Source : the age
Every few months it seems like one robot vacuum or another has an innovative solution to a long-standing issue, which then becomes standard among high-end vacuums and eventually trickles down to the cheaper ones. The most recent example is Roborock’s Qrevo Edge, which is the first model to be able to lift its chassis and deploy a retractable wheel to hoist over room thresholds up to four centimetres high.
The downside of this constant innovation is that the new tricks aren’t new for very long. At CES this month we saw a model from Dreame that can do six centimetres on a pair of rotating legs, as well as future models with robotic arms for clearing debris. But for right now, the $2800 Edge has a unique selling point, in addition to being an otherwise competent high-end bot.
But first things first. Does its extra little foot-wheel actually do the promised job of lifting the robot over floor transitions? In my current house the carpeted lounge room sits exactly three centimetres lower than the tiled kitchen to the west and entry to the east. This is enough to trip most first-time visitors to the house, but it also makes the lounge room a trap for most robot vacuums; they can fall in, but they can’t climb out.
Since there’s no way around the lounge, you would need at least three robots to do the whole house without manually lifting them all the time (they refuse to be taught to climb makeshift ramps, and I wouldn’t install anything more permanent in a rental).
So I was interested to see how the Qrevo Edge would fare when I plopped it down to do its initial mapping run. It maps quickly and accurately thanks to its raised Lidar unit, and once it had done the lounge it lifted itself up on its wheel and practically blasted over the transition into the kitchen. I was astonished.
But since then, I’ve noticed it isn’t always so bold. Sometimes it fails to make the climb and backs off, pacing for a bit before trying again. Other times it comes at it on an angle for no real reason and heaves over with the painful air of a middle-aged man climbing over a fence and regretting it half way. But it has never once become stuck or given up; it works.
At three centimetres my transitions are pushing the Qrevo Edge to its limits, and its possible it would glide effortlessly over slightly lower bumps. The four centimetre maximum jump is only possible for double-layer thresholds.
Even if your floors are totally flat, this robot has plenty going for it. Its asymmetrical sweeping arm and extendable mop are a bit creepy-looking but do an excellent job knocking crumbs away from edges and getting into corners. It delivers a lot of suction despite not being especially loud (compared to other vacuum cleaners). It happily mops and vacs at the same time and will return to mop again if it detects an especially dirty patch.
And it has a clever split roller design that Roborock claims prevents hair wrapping around the workings as happens on almost every other robot. I was sceptical – and fully expected it would need to be operated on with some nail scissors after a matter of weeks – but a month later there’s no hair tangle.
The base’s exposed water tanks aren’t pretty, but they are easy to lift out.
Once your home is mapped, you can create plans and schedules so the robot cleans to your liking. It can’t remove its mop pads and can only lift them so high, so if you have thick carpet you may have to get it to do those first before it does any mopping. That said, its ability to lift its chassis means this wasn’t an issue for my carpets.
The robot’s home base has a low profile design and the familiar pair of water tanks (one you fill with clean water for its mop pads, one it fills with dirty water after washing them), but it definitely looks more like a functional laundry appliance than many other models which are prettied up for kitchen use.
It’s decently efficient with its water, but the app doesn’t keep track of how full the tanks are; you only find out you need to fill or empty them when the robot tries to use them but can’t.
Another annoyance is common to all of these machines; the need for consumable parts. Every year or so you are going to need mop pads, side brushes, filters and rollers. You could be up for dust bags every few months depending on how much debris is going in.
Overall though there are few drawbacks to this vacuum compared to others on the market, which is as you’d expect given its high-end pricing, so it’s a no-brainer if you’re prepared to pay top dollar and have floor transitions that other robots would just bonk their heads into.
And yet, as always, it won’t be long until a new model comes along that does the same trick for cheaper, or can climb even higher.
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