While iLife’s A10 robot vacuum looks appealing at a glance, with an attractive design, lots of accessories, and plenty of features, it falls short where it matters most: cleaning performance. For $349.99, its suction and mapping capabilities simply don’t live up to the price. You don’t need to spend more to get a better model, such as the $299.99 iRobot Roomba 675, which automatically adjusts to different floor surfaces and detects and focuses on heavily soiled areas; the $249.99 Wyze Robot Vacuum, which has a HEPA filter and uses laser mapping; or the $299.99 Bissell SpinWave Wet and Dry, which can mop in addition to vacuum.
An Attractive Design and Lots of Accessories
The A10 is one of the better-looking robot vacuums I’ve tested, with a sleek gray finish punctuated by a shiny silver disc that holds the Lidar navigation tech.
At 12.9 inches around and 3.7 inches tall, it’s close in size to the Roomba 675 (which measures 13 inches around and 3.7 inches high), and weighs in at just under 6 pounds. It’s a bit on the tall side, but should still be able to fit under most standard furniture.
Aside from the main unit, the box includes a generous assortment of accessories including a charging dock, a charging mat, a remote control, a power adapter, a cleaning tool, a spare rubber brush, two side brushes, a spare filter, and the user manual. The spare rubber brush and the extra filter are particularly welcome inclusions you don’t always get. The side brushes don’t come preinstalled, so you’ll need to attach them to the vacuum if you want to use them.
The power switch is on the side of the circular body. The Auto button on top can pause and unpause cleaning or be held down to put the vacuum to sleep; beneath this is a dustbin release button. Other functions are launched via the remote or the iLifeHome mobile app for Android and iOS devices.
The remote has a small display, buttons for starting and stopping cleaning, and four arrow buttons for navigation. Schedule and Clock buttons let you set up a time for scheduled cleaning. There are also dedicated buttons for activating Edge and Spot modes, a button to switch between suction modes, and a Home button for sending the robot back to its charging dock.
On the bottom of the unit you’ll find cliff sensors, a nose wheel and side wheels, a pair of side brushes (if you choose to install them), the main brush, and charging pins that attach to the charging dock. There’s also a place to plug in the power adapter on the side of the for charging without the dock.
Disappointing Performance
Multiple cleaning modes allow the A10 to adjust to work in different environments and on different types of flooring. As mentioned, you can use the remote control to select your preferred cleaning mode. In Auto, the robot plans a path and cleans it in a zigzag pattern. Spot mode puts it on a set path to clean a specific area with concentrated dust and debris. In Edge mode, the A10 moves forward until it detects a wall and then cleans around the edges of the room. You can also set various cleaning cycles to run at a specified time each day.
The A10 did a pretty average job in testing. Even with its suction power set to max (2,000Pa), it struggled with medium-sized objects, only really picking up dust and hair. More disappointingly, it actually moved some debris around instead of sucking it in: It picked up a ball of hair very half-heartedly, went around for a while with it hanging from the side of the machine, and then dropped it. It picked up a string lying on the floor, but a few seconds later, the string came back out again; it was probably hanging from the underside of the machine like the ball of hair. This happened with a few other objects as well.
In terms of navigation, the robot often struggled for a few seconds upon encountering obstacles. It stumbled a lot in testing and was unable to go under some low-profile furniture because of its height. It also bumped on my furniture quite hard. Usually, robot vacuums detect furniture from a few centimeters away and change direction in time to dodge it. The A10, however, made a couple of hard bumps each time before realizing it couldn’t go any farther.
There are a few things to like about the A10’s cleaning performance. It steered clear of areas that had a lot of wires, and when it did run across such spots, it came out of the mess quite neatly, without ever getting tangled. I also appreciate the A10’s virtually silent cleaning. Even at maximum suction, the vacuum works very quietly.
In addition, the dustbin is generously sized, with a capacity of 450ml, so it should be able to make a least one full pass of a floor in your house without needing to be emptied.
When it comes to the battery, the A10 can be manually plugged in or sent to its charging dock. That said, after pressing the Home button on the remote, the vacuum went toward the charger, approached it, then kept going around in circles without ever docking. I tried multiple times, but it failed to dock even once.
As a result, I had to resort to plugging in the vacuum myself. I plugged the charging cable in next to the power switch on the side of the machine. The A10 told me it would “start charging soon,” but it didn’t inform me when it actually started charging. Once fully charged, the vacuum should be able to manage around 100 minutes of cleaning time before needing to be plugged back in.
It’s Not Hard to Do Better
Although the iLife A10 appears to offer plenty of features and functionality for the price, it falters in terms of performance. While it can do a serviceable job of cleaning your floors, there are plenty of robot vacuums in this price range that can do better, while offering features the A10 can’t. One of our top picks for $300 is Bisell’s SpinWave Wet and Dry, which both mops and vacuums your floors. That said, the Bissell model doesn’t offer any navigation features, which you do get with the Wyze Robot Vacuum, along with HEPA filtration and a lower price. The Roomba 675, meanwhile, offers longer battery life than the Wyze model, better obstacle avoidance capabilities, and voice command support. All of these choices are better than the iLife A10, so pick the one that has the features you need.
