Y’all, I cannot wait to tell you about my new Tesvor X500 Robot Vacuum. His name is Trevor.

 

The Want

For a long time, I have dreamed about getting a robot vacuum. With having two cats and several chronic diseases that zap energy, the desire for a clean house is often much stronger than the ability to maintain a clean house.

Last Amazon Prime day, one of my friends was able to snag an amazing deal on his Neato Robotics Botvac D3 Pro App-Controlled Robot Vacuum. As I had neither the funds nor Amazon Prime, all I could do was sit back in envy as he sent me videos of this little creature keeping his apartment clean.

 

The Wait

These things are expensive. You can easily drop almost $2,000 on one, and still read pages on pages of negative reviews. It’s overwhelming. Though, I will admit some of the stories are highly entertaining.

Also, there used to be just one brand: The Roomba. As the technology has matured, multiple brands have entered the market. How did I settle on the Tesvor X500? Easy.

It was the cheapest one at the time I went to purchase it.

I had never heard of Tesvor before. Also, the only reason my robot is named Trevor is because when I saw the box, I misread it. Flip a few letters, and Tesvor becomes Trevor.

 

The Requirements

I knew I could get away with a “cheaper” model partly due to the layout of my home. The downstairs has absolutely no carpet and only two mats in the kitchen. I would not need to worry about changing of flooring or poor Trevor running off a cliff.

The following list represents my requirements.

1. Google Home Enabled
2. Ability to Pick up Pet Hair
3. Ability to Control with a Smart Phone Android App
4. Smart Mapping – not the Roomba random zig-zag
5. WiFi Enabled

The Tesvor X500 fit all of those requirements. And I was lucky, as their own product states, “The robot vacuum works best on Hardwood and Tiles, or on low-pile, light colored thin Carpets. Not Suitable for high-pile Carpet over 0.6 inch, dark colored Rugs and any Carpets with black strips or edges.”

I clicked purchase and then eagerly awaited for when Trevor would show up on my door step.

 

The First Use

The installation of the smartphone app was quick and the Tesvor X500 came with a charge straight out of the box. I immediately let Trevor loose. It is safe to say that the cats do not like their new friend.

To be fair, Trevor did decide to attempt to vacuum up one of their favorite cat toys that they had hidden underneath some furniture. Perhaps they wanted to keep it underneath the entertainment center forever and were frustrated when Trevor found it. This got him stuck, to which I had to rescue him.

 

The Second Use

One of the benefits of having a WiFi connected vacuum is the fact that I can start Trevor from anywhere. All I have to do is log into the app and click, “Start Clean.” I was showing this off to my coworkers and decided to start him during a meeting.

The app also allows me to periodically check in on Trevor and see how he is progressing. That is when I noticed a problem.

The Tesvor X500 is supposed to automatically dock when it has a low battery. Trevor had managed to get himself stuck in my downstairs bathroom. I watched this poor robot (via the app) bounce from wall to wall in that half bath, all while his battery continued to drain.

Sure enough after work, I found him exactly where I expected him to be. Trevor had a completely dead battery and was unable to open the door that he had managed to close. I carried his lifeless body back to the charging dock and made the mental note to be sure to shut that door if I was going to let Trevor roam free completely unsupervised.

 

Subsequent Uses

Trevor hasn’t really gotten stuck again since I removed the cat toys from the floor and shut the bathroom door. The cats still hate him. I set him to clean before I went out to run some errands. When I came back, he was still vacuuming. The Olive Thief felt the need to run up to me and voice his displeasure.

I have told both him and Glitch multiple times that Trevor is here to stay.

He does not vacuum fast. He takes about two hours to vacuum my entire downstairs, while I can sweep the same area in about twenty minutes.

But what Trevor does do is enable me to vacuum passively, which is much better than sweeping actively. I can click a button and have dust and cat hair removed.

That makes Trevor worth it.