In this Miele RX1 Scout robotic vacuum review, we’ll take a look at a long time vacuum cleaner company’s foray into the robot vacuum market. Miele is a major vacuum cleaner brand with highly rated bagged vacuums. In fact, the Miele S 7210 Twist was the second highest rated bagged upright vacuum in the 2014 Consumer Reports. Does the Miele Scout live up to Miele’s reputation?
Pros for the Miele RX1 Scout
- The Miele Scout has a 22 ounce dust bin capacity, much better than many of its competitors.
- The Scout has both touch controls and a remote control. You can let it vacuum the floor automatically, direct it to re-do a specific spot or put it in corner mode.
- Miele’s robot vacuum has smart navigation, a standard for the latest generation of robot vacuums. Miele is the only robot vacuum on the market to have a gyro sensor to measure how far it turns as well as how far it has traveled. The gyro sensor combined with infrared sensors is touted as a guarantee that the vacuum can reach difficult to clean spots without getting stuck. And it does ensure the unit doesn’t run into things. The vacuum is slower at cleaning the room, but does a good job at it and can find its way back to where it stopped prior to having to go recharge.
- The Miele Scout is much quieter than the Roomba.
- The vacuum knows what areas are off limits via magnetic strips it cannot cross. Miele provides several of these with the vacuum cleaner. These magnetic strips don’t require batteries like the Roomba navigation towers, though you do need to buy more strips on your own if marking off a lot of areas.
- It also uses camera based navigation to have a routine cleaning path that doesn’t leave any area unvacuumed except under furniture it knows it cannot reach.
- The Miele Scout boasts a triple cleaning system. It has two long side brushes to clean items it travels past, a standard for more expensive robot vacuums. It also has a removable beater bar, an innovative step up for a cleaner floor.
- Miele has far better customer service than Neato Robotics.
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Cons for the Miele RX1 Scout
- The biggest strike against this vacuum cleaner is its price. This high tech robot vacuum is just shy of a thousand dollars. On sale, you can get it for nine hundred dollars. For that price, you could have two Roombas or Neatos roaming the house. Performance of the Miele is a little better than the Roomba but for several hundred more.
- The Scout’s error messages are difficult to figure out, but it is easier than listening to the number of times a Roomba beeps to figure out what is wrong and then looking up that error number. Miele does give a far better user guide than Neato.
- It isn’t smart enough to untangle itself from a power cord, though this is a common problem for robot vacuums.
General Observations
According to Consumer Reports, Miele is overall one of the more reliable vacuum cleaners. About eight percent of their vacuum cleaners required repair in a given year, tying with Dyson to be second best in reliability. Only Rainbow was more reliable at five percent of their units needing to be fixed each year. While the Scout came out in 2014, meaning that there is little reliability data on it yet, you can trust the Miele brand overall to be highly reliable.
Summary
In this Miele RX1 Scout robotic vacuum review, the overall vote is a thumbs up if you can afford the price tag.
Greta says
I can say nothing good about Miele Scout RX1, because I found it has many defects. After 4-5 months of working it started malfunctioning. When working, vacuum accidentally starts spinning around, shows F4 error code and just stops. It was sent to warranty service, and they did something to contacts, but it’s still not working and even worse and worse.
It also drives incorrectly, stops much before obstacles, navigation is also very bad, it has no logical system of working, vacuuming also become very problematic because it drives without any system, leaving many places uncleaned.
You can see more of my Miele Scout RX1 videos in youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=E1S7l8BHABc
youtube.com/watch?v=rAHydR1gRoY
Patty Jannarone says
My Miele Scout is having the same issue. I purchased this vacuum in March and have had nothing but error codes from the first week.
Spoke with local Miele sales rep and he denies any issues with the system. I have had a Rumba for years and never experienced so much down time. I will be taking it back to place of purchase for service and maybe switch it out for a Rumba.
Clean Freak says
Hi, have had a unit for over a year. I do have the same issues periodically although
I find that by properly cleaning the sensors and the brushes it corrects the issue. Try making sure the roller brush and arms are taken apart from machine and all hair is removed. Use a q-tip with some window cleaner to clean a dry all the sensors including the metal ones on the bottom. Turn power off and back on. Should correct your issues. In terms of navigation I find it to be quite clever, returning back to areas that I thought it was going to miss.