review – Meet the almighty robot vac! Not only does the Trifo Lucy AI Robot Vacuum have advanced AI to optimize cleaning, but it does more. It has an integrated camera with two-way audio. It has motion-sensing safety technology. You can manage it remotely from your application. How does all this fun come together in the finished packaging? Let’s clean up. Leave a comment! !
What is it?
Trifo Lucy AI Robot Vacuum Cleaner is robot vacuum cleaner It comes with additional tech including cameras, infrared night vision, wet mop functionality, two-way audio and advanced artificial intelligence for precise object detection. The model I’m testing is the “Lucy” model from the Trifo lineup.
What’s in this box?
You get the Trifo Lucy AI Robot Vacuum, a dock/charging station, a wet mopping attachment, and a set of cleaning pads for mopping functions.
Hardware Specifications
- Diameter 14.2, height 3.3
- Robot weighs 7.5 pounds
- 4000PA suction:
- 0.6L litter box capacity
- 5200mAh battery capacity
- 120 minutes standard runtime
- Amazon Alexa, IOS, Android compatible
- Integrated camera (with night vision) and microphone
Design and Features
Given all the features of the Trifo Lucy AI Robot Vacuum, we have a lot to cover in this review. We’ll start with the hardware basics and then move on to operations and special features.
Check the hardware
Trifo Lucy is dressed in black and gold trim. It measures 14 inches in diameter, 3 inches in height, and weighs about 7.5 pounds. There’s a small port on the front that shows some cameras and sensors.
Flip the unit over and you’ll find the center of the roller brush is mounted on the bottom, and the other brush wheel is mounted at the 10 o’clock position relative to the front of the unit. You’ll also notice the two charging contacts on the back of the device.
Plug your charging base into a wall outlet. When the Trifo Lucy’s battery runs low, it goes back to the base and slides up so that those silver contacts connect to the dots on the bottom of the unit.
I really like the way they designed the litter box on Trifo Lucy. Just pull up the lid and press the release button facing the front of the device…
…then open the lid to empty the bin. The bin’s 0.6-liter capacity ensures you’ll get a cleaning or two done before you need to empty it. This was after 4-5 cleanings on our second floor. Easy to disassemble and easy to empty.
The Trifo Lucy AI Robot Vacuum also includes a wet mop unit… kinda. There’s a slim attachment that you can fill with water.
To seal the stopper, you’ll attach one of the included cleaning pads via a pair of velcro closures on the attachment.
The attachment is now attached to the bottom of the device with additional velcro points, behind the wheel, facing the rear of the device. In mopping mode, it basically drags under the back of the robot vacuum.
One thing you’ll quickly learn about the Trifo Lucy is that it speaks. a lot of. The unit has a nice female voice and will constantly notify you when it’s charging, when it’s starting its course, and when it’s finished its course with the camera on…it makes quite a bit of noise .
A quick note on the instructions. You’ll find a printed card in the owner’s manual. Don’t lose that card! All component descriptions refer to the illustrations on the card. It’s actually handy when you turn pages, but make sure to keep all those pieces of paper!
basic control
You will need to download the Trifo app to take full advantage of Trifo Lucy’s features, which will involve registering and setting up an account. Once done, you can pair the vacuum and get started. You can also give your vacuum a name (let’s see who gets a reference here). You’ll press the “Clean” button on the app and your vacuum will start its first clean while mapping out areas of your home.
Do you see me in the screenshot of the app? Trifo Lucy has a front camera! You can open it from the app if you want (or not). In the picture below, the vacuum is just doing the mapping process in our lounge/living room.
After the mapping is complete, you can save the map. The app creates areas you can name if you wish, as shown below. This icon shows the position of the base station relative to the layout.
Now you can do all kinds of fun things. For example, you can specify which rooms should and should not be cleaned during a regular run (or manually add sub-areas in the map). You can adjust the power of the suction fan to improve cleaning performance. You can set a cleaning schedule. If you want to clean a specific room, you can tell it to clean that area.
That’s what I’m doing here. I told it to clean the pool room. Trifo Lucy gets into action, goes to clean the room, and notifies me when it’s done. You can track its progress on the app’s map.
You will get all kinds of data in the application, such as cleaning history and status reports on when components need maintenance.
Manual control
The whole point of a robot vacuum is to let artificial intelligence do its job. But if you really want to drive yourself, you can go into manual mode. This is the map we made on the second floor of my house. I’m controlling the vacuum with that virtual joystick (bottom left of my iPhone screen).
If I want to get fancy, I can open the video in the top right corner…
If I want to get more fancy, I can swap out the map and video for a full screen live video.
