Skip the Braava. It’s just a mop, no suction, so litter/fur stays. The Tapo RV30 Max Plus is a solid pick for the price: suction + mopping, decent mapping, and auto-empty. For $250–300, it’s one of the best all-in-ones imo 👌
I just picked up a TP-Link Tapo RV30 Max Plus and I'm really happy with it so far. It was only $209 on sale when I got it and has all the same features of more expensive vacuums. It has a Home Assistant integration from TP-Link that works even after you block the robot from the internet.
Tapo recently forced a firmware update to my RV30 vacuum that broke 3rd party integrations even though I explicitly had the "Auto Update" feature turned off. This happened during a brief window of time where I temporarily unblocked my vacuum from the internet. Prior to that forced update it was a 100% local robot.
I was doing maintenance on my network and unblocked it while changing its IP address. I didn't immediately block it again because I didn't think it was a pressing matter, but 2 hours later my vacuum automation failed to run. After some troubleshooting I learned that nearly 2 months prior a firmware update came out from Tapo that changed its authentication method on the vacuum to some propriety bullshit that breaks 3rd party integrations. It's been broken ever since and the dev for the Home Assistant integration was struggling to get it working so I dumped the vacuum and got a Switchbot S20.
Take a look at Tapo vacuums. They're really cheap compared to others and only need internet when setting it up the first time in home assistant. After that you can block the vacuum from the internet and turn off updates to the integration and you'll be set.
I went from a Roomba J7 to a Tapo Max Plus something just due to the auto-empty dock and despite being a cheaper buy that made the difference for me. The Tapo definitely has worse object detection but I’m still happy with it overall. Low maintenance auto vacuuming for less than $300 is a pretty good deal imo.
We have the Tapo max pro. I think we just paid $329 (?) at Bunnings not too long ago but it was a sale.
We had a stick and regular in between our last robot (4yrs ago) and now.
I absolutely love it. We have 2 kids and 2 dogs. The kids (6 &4) have to clean up before we run it so it really helps everything from becoming covered in kid toys.
It also maps your house so you can select which rooms. We do our kitchen and 2 lounge areas daily and the bedrooms every 2/3 days.
We don’t have carpet, just a few throw rugs so I can’t speak to the carpet part. But we love it so far!
brycemonang1221
