Ecovacs Deebot N79S Review: Keeps your house clean with some tradeoffs

Your housemates will love it and your pets will hate it.

The dream of having a truly autonomous smart home feels closer than ever in 2018. Smart speakers sales are booming and the Internet of Things bubble continues to expand with more and more connected devices available for automating processes around your home. It’s an exciting time for early adopters, but its always important to keep tempered expectations as the fantasy of living in a Jetsons-style future world is easily undermined when up against real-world challenges.

Ecovacs Robotics is a company designing robots that will keep your futuristic smart home clean today. I was sent one of its latest models, the Deebot N79S, an autonomous vacuum cleaner you can command from your smartphone or with your voice, using Alexa for reviewing purposes. I’ve been putting it to work around my home for the past few weeks and have been impressed overall.

It makes a great first impression

Robot vacuums have been around since 2002, but I always viewed them as an aspirational household accessory reserved for the uber-wealthy or a punchline for mocking tech-savvy hipsters. They’re quirky and cute.

The Deebot N79S was my first experience using a robot vacuum and it’s got the exact look and feel I’d expect from a robot vacuum designed for 2018. It’s got a sleek design with an array of sensors and bump-guards to help it navigate around your home, with a low enough profile to fit under most furniture in our home, including under the living room couch. Given that NOBODY likes vacuuming under the couch, that was pretty awesome to discover.

After unboxing, I let it charge for the required 4 hours and prepped the house for the first clean. That meant clearing any bags or shoes off the floor, tucking away power cords, and looking for other smaller objects that could damage the vacuum.

The Deebot N79S has four cleaning modes which you can control with the wireless remote:

• AUTO mode: This is the most common mode you’ll use and sets the Deebot to automatically cover as much floor space as possible by cleaning in straight lines. It works its way around the room, changing directions whenever it meets an obstacle. Despite its random nature, this mode does seem to offer the most efficient clean.
• Spot Cleaning mode: The Deebot drives in a slowly widening spiral. This mode is meant for cleaning up a specifically dirty area of floor in a room.
• Edge Cleaning mode: As the name suggests, this mode sets the Deebot to patrol around the edges and corners of the room. It will still work its way around obstacles as needed and will work around door frames and down hallways to cover multiple rooms.
• Single Room mode: Essentially works the same as AUTO mode, but is specifically designed for smaller rooms with the door closed.

You can also manually control your Deebot using either the app or remote control.

On its maiden voyage, I gleefully watched as it spent the first 20 minutes slowly exploring the living room, cheering it on as it crossed the doorway into the kitchen for the first time, and watching proudly as it proceeded to make multiple passes over the entire main floor.

The sad reality is any time-saving claims are negated by the fact that you’re going to closely shadow your robot vacuum around your home the first couple of times — partially to appreciate the novelty of a freaking robot vacuum cleaning your house, but also because as smart as the N79S is, it will still manage to work itself into trouble.

Babysitting the vacuum

As silly as I felt following the Deebot around the house, it served a practical purpose. You will need to identify any spots in your home that might cause problems for the Deebot. The N79S features a bunch of smart sensors for recognizing obstacles and detecting stairs and big drops, but they do not always operate flawlessly.

This is a deep-cleaning model designed to effortlessly transition from hardwood to area rug or carpet, but it can’t run on long pile carpeting, and area rugs with long fringes can easily get tangled in the brushes. And while it’s got a low profile for navigating under furniture, if there’s a spot in your home where it can get stuck, it will find it every time.

For example, while it maneuvers itself under the couch with no issues, it somehow manages to wedge itself pretty good under our fridge. This became a recurring issue as it tried to clean as far under the fridge as possible. I appreciate the attempt to get into every tight area it can, but this is where a room-mapping feature would have come in real handy.

Any time the vacuum is working on the main floor, I must keep an ear out for distress beeps that indicate the Deebot needs help.

