Haier Pathfinder Robot Vacuum SWR-T321 Review

Haier Pathfinder Robot Vacuum SWR-T321 Review

Buy it at Amazon: Haier Pathfinder Robot Vacuum SWR-T321 [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Good daily cleaning in rooms w/few obstacles/furniture, mop works but not convenient.

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The robot vacuum comes with a charging station, a remote control, 1 virtual wall, an A/C adapter, a cleaning brush, 2 extra sweeper brushes, 1 replacement HEPA filter, 2 mop pads, and a user manual.

The Haier vacuum measures 13” in diameter and 3.5” tall, roughly the same dimensions of the Roomba but made of lighter weight materials and a tad shorter. It has touch buttons by the main LCD display, a physical bumper sensor in the front, and infrared sensor on top, two sweeper feet on the bottom, and a power switch/port on the side.

The charging station needs 3 ft of clearance on either side and 6 feet in front, but make sure that area is clean first because I found that the vacuum doesn't clean this arc and the station needs to be up against a wall or the station will push it around trying to get seated. You can optionally plug the adapter directly into the vacuum. This unit can be set on a daily cleaning schedule, but it's not as intuitive as setting a clock time.

There's a spot cleaning mode that works decently well, though the main mode is ""Auto Clean."" Like the Roomba, the Haier robot vacuum is self-guided and learns the layout of the space so that it can cover every inch of the floor over time. Depending on the size of the room this could take 1-2 hours. As it encounters obstacles, it will either detect and avoid them or bump them and change direction. It’s kind of fun to watch it clean. The virtual wall worked as expected, though the unit only came with one and others must be purchased separately.

If you think the robot is missing some dirt, you can use the remote to manually change its direction, but it's not like driving an RC car; you simply turn it a few degrees each time. There’s also an 'Edge clean' mode accessible by remote only that lets you tell the robot to clean the perimeter of the room. In addition to the normal vacuuming feature, you can use the included water tank and mop pads to mop your floors. It will drag the mop pad behind it as it vacuums and the water will slowly seep into the mop pad keeping it damp, but not soaked. The map pad will continually dispense water as long as there is some in the tank, so you should not leave the tank attached while the unit is charging. This means you won’t be able to use the mop for the automatic scheduling and you always have to be around when it’s done so you can remove the tank before it returns to the home station. I also found that the loose attachment of the tank causes the unit to get stuck more often if it goes over things, like area rugs, power cords, and even subtle floor height changes. Overall, the wheels just can't handle ""rougher"" terrains the way the Roomba wheels did.

For vacuuming, the unit performed within my expectations. It manages to pick up a lot of dust, even if you think it's not catching everything. It did a particularly nice job on the dust bunnies hiding under my bed because I hate vacuuming under there and now I don't have to. The mopping feature was okay, but I wasn’t super impressed with the cleanliness overall. Also, having to fill and install the tank and remove it each time is a bit of a pain. On a whole, the robot does tend to get stuck often, more so than the Roomba and especially when changing from hardwood to carpet or rugs.

Buy it at Amazon: Haier Pathfinder Robot Vacuum SWR-T321 [Affiliate Link]