Looking for the cream of the crop among robotic vacuums? The Trilobite, in Electrolux's signature Cayenne red silk finish, takes aim at the high end market. The Trilobite, named for a pre-historic creature that cleaned the ocean floor, is a fully automatic robotic vacuum cleaner that lists for $1,799 in the US. That's significantly more than the popular Roomba Discovery and upstart Sharper Image e Vac, so what do you get for your money?

The Trilobite offers a more sophisticated robotic sensor system: rather than relying solely on bump sensors, the Electrolux has sonar sensors that warn it of approaching obstacles, so it need not bump into them in most cases. It also has a more powerful vacuum that's about as loud as the Electrolux Harmony canister vacuum (their "quiet" canister vac).  The unit has a large dust bin that uses the thickest, most effective filter I've seen on robotic vacuum. While none of the current robo-vacs have HEPA filters, the Trilobite's micron filtration does trap and filter a great deal of dust.

Design

The design and styling, as you'd expect of an Electrolux, is stunning. This European designed automatic vac is 14" around and 5 1/8" tall. Curved surfaces conceal the dust filter container, many integrated sensors and the vacuum's two exhaust vents elegantly. The vents mimic the pre-historic Trilobite's fossilized form.  The vacuum weights 11 pounds and has an ample 1.1 quart dust container. The vacuum motor is 90 watts, which is quite strong for a battery powered robotic vacuum.

Magnets are everything to Trilobite: it uses magnetic strips for room containment, magnets in the base station that tell Trilobite where home is, and even magnets to hold the dust bin door shut. Electrolux warns that the vacuum may mistake a speaker lying on the floor for its base station since speakers use large magnets in their drivers.  Trilobite took no interest in our large floor standing speakers, though.

Controls and operation

Minimalism is key: unlike the affordable robo-vacs, the Trilobite doesn't have a large collection of buttons, instead relying on a small monochrome LCD and three command buttons that surround the LCD.  When you turn on the Trilobite using the power button (that's the fourth button), the LCD will say "Start Cleaning?". If you press the Yes button, the robot will begin a normal cleaning cycle which involves mapping the room's perimeter to clean the room's edges and determine cleaning time. Once done with mapping it will clean the entire room using diagonal sweeps and the LCD displays how much time is remaining in the current cleaning cycle. We found that mapping a 12' x 20' room took seven minutes and the robot determined that 31 minutes of cleaning time were needed for that room.

Above: How Trilobite maps and cleans a room using the Normal cleaning program.

If you prefer to do a Quick clean, you'll use the arrow button to select Quick and also set how much time you wish it to spend cleaning. There are several pre-set times such as 10 minutes, 20 minutes and more. Though Quick doesn't cover the entire perimeter of the room, the robot does move from one wall to the next in diagonal passes, which means it gets a good deal of the dirt that sits close to walls. Quick clean is reminiscent of affordable robo-vac cleaning patterns, since these don't do perimeter mapping.

You can also select Spot cleaning from the main menu and this will clean an area of approximately three square feet twice using parallel passes. You do not need to set a duration for Spot cleaning as it's pre-set at the factory.

While the LCD menu is user-friendly, unlike the average VCR, I find the buttons on Roomba Discovery and the Sharper Image e Vac more expedient and simple to use. Those large buttons make it easy to bend over and select the cleaning method you want as well as duration for e Vac. Very straight forward. With the Electrolux, you must bend close in order to read the LCD display and cycle through your cleaning selections when not going with the default normal cleaning cycle. Since the Trilobite doesn't come with a remote, you must interact directly with the robot's on-board LCD and controls.

Cleaning ability

As one would expect from a unit in this price range, the Trilobite cleans very well. It has one of the strongest vacuum motors among current robo-vacs, and an excellent micron filter that traps a great deal of dust and fine dirt. It works well on hard floors, short, medium and even high pile carpet. Surprisingly, it didn't trounce Roomba Discovery in cleaning on hard surfaces and low to mid pile plush carpeting. Both do an excellent job on these surfaces, and we couldn't see any difference after each vac had done its job. You will notice the difference when you empty the dust bin on each unit: the Trilobite does capture more dust which is important to allergy and dust-sensitive folks. Our cat provided the pet hair and we used ordinary house dirt, potting soil and kitty litter to test the vacs.