This, unfortunately, means that any time the vacuum is working on the main floor, I must keep an ear out for distress beeps that indicate the Deebot needs help. This has happened a handful of times during my testing: I’ve had to free it from under the fridge more than a few times, and there was one time I came down to find it tangled up with the strap from a backpack I had foolishly left lying around. This managed to mangle one of the side-brushes pretty good, but I was able to work it back into shape so there was no lasting harm done

Initially, I had planned to schedule the Deebot to run during the nights, as I found the N79S to be slightly quieter than the standup vacuum it replaced — certainly low-volume enough to run in the middle of the night without waking the house. But knowing that it might get stuck in the fridge every night has kind of kiboshed that idea. That’s not to say that I exclusively run the robot vacuum whenever I have the time to follow it around, but when I do run it, I half expect to find it crying for help midway during each clean. Chances are you will find similar problem areas in your home, too.

You have to keep your cleaning bot clean

One thing I immediately noticed was how well this thing attracts dust and dirt — but not in the way I expected. After a full crawl through the house, there almost seemed to be as much dust and hair clinging to the outer casing of the Deebot as there was in the removable dustbin. Furthermore, when Ecovacs says you need to fully clean the vacuum and its filters at least once a week, it absolutely means it. By the end of the first week, it was clear the N79S was in dire need of a good cleaning as it didn’t seem to be cleaning as efficiently as it did fresh out of the box.

Because we have pets in the house, Ecovacs recommends giving this vacuum and its filters a thorough cleaning twice a week. This is significantly more maintenance than any standard vacuum I’ve used before, but it’s also entirely possible I was ignorant of proper vacuum maintenance before the Deebot rolled into my life.

(Side note: Despite all the cute internet videos of cats riding robot vacuums, my cat hates this new addition to the house.)

It takes about 30 minutes to thoroughly clean the Deebot brushes of tangled hair and debris and to rinse and air dry the filters. Its a somewhat messy process, but fortunately Ecovacs has made it really easy to remove all the brushes and filters for cleaning and replacement purposes.

Replacement parts are available as a kit for just $25 and you can conveniently track your usage from within the app. Each kit includes enough replacement parts for a full year, so your annual upkeep costs should always stay around $25.

App and Alexa voice control

I’ve dealt with enough app-controlled tech to know that not all products work as smoothly as advertised, but kudos to Ecovacs for developing an app that’s quick and easy to use. Ultimately, I found the physical remote to be more convenient to use because I did run into issues where the bot wouldn’t connect to the network for whatever reason. The remote, on the other hand, just works and includes most of the same functionality as the app, including manual controls.

I was excited to test the Alexa voice controls and was pleasantly surprised to find that it works better than pretty much any other Alexa skill I’ve tested.

Anyone who owns an Amazon Echo has tried to show off a cool new feature to a friend… only to have it not work. It’s embarrassing, right? Setting up the Deebot skill was painless and the Alexa commands worked perfectly the first time, and every time I’ve tried it. This should be how all Alexa skills work but sadly that’s not currently the case, so the ease of use here was a pleasant surprise.

Final thoughts

The Deebot N79S has absolutely made it easier to keep our floors clean, and I feel its fair to say that the floors get vacuumed more often now thanks to the convenience of using the Deebot. The tradeoff is that to use the Deebot N79S on a schedule or when your out of the house requires vacuum-proofing your floors to make it as easy as possible for the little bot to do its job without getting hung up somewhere or damaging the brushes.

It’s easy to view robot vacuums as a quirky novelty, but the technology is really impressive in 2018. Having finally spent some time with a robot vacuum, I can say that it’s more practical than I initially thought it would be. Yes, you can be the ultimate couch potato and vacuum your living room without lifting a finger, so long as you’re willing to keep up with the weekly maintenance, keep your floors clear of objects that will impede its cleaning journey, and be available to help if it gets stuck.

