Which floor scrubbing robot fits which building

September 30, 2026 · 4 min read

Autonomous scrubbers are the most proven facilities robot there is, and the most misquoted. The maker's square feet per hour is the number everyone repeats and nobody achieves. Here is how we sort the field, machine by machine, without a single price.

The short answer

Four facts decide the shortlist before any brand does: hard floor or carpet, square feet scrubbed per night, the narrowest working aisle, and whether the route crosses floors. Big open floors want a big tank on a ride-sized machine. Supermarket aisles and hospital corridors want the compact class. Carpet is a vacuum, not a scrubber. Elevators are a costly integration nobody quotes on the first call. Get those four answers and the field narrows to two or three machines on its own.

What this note establishes

Which machine class fits which building, what the makers publish about their own machines and where we have checked it, how the buying models differ, and one disclosure: Steel Collar became an Avidbots dealer in September 2026, and Joe, our concierge, is told to rank on fit and to say so when a Tennant or a LionsBot fits better.

Which machines belong in open warehouse and airport floors?

Avidbots Neo 2 was built for exactly this: a fully autonomous scrubber with 24 or 32 inch cylindrical or 26 or 32 inch disc heads, up to 42,000 square feet an hour by the maker's claim, four to six hours on a charge with swappable packs, and 109 liter solution and 135 liter recovery tanks. Neo 2W is the same platform with debris handling and route recovery for working warehouses. Tennant's T16AMR is the industrial platform version of the same idea, a 36 inch path with an estimated 63,360 square feet of coverage and a 50 gallon tank. Tank size is the hidden labor here: refills and dumps are what the remaining person does all night, so the machine with the bigger tank often wins on hours, not on speed.

Which machines fit supermarkets, campuses and hospitals?

The mid and compact classes. Tennant's T7AMR is a ride-on platform with a 26 inch path, an estimated 45,760 square feet per run and four to six and a half hours of runtime depending on battery. Its T380AMR is the compact ride-on at 20 inches and 33,440 square feet, and the X4 ROVR, launched in 2024, is Tennant's first purpose built robot with no operator platform, a 20 inch dual disc path and about 20,000 square feet per solution tank. Avidbots Kas is the compact answer from the other side: a 22 inch disc, a lithium pack good for three hours or more, twin 46 and 45 liter tanks, and it works in a 40 inch aisle and turns around in 61 inches, which is the number that decides a grocery store. Kärcher's KIRA B 50 adds a side brush for edge cleaning, and Nilfisk, Gausium, ICE Cobotics and LionsBot each field machines in this class.

What does the maker's coverage number actually mean?

It is a theoretical figure: path width times speed times an hour, on an empty floor. A real store has endcaps, pallets, stray carts and a night crew restocking. Ask every maker for the conservative number and the reason for it, and expect practical coverage well below the brochure. The proof-of-clean report the robot produces is the real product for a facilities manager, because it is what gets shown to the tenant.

How do they buy differently?

This is where the field splits. LionsBot and ICE Cobotics publish subscription or robot-as-a-service terms through their dealers, so a building that wants a monthly number has a route. Avidbots, Tennant, Kärcher and Nilfisk machines are bought or leased. Avidbots adds three facts a buyer should know before the demo: the robot needs an active software plan to operate, deployment is a paid on-site service where someone maps the building and trains the staff, and field service in the United States and Canada runs through Burroughs technicians trained by Avidbots. None of that is a mark against the machine. It is the shape of the purchase, and it belongs in the quote.

When is a robot the wrong answer?

Small cluttered floors, a building whose overnight floor is full of restock crews and ladders, a route that has to ride an elevator, or carpet. Say so early and you save a demo. Joe will say so for you, in writing, before anyone drives a machine to your site.

Related on this site

Answer the four building questions first, then compare machines. A scrubber sold on the brochure number is a scrubber that gets parked.

Put it to the test on your own job

Tell Joe what you are running and he will apply this to your numbers, including telling you when a robot is the wrong answer.

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