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While iRobot’s Roomba might be more of a household name when it comes to robot vacuums, Dyson has cornered the market on high-end uprights for some time now. And if its first entry into robotics is any indication, iRobot had better watch out. The Dyson 360 Eye features a 360-degree camera to help it navigate around your home, powerful cyclone suction technology, Wi-Fi, and a sleek design straight out of a science fiction novel, making it one of the best robotic vacuums we’ve tested. But while all ‘bots are pricier than their manual counterparts, the 360 Eye takes it to another level at $999.99. You’ll definitely get a thorough, hands-free clean, but you’ll pay a premium for it.
Design
If the Terminator set its deadly sights on dust bunnies, it’d probably look something like the Dyson 360 Eye($1,990.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window). While it shares the same circular shape as the Roomba, it’s much taller at 4.7 inches, but less wide at 9.5 inches. It weighs a relatively light 5.3 pounds. It comes in gunmetal gray, with blue accents around the camera and in the removable dustbin. A foldable charging dock and a power brick are included.
The most notable design aspect is the small, domed 360-degree camera located right in the center of the top of the ‘bot. It houses a panoramic lens that captures continuously at 30 frames per second to map its surroundings, as well as to keep track of where it has or hasn’t cleaned. Its right and left sides also feature infrared cameras underneath the fingerholds for low-light navigation. On the bottom you’ll find a full-width brush with carbon filaments and nylon bristles, sensors, and two tank treads to help it move through doorways and over different floor types.
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Just behind the camera is the power button. When on the dock, its flashes blue in the shape of a battery to indicate it’s charging. To wake it, press the button once and wait for a dotted ring of blue light to appear. Pressing the button again pauses the robot. Pink lights indicate a software upgrade, while dotted red lights are for troubleshooting, depending on the pattern.
To clean out the dustbin, you just have to press the latch located in front of the camera. From there, you simply pull it out and empty the dirt into the trash. This is also the process to access the vacuum’s prefilter. The post filter is located behind the grille on the back. This part is easy enough to remove, but putting it back on requires a bit of elbow grease. This isn’t a huge deal, but since Dyson recommends you wash the filters every month, it can get annoying. Also located behind the back grille is a USB port, but you likely won’t need to use it unless your robot is malfunctioning and have to manually upload a fix.
App and Setup
There are two ways you can get started with the 360 Eye. If you want to immediately vacuum straight out of the box, you can simply press the power button. But if you want any sort of customization or control, you’ll want to pair it with your phone through the Dyson Link app.
Once you’ve downloaded the app from the Apple App Store or Google Play, setup is relatively easy thanks to detailed prompts. All you have to do is watch an explainer video or follow along with the illustrated instructions, which walk you through the process of creating a Dyson account, setting up the dock, finding your robot’s password, connecting it to Wi-Fi, and getting your rooms ready for cleaning. It should be noted that the 360 Eye only works on 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, so if you have a dual-band router, make sure you connect to the right channel.
While I had zero problems setting up the robot with a Samsung Galaxy S7, I did encounter some issues connecting via my iPhone 7—despite recognizing the robot over Wi-Fi, it wouldn’t fully pair in the app itself. Connection mishaps aren’t out of the ordinary when setting up smart home devices, and in this case, I’m inclined to think it was my phone acting up as it paired successfully with a different iPhone 7. Throughout the entire process, I found Dyson’s customer support to be helpful and responsive.
The Dyson Link app is relatively simple in terms of features. It’ll send you notifications when the 360 Eye is cleaning or if something goes wrong. You can also set a cleaning routine, toggle between Quiet and Max modes, and view how long the robot has been cleaning and its remaining battery life. The Activity tab shows you a map of the areas cleaned in each session, as well as the occasional cleaning fact. But most helpful is the product guide. It includes instructions for how to clean and maintain the robot’s various parts, a troubleshooting manual, diagrams of the robot, and Dyson’s customer support information.
You can control the robot from multiple smartphones. As long as they sign in from the same Dyson account, your family or roommates can use their own mobile device to trigger cleanings.