At $250, the Deebot N79S is worth the money for anyone willing to keep their space tidy enough for the robot vacuum to do its thing on a scheduled basis. It would make an ideal accessory for apartments or condo life where there isn’t multi-levels to contend with, and also integrates surprisingly well with Alexa. If you’ve been looking to automate cleaning in your smart home, the Deebot N79S is a great place to start.

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Instagram is apparently working on its own portrait mode

Get ready to see a lot more bokeh in your feed.

In the world of smartphone trends, one that’s exploded over the past year is portrait mode for cameras. Apple was the first to really popularize this with the iPhone 7 Plus, and soon after its release, we saw Google, Samsung, Motorola and countless other OEMs follow suit.

Now, according to a file found within the APK for Instagram’s Android app, the popular photo-sharing service will soon be getting its own portrait mode, too.

The file in question is a .png one that’s labeled portait_shutter_icon. It shows the outline of a person with Instagram’s colors around it, and it looks like an icon you’d find on Instagram’s capture page next to its Boomerang and Superzoom shooting modes.

We aren’t sure just yet about the specifics for Instagram’s portrait mode, but if it’s like what we’ve seen so far in the industry, it’ll likely blur out the background around subjects you take photos of to create for more professional-looking shots. I’m guessing the portrait effect will be made via software, and while we’ve seen good results of this method with the Google Pixel 2, I’m a bit skeptical of how this will translate to an app that’s used by thousands of different Android phones.

In addition to this portrait mode, we also recently caught wind of unannounced video and voice calling services that are being developed for Instagram. A portrait mode is certainly more of a core photo-capturing feature, but even so, it’s clear that there are big things in the work for the app this year.

Snapchat, the ball is now in your court.

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Huawei is working on an Alexa and Google Assistant competitor for China

It’s called “HiAssistant”, and it actually sounds fairly impressive.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are dominating the virtual assistant market. Samsung and Apple have tried lessening their grip with Bixby and Siri, respectively, but these attempts have proven to be futile at best.

Huawei started talking about AI a lot more with the launch of its Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro, and according to a new report, the company is preparing to launch its own assistant in the form of the “HiAssistant.”

XDA Developers recently obtained access to firmware files of EMUI 8.1 for the Mate 10, and within these files, there’s a lot of information regarding this HiAssistant. It’ll apparently replace the very barebones “HiVoice” app on Huawei phones, but unlike Bixby and Siri, Huawei will only be launching the HiAssistant on its phones in China.

Unlike its competition, HiAssistant will only be available in China.

According to various snippets of code, the HiAssistant will be able to control multiple device functions (such as turning on Bluetooth, adjusting your volume, enabling night mode, etc.), make phone calls, send text messages, search for a variety of things through Weibo, send payments, and even offer Google Lens-like functionality thanks to its own “HiVision” feature.

In addition to only being available in China, HiAssistant will also only work on Huawei devices powered by the Kirin 970 and running EMUI 8.1 or later.

Huawei’s yet to comment on any of this, but seeing as how we’re expecting the upcoming P20 to debut with the Kirin 970 and EMUI 8.1, there’s a good chance HiAssistant gets an official unveiling on March 27 alongside Huawei’s new P20 series.

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This swanky Vitamix 5200 Blender is down to $299, today only

For just a few more hours, Amazon has the Vitamix 5200 Blender on sale for $298.94. That’s a match for the lowest price ever for this product. It’s only dropped this low once before, a few months back. Normally it sells for $395, so today’s price is an absolute steal.

This isn’t your average run-of-the-mill blender, which is why it costs a bit more than you may be used to seeing. But hear me out. This thing can do it all. The blades reach speeds fast enough to create friction heat, so you can make steaming hot food in just a few minutes. You can create soups, doughs, purees, butters, coffee grounds, and of course, smoothies.

This 64-ounce blender has a rotating dial to control the speed. It’s also super easy to clean and backed by a 7-year warranty. 783 users gave this an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars. For cooking inspiration, check out this Vitamix Cookbook, which contains 200 recipes to make in your fancy new blender.

