BISSELL SpotBot Pet Hands-Free Compact Deep Cleaner, Blue Illusion, 1200A
by Bissell
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of BISSELL SpotBot Pet Hands-Free Compact Deep Cleaner, Blue Illusion, 1200A
Customer Review: WOW, I love this machine!
Summary: 5 Stars
Well, it's hairball season again and I have 2 cats. One just urps a hairball once in a while and likes to go outside to do it. Love that cat! The other one has tons of soft fluffy hair and when she gets a hairball, she leaves ate least 5 piles all over the house and it includes her food. I have 2 Bissell compact cleaners...one battery powered and the other electric. They both do ok but require a lot of elbow grease. Enter the Spotbot. I ordered this after the 1st hairball episode this year (and just 1 month after a knee replacement). I knew I would have a hard time with the other ones as it is hard for me to bend over yet. OMG I love this machine. It does such a good job. I just go from spot to spot, turn it on and in 3 minutes...it's done. Yes, I do get the crop circles but I discovered if you just use the manual part right after and just brush a little with it (no spray)they are less noticeble. So now, when I hear that dreaded urp-urp sound, I don't get all upset and grouchy. I just grab some paper towels for the gross part and my Spotbot. I sure wish I had this years ago when I had a cat with digestive issues. I would have a lot less grey hair now...well, I also had a teen so maybe not. Anyway, it does use a lot of cleaner but is so worth it. And since I like to use hot water, if I have left over soulution in the machine, I just pour it into a measuring cup, microwave it until it is hot and put it back in the machine. Like I said. I love this machine. Update, while I was writing this, I looked over to see Miss Urpy flipping a dead bird into the air in my living room. After I gave the bird a proper burial in my garbage can, I noticed some blood spots on the floor. Spotbot to the rescue (this time with the Oxy-gen added)I bet you think I am making this up...I wish I was. I just had to let everyone know how much I love this machine. I do keep a wad of paper towels under it when it is stored as it leaks a litte. Again, so what. For what it does for me, it is worth it.Customer Review: Overrated
Summary: 3 Stars
The "bot" part of this machine works as it should - it cleans up spots. I used it in lieu of a real carpet cleaner on several areas. I would clean a circle, move it, and clean another circle. The tank for cleaning solution holds enough for 2 or 3 bot cleanings, depending if you use the "deep stain" or "surface stain" setting. There is a wildly annoying beep at the end of the bot's cleaning cycle. The bot ruffles the carpet in a circular pattern and leaves it damp. Best to use a regular vacuum afterward.
I found myself using the hose and attachment to clean up manually after the cats most of the time, for two reasons. 1) their messes often were too long to fit inside the SpotBot's cleaning circle and 2) I could use a LOT less cleaning fluid if I clean by hand. Using the hose also gave me the possibility of removing the attachment entirely and sucking up larger things - the nozzle would only collect chunks up to 1.5 mm in diameter.
With the hose detached, it tends to leak a bit, because the bottom of the hose is down, and whatever water was above - clean solution or mess remaining in the hose - would find its way out at the bottom.
The dirty tank is difficult to rinse. The best you can do is put hot water in and slosh it around, and some areas will accumulate gunk over time. I soaked the tank with a dash of bleach to good results. It's best to leave the cap covering the dirty tank open between uses so it can dry out and not smell awful.
With this usage pattern, the hose eventually disintegrated. Duct tape held it together first at the nozzle end, then at the machine end. Shortly after, the nozzle cracked at the fluid connection point, causing a leak. I took it to the shop for repair, they said they couldn't fix it, and I sent it to the landfill, replaced by Hoover Spot Scrubber, FH10025.
Customer Review: Good idea, but fails in functionality.
Summary: 1 Stars
I ended up buying this model over the Bissell Little Green ProHeat thinking that the SpotBot would be much better as it was about $40 more, and I didn't want to spend $250+ on a full-size upright carpet steamer, however when I tried it at home I was greatly disappointed.
This is essentially the same machine as the 1200B SpotBot, but in a more attractive dark metallic blue instead of khaki green and marketed/targeted to pet owners.
