iLife A6 - Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Category: Consumer Electronics Reviews / Technical Reviews / AliExpress Product Reviews;

Author: kirich ;

Published: 24-06-2017, 15:20

Not long ago, I published a review of the iLife A4 vacuum cleaner, and I also mentioned then that it was already an outdated model that had been sent to me by mistake, since the A4S had replaced it. This time, though, I'm reviewing a genuinely new model, albeit one in a slightly higher class: the iLife A6.

To be honest, I've already gotten a little confused by the naming of this vacuum cleaner lineup, so I think of the A6 simply as an updated, more advanced version of the A4. That's why, in this review, I'll compare the two models both externally and, more importantly, internally—especially since I pointed out a few shortcomings last time.

The packaging is “double-layered”: a shipping box contains the box with the vacuum cleaner and its accessories. The packaging is sturdy, so I think it would be difficult to damage in transit, though anything is possible if you really try...

Everything inside is packed into compartments and covered with an additional molded cardboard insert. In any case, I had no complaints about the packaging last time either. As far as I know, the company has a warehouse in Russia and promises fast delivery; customers in other countries will have to order from China.

This time, the package contents are a little more extensive. As I understand it, this is partly what distinguishes the A6 from the A4. I've highlighted the items that are different.
The package includes:
1. Two spare brushes
2. Power adapter
3. Charging dock
4. Spare filter
5. Remote control
6. AAA batteries
7. Brush
8. Manual
9. Quick-start guide
10. AA batteries
11. “Virtual wall”
12. Spare brush

The manual and quick-start guide. The manual is a genuinely thick book.

Here's a small drawback. I have no complaints about the manual itself: everything is explained in considerable detail and in clear Russian. But the quick-start guide doesn't include Russian at all. How that happened is a mystery. Consider this a small hint to the manufacturer that it would be nice to translate this too.

A pair of spare brushes, a filter, and a brush for cleaning the filter and dustbin. No changes here.

The remote control runs on two AAA batteries. As with the previous model, it uses a pair of LEDs rather than one to increase its operating range.
Although the remote looks different, it's almost identical in practice. The only differences are the color and icons; the functions and button layout are the same.

Since the controls are no different, I'll simply quote what I wrote in my A4 review.

The top of the remote has an LCD that displays the scheduled start time and the current time.
Below it are three navigation buttons for setting the time, and a MAX button that activates increased suction power. This mode is recommended for carpets and other floor coverings.
The center button starts automatic cleaning. In this mode, the vacuum cleaner moves around the room in a mostly random pattern.
The Plan and Clock buttons set the scheduled start time and the current time, respectively.
The three buttons at the bottom activate spot cleaning, automatic return to the charging dock, and edge cleaning around the room.

There is a "small room" mode for cleaning small spaces or individual rooms. It is activated by pressing the Work button twice. In this mode, the vacuum alternates between perimeter and automatic cleaning.
Small rooms usually have lots of furniture and little open space, so perimeter cleaning takes priority. In a large room, it’s usually the other way around, and choosing this mode would make cleaning inefficient.

The remotes are fully interchangeable.

The store page also offers an image with explanations.

If the power supply is also identical to the A4 model, the brush is radically different. I wouldn’t even call it a brush. To me, a brush has bristles, whereas this is the same roller, but with rubber strips instead of bristles.
The rubber strips are different heights, alternating high-low and so on. By the way, last time there was no spare brush included; this time there is, so that’s another difference.

The charging base stands out just by its appearance: it’s two-tone (black/white) and noticeably larger.

Here it is next to the A4 charging base for comparison.

Last time I complained about a mark from the injection-molding machine on top of the charging base, right in the most visible spot. There’s no such flaw here; everything is very neat. The LED simply indicates that the base is connected to the mains.

The power supply jack is at the back, with cable-routing grooves on both the left and right sides.

The cable can be routed through the groove and brought out on either side, so the base can sit flush against a wall.
There are also rubber feet and several screws on the bottom. I later removed them to see what was inside.

Inside, as expected, we find the same internals as last time. As I wrote, the vacuum uses the IR signal emitted by the charging base and, "seeing" it, crawls over to charge :)
Unlike last time, taking it apart was no problem: remove the four screws on the bottom and the cover comes off. If you’re curious, you can see how it works without worrying about breaking anything.

This device is called a "virtual wall." It wasn’t included with the A4 either. Its job is to keep the vacuum out of places it shouldn’t go. Personally, I find it convenient to keep the vacuum within a single room: I just close the doors so it doesn’t wander out and set off on a tour of the whole apartment. But there are two drawbacks.
1. If it’s working behind a closed door and the door opens inward, you could hit it with the door. This has already happened.
2. Not every opening has a door. For example, my living room just has an opening about 1.5 meters wide. Through it, you can get to the hallway, and from there to the kitchen, which also has no door. Last time, I simply put a box with a tripod in the passage. I tried using an empty box, but the vacuum just pushes it aside.

