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ILife A10s Robot Vacuum Mop Review

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ILife A10s Robot Vacuum Mop Review
It’s only recently that the cleaning robot segment has really started getting attention in India, but brands such as ILife have been in the business of making vacuuming and mopping robots for a while now. The company, with its India headquarters in Bangalore, claims to have over 3.3 million customers across 35 countries, with its robots said to clean 610 square kilometres of area in customers’ homes every day.

The company has a small range of cleaning robots priced from Rs. 14,900 onwards, going up to the flagship product in the range, the Rs. 34,900 ILife A10s Robot Vacuum Mop which I’m reviewing here. The successor to the ILife A9s, the A10s features laser navigation, which also enables it to save maps of your home and follow specific cleaning instructions based on its layout. Is this the best cleaning robot you can buy right now? Find out in this review.

Plenty of spares are included in the sales package with the ILife A10s robot vacuum

What is the ILife A10s, and what’s in the box?

Like its predecessor the A9s, the ILife A10s is a cleaning robot which can vacuum and mop. It has a typical disc-shaped body with wheels at the bottom to move around. There are two sweeping brushes at the front, the vacuum zone in the middle, and space for a removable module at the back. For vacuuming, you have to have the dust bin module fitted there, and for mopping, the water reservoir module snaps into place.

The water reservoir module has a cloth which attaches at the bottom. ILife states that the mop fitting has a ‘vibrating tank’ function which moves in all directions to release water, which lets it mop gently and effectively when moving around.

Apart from the sweeping brushes at the front, the vacuum zone also has a roller brush to direct dirt and impurities into the dust bin, and a dust filter to filter out fine particles. In the retail package, you get a charging dock and plate, an adapter to power the charging dock, and a remote control to manually control the ILife A10s without the app.

The power adapter can be directly connected to the robot itself, to charge it without the dock. The robot has a physical power switch, and it is recommended that it be left on at all times, parked on the charging dock when not in use. The remote runs on two AAA batteries, and it can be used to start cleaning, send the robot back to the charging dock, or manually drive it around, all by pointing it at the robot and pressing the right buttons.

Spares for the ILife A10s, including extra sweeping brushes, a rubber roller brush, and an extra dust filter, are included in the box. The cleaning robot has a flexible front bumper to protect it from collisions, and a raised module at the top for the laser navigation equipment.

ilife a10s review bottom ILife  ILife A10s

There are two sweeping brushes and a main brush on the ILife A10s to capture dirt

ILife A10s navigation and mapping

Unlike the A9s which relies on a camera to navigate, the ILife A10s is equipped with laser navigation, which is known to be more accurate and more sensitive to obstacles in the cleaning area. This also makes the robot capable of working in dark rooms. The A10s can store maps of your home, which can then be used to customise the cleaning routine by setting no-go and carpet zones, invisible walls, room divisions, and more.

Competing products in the cleaning robot segment such as the 360 S7 and Mi Robot Vacuum Mop-P use laser navigation to good effect, and the ILife A10s does indeed come close when it comes to navigational accuracy. In my experience, the device moved quickly and was generally able to avoid collisions with obstacles, including walls and the legs of tables and chairs.

However, I did find that the device needed specific guidance by way of setting up no-go zones and carpeted areas through the app. I needed to move objects such as loose rugs and wires out of the way. The ILife A10s did, on occasion, get stuck in sliding door tracks, and got the tassels at the edges of a rug stuck in its wheels. Navigation isn’t as flawless on this device as I’ve seen on competing options.

When properly set up and with any potential obstacles out of the way, the ILife A10s moved quickly and in a predictable and sensible path to complete its cleaning task. It was able to fully clean my 900 square-foot home once in around 45 minutes when vacuuming, and took roughly the same amount of time to mop the same space.

ILife A10s app

The ILife A10s robot vacuum mop can be controlled using the ILife Home app, available for Android and iOS. Although I did sometimes find it quicker to use the remote or even just press the buttons on the device itself, the app allowed for much more specific control over the functions of the robot. These include controlling and monitoring it remotely even if you aren’t at home, managing maps, setting an order or specific room list for cleaning, creating restricted zones and invisible walls, and more.

Setting up the robot for the first time took a while, but once complete, I didn’t have any connectivity or usage issues with the app during my time with it. The default screen of the ILife A10s app is your home map, along with status indicators that tell you the cleaning area covered and time taken (when in use), plus the charging and battery status. You can also set the suction power, side brush speed, and water usage level, as well as update the firmware, set schedules, and see logs of past cleaning tasks.

ilife a10s review both fittings ILife  ILife A10s

Although the mop fitting has a small dustbin, I found it necessary to vacuum and mop separately with the ILife A10s

Usefully, you can have the app installed on multiple devices, so different members of your family can control it as necessary, unlike the 360 S7 which can only be used on one device at a time. The app is generally very easy to use, and shows a live view of the robot’s location within your home while cleaning, as well as the areas covered and time taken. All of this does, of course, need your robot to have a stable link with your Wi-Fi connection to work properly.

ILife A10s cleaning

Although not as intuitive with navigation as competing products, and with an app that feels a bit more simple than the companion apps from 360 and Xiaomi, the ILife A10s robot vacuum mop is among the more effective cleaning robots around. The company hasn’t specified the suction power of the vacuum cleaner, but it’s more than enough for everyday cleaning of hard floors.

Having two sweeping brushes makes the ILife A10s a lot more competent at sweeping dirt out from its path and into the vacuum zone to pick up, including along edges and in corners. While no cleaning robot is completely effective, the ILife A10s does a better job than most competing products which have just a single sweeping brush. Even with dry spills resulting in a bit more mess to pick up, the robot was able to clean the area effectively enough.