A Mean Cleaning Machine
Cleaning my apartment is a never-ending nightmare. It’s near a thruway and I like to keep my windows open, so I’m perpetually losing in the war against dust. Plus I have an elderly, toothless dog that’s constantly leaving bits of half-eaten food behind her. And to top it all off, my living room rug is a lint trap that routinely defeats my regular non-robot vacuum.
So I was impressed (and horrified) at just how much dirt, dust, and hair the 360 Eye was able to pick up. I put it to the test over three days against my dog’s nightly feeding messes, which you can see in the photo to the right. The vacuum was able to pick up wet, mushy rice and chicken bits from rugs, hardwood, and tile with aplomb.
While smarter than their upright counterparts, robot vacuums can’t immediately detect where a mess has been made. But unlike some robots that randomly ping-pong across a room, the 360 Eye has a more methodical approach to cleaning. According to Dyson, the robot maps each room using its camera and divides it into quadrants. It then goes back and forth in a grid pattern until that entire portion of the room is clean before moving to the next. I tried picking up the robot and placing it in a different room and was impressed to find it not only recognized what had happened, but returned to its original spot to finish what had already been started. So if you’re patient, the 360 Eye will eventually find and clean your mess—so long as it’s not liquid (for that you’ll want a mopping robot like iRobot’s Braava Jet 240($199.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window)).
I also tested the 360 Eye in my living room and kitchen. I’ve had to rescue other robot vacuums trapped underneath my dining table before, but the 360 Eye was able to assess that it was too big to fit through the chair legs. Instead, it adapted to clean as close to the legs as possible, without attempting to get underneath. It repeated this process around my bookshelves, couch, and asymmetrical coffee table. Since it doesn’t get trapped, besides cleaning out the dustbin and filters, you rarely have to interact with the robot.
While the 360 Eye is attractive and powerful, it does have a few downsides. For starters, it’s pretty loud in a small room. If you have ideas of kicking your feet up and watching TV as it cleans, you’ll have to either use headphones or crank up the volume. Also, because the camera on top relies on light, you’ll have to schedule cleanings during the day or turn the lights on when you’ve got the robot running. The infrared cameras do help in dimly lit rooms, but I found the robot seemed to move slower and had a tendency to get stuck in the same spot when I turned all the lights off.
And while the camera is great for navigating around corners, it also means the 360 Eye doesn’t get up right against the wall when cleaning. So while my living room and kitchen were much cleaner overall, I did find a few rogue dust bunnies in tight corners and alcoves. Also, because it’s relatively tall, it wasn’t able to get under my TV stand and scraped along the bottom of my bed. I tested it at the same time as the Eufy RoboVac 11, which stands at 3 inches, and was able to reach under my bed and TV stand without a problem.
Battery life could also be better. In Max mode, you get roughly 40-45 minutes of cleaning. Quiet mode, in addition to being 35 percent quieter, gets you about 70 minutes of cleaning time. The good news is that if you start the robot from the dock, it automatically heads back and redocks itself when running low on battery. Charging takes about 2 hours, 45 minutes. That’s not abnormal for robot vacuums, but competitors like the Neato Botvac Connected(499.00 Code: Neato10 for 10% off! at Neato Robotics)(Opens in a new window) can get up to 120 minutes of cleaning in before needing a recharge.
Powerful but Pricey
The Dyson 360 Eye isn’t a one-stop solution for all your cleaning needs. It’s quicker to clean large messes by hand, and you’ll still need to clean tight corners or underneath the couch yourself. But the 360 Eye is beautifully designed, requires little oversight, and destroys dirt, dust, and hair throughout most of your living space, saving you time and energy. It also offers app control and scheduling, and as I discovered, Dyson’s customer support is excellent. Basically, the 360 Eye delivers just about everything you want from a high-end robot vacuum.
The main issue is price. For $300 less, you can pick up the aforementioned Neato Botvac Connected. It offers many of the same features, including Wi-Fi control and similar cleaning performance. It isn’t quite as sleek as the 360 Eye, but it’ll keep your house clean just the same. The same goes for the iRobot Roomba 980—it too costs less than the 360 Eye while delivering a similar experience.
3.5
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The Dyson 360 Eye is the one of the best robot vacuums you can buy thanks to its impressive cleaning and navigation abilities, but you can find similarly equipped alternatives for less money.
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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/dyson-360-eye