Robotic vacuums might focus entirely on cleaning your home so you don’t have to, but the latest adds something else you mightn’t expect: scent.
Vacuum cleaners are typically built for one thing, and one thing alone: cleaning. All the tiny stuff on your floor (and sometimes things a little bigger) that you don’t want to be there is meant to be sucked up into a tank to help you not step on it, and that is largely the point.
Vacuums clean and robotic vacuums do it without needing to bother you about it. That’s the point.
But a new take on the robotic vacuum is about improving the vacuum to not just take all that stuff off the floor away from you, but also inject a bit of clean air into your life, so to speak.
It’s coming from Ecovacs, with an improvement to its Deebot range coming in the Deebot T9+. The new vacuum is another robo-vac that includes an air freshener to release a small brush of fragrance while it cleans, all in an attempt to take out musty smells from pets or something else. Essentially, as the Deebot T9+ vacuums, a fan at the bottom spreads a fragrance over the floor to help leave a nicer scent than whatever your floor normally smells like.
We’re not entirely sure what “floor” smells like, but given it’s walked on by feet of all kinds — clothed, unclothed, and pets — there’s a possibility that a fragrance could attempt to mask that until the floor is mopped.
And yet the Deebot T9+ covers that, too, with support for an oscillating mopping system that uses disposable mopping pads to clean the floor using water and microfibre.
As for the dust and other particles, Ecovacs send that to a speciality cleaning pod that forms as part of the Deebot’s charging station, which can hold up to 2.5 litres of dirt and pet hair, before needing to be emptied, something it can tell you through an app.
“Australians are seeking ever-smarter products that can make home care simpler, easier and more thorough than ever before,” said Karen Powell, Head of Ecovacs Robotics for Australia and New Zealand.
“The launch of the Deebot T9+ with an industry-first air-freshener delivers consumers a breath of fresh air in their homes while epitomising our commitment to continuously introduce new and exciting functionality,” she said.
“We’ve also worked to upgrade and build upon our existing functionality to make sure every inch of floor surface in the home is covered. In addition to people’s homes, we also believe we are delivering a ‘breath of fresh air’ into the industry, raising the bar for both robotic vacuums and traditional floorcare alike.”
Ecovacs has also said the new model includes an upgraded mapping and obstacle detection technology, making it able to detect more objects in the home, avoid collisions, and understand the layout of your house even in darkness, scanning more area with greater precision. Given that the last Ecovacs vacuum we reviewed seemed to have a death wish, we’re eager to try this out.
As for anyone else keen to, the Ecovacs Deebot T9+ is available now at retailers including Godfreys, JB HiFi, and The Good Guys, priced in Australia at $1299.
