A girl, her old cat, and Spot Bot: it's a Beautiful Thing

The Bissell Spotbot is one of the best designed and executed appliances I have ever used. I almost look forward to having spills and stains to clean up!

Spotbot is self-contained, lightweight, and easy to handle. The most important component, on the underside of the unit, is a brush assembly that dispenses cleaning solution, scrubs, and suctions up liquid. Two small tanks sit on top of Spotbot, one for the water/cleaning solution, and one for the dirty water that is extracted from the carpet. There is also a hose which wraps neatly around Spotbot, a brush that attaches to the hose, a power cord (of ample length), and a control panel.

All of the components appear to be well crafted and made of study materials. Plus, everything fits together nicely and all of the removable parts (tanks, brush,.
etc) are held securely in place.

OVERVIEW
Spotbot can be used in either an automatic or manual mode. In the automatic mode, you simply position the unit's circular brush assembly over the soiled area and select one of the two cleaning mode options by pushing a button on the control panel. For surface or recent stains, choose the shorter cleaning cycle (about 3 minutes). For set-in or tough stains, choose the longer cycle (about 6 minutes), Both cycles dispense the cleaning solution, scrub the soiled area, and then vacuum up the solution. And, as Bissell's advertising touts, you can literally walk away while Spotbot does its thing. A beep is sounded to alert you that its cleaning cycle has been completed.

To use Spotbot in the manual mode, you unwrap the hose, snap on the brush and press the Manual button. The brush has a trigger that allows you to dispense solution while the vacuum suctions it up (I do wish there was an option to turn off the suction while scrubbing). Manual mode is perfect for minor spills, when you don't need the cleaning power of Spotbot's automatic cycle, or to clean upholstery.

DETAILS
Spotbot offers you a variety of choices to tackle your cleaning job...perhaps a bit too many. First you have to decide the right combination of solution to use. Spotbot is packaged with a sample bottle of Bissell's Little Green Formula, as well as a bottle of Oxy-gen, a cleaning booster. You can choose to use one or both of these formulas, depending on the type of stain you have

The tank, which is clearly marked with lines indicating the amount of formula and water to use, holds enough solution to get you though 3 short or 2 long cleaning cycles. You can leave unused solution in the tank. Both the clean and dirty water tanks easily lift out of the housing for filling and emptying.

When you couple the cleaning solution options with the choice of using the short or long cleaning cycles, you end up with a perplexing number of combinations. But I guess too many choices are better than too few.

For the most part, I have been successful in using the short cycle with only the Little Green formula.....and on some pretty tough stains! As noted, I have an older cat, and she has trouble keeping her food down. My carpets --- one a pale blue and one a light beige --- have really taken a beating lately. But Spotbot has succeeded every time in getting out the stain.

When placing the unit over the stain, you do have to make sure it's positioned so that the brushes cover the entire area of the stain. The maximum reach of the brushes is about 8 inches in diameter. If you misplace Spotbot or if the stain is a bit larger than the diameter of the brushes, you can always use the hose (Manual mode) to pick up what was missed.

Speaking of the Manual mode: I have used the hose to suck up remaining moisture after running the automatic mode. While I don't think this is absolutely necessary to do, it does help the carpet dry faster.

I have also purchased an extra tank from Bissell in which I keep plain water. This allows me to run a "rinse" cycle: after cleaning the carpet with the water/cleaning solution mixture, I lift out that tank and replace it with my water-only tank and run the short cleaning cycle again. This does seem to get out residual cleaning solution along with the solution's (somewhat) flowery scent.

By the way, the instruction manual makes reference to a storage tray, implying that it is included in the Spotbot box. This was apparently a mistake in the manual, since Bissell intended only to sell it as an accessory. But if you call Bissell up and complain that it's missing, they will send you one for free. The tray is a nice place to set Spotbot after you've run an automatic cycle & the brushes are wet.

The only negatives I can think of involve noise. Spotbot is not exactly a quite machine as it runs though its cleaning cycles. And, the beep that sounds after the automatic cycle is finished is quite annoying. It keeps beeping -- about every 2 seconds -- until you hit the Stop button. So while you don't have to be there while Spotbot cleans the carpet, your sure as heck WANT to be there when it's done so you can silence the darn thing! But these are obviously minor issues.

CONCLUSION
I couldn't be happier with my Spotbot. It is well made, versatile, easy to use and does a very good job of cleaning up carpet stains. And, after all, how many appliances even come with a cute name?