legs of the table and the chairs are all close to one another and create a lot of tight spaces to navigate through. The Z60 is just narrow enough to fit in between the chair legs, but without precise navigation it’s easy to get stuck or collide with one of the many legs in this area.
Exacerbating this further is the fact that the Z60’s base station is behind the table (not my ideal location, but my apartment doesn’t have a ton of outlets to choose from), so it has to navigate this maze of legs not only when it’s cleaning that area, but also when it’s trying to get from the base station to another room in my apartment that’s on the other side of the table.
With all of that being said, I’ve been impressed by how the Z60 does with this confusing layout. I’m not going to pretend that it’s never misjudged and hit one of the legs or gotten a little confused, but for the most part it does a great job of getting through that area. I will say that sometimes I’ve wondered why it doesn’t just go around the table and chairs when it’s trying to get from the base station to another room on the other side of the table, rather than taking the time to navigate through the table, but I assume it’s just programmed to take what it views as the most direct route. And since it typically does a pretty good job of navigating through the area, it’s not a big issue for me.
I’ve also noticed that not only is it good at navigating around this area, it also does well at actually cleaning it. With all of those legs, I can see that it might be difficult to ensure that everything is being picked up and cleaned. But as you can see in the pictures I’ve attached, there was a bunch of lint scattered around that area this morning, and it was able to successfully pick up pretty much all of it on just one pass! I continue to be impressed by what a good all-around machine the Z60 is.
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