The iLife A8 Robot vacuum cleaner offers the best navigation and automatic docking abilities in a reasonable price under $300, it’s low-profile design allows it to penetrate under most furniture. Unlike the most expensive models like Ecovacs Deebot N79S, it does not offer advanced features like app and voice control. But it’s superior connectivity and cleaning capabilities make iLife A8 a top bot available at affordable price.
iLife A8 Robot Vacuum Cleaner Review
Table of Contents
Let’s discuss the iLife A8 Robot Vacuum Cleaner Review in details.
Design
This sleek vacuum has a deep black top panel made of glass, having dust and fingerprints will still make it look classy and elegant. The front bumper contains a panoramic camera and a circular Auto button. The button glows in different colors: green when fully charged, red when facing an error, and orange while charging. You’ll also find infrared sensors at the front bumper, while the dustbin at the back side.
Size-wise, the iLife A8 is quite compact. It has 12.2 inches in diameter and stands 2.8 inches tall. The iLife V8s (which both vacuums and mops) has a diameter of 13-inches and is 3.1-inches tall. The short profile of A8’s makes it an ideal choice for low-clearance furniture.
Flip the bot over and you’ll see drop sensors, side wheels, nose wheel, charging pins, two main treads, two side brushes, and an interchangeable main brush. Similarly, the box contains a charging dock, an extra rubber brush, two spare side brushes, cleaning tools, a spare filter, and remote control without the batteries. Unlike the expensive models, it lacks virtual barriers to restrict specific areas for a bot.
This whole robot machine is controlled by a small remote control which has a monochrome screen up top, and a directional pad underneath. Right between the directional pad, there’s a start/pause button. The bottom directional button toggles the Max cleaning mode, and underneath that are two rows of the button allowing you to schedule, set the time, pick different modes. You can switch between spot and edge cleaning, and return to bot back to its dock.
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Setup and Performance
As it lacks an app component, so you need to just plug in the dock to get the bot charge fully. The A8 requires five hours to charge fully, which is longer than average.
When it comes to performance it excellent at mapping rooms and avoiding obstacles. I was not convinced of the panoramic camera as the bot consistently bumped into cabinets. But, the subsequent bumps were getting gentle as it was learning to map its environment. As for traversing different floor types, the bot managed itself with aplomb.
There are many robot vacuums some clean with the random pattern and other clean with the methodical pattern. While the A8 does both. While set to auto mode, it starts zig-zagging around the room, but soon after it maps the area it switches to methodical cleaning.
At this price point, you will get the best docking performance. Many robots in this range get lost or end up losing juice far from their charging docks. But A8 is much better at returning back to its docking station, not always but usually. It will also identify the shortest path to return to the dock.
Well, due to a snag of smaller dustbin it won’t be able to pick up large piles of dirt or pet hairs, but it performed well to pick up an earplug, a screw, a quarter without issue. But when you see it’s not picking up large dust bunnies or clumps of pet hairs you better check either the bin is full or not.
Though it sends notifications when stuck, but not when the bin is full resulting in an ineffective cleaning. So prepare yourself to empty the dirt bin twice in a cleaning cycle making it not ideal while planning on running the bot unsupervised while you’re at work.
Well, the remote control is also disappointing. It’s nice when scheduling and toggling between modes, the bot never registered directional commands in testing. While for the scheduling options, you can program a once-daily cleaning, but that’s it.
The A8 offers an impressive battery life with 90 minutes of cleaning with a single charge. At this price point, it’s completely fair and enough to clean a small-to-medium apartment on a single floor of a house. When it comes to noise, the Eufy Robovac 11 is still the quietest robot, but the A8 is definitely an improvement over your traditional stick vacuums. While the bot is cleaning in the same room where you are watching TV, you might raise the volume up to avoid the noise created by the bot.
Comparisons and Conclusions
Though the A8 delivers better-than-average navigation, for cleaning it’s not capable to outperform big names. Except the frequent bin cleaning, it’s a decent option for keeping your home clean with minimal work on your end. But if we see other options in this price range, the Eufy Robovac 11 is much effective with longer battery life, less noise and less money. Similarly, the Ecovacs Deebot N79s is an expensive model with app control, more scheduling options, voice commands and strong cleaning performance.
Overall, the iLife A8 Robot Vacuum is an excellent cleaner to fit under low furniture and navigate around household obstacles, but to suck up all crumbs you need few extra sessions.
- Sleek, low-profile design
- Excellent navigation with docking abilities
- Handful of spare parts.
- So-so suction
- The dirt bin is small
This iLife A8 Robot Vacuum Review ( Pros & Cons ) Updated breaks down the features, performance, and other options of this robot vacuum to help you make the better decision.
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