It’s the time of year when charades and booze-fuelled karaoke to Christmas hits suddenly seem like a good idea…and there’s no such thing as too many mince pies.
And while it’s great when the champagne (or eggnog) is flowing, the great clean-up afterward a Christmas party is far from festive fun.
While Santa may have his festive elves to spruce up his workshop, you can call on your own army of robots to take care of your merry mess, from state-of-the-art robotic vacuum cleaners to cute autonomous dusters and even a robot for your fish tank. We’ve rounded up some of the most impressive and cute.
The holiday 'hoover'
It may seem as if there are as many robotic vacuum cleaners as polar bears on the North Pole, but one that stands out is Dyson’s 360 Eye, which claims to have double the suction of the rest of its peers. The striking vacuum cleaner has built-in filters to capture allergens and is claimed to clean the air as it cleans your floor.
If you know you're throwing a particularly wild Christmas party you can even use an app to schedule the machine to start its clean in advance, meaning you can have a lie-in while the gadget gets to work. If the mess is extreme, the handy hoover even takes itself back to its charging dock so it can continue its toiling later.
The post Xmas dinner dishwasher
After stuffing yourself with canapés and Christmas cake or recovering from the night before, there’s few things you feel less like doing than the washing up. But luckily, smart dishwashers are here to help without any moaning. One of the most hi-tech is GE’s Wi-Fi enabled Profile dishwasher that boasts more than 140 cleaning jets to make your plates sparkle and most importantly, connects to Wi-Fi so hungover users can set it off using a the GE Kitchen app.
For those whose heads are feeling delicate, the dishwasher can blink its lights or send a text to show when a cycle is finished instead of beeping. It even monitors how many dishwasher pods it uses and pairs with an Amazon Dash button so more can be ordered. Not quite Rosie the home help robot in the Jetsons, but not a bad effort.
Price: £1,442 | Buy GE Profile™ Series Stainless Steel Interior Dishwasher with Hidden Controls
The merry mopping bot
You’ve probably heard of Roomba the robotic vacuum cleaner, but how about an autonomous mop to take care of all your Christmas spillages? Moneul’s RYDIS H68 Pro is a hybrid robot capable of mopping puddles of drink thanks to an on-board water tank and mop pad. Its Smart Vision Mapping technology ensures the mop-meets-hoover doesn’t cover dirty ground twice but gets into all the corners. A total of 42 sensors detect obstacles to avoid it knocking anything else over and adding to the mess and it will even polish your floor to a shine after mopping and hoovering it.
Price: £399 | Buy RYDIS H68 Pro
The festive feather duster bot
If your carpet is soaked with beer, dusting may not be your top priority, but it’s good to know there’s an inexpensive bot that you can pass this task to. The Mocoro robot cleaning ball is as cute as it is handy. The fluffy sphere is shrouded in soft microfibre to attract dust and dirt and has a 'mind of its own' to roll over surfaces that could do with a quick clean.
The ball changes direction whenever it hits an obstacle and while it doesn't have an in-built smart mapping technology, for £30 you can leave it to make the finishing touches to your post party clean-up.
Price: £29.99 | Buy Mocoro
The winter window cleaning robot
If you’ve gone all-out with your Christmas decorations, you may have applied fake snow to your windows. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. If you fancy skipping the scrubbing, why not try a robotic window cleaner? Ecovacs Robotics' Winbot 850 can be attached to glass and is able to 'cling on' thanks to a high-speed fan motor rotating at 19,000 rpm, which it uses for suction.
It also has a microfibre cleaning pad and two squeegees to clean the glass using a four-stage process including a final shine. Measuring 45x65cm, it's designed to fit small-ish windows and remembers where it's cleaned for rapid results.
Price: £279 | Buy Winbot 850
The budget Boxing Day vacuum
Dyson’s extravagant robo-vacuum cleaner would make a generous gift from Santa, but if he lets you down, there’s a budget option perfect for emergencies when your home could do with a post-party pick up. Resembling a UFO with blue glowing lights, Maplin’s Mini Robotic Vacuum Cleaner measures just 28cm in diameter and sucks up dirt as well as dusting with two side brushes. Ideal for wooden flowing t can find its way using built-in sensors and while it may not shift stubborn dirt trodden into thick carpet, it will pick up the crumbs on your kitchen floor with ease.
Price: £49.99 | Buy Mini Robotic Vacuum Cleaner
The post-feast fish tank rescuer
Parties and fish tanks don’t tend to mix. If you do find anything strange in your tank after a boozy gathering (or if it’s just looking a little unloved) why get your hands grubby and cold cleaning the inside of the tank if a robot can do it for you? The Robosnail aquarium cleaner is a dinky robot that tackled the build-up of algae on the glass as well as blitzing murky colours and unpleasant patches. Fully automated, it goes about the job systematically and can crawl around cleaning constantly to keep your fish tank constantly clean.
Price: £199 | Buy Robosnail
The seasonal sweeper
Part pet, part sweeper, the cute Mopet is designed to roam your floor at random, sweeping it and sucking up the debris it collects. Best for post-party scenarios, the robot has an ‘aroma tray’ that releases pleasant scents to fragrance the floor and because it’s small it can squeeze into the tightest nooks and crannies. Despite being compact it has six hours of battery life. The gadget comes in two colours and a number of stickers to add some personality.
Price: £29.99 | Buy Mopet
The goodwill Grillbot
Perhaps one for Christmas parties down-under, the grillbot can clean your barbeque after a festive party. The Grillbot can be placed on a dirty grill once it’s cooled to under 120°C and at the press of a button, goes about the nasty chore without any help. Using ‘intelligent programming’ the robot can orientate itself on the barbeque and has three strong rotating wire brushes to lift stubborn dirt off the grill. The gadget can even be put in the dishwasher to clean afterwards.
Price: £149 | Buy Grillbot
The noel-friendly Neato bot
Amazon’s Echo can ‘talk’ to lots of smart home gadgets, such as lights and thermostats and now it can clean your home too – if you have a Neato Botvac to hand. It’s another robotic vacuum cleaner, but is the most hands-free of them all as it can be activated by a voice command – ‘Alexa, ask Neato to start cleaning.’ The bot will then scurry around sucking up party debris until it receives another command such as ‘Alexa, ask Neato to stop cleaning.’
The firm plans on adding more commands in the future to allow users to schedule a clean, for example. While t’s undoubtedly neat tech and would make life much easier after a party, it is a relatively expensive option as both the robot and Echo are needed.
Price: £599 | Buy Neato
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