There once was a time where having robots at home was simply something you saw on TV. Rosie the robot, running around in The Jetsons, taking care of business. Nearly 59 years later, many households have little robots, cleaning the carpets, mopping the floors, purifying the air, or even cleaning the windows. Each year they get a little bit better at what they do, and today, we get to talk about one that stands out. The Trifo Lucy, a robot vacuum cleaner with object recognition and security features that set it apart from some of the others.
“Hey Lucy, I’m home!”
It’s a step down from the LiDAR options, but many steps ahead from just about every other. It has the ability to move around while avoiding random objects lying on the floor, minimize the things it bumps into, and even warn if it detects motion that shouldn’t be there. All while still being able to suck up what it needs to. It does this because it has a 1080p camera built into the front (with night vision), along with an active depth sensor.
So if there is a sock lying on the ground, Lucy isn’t going to run into it and drag it around (or suck it up and get stuck) like most robot vacuums. If there is an unfortunate deposit made by a pet somewhere, it will avoid that as well. Instead, it will go around it and leave it alone. Preventing itself from breaking something or making the situation messier than it is. Meanwhile, if it determines the item isn’t an obstacle but instead is something that should be cleaned up, it will continue to suck it up. It will even identify animals so it can avoid hurting them.
Of course, this is clearly something in the making. The company has plenty of directions it can take through firmware updates to make it even better. Right now, it is working off a list of around 60 or more objects it is capable of recognizing on the ground. It is capable of identifying something as small as an inch or less in size.
Take the following video we threw together, for example. It finds a piece of dog food that its brush kicks out from under a storage/bench as it’s coming around the corner. It slides up to it, thinks for a bit, and then decides it was something that needed to be sucked up. Then you have the dog trying to get out of its way, where the robot pauses for a moment as it passes by. You can’t really name a lot of models in the market that have these features (just yet).
The company is working on the list of items it can recognize and how it responds to other situations. Again, these improvements are as easy as a firmware update. And judging by the success of the robot thus far, Trifo likely has a healthy road map for further improvements in order to set a name for itself.
Its also supposed to be able to learn from its environment as well. So as it cleans, it picks up on various things to help it make decisions in the future. As to what this includes exactly, we can’t say. The company simply states that Lucy “learns and adapts while interacting with her surroundings”.
Lucy can be controlled by Alexa devices when you pair the robot with your Amazon Alexa account. From there, all you have to do is say “Alexa, turn on Lucy”, and it will begin cleaning!
Security
This is a unique feature we don’t see in robot vacuums. The ability to act as a little sentinel, protecting your home when you are away.
Once you have a map of your home (or at least the portions it has access to), you can specify a path you’d like it to patrol. Then enable when you aren’t there. Lucy will cruise around, following that specific path. If it detects human movement, it will notify you.
It’s supposed to be able to differentiate people from animals and other objects. Similar to some of the modern stand-alone security and doorbell cameras that have recently been rolling out into the world. So this should help to minimize false alerts as well if you have pets running around.
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You can, of course, tap into the camera from your phone for a live feed. You can manually drive the robot around via the app and it offers two-way audio so you can both listen to what it hears as well as speak through the robot.
That is is pretty cool.
The Unboxing
The experience you get when opening the box is similar to many other high-end vacuums. Everything is well-represented, neat, and with a careful design to it all. Your instructions and material are wrapped up in its own envelope, and even the plastic bag covering the vacuum is nice and thick to help prevent scratches to the body during shipment.
It comes with everything you need and the app walks you through setup with animations and everything. The base looks like just about every other base out there. It’s just a basic base sadly and doesn’t include a dust collection unit to auto-empty the vac as some companies offer.
Speaking of dust collection though, the bin inside of the vacuum is decent in size. It offers plenty of space for dust to collect and pack into while the vacuum is cleaning. This means it can do quite a noticeable job before you have to empty it out. This is important for homes with pets.
The color theme of the vacuum and base is well-balanced with a mix of black and gold. Everything feels sturdy and seems as though it should last quite a long time (which is important for the price of this). It is absolutely prone to fingerprints due to the glossy theme throughout. However, this is common with many robot vacuums.