In this case, place this little box in the opening, and the vacuum won’t go beyond the "protected" passage.
As with the remote, a pair of batteries is included, but these are AA size.
One side is slightly cut away, revealing the emitter opening. This side should face the passage.
There’s an activity LED and a switch on top. The working and non-working zones are also marked on top, but experiments showed that this doesn’t always work as intended: sometimes the "wall" blocks the vacuum in both directions.
The battery compartment cover is on the bottom. The device draws very little power: 7 mA when switched on, but after a few seconds the draw drops to 1.5 mA, only briefly rising to 7 mA from time to time. The LED on top lights up in sync with this.

It’s very easy to take apart: one screw holds the bottom cover, and three more hold the circuit board.

Inside, the design is somewhat similar to the charging station’s circuit board, but with just two beams (the base has three): a directional one and a circular one.

As with the base, the circular beam is generated by a circular mirror. It prevents the vacuum’s control system from knocking the device over. The directional beam tells the vacuum that it must not cross this area.

Finally, we’ve made it to the vacuum itself. Externally, it has the same design: a large round puck, but this time the housing is black.
There’s a protective shipping film on top, but no clips holding the “bumper” in place, although it looks like the box wasn’t opened in transit.

For a better idea of the difference, here’s a comparison photo of the two models.
The advertised housing height was 2.8 inches, or 71 mm; I measured about 69 mm.

As before, the device has an extremely minimalist design: nothing unnecessary, just a couple of labels and a button.

The button also has an LED indicating the operating mode, and its behavior is exactly the same as that of its younger “sibling.”

The button lights up in three colors:
Solid green — operating, or fully charged when docked.
Flashing green — standby mode
Solid yellow — automatic “parking.”
Flashing yellow — charging
Red — error.

Pressing the button once turns the device on, taking it from the off state to standby; pressing it again starts the room-cleaning mode.

And just like on the A4, the LED pulses in a “breathing” pattern, gradually brightening and then fading out.

The description and advertising say that the top is made of tempered glass. I can't say whether it's tempered, but the fact that the top is almost like a mirror is undeniable. And given its black color, I wouldn't recommend touching it with your hands—the fingerprints will be 100% visible.

As before, the charging port and a physical power switch are on the right side.
On the left, though, I found what I mentioned in my A4 review. Back then, I wrote that the turbine blows air toward the left wheel and thought that was a bad design. On this model, there are special slots in the side of the housing for the air outlet.
A quick note about left and right. I usually consider the right side to be the one on my right when I'm standing behind the device, as with a car. But here, everything is labeled as if you're looking at the device from the front. It doesn't really matter, though, since all the parts that differ between left and right are marked, and there are markings on the housing too.

The dust and debris container is at the back of the housing. There's a release button on top of the container. It comes out very easily and conveniently, though I had no complaints about it last time either.

But that's where the similarities end; the rest of the container has been changed quite a bit.
For starters, it has an extra roller. I suspect it's there to reduce sliding when cleaning a carpet, though I could be wrong.

Other parts have changed too: there's now a special door for removing the filter.

Last time, I wrote that I didn't like how dust could accidentally spill out of the container. Here, the opening is smaller, so there's less chance of spilling dust. But last time, I could simply open the container like a book to clean it; now, only a small section opens. It opens easily, I won't argue with that, and a pair of magnets keeps the lid from opening accidentally. But in my opinion, it's less convenient to use now, since cleaning the container has become harder too.

Let's turn the device over and take a closer look at how it's built.

I'll show the image from the store page again here. It explains where the dust travels and how it gets into the container.

As I mentioned, the brush has a completely different design, using rubber instead of bristles. In theory, this design should pick up less hair and thread, making it better suited to carpets, especially those with long pile. As for the first point, yes, it does pick up less hair. I can't say much about carpets, though—we don't have any long-pile carpets at home. We have one with short pile, but even that one is rolled up.
After running the vacuum around the house on linoleum, tile, and laminate, I got the impression that the previous version worked a little better on smooth surfaces. But if there was a difference, it was barely noticeable.

The “brush” is covered on top by the same frame as on the A4.

But the brushes on the A4 and A6 are very different. In principle, you could try modifying one to replace the other, but it's quite inconvenient.
There's a square fitting on the drive side, so no issues there. On the opposite side, though, there's a round rubber piece that spins freely; there's probably a bearing inside. I think you could try cutting the round end into a square like on the A4, but I'm not 100% sure.

What surprised me, though, is that the new “brush” is soft all the way through—you can even bend it without any trouble.

The installation mechanism is the same as on the A4, but the “brush” is a little easier to install and remove.

The drive wheels have the same large diameter as on the A4, but the tread is noticeably smaller—probably about three times smaller. I didn't notice any difference in use at all.

At the front is a swivel caster wheel, made black and white so the automation can track how far the vacuum has traveled.

The wheel is removable so it can be cleaned periodically to remove accumulated dust, since there's an optical sensor inside. Be careful—the wheel axle can easily fall out and roll away somewhere.

