ECOVACS DEEBOT M88 WiFi Enabled Robotic Vacuum

I bought one of the first products of this nature many years ago, a Roomba, and my experience with that has kept me from even considering another gadget like this. In a nutshell, the Roomba did an "OK" job at adding value to the housecleaning process, but it didn't last more than a month before its first breakdown. BY that time it was known as a problem with the unit design and/or manufacturing, and there were some DIY tricks to fix it but the breakdown came back and the device got crammed in a corner to die. I was spending more time trying to maintain the thing than it would have taken me to clean by hand. Thus, this review is tainted by the experience because I'd give it 5 stars but am giving 4 for now and will circle back with that last start several months down the road if there have been no breaks. But if there are breaks, I will deduct a star or two, depending on how minor or serious the break is. I have already had the Android app crash on me, but restarting an app isn't too bad. This thing is pretty good at executing its "single room clean" algorithm, and that is what I find results in the most cleaning for the time/battery spent. The "clean edges" pattern is pretty good and the "clean spot" is pretty good, and the "random" feature flat out stinks. My home is about 50% hard floors and 50% medium pile carpet. As you can guess, it excels on hard floors because the carpet puts a harder burden on the motors so it takes more battery power, and also obvious because dirt gets into the carpet fibers and is harder to suck out. Your expectations need to be realistic on a product like this. If you expect to push a button and not have to spend any further time cleaning your floors, you are bound to be disappointed. Just like any other vacuum, you have to clean the brushes and get the hair that wraps around the brushes out. You also have to manage the units work a little, by putting items that are going to make its job more complicated out of the way, and you will have to intervene from time to time. Lastly, this product will not replace your manual efforts in floor cleaning but will augment your efforts and add value to your efforts. Keeping expectations in mind, below are the main points: -- Setup was straight-forward and easy. -- The battery lasts about an hour. Your mileage will vary based on carpet amount/type and obstructions that consume battery power because of the time the device spends trying to figure a route. -- Charge time from fully depleted (under 10%) is a couple hours -- It comes with cleaning pads for scrubbing, but I have not tested. I wouldn't expect too much from this feature. -- The smartphone app (I use Android) is OK, but the scheduling of cleaning tasks could be richer. You can schedule tasks and define a time and repetition (daily, only on certain days of the week, etc) but you don't get to specify what type of cleaning is done. Hopefully, it isn't that random mode. -- The ability to manually steer the device with the remote or smartphone app is something I haven't been able to figure out. There is a lot of room to improve the software aspects of this product, and hopefully, they will. As it stands right now, whether the product is worth its price tag is not extremely solid. If there was a desktop app that you could use to really design how this thing cleans your specific home, that would make it a slam dunk worth every penny. For example, you could define boundaries of where it can and can't go or define specific paths for your home. I would love to be able to teach the device how to get from its charger base and into another room, and then start cleaning that room, and then return to its charger base. It would be awesome to teach it how to get to every room on the floor the charger is on, and then schedule to clean each room, go back and charge, clean the next one, charge, etc. If that functionality was present, it would make the price tag completely justified. It does not have a visual camera so that you can see what the device is doing remotely. Not sure what good it does to have the ability to "control" my device remotely if I can't see what it is doing and potentially manually steer it around an obstruction or hang up. It would raise the cost base much higher to include this, but they didn't. Again, this functionality would make it awesome and worth every penny plus a few more. I guess it speaks volumes that I am left wishing it did more than it does at present. However, I am a technologist and an engineer, so it is my nature to think innovatively. But I can't believe no one in the R&D phases thought of these features, so there must be a reason they got cut from the design. To end on a positive note, this device will spark interest in your kids and potentially create desire to help with house cleaning. I plan to train my pre-teen children how to set their room up and clean it with this guy, and expect that to be done every other day. Update: August 7, 2017: Happy to report that this product has lived up to its job and has not broken down in the several weeks since purchase. I scheduled three jobs per day so am running it hard. The only issues have been around returning to the charger base. It does take a long time to find its way to the charger base, and doesn't seem to have a very streamlined program for that. I have seen it happen where it doesn't quite get all the way on the charger and therefore not charge and run itself dead, and it stays this way until someone docks it manually. I wish the charger base had suction cups to secure it to the floor. On a hard floor, the deebot does bump into it and potentially move it into an area that it can't get to. A lot of room for improvement with the docking. Update in December 2018 -- This Deebot reached its end of life for a normal consumer. Within the past month, the brush motor began making loud noises and treh deebot had been going into error mode and halting very frequently. Within a few weeks of that, the center brush stopped rotating altogether. I tore it down to inspect and see if I could get parts, and troubleshot it down to the motor assembly (see pic). The gear assembly had worksuch that the gears would no longer engage. I was unable to find parts sources or anywhere to get this exact part. Found plenty for other Deebot models, but not the M81. I would have been happy to replace a $20 part, but was unable to procure one. So I troubleshot further to the plastic housing that the gear assembly rides in, a boss which the brush gear rides on had become worn and there was a lot of play in the lateral direction, and thus the gear teeth not engaging. The boss was no longer round. I was able to use an epoxy to build that boss back up and make the entire boss narrower, then use a dremel to grind it back to a good circle which the gear fits into perfectly. The deebot is now working. I was not going to decrease my rating, but then I got to thinking about it. This is not even 18 months after purchase. On average, this deebot is used once every couple days on a kitchen and laundry room which are tiled floors. So that is well under 300 uses under the best possible use conditions. I think it is reasonable for consumers to expect a household appliance to last longer than 300 uses. Granted this is more of a piece of technology than an appliance, still people expect gadgets to last 3 years before being put to obsolescence. Additionally, you cannot find replacement main brush on Amazon for this model. They are all third-party products which customers are unhappy because they have rubber instead of the original fiber brushes, which crack and wear very quickly. So between the short lifespan, the unavailability of an original brush replacement, and no supply channel for internal parts, I have dropped this to a 3-star rating. My prior critical points, that there aren't firmware updates etc. to plug security issues or improve the devices performance are still very concerning and a big reason for the now 3-star rating. To be fair though, Evacs has updated the deebot app so it does work, although very crudely, with Amazon Alexa. When I say crudely, I mean you can command the thing to start cleaning, and command it to start charging, and not much more. Updated 12/13/2018: This Deebot died because the wires that connect the front collision plate to the main system board had become fragile and broke. There are two 9-wire harnesses which connect to the front plat and the system board which are about 5 inches long. Because they flex slightly every time the unit bumps something, they become worn and break off at the back of the connector. I reached out to Deebot US support to inquire on procuring a new wire harness. Deebot customer help has responded to my email to advise they do not make parts available. Thus, this 5 star review went down to 3, and now down to 1. I cannot recommend anyone buy a piece of electronics/home appliance that does not last two years and simple parts are not available. I had ordered another Deebot so I end up with two, but that one is now going back.