The dust bin inside is easy to get to and remove when emptying the contents. The roller on the bottom side is also easy to get to if you ever need to untangle something from it (even with object recognition, it still isn’t protected from strings and other material on the ground that can find its way into the roller). Both of these features are also quite common with many of the models out there.
The App
As mentioned, the app walks you through everything and is quite user-friendly. The robot doesn’t arrive fully charged, so you will have to let it charge for a while before doing anything.
An updated firmware was already waiting for it (which needs at least 30% battery to process) when we first started things up. Once we installed the update, there was another update. So it sounds like there were some complicated enhancements that required a step-up approach vs updating everything all at once. Both updates went smoothly though and the robot was ready to be used.
Once everything is set up and ready to go, the first clean will lead to it randomly driving around in all sorts of directions. At times, it looks like it is focusing on vacuuming, and others, it is just randomly driving around trying to scan the area. You have to let it fully scan everything and return to the dock before the map will save. Once it does, it doesn’t have a single problem vacuuming like normal from there on out.
The map is quite accurate for not using LiDAR. This is an intriguing discovery since most models lack this without LiDAR’s support. It will be interesting to see where the company goes with its evolution as improvements continue to roll out.
We’ve mentioned the sentry mode for when you are away from home. It, of course, has all of the common features you’d find in a modern robot vacuum. This includes the ability to manually designate rooms to clean, setting invisible barriers/walls, and complete no-go zones. The app is actually quite extensive.
The Experience
The front camera system does a great job at identifying objects. It is nice to have a vacuum that doesn’t crash into everything and drag things around. Although it does bump into things once in a while (ie, a wood door or piece of furniture that is similar in color to the wood flooring). All random objects lying about, however, it avoided–and we kind of threw an obstacle course at it at one point.
Only once it got caught on some loose threads coming from one of the edges of the carpet (that was an issue caused by the installers though and not the robot). It didn’t catch onto anything else after over an hour of it driving around. Given this, we would suggest planning ahead when it comes to slippery rugs that easily slide around hard floors. It’s always a good idea to apply grip pads to the bottom of those if you have a vacuum running around.
The ability to tap into the camera from your phone is also interesting and the image is quite decent (like many HD security cams).
Our Conclusion
It does a good job at cleaning while being able to move from room to room, carpet to hard surfaces. It has a wonderful list of features that set it apart from other robot vacuums. Its camera system is very accurate and delivers on its promise. The sentry mode really adds to it as a product as well.
It is too bad it doesn’t have LiDAR though. For the original MSRP price ($700), the company should have built LiDAR into the mix of everything. However, this is also likely why the price has come down some at certain retailers like Amazon. At full price, our score would have dropped due to the robot not being fully competitive in price. However, our score today is based on the current $500 price you can find it for, at the time of this article being written. We can’t recommend it for $700, but we can at $500 as it feels competitive at this point.
It is also fair to point out that the company (Trifo) does believe that its unique technology is just as good as going with LiDAR. This is difficult to contest since certain companies have decided to combine both sides into one for maximum performance. So either both are required to obtain this heightened level of performance, or Trifo has discovered something the others have not. I guess we will know more when the company continues to improve on the platform in the future. Either it will evolve past the necessity of LiDAR, rendering it completely outdated, or it won’t. It’s LiDAR vs AI.
Regardless, we really liked this vacuum. It doesn’t leave scratches over everything, won’t drag your animal’s deposits around (hopefully, your animals don’t have this habit, to begin with, of course), does a great job at cleaning, offers a list of useful features, and brings out the little kid in you.
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Specifications:
Package Dimensions
15.6 x 18.5 x 6 in (396 x 468.8 x 154 mm)
Robot Dimensions
14.2 in (360 mm) diameter, 3.3 in (84 mm) height
Charging Base Dimensions
6.4 x 5.6 x 3.9 in (162 x 142 x 100 mm)
Package Weight
13 lbs (5.9 kg)
Robot Weight
7.5 lbs (3.4 kg)
Suction Power
4,000 Pa
Dustbin Capacity
600 ml
Battery Capacity
5,200 mAh
Charge Time
180 mins
Runtime
120 mins
Noise
< 70 dB
Operating Voltage
14.4 V
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