TRIFO MAX – CLEANING and VIDEO SURVEILLANCE all in 1
These days it's easy to find "companions" to help with our household cleaning, doing the dirty work for us. Among the various proposals in circulation there is one capable of streaming what is captured by its camera. You got it right, a robot vacuum cleaner with a built-in camera. Let's find out together in this review whether TRIFO MAX is better as a robot vacuum cleaner or as a supervisor?
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On offer on Amazon
Equipment and construction quality
Our TRIFO MAX arrives well packaged with a package that makes available to the user, in addition to the instruction booklet, which contains very little information on the use of the robot but at least it is in Italian, the charging base, a pack of cloths for washing floors equipped with the appropriate water tank. The first installation is really simple and completely guided, to be carried out via smartphone application, but you must have a WiFi connection available.
The robot is made of white plastic, which to be honest could show the signs of age in the long run, as although the quality is not excellent, it is still in line with what the market offers us. On the appliance front we find the usual bumper, very sensitive and with a fairly cushioned and long stroke, so as not to damage furniture or anything else. There is also a top cover that hides a pair of status LEDs and a USB port that can be used to charge other devices, an addition that is useless in my opinion. From here you can also access the dust tank which boasts a 600ml capacity, enough for at least a week's worth of standard dirt. Both the tank and the HEPA filters are washable and therefore reusable, but speaking of water, as already mentioned we also have an additional tank supplied which must be positioned under the robot and attached using Velcro.
The capacity in this case is really minimal and the combination of this with the supplied cloths allows you to refresh the floors rather than for washing. Stubborn stains certainly won't come off. Under the TRIFO MAX we also find two drive wheels that allow it to overcome obstacles up to 2 cm, while a third castor-type wheel allows the robot to direct itself in the environment. Finally, there is a central brush which covers a large slot for collecting all the dirt and a side brush for collecting hair and crumbs along the edges, while proximity and proximity sensors are also inserted on the surface of the robot. fall prevention height difference. Finally, circular in shape, the TRIFO MAX has a weight of 3.5 kg, a diameter of 360 mm and a height of 84 mm, allowing it to be inserted underneath furniture, beds or sofas raised from the ground.
How's the cleaning going?
For home cleaning, our vacuum cleaner uses a power of 3000 Pa, more than sufficient for every dirt requirement, but you can also adjust it to lower values, so much so that already at 50% of its real maximum it is able to collect dust , crumbs and hair that can commonly be found on the floor in homes. The noise level is proportional to the set power, reaching a maximum of 70 dB, not silent but you can still start the cleaning session and study or read a book without any particular discomfort. Washing the floors as already mentioned is very essential, both due to the reduced capacity of the water tank but also due to the absence of solenoid valves, so the water will drip onto the cloth until it runs out, but above all the cloth does not allow rubbing mop style, therefore with TRIFO MAX you can refresh the floor and nothing more. There is no automatic emptying station, but the tank is overall quite large.
Mapping and navigation
The real problem and limitation of this vacuum cleaner lies not in the suction power but in the orientation and navigation system on which it relies. In fact, there is no laser turret or LIDAR sensors, making use only of the camera positioned on the upper body and a proprietary algorithm. We are therefore talking about a "blind" robot: TRIFO MAX moves in a straight line until it encounters an obstacle which will be detected by the bumpers. At this point the navigation algorithm begins to make the robot make a series of movements as if to "feel" what is around it and choose the best direction to restart navigation. This all translates into more time to complete cleaning with consequent repercussions on autonomy.
Without going into too many technicalities, the TRIFO MAX adopts an obsolete navigation system, creating the map by marking a wall when the bumper detects an obstacle and reconstructing its position by measuring the movement of the wheels. We therefore find ourselves with an imperfect mapping, but what I really couldn't stomach is that the map is reset at every session, thus making it impossible to create zones or anything else.
To create the best cleaning situation possible, it is recommended to remove any form of obstacle, such as chairs or wires or anything that could cause the robot to be “distracted” while it is running. For carpets, however, no problem, at least for heavy and generously sized ones, while on soft and light ones the robot fits easily.
Autonomy
The basic autonomy would also be a plus, if we analyze the data on paper, even reaching 120 minutes of continuous cleaning, but in my case for example, for 20 m40 it took at least 35 minutes and around 15% charge , so imagine if I had cleaned the whole house. An additional charge would have been necessary and in fact the robot automatically returns to the charging station after the battery drops below 5200% and then resumes cleaning from where it left off. The battery is a 180 mAh unit and full charging takes place in XNUMX minutes.
Smart aspects and application
So let's get to the smart aspects of this TRIFO MAX, which as mentioned several times integrates a camera, through which we can view what is happening inside our home, both while the robot is working and when it is paused. We can also listen to what is happening in the environment but we can also speak, therefore using the robot as a sort of voice chat. The camera can detect movements and therefore send alerts to our smartphone if necessary. In short, a sort of low-cost video surveillance system integrated into the household appliance.
Furthermore, the robot communicates with us with sentences in Italian, always announcing the action it is carrying out, but if necessary we can silence the voice. Another point against it is that although compatibility with Amazon Alexa is assumed to be certain, the skill does not work, always returning you to an error page with the impossibility of activation. All aspects of the robot can be customized from the official application which allows you to control the TRIFO MAX remotely, also moving it in manual mode with a virtual joystick.
Right from the application you can access the video surveillance mode via the camera on the robot, with a video quality that is not high but sufficient to realize what is happening in the house. The application is simple and with few functions, other than the classic ones such as being able to schedule a cleaning on certain days and times, update the firmware, check the maintenance status of the brushes and filters etc..
On offer on Amazon
Conclusions
Too many shadows and little light on this robot vacuum cleaner which boasts a good cleaning capacity but is severely limited by the navigation and mapping system it has. It is possible to exploit the surveillance function, something unique in this category, but is it really useful in this sense? Perhaps it is better to rely on a room designed specifically for this purpose, now available for a few dozen euros.
In conclusion, I would recommend this TRIFO MAX to those who have small homes or for use in the office, but if you have problems with stubborn dirt or giant houses, then it is better to look elsewhere, also because the current price is close to 250 euros on the Amazon store. At this price, stay away from it, because you can take home many other more high-performance and advanced solutions, but if you find it at the right price (considering that it costs up to 100 euros) then you can think about it.