There’s also an onboard mic and speaker if I want to get extra super fancy. In theory, I could have a conversation with someone in my house while running the app from another location. Or talk to my pet.
motion detection
The Trifo Lucy AI Robot Vacuum also includes motion detection technology, so it can act as a robotic sentinel when you’re not home.
Turn on motion detection and you can be notified when your phone detects motion in its general area, like this:
Click on one of the alerts and you can view a video clip captured by the vacuum. There’s also a night-vision infrared camera that you can switch between views depending on when the video was shot. Apparently Trifo Lucy captured my dog moving in this photo during his fourth nap of the day. Her life is difficult.
The app will also record every motion detected and related videos that you can view later.
Performance
The overall performance of the Trifo Lucy AI robot vacuum requires a lot to consider. Some of them are really good, but some areas definitely need improvement.
Start with the basics and you’ll find pairing and setup aren’t an issue. The app is also easy to use without any complaints. Set it up, let it run, and the unit will happily work and get the job done. Cleaning was excellent, but we noticed that the default setting, while good for smooth surfaces, required increased suction in carpeted areas. The unit itself is also quite noisy. It makes a clunky noise when it runs its course, and the fan is very noisy. Between device noise and voice notifications, you’ll always know where your device is in your home.
The combination of the sensor package and advanced AI is a mixed bag to me. I ran a test placing objects in the vacuum’s planned cleaning path. Flip-flops are strategically placed in the middle of the floor.
It does a great job of identifying and bypassing obstacles. You can even see on the clean map where it identifies obstacles, marked with tan icons.
On the other hand, you can also see that some areas on this map are not cleaned up. There’s no obstruction in that corner in the photo, but the black dot on the map shows that it doesn’t cover all the open space in the room.
Presumably, AI learned to recognize objects in its own way and learned to navigate around them. We had a mat in front of the door and it got muddled on the first pass, but it did seem to learn to avoid it on subsequent cleanings.
AI mapping can also seem odd at times. The picture below is from the second floor. That brown area (middle left) is my office, which is mapped in an early clean…but no matter how hard I beg, it never comes back there for general or designated cleaning.
When we moved it to the first floor and tried it again, it seemed to do a better job of drawing the area. But seeing that area (blue) below the billiards room that looks like an extension of the yellow kitchen? Vacuum cannot enter this area. This is a step up from the family room. The vacuum didn’t fall off the steps, but it seemed to have identified that area.
I’ve read reviews that point to similar issues with AI, not being able to consistently map and manage cleaning areas. Maybe it has something to do with lighting or a cluttered room, but it does seem to have some challenges. I’ve also observed that tracking can be inefficient. Cleaning up areas that have been mapped a lot with tweaks, backtracking, etc. took longer than I expected.
The mopping feature feels like an afterthought. You need to manually add the mop to the device to mop and set the path—it can’t tell the difference between a flat floor and a carpeted floor. It also left a snail trail of liquid behind the unit when it mopped the floor, which I found I needed to towel dry after cleaning.
On the plus side, it does collect garbage! It works great for my kitchen with a designated cleaning function, but I have to set it up for every use.
Live video, motion sensor alerts, and one-way or two-way audio functions work well. If you’re looking for some extra security and/or want to keep track of your pets, you might like these features. The video in particular is so sharp that it captures any action in front of it. However, if security is a priority for me, I wouldn’t use these features in place of a proper monitoring system.
what do I like
- With a few tweaks to the suction settings, the cleaning did a great job.
- The “set it and forget it” mode does the job.
- I especially like the ability to identify rooms/areas and do spot cleaning on demand.
- The large-capacity bin is easy to empty.
Areas for improvement
- Ai doesn’t seem to be as advanced as promised, showing some inconsistencies and flaws in the game.
- Unless you’re comfortable with damp floors and switch the add-on between cleaning sessions, the mopping feature may have been removed.
final thoughts
Honestly, I was conflicted about my final thoughts on the Trifo Lucy AI robot vacuum. It has a whole bunch of interesting tech…but cleaning is the main feature. And when it comes to cleaning, I don’t think it performs any better than a robot vacuum, which is much cheaper than this unit. In some ways, I don’t think it’s as effective as some of the devices I’ve seen in the past. Considering the price – $500 sale price – I would expect better comparable performance.
Having said that, some of these technologies are really cool. I can see it as a favorite for people living in single story homes that need security bits, live video feeds, etc. Want to babysit your pet? You will love this. The mapping function and cleaning management are also great, despite the occasional AI issue. Just considering you get all these features at a premium price, there may be better options if budget is an issue and cleaning is your priority.
Price: Retail price of $749.00, but currently on sale for $499.99.
where to buy: Amazon
resource: This product sample is provided by Triford.