However, as with any cleaning robot, you will still have to manually sweep dirt out from edges, corners, and hard-to-reach places every few days, or use a handheld manual vacuum cleaner such as the Dyson Omni-glide. I found that the A10s was very effective at vacuuming with its suction power set to around the 80 percent mark, and this also kept it from making too much noise while cleaning.

For mopping, the ILife A10s uses a separate fitting that holds water and vibrates when working to sprinkle it. Although this fitting does have a small dustbin area to hold dirt captured by the vacuum cleaner, it’s best to run the vacuum cleaner with its dedicated dustbin fitting, which is larger and more effective at holding all the dirt accumulated over a typical household run. The mop tank can hold more than enough water for a full home cleaning, and has a mop cloth attached at the bottom to wipe up the released water.

When using the mop fitting, the ILife A10s is very good at mopping, doing a better job than the 360 S7 and Mi Robot Vacuum Mop-P. It isn’t recommended to add any cleaning agents or additives to the water tank, but I did sprinkle a few drops on the floor before any mopping tasks, to good effect.

As with all cleaning robots, regular maintenance is necessary with the ILife A10s in order to keep things running smoothly. This includes cleaning and untangling things from the sweeping brushes and main brush, keeping the water tank topped up, emptying the dustbin, and cleaning the mop cloth. Without regular maintenance, the ILife A10s can have considerably reduced cleaning efficiency. The app helps you keep track of the health of the consumable parts such as the brushes and filter, and these will also need periodic replacement.

ilife a10s review fitting out ILife  ILife A10s

Like all robot vacuum cleaners, the ILife A10s needs regular maintenance to work effectively

ILife A10s battery and charging

The ILife A10s has a 2,900mAh battery, with a claimed runtime of 80-100 minutes per charge. This was enough to both vacuum and mop my 900 square-foot home. It took around 90 minutes to complete both tasks when run one after the other. Although the app does not show the specific battery level of the device, it reported that the battery was almost empty after around 90 minutes of running.

From this point, the ILife A10s took around four hours to recharge fully. Charging is slow, but assuming you only need to run the robot once a day for vacuuming and mopping, this shouldn’t pose too much of a problem.

The docking station needs to be placed in an area that is easily accessible and visible to the ILife A10s. The device is able to drive itself back onto the dock, and is even able to use its generated map of your home to find the dock from a different room with no direct line of sight. Usefully, you can also plug the charger directly into the robot; this was necessary on a couple of occasions when the battery ran out completely and the robot was unable to start charging on the dock.

ilife a10s review main ILife  ILife A10s

Although laser navigation makes the A10s much smarter than its predecessor, it’s still not as smart as some of the competition

Verdict

ILife is an established brand when it comes to cleaning robots in India and across Asia, and the A10s is a decent option to consider for under Rs. 40,000. Laser navigation is a big advantage on this model over its predecessor, and this enables mapping, room-wise cleaning, the ability to set invisible boundaries and no-go zones, and much more. Usefully, the cleaning remains competent, as long as you’re willing to vacuum and mop in separate runs.

Although I did face some issues with navigation, my experience with the ILife A10s was pleasant on the whole, and I found that the effectiveness of its cleaning made up for these small shortcomings. That said, I found the overall user experience a lot better with options such as the 360 S7 and Mi Robot Vacuum Mop-P; the ILife A10s simply isn’t as ‘smart’ as the competition, even with the advantage of laser navigation.

Price: Rs. 34,900

Rating: 7/10

Pros:

  • Effective vacuuming and mopping
  • Remote is very useful
  • Laser navigation and mapping
  • Easy to use app

Cons:

  • Vacuuming and mopping have to be done separately
  • Minor navigation issues

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Microsoft Partners With Inworld to Bring AI Game Development Tools to Xbox

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Microsoft Partners With Inworld to Bring AI Game Development Tools to Xbox


Microsoft is teaming up with Inworld AI to create game development tools for Xbox, enabling developers to create characters, generate entire scripts and quests, and more. The multi-year deal brings an AI design copilot and an AI character runtime engine to the forefront, both of them being totally optional to use and to varying degrees. Of course, the use of AI in art has been criticised by many for simply lacking originality, in addition to running the risk of fewer jobs for artists — a growing fear among many considering the alarming number of layoffs seen at game studios this year in an attempt to cut costs.

“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”

The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.

Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.

Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.


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BSNL Offers Free 4G SIM Upgrade: Here’s How to Get It

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BSNL Offers Free 4G SIM Upgrade: Here’s How to Get It


BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) is a state-owned telecommunication company in India. Earlier this year in May, the government said that the firm started rolling out 4G services in the country. By December, the networks were said to be upgraded to 5G. However, at the India Mobile Congress, BSNL chairman P K Purwar said that the company will launch 4G services in December and then roll it across the country by June 2024. The chairman added that the 5G upgrades will take place after June next year.

In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.

To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.

Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.

The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.


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Realme GT 5 Pro Teased to Feature 3,000 Nits Display; More Details Revealed

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Realme GT 5 Pro Teased to Feature 3,000 Nits Display; More Details Revealed


Realme GT 5 Pro’s launch date is not far away. The Chinese smartphone brand on Tuesday (November 7) confirmed the arrival of the new GT series smartphone in its home country. The Realme GT 5 Pro is teased to come with a display with over 3000 nits of peak brightness. It is also confirmed to pack a larger heat dissipation area for thermal management. The handset will ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come as a successor to the Realme GT 5 that debuted in China in August.

Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.

The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.

For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.

The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.


The Motorola Edge 40 recently made its debut in the country as the successor to the Edge 30 that was launched last year. Should you buy this phone instead of the Nothing Phone 1 or the Realme Pro+? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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