This robot vacuum with tangle free rollers is my new favourite home gadget
As much as we love them, owning pets presents some challenges. Among these is the frequent battle with pet hair clogging up the rollers on vacuum cleaners.
Technology is trying very hard to provide an answer to this with "tangle-free" rollers, but they don't always work all that well. Especially when faced with the fur from my labradoodle, who seems to be permanently shedding.
While this technology has established itself quite firmly into conventional vacuum cleaners, it's still emerging in the world of robotic vacuum cleaners - and because I'm quite lazy, they're the gadgets I go for.
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So I was very intrigued when Eufy offered to let me test their new X8 Pro, a feature-rich robot vacuum with all the usual Eufy bells and whistles, and carrying a claim that it had a patented Active Detangling Roller Brush which, Eufy promises, detangles hair automatically. "No more need to manually clean the roller brush yourself," the sales bumf states.
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I'll come back to its pet-hair claims in just a moment, but first, let me talk you through the specs on this £449.99 machine.
Firstly, it has laser guidance, which I'm convinced is the best way for a robot vacuum to navigate. Using cutting-edge LiDAR it can "see" its way around each room, and quickly create a map, which you can then tweak to tell it where the room boundaries are. It works a charm on the X8 Pro.
Other important features that justify the price tag include a wet mopping function - it's just a microfibre pad and a water pump, but it does a fairly good job of putting a shine on tiles and laminate.
The charging base also has a self-emptying feature, which sucks all the detritus from an on-board tank on the robot into a bag at the end of the task. This is becoming something of a must-have feature for me, and it works very well on the X8 Pro.
There are other things I like, too. It has quite a slim, sleek design, it's been very reliable in terms of not getting stuck - which I'm finding is a Eufy trait, and it's nice to see a rubber strip on the bump-stop, which protects your furniture (and the robot) from scratches.
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Overall then, a solid performance from a high-spec robot vacuum, which is linked to Eufy's excellent Eufy Clean app, and performs all the functions you'd expect from a robot vacuum that's nudging toward the £500 price point.
But what about that pet hair function? The roller is in a spring-mounted housing, with a "comb" built in. The roller is easy to remove, but in theory you shouldn't need to.
Like all modern rollers it has a mixture of brushes and fins, and they're in a wavy pattern which, I'm guessing, is the clever design that gives Eufy the right to claim it can eliminate up to 97% of tangles.
It's a bold claim but, I'm happy to report, it's pretty accurate. I've been using the X8 Pro in my downstairs for several weeks, and it has never tangled. I'd found a few rogue clumps of hair in the roller mid-task, but the base station removes them as it empties, and you're back to an empty roller.
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This gives the X8 Pro a bit of a USP. For pet owners, it's a really big plus point, and that will make it tempting enough. But the thing is, it's also a really competent all-rounder anyway. Eufy's robot vacuums are quickly becoming my favourites because they just do such a competent job without any fuss.
And not having to worry about tangles from labradoodle fur is just the icing on the cake.
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