First impressions are important, and our debut with this new robot vacuum didn’t really go to plan, but fortunately it was just opening night nerves.
At around 7am the next morning I woke to the device up against the lounge, tilted on its side with a small white cord poking out. The cord, it turned out, belonged to my iPhone, and it had been yanked from the plug under the couch and had in turn strangled the roller on the device.
The sight wasn’t pretty but luckily for me, my iPhone and the test model, neither the cable or vacuum were harmed.
The DEEBOT had a run-in with an iPhone cable.
The underside of the vacuum.
That first impression didn’t leave me confident in the device, especially when it retails for $1899. But luckily that night was the first and last of my issues.
EcoVac’s new device, the DEEBOT X1 Plus, is one of the first robotic vacuums to include a mopping function. It’s also the first to introduce what it calls a “natural language interactive voice assistant” called Yiko.
The device, slightly larger than a dinner plate and about 10cm high, is small enough to tuck away in a corner without looking too out of place. The shape of the device doesn’t allow for cleaning in small spaces so every now and again there were missed spots under the table or behind a door.
Mapping of a user’s home.
But it’d be naive of us to expect professional quality or even that of vacuuming with a handheld device. Can it still be useful? Absolutely. For those who aren’t mobile or large families, a device like this could work wonders.
Being able to set a daily cleaning schedule means the device can get the job done when you’re asleep or at work.
In my case, the device could vacuum sections of the house as we’re split across two levels and we have about a 15cm height difference between the kitchen and living room area thanks to a house extension.
The DEEBOT X1 PLUS Robot Vacuum can climb 20mm lips.
The device can climb but not that high, with its ability limited to 20mm, or about the size of a typical rug.
It can also double as a roaming speaker and camera, which can allow the user to talk to whoever is in the room with the device.
For those who’d like to provide some pet care from the office, the picture quality is not that great but enough to see where a dog or cat might be hiding, should the user need.
As for its suction power, it was enough to yank a USB-C to lighting cable out of a Belkin 65W fast charger. The brand claims up to 5000Pa (Pascal Pressure Units). Comparatively, a pair of AA batteries can be picked up with about 2000Pa.
Streaming from the DEEBOT’s camera to the mobile app.
And as for where the dust and other things sucked up go, there’s a similar function to Samsung’s Bespoke Jet. A user can select self-empty when the device is at its dock, which can be done in 10 seconds. As for cleaning, my dining room, hallway and living room, about 18 sqm took, a total of 29 minutes. In the app, the log varied depending on the day and how many chairs my housemate had failed to tuck under the table.
The verdict? For those living in single-storey homes with no steps, the device comes in handy. For anxious pets or cleaning after kids, there’s definitely a use case.