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Frantics Review: A slippery slope of sabotage

A game of minigames using PlayStation’s awesome PlayLink, but how fun is it?

Some of the best games are the ones you play with friends, but dive deeper into that genre and sabotage almost always rears its head in the most amazing ways. PlayLink takes your phone and turns it into an incredibly interactive controller feature for your PlayStation, and Frantics uses the ability to put four people and their phones in the same room to cause as much mayhem as possible.

Developers NapNok Games have brought us this goofy title, complete with 15 minigames and a fight for the most crowns. You and four friends will go up against each other to see who will be the reigning winner, but beware, there’s a sleazy fox in the mix trying to cause trouble for the lot of you!

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Getting started

Everything starts with your own Frantics profile on the app on your phone. Here you’ll take a selfie and it will assign you a goofy animal that will serve as your avatar. Edit any of these by selecting any of the green buttons, as pictured.

The app itself didn’t give me too many issues and was fairly easy to set up. You need a minimum of 4 animals playing the minigames. Thankfully for those who want to solo the game in real life, Fox will hook you up with some of his friends should you not have the bodies! Unfortunately, there isn’t an option to play without bots if only you and a single friend are playing, 4 is the lucky number it seems.

The games

When they say minigames they do mean mini. Each game will only take 3 minutes tops to complete, but there are 2-3 rounds per game. It was mildly frustrating that regardless of the game having 15 total minigames it filtered me through the same 3 games a few times to explain how the competition system works. Trust me, the competition system is awesome, but the tutorial seemed to have lagged on longer than it actually did by doing the same thing over and over again.

So, each minigame you play will have a set of rounds to it that will be either timed or ongoing until completion. For instance, the Parachuchu game lasted until all 4 party members hit the ground in one way or another. Then, on the other hand, games like the Big-Top Hippity Hop were timed for who could last the longest. After the goal of the minigame has been completed you will replay the game 2-3 more times and it will gather a final score of the competitors.

One thing that was super cool was the random prizes your host, Fox, would pass out at the end of the matches. The overall winners will receive crowns, but there is also a chance to win some coins by acting up. Deer Dave got a prize for some coins just for being the best “thrasher” because he slammed into other players the most! These prizes are definitely a learn-as-you-go system though, as they aren’t revealed in one way or the other if and when you can earn them, they just happen.

Finally, after your party has played a few of the minigames a final winner will be chosen. When this happens you collect the bragging rights amongst your friends and the game starts over! This means there isn’t really a way to collect hundreds of coins (that I’ve been able to do anyway). That’s not a bad thing either because it keeps the competition constantly refreshed and alive!

Scandalous, Fox. Just scandalous

And Fox doesn’t just stop at random prizes at the end of the game. Throughout the game, he’ll attempt to ruin your friendships in the most hilarious ways by giving players “Secret Missions” to sabotage their friends. These missions come complete with either goals, powerups or both! Fox will pick the oddball out whether it’s cause you have the least coins or crowns and offer you a back-alley deal to change that for yourself!

Your entertainment comes from playing the games and he comes in to make a game out of you. Where the first minigame round will be held to the full standards of the rules, the next round might have some added bombs to it. Whoever is holding the bomb when it goes off instantly loses the round, but that doesn’t take you from the fight.

Losers are given special sabotage options they can use on any one of the other players for as many times as they wish. There is a short cooldown to these options, but not a long one. Deer Dave knocked me out of the race and I made sure he shortly followed by consistently hitting him with a freeze ray.

Buy your way to the top

Last but not least, there are also auctions between minigames. Here Fox will advertise 3 items and each player will get one chance to choose a single item and bid a number on it. If you are the only one to bid, congratulations! You get that item!

However, if you and another player both choose the same item it comes down to who blindly paid the most coins for it. You never want to bid all your coins in one go to secure a single power-up, as there will be another auction at the end of the next minigame!

