Fifteen cleaning modes sounds like more than any single person would ever use, and the honest answer is that most people will settle into two or three that suit their routine and rarely revisit the others. But knowing what each mode is actually for means you're using the right tool for each situation rather than defaulting to Auto every time regardless of what the floor actually needs. Here's a practical breakdown of what the X9 offers, when each mode makes the most sense, and how to build a realistic routine around the ones that will genuinely be useful in your home.
Why So Many Modes?
The logic behind fifteen cleaning modes isn't to overwhelm you with choices, it's to give the X9 the flexibility to clean different surfaces, different situations, and different household needs without requiring you to buy multiple devices for different jobs. A freshly vacuumed living room that just needs a quick pass before guests arrive needs a different approach than a kitchen floor that hasn't been cleaned in three days, and a specific stain that appeared an hour ago needs something different again. The modes exist because those situations genuinely call for different cleaning strategies, not because having more modes is inherently better than fewer.
The Core Cleaning Modes
Auto Cleaning
The default mode and the one most people use most of the time. The robot maps the available space and plans an efficient route covering the entire floor, adjusting as it goes based on what the sensors detect. Auto Carpet Boost engages automatically within this mode, increasing suction when the robot detects carpet or rugs and easing off again on hard floors, so you're not manually switching settings as it moves between rooms. For routine daily or every-other-day maintenance cleaning, this mode handles the job without any configuration from your end. If you only ever used one mode on the X9, this would be the right one to default to.
Zigzag Cleaning
Moves in straight, parallel rows across the floor rather than following a more complex mapped route. This is a familiar pattern from older robot vacuums and tends to be most useful in open, furniture-sparse spaces where the parallel-row approach covers ground efficiently without the added complexity of navigating around obstacles. In heavily furnished rooms, Auto mode generally does better since it accounts for the room's actual layout. Zigzag is most effective in a kitchen or utility area where furniture is minimal and the priority is simply covering the floor efficiently.
Edge Cleaning
Focuses specifically on the perimeter of the room, following walls and skirting boards rather than covering the full floor area. Useful as a standalone mode when the main floor area is clean enough but dust has accumulated along edges and in corners, which tends to happen in rooms where air currents push dust toward walls over time. Running Edge Cleaning periodically alongside regular Auto cycles catches what a full-room pass sometimes doesn't prioritise, particularly in rooms with large open floor areas where the robot's standard route naturally focuses more on the centre than the perimeter.
Focus Cleaning
Concentrates the robot's cleaning effort on a specific, defined area rather than the whole room. This is particularly practical for high-traffic spots like a kitchen area near the hob, around a pet's feeding station, or anywhere a specific section of floor sees noticeably more mess than the surrounding area. Rather than running a full-room cycle when only one corner actually needs attention, Focus Cleaning covers that area thoroughly without the time and battery cost of a full run. It's most useful in a household where mess tends to concentrate predictably in a few specific locations.
Spot Cleaning
Sends the robot to a specific point you tap on the in-app map and cleans a small area around that precise location. The most direct mode for a specific spill or mess you want addressed immediately, rather than scheduling a cycle or running Focus Cleaning on a wider defined area. Tap the point on the map, confirm, and the robot navigates there and cleans the immediate vicinity before returning to base. The primary use case is the sudden mess: something dropped, something spilled, something tracked in from outside that you want dealt with before it gets spread further.
Y-Shape Mopping
A mopping-specific pattern that moves in a Y-shaped path rather than straight rows, designed to cover each section of floor from multiple angles in sequence for a more thorough wet clean than a single-direction mop pass would achieve. Most effective on hard floors where the mopping function is doing genuine cleaning work rather than just a light damp pass. Worth using for a periodic deeper mop clean, perhaps weekly on kitchen and bathroom floors, rather than as a daily setting where a standard Auto clean with the mop attached would be sufficient.
N-Shape Cleaning
A variation on the directional cleaning pattern that approaches each section from a different angle to the standard Zigzag mode, intended to lift dirt that a single-direction pass might leave behind. Most useful as a complement to standard Auto cleaning rather than a daily replacement for it, running an N-Shape pass periodically to catch what regular Auto cycles haven't fully addressed. On carpeted rooms with pets, an N-Shape pass once a week can lift embedded hair that daily Auto cleaning moves around but doesn't fully extract.
Auto Partition Cleaning
Uses the X9's saved room map to clean each defined room or area in sequence, completing one section before moving to the next rather than treating the whole floor as a single undivided space. This is the mode where per-room customisation pays off most directly, since each room's individual suction, water speed, and frequency settings are applied as the robot moves between them. The kitchen at high water speed and high suction, the living room at medium suction and no water, the bedroom at low suction and no water, all happening in a single scheduled cycle without you configuring anything once the initial settings are established.
