Hey, I'm CNET's Ry Crist and right here is the Infinuvo Hovo 510.
This is a new robot vacuum from a Hong Kong manufacturer that produced one of our least favorite products last year, but this is their new offer to the robot vacuum world.
Is it any better?
Actually, yeah, it's quite a bit better.
The CleanMate QQ5, the robot vacuum we tested last year had a lot of just intrinsic problems with it.
The bin
was terrible.
You couldn't take it out without spilling stuff, not good, but this one has a much better bin.
It's not a perfect bin but compared to that bin, it is a great bin.
Also, this one is better at navigating.
It didn't fail our cliff test, and it just picks up stuff as well as you would expect from a budget-priced robot vacuum.
This one costs $239 on Amazon.
You could shop around, maybe get it for around $200.
I think that's a good price.
But let's take a look at how well it did in our tests.
As you can see, it does a really good job with small particles, things like rice,
and I tested popcorn in my apartment.
We tested sand and saw dust, all those things, it picked up very well.
It tested well on carpet, on short Berber-style carpet, on hardwood, all these surfaces got pretty good numbers.
I'd say better on hardwood than on the carpet, but still good, and good enough to rely on.
One weak spot though is pet hair.
The Infinuvo just didn't do a good job picking the stuff up.
It will get tangled in the brushes and not make it into the bin.
So all of those tests were pretty bad.
The Infinuvo also wasn't quite as intelligent as
some of the other robot vacuums that we've taken a look at, that it takes a little longer.
It kind of guesses about where it needs to go.
It will go over a lot of the same areas twice before it finds new stuff to pick up.
So, it's just not quite as efficient or smart, but if you leave it going, it will get the job done.
The Infinuvo comes with a remote control that is circular in shape.
You'll be able to steer the thing remotely yourself or set a time for it to go automatically, stop, start, whatever you need to do, all from the remote control right here.
The Infinuvo also comes with an invisible wall generator plus an extra filter and an extra brush.
I think you're gonna wanna have that extra brush handy because take a look at how the brush spins, it hits that wheel everytime it goes around, and so it's gonna wear down a little bit faster.
To me, that's a little bit of a design flaw.
I wished they hadn't done it quite like that.
The Infinuvo Hovo 510 is not as good a robot vacuum as the Neato Signature Pro or the Roomba 880, but it's also not as expensive a robot vacuum, and relative to the price, I think it's actually a pretty good value especially if you don't have pets and if you have hardwood floors.
For CNET, I'm Ry Crist.
