Electrolux Purei9

A SLOW LEARNER THAT SHOWS EXCELLENT RESULTS.

ELECTROLUX HAS HIT gold with the design of the PUREi9: not only does the triangular droid get at the hard-to-vacuum corners, a brush that automatically gets oriented towards walls and obstacles picks up the dirt from along room edges. The suspended wheels and proprietary technology ‘ClimbForceDrive’ lets the little android climb up to 2.2cm, allowing it to cross thresholds easily and, unlike most robot vacuums, the PUREi9 has plenty of suction power to scoop up dust, crumbs, fluff and even bits of gravel in a single pass. And while app control is excellent, albeit limited, its mapping technology is left wanting, especially consider the PUREi9’s undeniably hefty price tag.

Although Electrolux has installed 3D Vision (the bot’s obstacle avoidance system) which works really well we might add, the PUREi9 doesn’t seem to have any logical pattern to its movements, especially when used on carpet floors. Our test unit moved about rooms randomly, often cleaning the same strip of room multiple times before moving on, and it’s wont to miss large sections of a home if it’s a “complicated multi-room space”. Moreover, it has a hard time returning to its charging station to top up its batteries, which it will need to do at least once if you have a large home.

So while we can’t fault the hardware, Electrolux has seemingly struggled with the software side of things. Excellent physical cleaning performance and perfect app control is all for naught if a robot vacuum can’t drive itself logically, which, in the PUREi9’s case, means it can miss large sections of a space or clean some spots repeatedly. We get the feeling the PUREi9 would operate more effectively in small, simple spaces — like a sparsely furnished studio or small home (specifically, one with hard floors). But for a unit that comes with a price tag this high, we’d argue it should do well in multi-room dwellings with wall-to-wall carpets, too.