We tested the Trilobite on shag carpeting, which generally stymies the more affordable robotic vacuums. The Electrolux ran slower on shag (to be expected) but was able to clean the rug. Roomba Discovery had a great deal more difficulty on shag, and it works so hard in fits and starts that you wouldn't want to use it on shag. The Sharper Image e Vac can handle shag, but it won't pick up as much dirt as the Electrolux. We put a mix of soil from the yard and kitty litter on the shag rug to test the vacs. All three left some dirt low in the pile where it had settled too low for their vacuum motors to suck and lift. Our $70 Dirt Devil traditional upright choked on the shag and didn't do better, while our Eureka Boss 4870 upright (Consumer Reports best buy) was the only one that cleaned right down to the bottom.

The dust compartment is well sealed using a magnetic plate and beats Roomba in this respect. The e Vac has a well sealed dust compartment with a large diameter paper thin filter, so Trilobite is equal in terms of seal but superior in terms of filtration.  While the thin filters on Roomba and e Vac should be replaced every 1 to 2 months, the Trilobite's should be replaced whenever the dust bin is full. The bin is large, so it will take some time to fill it. If you prefer to empty the dust bin before it's full, you'll want to replace the filter when it looks filthy with dust or when the vac starts smelling musty when cleaning. Our Trilobite started smelling after a week of heavy use so we replaced the filter and the odor went away. Electrolux includes five filters in the box and you can order more in 10-packs.

Above: the top cover removed, revealing the dust bin.

The beater bar has rubber splines like the thinner bar on Roomba, rather than the more traditional bristles found on upright vacs and the e Vac. This bar does a good job of cleaning hard floors without scattering dirt and also leaves rugs with that groomed look and a raised nap.

Clearance and dealing with obstacles

The Electrolux is 5 1/8" tall and requires at least 5.5" of clearance to clean under furniture and kitchen kickboards. This puts it on par with the Sharper Image e Vac, but both Trilobite and e Vac are bested by Roomba which needs only 4" of clearance. The Electrolux was able to clean under our bed and one dresser, but it couldn't get under our kitchen kickboards, couch, second dresser and CD cabinet where Roomba ventures with ease. Of course, Trilobite can clean under most dining chairs and all tables.

The Trilobite shines when it comes to obstacle detection and avoidance. While Roomba, e Vac and the lowly Zoombot rely solely on touch sensors and must bump into obstacles in order to detect them, the Trilobite has many sonar sensors on its front half so it can "see" walls, furniture and your cat and thus avoid them. In truth, the Trilobite doesn't see obstacles, but rather hears them using sonar sound waves at 60,000 hertz. These sound waves are way above human and house pet hearing range, which means that it won't derange you or your dog. Since households don't have any device that emits sound at that high frequency, Trilobite won't be fooled by sound emissions from other devices.

So how does sonar work? The Trilobite sends out sounds and has several sensors that listen for those sounds as they're reflected back. As the sound gets louder and comes back faster, Trilobite knows it's approaching an obstacle. Pre-set algorithms tell it how loud the sound should be to indicate an obstacle is about 1 centimeter (1/2") away, at which point it will change direction to avoid contact. This works very well, and is a wonderful feature if you have precious antique furniture you'd rather not have bumped or don't wish to pick up pet water dishes and objects which the vac might otherwise push across the room. In fact, our cat quickly discovered that if he held his ground, the Electrolux would navigate around him. Keep in mind that when Trilobite approaches an obstacle's 90 degree corner head on, it may make gentle contact and rely on its bump sensors to turn away. For example, if it approaches a square table leg while aimed directly at the leg's corner, it will bump into the leg and turn away. Why? The same reason stealth planes have many angles: flat surfaces reflect sound (and light) back at the sender, but when the sound hits an angle, it can bounce off at an angle and not make it back to the sensor. Like all robo-vacs, the Trilobite has bump sensors and a gentle front bumper area that won't mar furniture.