The negative reviews (1- and 2-star reviews) of the 1200B SpotBot also applies to this model too. The sprayer seems to be malfunctioning (a common design fault and defect), working like a broken spray bottle where I have to press the trigger repeatedly to get a rather inconsistant and weak spray or stream. The manual says to hold the spray about 6 inches from the surface to be cleaned, but I had to hold it about an inch to get any of the spray on the surface. When the trigger is held down the water dribbles all over the place, most of the soapy liquid ending up on your hands and streaming down the vacuum hose.
I used the recommended Bissell detergent/cleaner with this machine and I found it made the fabric really hard with visually dark residue stains when it dried. I had to rinse the cleaned area with clean water a few times over to get rid of the stiff soapy stain.
The floor cleaner is great for small pet or spot stains, but don't even think about using it to clean the entire floor or rug as the machine has to sit on that spot for the duration of the multi-cycle cleaning process, which takes about 4 minutes.
For $140 it's very expensive for what it does (or doesn't do). I am returning this machine and sticking to the old-fashioned manual washing/scrubbing of carpet/furniture and getting a powerful 5-hp mini Shop Vac wet/dry vac (for a fraction of the price) to help suck the liquid out. The Shop Vac also serve multi-uses for the garage and around the home as well.
Customer Review: Cost and Performance
Summary: 4 Stars
My husband and 3 long hair cats had to live without me for 4 months recently. When I rejoined them, the place was a mess. I got a Shot Bot and got to work. A carpet cleaning company would have been faster, but I wouldn't let anyone see this mess.
The machine works well. It makes a very distinct pentagon pattern in the carpet, surrounded by a circle. There is a 3/4 gap between the 2 (I measured) and no cleaning takes place in this area. So the Shot Bot will sit right next to the base board, but it will not CLEAN right next to a base board. All of my spots were between 1 and 4 months old, all were fur balls, and almost all involved crusting. I ran the machine on either the 3 or 6 minute cycle with no set reason for choice of cycle and all were cleaned. When I went back the next day to vacuume over the distinct pattern marks, it took several passes with a Bissell upright to get them to disappear, so don't think that you can use this thing quickly before a party and "no body knows".
You get 3 spots cleaned per tank, no matter what cycle you use. The sample bottle that comes with it makes one tank, so the sample bottle cleans three spots. It doesn't matter if you choose the 3 minute or the 6 minute cycle, you get 3 spots cleaned per tank. Since you cannot store the tank with the oxy additive (it looses it's cleaning ability upon standing) you need to be cleaning 3 spots to get your money's worth out of using it. I tried one tank of it on my fur balls and didn't see any difference. I doubt that I will be using it again. You get 3 tanks from a regular sized bottle of cleaner, so that is nine spots cleaned per regular bottle. That's a little high, but it does work.
The solution tank is hard to hold while you are filling it. Make sure that you remove the cap from the solution bottle before you attempt to fill the tank. I used hot tap water with all of my fills and I think that does make it clean better.
Customer Review: Great Machine, but requires a little effort
Summary: 4 Stars
We have 3 indoor cats and unfortunately they all throw up quite a bit. We were about to move to a new apartment with NEW carpet and I thought it would be a good idea to buy this machine so we could keep the carpet nice. As expected, one of my cats threw up on the carpet a day after we moved in. I took out this new machine, read the instructions and got started. Of course I first had to pick up the "excess" with a cloth, then I filled the tank, put the machine right over the spot and pressed the start button. The machine ran for about 3 mins and then beeped to indicate it was done. I pulled the machine away to see the carpet was comletely clean. I got on my knees and put my nose right up to the carpet (not to be gross, but I wanted to see if in fact the machine was able to get the smell out as well as the mess), I took a deep inhale and sure enough I could not smell a thing other than the smell of the carpet solution which has a very plesant odor. I was extremely pleased.
Here's where the "effort" comes in though. Once you pull the machine away from the spot, you will see a big "carpet crop circle". AND, the area is left VERY wet. At this point you have to use the "manual" hose to go back over the circle to get the excess water out of the carpet and to take away the circle. I would have given the rating five stars except for this part. It's not THAT big of a deal to have to do it but the machine would be perfect if this was not the case. THEN, after you're completely finished, you have to rinse out the dirty water container and suck clean water through the hose to clean the hose out before storing. If you do not do this the hose will start to smell. Another thing to note is if you use the machine a lot you will go through quite a bit of solution. Make sure you stock up. You use a quarter of a bottle for one tank and one tank will clean about 4 spots.
All in all, I still highly recommend the machine.