Tech can do a lot of things. From organising our lives and keeping us entertained to becoming our conduit to banks, services and even friends and family, tech has become an essential part of everyday life. Tech companies have built billion-dollar businesses off the back of it.
They have yet to create an affordable robot that can tackle the ironing, for example, without you having to feed items into the device one by one.
But tech can help get your spring cleaning up and running. From apps to keep you on track to robots to pick up some of the slack and make your life easier, there is something for everyone – and all budgets.
Apps
There is a deluge of apps for your smartphone and tablet, both iOS and Android, that claim to be “The One” that will help you declutter, sort out a regular routine and keep you on top of your home’s maintenance. But they all depend on individual tastes and preferences.
RM Block
If you need a gentle nudge to keep your home ticking over, the Organised Method app includes everything from boot camps for decluttering and daily cleaning checklists that keep you on track to lists for life admin and guided productivity sessions. You tick them off as you go and, in theory, get control back over your home so spring cleaning is a less onerous task every year.
If you need someone in your ear telling you when to move on to the next task, this could be the app for you.
Most of the app is free, with only the archive of guided organisation sessions requiring an in-app purchase.
If you aspire to a minimalist lifestyle, the stripped-back look of Spotless might be more to your liking. It pitches itself as a simple way to clean your home; you add tasks and how often they have to be done and Spotless will remind you to do them.
It gives you a clutter-free to-do list so you can see at a glance what needs to be done each day. Tick them off as you go and the timer resets.
If you don’t live alone, there are ways to share out the responsibilities without having to remind people regularly. Homey (not to be confused with the smart home app of the same name) helps you spread the load with younger family members, linking chores to monetary benefits such as pocket money. When family members meet their responsibilities for the week, they get a payout.
There are chores, which need to be completed on a set schedule. Jobs, on the other hand, don’t need a set schedule or even be assigned to a family member, and can be completed by anyone who chooses once all their assigned responsibilities are done.
They have to take a photo to prove the job has been done before they can mark it as complete.
You can download packs of chores; the standard ones are free, but seasonal ones such as Christmas or spring cleaning have a small fee attached.
A premium subscription unlocks more features, including additional savings jars for users, and approval for the completion of chores.
Robot cleaners
In an ideal world, robots could take over much of the tedious work that spring cleaning – and any cleaning – involves. Robots to vacuum your home have been around since the early 2000s and, although in the early days they were basic and offered only rudimentary cleaning features, these days they will not only move between hard floors and carpets, they can also wash your floors, empty themselves and clean their own mops.
Add in some AI detection to avoid cables, socks and even pet mess, and you have a robot helper you can count on.
But does that mean big money? It can, but it doesn’t have to. If you don’t need AI detection for obstacles, the Dream L10s Ultra Gen 2 offers a 10,000pa vacuum, mopping and auto emptying and refilling of the dust and water tank. It will even take note of pet areas and adapt cleaning around them, and you can schedule it to run regularly so you don’t even have to think about it. It costs less than €400 and so is a bit more budget friendly.
If you want to support an Irish company, Cork-based HomeBot has a number of options for cleaning your home. The current favourite is the Glider (€900), a six-in-one robot cleaner that offers vacuuming and mopping with a self-emptying dustbin, self-washing mop pads and a carpet sensor that lifts the mop pads when it encounters rugs or mats. It also washes and dries the mop pads after use – essential to avoid weird smells in the room.
The robot is controlled through the SmartLife smarthome app, which will connect to other third-party products such as pet feeders, video doorbells, smart lights and plugs, and also integrate your Google, Alexa, Samsung or Apple smart home set-up. That means you can control the robot through voice control, regardless of what ecosystem you have signed up with.
Roborock S70 Saros (€1,149) is one of the premium options from Roborock, with live-view cameras and a robot arm that, in theory, can automatically pick up items in a room and deposit them in a designated place so you can tidy them away afterwards. In practice, the robot arm is a bit of a gimmick that was hit and miss with shoes but fine with collecting stray socks and gloves and bringing them to a designated storage zone. The company says it is adding more items that it can interact with all the time.
That robot arm takes up space, though, which could be better used for a larger dustbin or water reservoir.
What the Roborock S70 Saros does have going for it is accurate AI recognition of objects: it picked up on the pet bowls which other AI systems failed to spot and recognised furniture properly. You can also enable smart cleaning modes so the robot will run after meals or do a deep clean once a day. The AI assistant, Rocky, will throw a few tips your way to get the best cleaning mode for you, in case you need extra help.
A more familiar name in the home cleaning market, Dyson has been making robot vacuums for a while, but the Spot and Scrub AI (€999) is the first one that includes mopping. The base station is a little bigger than others on the market, but it covers dust, clean and dirty water, and also a detergent dispenser.
The Dyson app allows you to map your home in 2D or 3D, marking out furniture and highlighting obstacles it finds every time the robot makes a lap of the house.
It has a roller mop that scrubs the floor, rather than simply wiping a damp microfibre cloth across it, and moves out to the side to get right up to skirting boards and cupboards. When it finds dirt and dust, it doubles down on the scrubbing, before heading back to the base station to wash and dry the roller mop.
Robots don’t just look after the floors. There are a few manufacturers that have taken one of the most awkward home jobs and thrown some tech at it: cleaning your windows. Specifically, a window cleaning robot, which is particularly useful for those of us with high windows and a reluctance to scale ladders.
There are a few different options out there. The Ecovacs Winbot Mini (€299) is compact, uses smart suction to attach to glass surfaces – including mirrors – and promises to leave your glass streak and smudge free. It is suited to small and medium-sized windows – so, standard home and office glass – mopping up dirt and dust with a microfibre pad.
It has an integrated anti-fall system too, with safety sensors constantly managing the suction level throughout the operation, so it won’t suddenly drop off the window.
If you need something to handle larger windows, the Ecovacs Winbot W2S Omni is an option. It has a run time of up to 110 minutes and has a multifunction station plus app control.
