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. Robot vacuums like the Dyson 360 Eye can be tremendously shark cordless convenient for busy home and apartment dwellers, but they are not exactly like regular vacuums. First of all, they’re diminutive size means they can’t hold that much dirt and you’ll want to empty the bin more frequently.
Do a bit of minor obstacle-removing prep, however, and you should find you don’t even need that. It’s not the most elegant of movers – in fact it’s rather haphazard, and quite dyson robot vacuum forceful – but it does seem to cover the ground well if you leave it to get on with things. It also features automatic floor-type recognition which is rare at this price.
I simply pressed the power button, which sits on the top in front of the camera, to turn it on and then pressed it again and the Dyson 360 Eye took off from its charging base and started cleaning my floors. That button also serves as a status indicator, showing you with LED lights when it’s powered on, cleaning, paused and running low on battery power. If you like the look of the Eufy budget model further up our list why not consider this, the X8 Hybrid RoboVac. It’s more money, but the X8 bristles with a raft of excellent features and it’s also great if you have a mix of floor surfaces to tackle. Not only does it vacuum hard floors and carpets, switching between both with ease, it’s got a 250ml water tank too. That means there’s on-board mopping functionality, which we’ve found works a treat.
While the 360 Eye is attractive and powerful, it does have a few downsides. 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. When on the dock, its flashes blue in the shape of a battery to indicate it’s charging.
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. 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.
FCC filingsshow that the company is working on a potential new product to help address the demand for mechanical housekeepers. Derek Hales is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of ModernCastle.com. He has been featured in Fast Company, Reader’s Digest, Business Insider, Realtor.com, She Knows, and other major publications. Derek has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Kansas State University. Hales has been testing and reviewing products for the home since 2014.
Derek specialises in home and outdoor wares, from coffee machines, white appliances and vacs to drones, garden gear and BBQs. He has been writing for more years than anyone can remember, starting at the legendary Time Out magazine – irobot vacuum cleaner the original, London version – on a typewriter! He now writes for T3 between playing drums with his bandmates in Red Box . Other than on the iRobot i7+, you’ll need to empty the bin of your robot regularly – they’re always small.