So choose your battles wisely, and keep your battle plans a secret from your friends!

You’re going to want this

There isn’t going to be a scenario here where I tell you this isn’t a game you want. In fact, I absolutely recommend you making this janky Fox your best friend of all time. If you’ve got a family game night or sleepover planned, invite Frantics to it.

Join the experience of laughter and utter hilarious betrayal with your new furry friends, it’s only $19.99 on the PlayStation Store. What are you waiting for?!

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Samsung’s $100 256GB microSD card is a must-have for all Galaxy S9 owners

Don’t go without it.

Samsung’s 256GB microSD card has only been cheaper once before, and that was during a brief sale on Black Friday. Unless you have a time machine to go back and get that price, this is easily the best deal around on such a large capacity card. SanDisk’s similar option is currently $10 more.

The EVO Select is a Class 10 UHS 3 card, meaning it’s great for storing files, capturing photos, and will even record 4K video without an issue. It has read speeds of up to 100MB/s and write speeds of up to 90MB/s. You can add this card to your smartphone, like the Samsung Galaxy S9 or S9+, tablet, action camera, PC and more to gain a ton of extra portable storage.

If 256GB is simply too much space for you or you want to spend less, Samsung’s 128GB version of this card is down to just $40 right now.

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Add 4TB of storage to your Xbox, computer and more with this $80 drive

Keep all your important files and documents protected with Western Digital’s Elements hard drive.

Western Digital’s 4TB Elements Desktop Hard Drive is now on sale at Amazon for just $79.99. Since Black Friday this drive has sold for $99.99, and prior to that, it sold for as much as $139.99. Today’s price drop marks the lowest price it’s ever sold for, bringing the cost per terabyte down to just $20.

This hard drive offers quick transfer speeds thanks to the USB 3.0 connection and can work with both Windows and Mac machines, as well as gaming consoles like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. You may need to reformat the drive for it to work properly with a Mac.

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YouTube’s new music service actually won’t launch this March

There’s currently no word on when we can expect it to come out.

At the beginning of December last year, a report emerged claiming that Google was planning on launching its third music streaming service. Currently referred to as “YouTube Remix”, it was expected that this would be unveiled as early as March of this year. However, just ahead of the SXSW music festival, YouTube’s said otherwise.

SXSW will take place between March 9th and the 13th in Austin, Texas, and YouTube’s head of music, Lyor Cohen, will be speaking about “seismic changes he’s witnessed and the importance of embracing the future.”

It was expected that YouTube would use its time at SXSW to unveil the new service, but according to a representative from the company that spoke to Variety:

It was never our plan to launch at the festival.

Where does that leave us with YouTube Remix? YouTube signed deals with Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group late last year, but prior to this, that was the last big update we’d heard regarding the service.

It’s still uncertain how Remix will live alongside the existing Google Play Music and YouTube Music/YouTube Red, and with no new launch date in sight, we could have to wait a while longer before learning the ins and outs of what exactly YouTube’s working on.

Google Play Music and YouTube Red are the best deal in streaming right now

Best Galaxy S9 Accessories

Keep your Samsung Galaxy S9 protected and functional with these great accessories!

The Samsung Galaxy S9 is the latest hotness from the biggest Android brand in the game, and it’s sure to be a smash hit in 2018.

If you’re considering an upgrade to the S9, you should be thinking about investing in some quality accessories to keep your phone in mint condition and improve the storage capabilities and battery life. Here are the best accessories for the Galaxy S9… so far!

• Samsung Alcantara Cover
• Spigen Rugged Armor Case
• Whitestone Dome Glass Tempered Glass Screen Protector
• Samsung Fast Charge Wireless Charging Convertible Stand
• Anker PowerCore+ 26,800 mAh battery pack
• Samsung microSD EVO+ 256GB

Samsung Alcantara Cover

Samsung is one of the few phone makers that really does a great job of supporting their own devices with a solid line of cases. We’ve featured a number of Samsung’s cases in our round up of the best cases for the Galaxy S9, but we’ve highlighted the Alcantara Cover here because it was a fantastic option for the Note 8 and should be equally stellar with the S9.

