Received my vacuum on Friday and so far here is my day to day opinion of it!
Friday:
Received the package and let it sit inside to warm up before unboxing / plugging in. After unboxing, got the device to pair first try to my network. Network runs dual band 2.4/5ghz but no issues sticking on the 2.4 alone. Noticed quite a few posts around about issues with wifi connectivity so hopefully it’s just an issue with local configurations but I was fortunate that nothing required a lot of work on my end. After pairing I did the firmware upgrade before doing anything else.
Time for the first run! I started the device a little against what is recommended, I sat it on the ground and told little Apollo (Yes, I named it.) to take off and have fun. Wasn’t expecting the voice to come from it and I had named it before I knew it had a female voice, but it’ll be okay. After watching the mapping for a while I realized that I should probably decide on a location for the base which is probably where things started to get a little wonky… So I decided on the base location in another room and thought, okay my other robot vac found it’s base whenever I moved it and everything was good, so I picked Apollo up and moved it into the room with the base and this was when I learned I had messed up. The mapping looked like some strange modern art.
~2 hours later after allowing it to charge again and having placed the base in it’s final location I let it go again. This time the software worked pretty great overall to be honest. The vacuum managed to work it’s way around my entire floor of hardwood, thick carpet, vinyl, and tile flooring without getting caught on anything. Worked its way between a maze of chairs, got itself under my desks with just a few cm of clearance above and on the sides, and worked its way out without getting stuck. Went over bathroom rugs, cords, and managed to avoid dog beds all together. I would consider this my first honest run and gave it a 7/10. Software looked decent, vacuum performance was good even on quiet mode and only missed a few things like a bundled up string and something in a difficult to reach corner.
Saturday:
Hadn’t scheduled it to run on it’s own just yet as I wanted to monitor how it handled things, so I kick it off again under quiet mode and let it go. Watched it work it’s way through some interesting obstacles in the dining room again and figured it would be fine on it’s own so walked away. After about 30 minutes of running I checked the software again and noticed something strange, it was mapping over it’s existing map, but at about a 45 degree offset. I let it continue to run and just do it’s thing though just to see how it handles in the end. Missed some spots, lines on the carpet were diagonal, whatever. This run scores a 3/10 because the software seemed to have really gotten confused at something it did. Still picked things up though (including the string it missed the day before) and I’m seeing that the suction performance is good enough for the floor I’ve got it on.
Saturday evening:
So after the mess up of the map (Which it did present me an option to save the changes to the map or wipe them out so glad that this exists) I decided to let it start over from scratch, reset the map of the floor and let’s go again. This time a 9/10 and additionally after this run, I’ve now got room names (Default names like “Room 1”, “Room 2”, etc) that I can select on the map when I only want to clean those areas. In hindsight I’ve now learned that the vacuum wasn’t properly mapping and giving me room names or identifying what is what.
Sunday:
Ran a manual run once and ran everything just fine, no issues to report. Good to go! 9/10.
Monday:
This is my first “Scheduled” run, and I’ve added some complexity to it. The past few days I’d put a virtual wall to block a room (We will call this Room 3) from being explored, however now that I’m using schedules to run this I’ve removed the virtual wall. Set 3 individual schedules for the week, 1 to clean rooms 1, 4, and 5 at 9 AM every day, another to clean room 2 at noon every day, and a final to clean room 3 at 5:30 PM. 9 AM rolls around, cleans the 3 rooms (really it’s 2 rooms and a hallway) it needs to and goes back to charge, noon cleans the room it’s supposed to and goes back to charge, 5:30 rolls around and cleans the room and goes back to charge. Perfect right? Foreshadowing. Today we will give a 10/10 because everything worked as expected.
Tuesday:
Scheduled run attempt 2… Now I’m starting to experience some issues.
The scheduled run at 9 AM kicks off and it does the 3 rooms (1,4 and 5) it’s supposed to, but then also migrates into Room 3 and starts cleaning in there. Additionally, Room 2 has it’s door closed. I allow the vacuum to do it’s thing and continue operating and it’s cleaning just fine so it doesn’t bother me. I’ve now noticed that the map never got updated for Room 3 from the previous runs so it’s actually remapping the room. The room get’s remapped and finished and goes back to charge, the system asks me if I would like to accept the map changes and since it’s now got Room 3 fully mapped out I accept. Fun.
Now, my rooms have different numbers assigned to them: Room 2 no longer exists because the door was closed, even though the map still shows it. Room 3 has now become Room 2. Rooms 4 and 5 have dropped a number to match as well. My schedules don’t get updated to match this except for Room 5 does get cut from the schedule. Room 2’s schedule I’m afraid to let run so I’ve disabled it and instead this evening I will run the vacuum again with all doors open just so it can map everything again and I can setup my schedules again.
Current overall review:
Keeping in mind that this device is obviously new and it is a new product for the company, I’m giving slight leeway here. There is room for improvement, but a lot of this improvement is simply software and firmware related. These are things that can be pushed OTA and can continue to improve with feedback overtime. The room mapping obviously will take some time to perfect, and as soon as I get my mapping setup exactly as I need it, I just won’t accept map changes moving forward unless there is something that needs tested. The hardware itself I’ve got to say is solid. The vacuum shows good performance so far, yes a thing gets missed here and there but I can accept that because of the style of performance, lines vs bumping into everything everywhere and actually understanding a map. I appreciate being able to schedule at different suction levels and the dust bin stores a lot so I’m not having to empty it daily. We will see how long the brush performs, and if it continues to perform past its “expected life”.
For the price - At $200, a very solid robot vacuum with room for improvement OTA. At this price, I would actually buy another 1 or 2 of these even to fill my entire home. At $250, I’ll probably wait a while for the kinks to get worked out though. If you’ve already ordered one, and you don’t have any issues connecting it, I’m sure you’ll be happy with it. If you’ve not ordered one yet and have to wait until after the price goes up, wait for the software to get fixed a bit, or a discount. Either way, I think most people will be happy with this vacuum at this price. If you’ve had a lidar based vacuum before, and a nice expensive one at that, I’m sure you’ll find more to complain about, but the price is well worth it to me here.
Edit: Battery life - At Strongest suction I’m able to hit my entire area without getting below 30% battery, this area is roughly 600 sq ft and takes about an hour and 15-20 minutes. I am hitting above the hour runtime on the strongest suction, and the battery does fully charge from doing this in about 2 hours. Hence my schedule at 9 AM (finish those rooms by about 9:45) and charge to full, run again at noon for a quick 20 minutes.
My Requests:
I would like to:
- be able to manually define rooms.
- be able to define the pattern the vacuum uses on the floor, for instance in my hallway it went wall to wall instead of going the length of the hallway.