Selective Zone Cleaning
Lets you choose one or more specific rooms or zones from the saved map to clean during a particular cycle, skipping everything else. Useful when you only want one room cleaned rather than triggering a full-home run, or when a specific room had a notable event, like a dinner party, a pet spending the night in one room, or a child's art project that went slightly wrong, and needs a targeted clean without involving the rest of the floor. Paired with Spot Cleaning, this gives you fine-grained control over exactly which areas get attention without ever running more robot than a situation actually requires.
Schedule Cleaning
Sets recurring cleaning times rather than starting runs manually. This is where a lot of the genuine hands-off value of a robot vacuum comes from, running a scheduled Auto cycle in the early morning or while you're at work rather than remembering to start it manually each time. Works across specific days and times, so you can run more frequent cycles on high-traffic days and less frequent ones on quieter days if your schedule suits that. Combined with per-room settings, a scheduled Auto Partition clean means the right settings are applied automatically every time without any manual intervention whatsoever.
UV Spot Cleaning
Targets a specific area for UV sanitising treatment rather than standard vacuuming. Most useful for areas that see particular organic mess, like a pet's regular sleeping spot, a kitchen area prone to food debris, or anywhere bacterial buildup is a specific concern. UV cleaning sanitises surfaces rather than physically lifting dirt, so it works best in combination with a regular vacuuming pass rather than as a substitute for one. The floor should be vacuumed before UV Spot Cleaning for best results, since UV light reaching the actual floor surface matters more than UV light hitting a layer of debris on top of it.
How to Build a Realistic Routine
Most households end up with a structure something like this: Auto Cleaning or Auto Partition Cleaning on a daily or every-other-day schedule as the backbone; Edge Cleaning run weekly or fortnightly to catch perimeter buildup; Spot or Focus Cleaning triggered on demand for specific messes; and Y-Shape Mopping or an N-Shape pass periodically for a deeper clean. The remaining modes, Selective Zone, UV Spot, and Zigzag, earn their place in specific situations rather than as regular fixtures, and trying to incorporate all fifteen modes equally from the outset is likely to result in analysis paralysis rather than a cleaning routine that actually works.
Start with daily Auto and one weekly Edge Cleaning session, then add other modes as specific needs arise. You'll discover naturally which additional modes are useful for your specific home's mess patterns rather than trying to predict it from a list.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to manually switch modes each time, or can I schedule different modes on different days?
Schedule Cleaning lets you set recurring runs, and for most routines, using Schedule Cleaning for regular Auto or Auto Partition cycles and triggering other modes manually when specifically needed is the most practical approach. The scheduling granularity available varies by app version.
Does running more intensive modes like Y-Shape or N-Shape use significantly more battery?
They tend to use more battery per session since they cover the same area more times than a standard pass, but the difference per individual session is less significant than running frequency over time. For periodic deeper cleaning sessions, the battery cost per use is a small trade-off for meaningfully better results on those specific runs.
Is Spot Cleaning accurate enough to send the robot to a precise location, or does it clean a general area around my tap?
It cleans the area around the tapped point rather than a pinpoint-precise spot, so it's accurate for targeting a general area rather than a single tile. For most mess situations, tapping the general area covers what's needed without requiring pinpoint accuracy in your tap on the map.
Can I run UV Spot Cleaning without running a vacuum pass first?
Yes, UV Spot Cleaning can be run independently of a vacuum cycle, though it's most effective when the surface has already been vacuumed, since UV sanitisation works on surfaces it can actually reach and loose debris can block exposure to the floor surface below it.
What's the difference between Focus Cleaning and Selective Zone Cleaning?
Focus Cleaning concentrates the robot's effort on a high-traffic area within a room during an otherwise normal cleaning run. Selective Zone Cleaning is a complete alternative to a full-home run, choosing specific named rooms from your saved map to clean while skipping everything else. Focus is an intensity setting; Selective Zone is a coverage-selection setting.
Is there a mode specifically designed for after-party or post-event cleaning?
Not by that name, but Auto Partition Cleaning on the rooms that were used, or Selective Zone Cleaning targeting just those rooms, followed by a Y-Shape mop pass in the kitchen if food was involved, covers the post-event scenario effectively without cleaning rooms that didn't need it.
Final Thoughts
Fifteen modes isn't as overwhelming as it sounds once you understand what each one is actually solving. Most of the value comes from two or three core modes used regularly, supplemented by a handful of situational ones you reach for when something specific calls for it. Taking some time when you first set up the X9 to understand what's available means you'll reach for the right mode at the right time rather than defaulting to Auto for everything regardless of what the floor actually needs.
See the full X9 product page or browse our Robot Vacuum Cleaners collection.
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