Alcantara is a lightweight material that’s as rugged as the plastic and rubber cases, but offers a very unique look and feel that compliments Samsung’s tall devices. This case deftly covers the edges of the screen but leaves the bottom open for the charging port, headphone jack, and speaker. You can pre-order yours from Samsung for $50.

See at Samsung

Spigen Rugged Armor Case

There’s going to be a ton of third-party case options for the Galaxy S9, but for our money you won’t find a better value than the slim Rugged Armor case from Spigen.

Made of flexible TPU, this case offers a precisely designed shell to keep your S9 protected without adding unnecessary bulk. It’s thin enough to allow wireless charging while still protecting the camera and fingerprint sensor on the back and prevents the display from sitting flush on a table. Get this minimalist case for around $13 on Amazon.

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Whitestone Dome Glass Tempered Glass Screen Protector

Not all screen protectors are created equal. If you’re afraid of damaging the Galaxy S9’s curved screen, you should consider the Whitestone Dome Glass screen protector.

This brand burst onto the scene with the Galaxy S8, offering the best coverage with a tempered glass screen protector we’ve seen. Using a unique liquid adhesion technique that involves uses a UV curing light to ensure a perfect installation.

Now, the downside is the price. At $45, it’s by far the most expensive screen protector you can buy, but it’s a well-reviewed screen protector that’s backed by a limited lifetime warranty. If you’re concerned about protecting your phone around those curved edges, this is the screen protector you want.

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Samsung Fast Charge Wireless Charging Convertible Stand

If you’ve got the option to wirelessly charge your phone, you may as well take full advantage, right? Any true Samsung fan will love the design of this convertible wireless charging pad. Made by Samsung, this pad supports Fast Charge technology (of course) and ships with its won Samsung Fast Charge wall adapter — and you can never have enough of those.

Regularly sold for up to $90, you can snag one of these bad boys for just under $50 on Amazon.

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Anker PowerCore+ 26,800mAh Battery Pack

It’s always a smart idea to back up your new phone with an extra boost of juice, and there are few better battery packs than Anker’s PowerCore+.

Anker has packed in 26,000mAh into a sleek package that’s small enough to easy stash in a backpack or even slip in your pants pocket. it features three USB ports so you can charge multiple devices at one time. Featuring

Get yours for roughly $70.

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Samsung microSD EVO+ 256GB

The Galaxy S9 has carried on Samsung’s tradition of allowing expandable storage via microSD, so why not take advantage? You can get Samsung’s 128GB card for just $45 or go all out with the 256GB card for $135. Both cards feature read speeds up to 95MB/s and write speeds up to 90MB/s, meaning they will be able to handle whatever you throw at it.

Whichever you go with, you can be sure that it’ll give you all the storage space you desire so you never have to delete photos and videos.

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What accessories will you be getting?

What must-have accessories are at the top of your list when you’re buying a new phone such as the Galaxy S9? Let us know in the comments!

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Audi put 250 camouflaged e-tron prototypes on Geneva’s roads

While we patiently wait for Audi to unveil the production version of the upcoming e-tron SUV, the automaker has decided to flood the roads of Geneva with camouflaged prototypes. The company also showed off a prototype during the unveiling of the A6. Like the ones on the street, it looks like a giant QR code.

The e-tron is Audi’s badge for its upcoming electric vehicle line. It was previously used as the name of its plug-in hybrid A3.

Meanwhile, the new 311-mile range electric SUV will get a proper unveiling in August of this year. For now, if you happen to be in Geneva, keep an eye out, with 250 on the road, they should be easy to spot.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from the 2018 Geneva Motor Show.