We all know that not bumping into things is nicer and more sophisticated, but what are the drawbacks? Since Trilobite keeps a ½" distance from walls and obstacles, it won't clean edges as well as a vac like Roomba which cleans up to the point of contact with a wall or object. If you have full length curtains that hang within 5.5" of the floor, Trilobite will perceive them as an object to avoid, so you'll need to put them up before running the vac.

Dealing with fringed rugs and cables

Area rugs and cables are famous for tripping up Roomba Discovery. The Sharper Image e Vac does better with these, rarely getting tripped up and the Trilobite never got hung up on our fringed orientals, throw rugs or cables. In fact, it did an excellent job of cleaning these rugs and didn't drag them around the room or leave them bunched up. Excellent! Sliding door sills were the only thing that gave the Trilobite troubles and it would creep up on these and not find a way down about 70% of the time. 

The Trilobite has cliff sensors so it won't fall down stairs, ledges or landings. It will turn away from any drop of 4" or more. As with all robotic vacs, this works reliably, though it doesn't clean quite as close to stair and ledge edges as does Roomba and e Vac. It generally maintains a 1" distance from edges while the other two clean right up to the very edge.

Room containment

While Roomba uses IR and virtual walls to contain the vac and Sharper Image opts for traffic cones that simply block the vac's path, Trilobite uses magnetic strips. You'll get magnetic strips in the box and you can order more from Electrolux. To prevent Trilobite from entering an area, lay down these adhesive backed strips on the floor. You can place them under low pile carpet too, for a more attractive look. While it's nice that Trilobite provides us with a high tech method of room containment, I'm not sure how many of us are happy having magnetic strips stuck to the floor (not pretty) or digging under wall-to-wall carpeting to install the strips.

Battery life

The Trilobite has dual NiMH batteries that are pre-installed at the factory. When one battery is drained, the vac pauses for a few seconds then switches to the second battery. Electrolux states that the vac can run up to one hour on a charge, but we got an average of 35 minutes. Though the unit doesn't run very long on a charge, it can return to its charging base station when low on power, then resume cleaning when charging is complete. At two hours, it's the fastest charging vac currently on the market. As long as the base station was detected during mapping and is on the same floor of the house, Trilobite will turn off its vacuum motor and search for the charger and return reliably. Since the vacuum motor is off when the unit is searching for the base station, it will be very quite and the only sound you'll hear is that of the navigation system making low crackling sounds.  Trilobite's room mapping isn't terribly sophisticated: it simply follows the perimeter of the room until it finds the base station. We watched it run out of power and enter search mode when only 3 feet away from the base station. Rather than going directly to the base station, it went to the opposite wall and crawled about 30' of perimeter to find the charger.

Maintenance

The Trilobite is a well-designed unit that stays remarkably clean. The undersides do not coat with dust and a modest amount of pet and human hair wrapped around the beater bar after one week of use. The bar is easy to remove for cleaning and no tools are required. The large diameter, thin wheels and wells stay clear of debris and the only maintenance this unit should require is dust bin filter replacement and an occasional motor filter replacement. The wheels have hard plastic tread that shouldn't wear quickly or tear.

Conclusion

Certainly, the Trilobite is an excellent automatic vacuum that can be left at home to clean while you're at work or play. It has a strong motor, a very good filtration system, gets along very well with fringed rugs and thanks to sonar, is generally smart enough to not bump into objects. I do wish that Electrolux had included a remote control which is handy for cleaning small areas of your choosing and would make it friendlier to users with disabilities.

If the unit is in your price range, you will appreciate the improvements it offers over Roomba Discovery and the Sharper Image e Vac. Roomba Discovery cleans up dirt particles and pet hair equally as well, but Trilobite has the edge when it comes to dust.  Both e Vac and Trilobite cope well with fringed rugs and can clean shag rugs. However, Trilobite traverses shag with much less effort and picks up more dirt compared to e Vac, while Roomba isn't compatible with shag. Are these improvements worth the 7x higher price? If you're price conscious, then probably not. If you have the money to spend, and have several fringed rugs, high pile carpet, hate bumping robots and want the best dust pickup, then yes.

Web site: www.electrolux.com
US List price: $1,799

Discuss this review at: http://www.everydayrobots.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17