There are two brushes at the front, marked R and L because they are different. The same markings are on the device housing.

As far as I can tell, several vacuum cleaners from this company use the same battery, and, as before, it connects via a plug. In this version, however, the connector is also covered with a sleeve, presumably for extra protection.
Judging by the battery markings, it contains four cells connected in series: UR18650ZT, made by Panasonic or Sanyo.

The stated capacity of the cells is 2600 mAh, and the battery pack's capacity is 38.5 Wh. Although I measured its capacity last time, I decided to repeat the test anyway.

As before, the measured capacity was slightly below the stated value. This is usually because the cells are connected in series, and discharge stops when the most depleted cell reaches its limit. The measured capacity was 2463 mAh, compared with the stated 2650.

Let's keep taking it apart.
As before, the next step was to remove the drive wheels, but, just like last time, it turned out that they couldn't be removed without taking off part of the "bumper." The difference is that last time the part in the way was split into two halves, while here the whole thing has to come off. In my opinion, that's a design flaw, since you might need to remove the wheels—for example, to clean them.

Apart from the "tread," I found no differences in this assembly.

The same motors with tachometers are used. I have no complaints about the build quality; everything is fitted quite neatly and precisely.

Once you've unscrewed the lower part of the bumper to remove the wheels, the rest is easy: just lift the main part out.

When I took it apart, I fully expected to find the same board as in the A4, with 20 IR LEDs. But the manufacturer changed the design, and there are now two fewer LEDs. I also found a pair of ICs on top. I didn't remove the board completely last time, so I assume they were on the other side.
In my opinion, this assembly could have been standardized too, but the designers thought otherwise.

There are two photodetectors inside the bumper. The vacuum uses them to find the charging dock, and they also detect the presence of a "virtual wall."
There are also several other sensors. The ones marked in red protect the vacuum from falling down stairs. They work by detecting reflections from the surface, and in some situations can prevent the vacuum from operating on black surfaces.
The sensors marked in blue detect impacts when the vacuum hits something with its bumper.
I marked the "heading" sensor in green. It prevents head-on collisions with obstacles and is also used for alignment, helping the vacuum approach the charging dock more precisely.
I assume this last sensor is also used to identify the type of obstacle, since the vacuum goes around furniture legs in a circle.

As I continued disassembling it, I also found that the cable connecting the two halves of the housing is short. To avoid breaking it, disconnect the plug first.

The button has a slightly different design: the board is enclosed in plastic. You can see in this photo how taut the connecting wires have become.

Overall, the design looks no different from the A4, except for one thing: the board is covered by a plastic shield. This was most likely done to protect it from dust. In my opinion, it's a very useful improvement.

The shield is secured with the same self-tapping screws as the board.

With the protective shield removed, we can access the circuit board with its electronics. At first glance, everything is exactly the same as on the A4, at least in broad strokes.

The power section is laid out a little differently, but it still includes a charger, voltage regulators, and a switch for controlling the brush motor.

A slightly different microcontroller is used: an STM32F091 instead of an STM32F071, though it’s still the same ARM Cortex-M0. And, just like last time, I found the same simple operating logic.
I’m generally surprised to see a fairly powerful 32-bit processor paired with such simple control logic. The device obviously has a lot of sensors and motors, but essentially it just wanders around the floor in an almost random pattern. For such a powerful processor, that’s “not much to write home about.”

But there is one fairly significant difference. Last time, readers wrote to me that the vacuum had some problems with the motor control circuit for the front brushes. I don’t know what causes the switching transistors to fail, since everything is still working fine on mine, but in this version the manufacturer replaced the previous bipolar transistors with more powerful MOSFETs. Well, I hope this was done in response to the reported problems, which simply haven’t shown up on my unit.

Just a few photos “just in case.”
1. Driver for one of the drive wheels.
2. Transistor controlling the second front-brush drive motor.
3. Driver for the second drive motor.
4. The charger, voltage regulator, and main brush motor control section.

What I really like is the quality of both the assembly and the overall design: all the wiring uses connectors. As I said last time, the device feels like a branded product, at least in terms of its appearance and construction.

The front brush motors are exactly the same as in the smaller model.

As before, there’s a second pair of photodetectors at the back. They help the device find the charging dock and probably detect the “virtual wall.”

As I mentioned near the beginning, air from the turbine is now expelled through the side rather than near one of the drive wheels. In my opinion, this is a better solution, as I said in my previous review.
The photo shows the old and new designs. In terms of airflow resistance, the new version is worse because there’s a narrow section along the airflow path. But it’s better at reducing the amount of dust around the wheel. In other words, reliability has improved, but efficiency has dropped slightly.

Let’s take out the turbine. When I saw the mesh, I got curious and checked how it was done in the A4 version—and noticed a few more differences. The protective mesh is now metal, with smaller openings, but there are more of them. I didn’t even notice this protective element last time.

The turbine looks exactly like the one in the A4, which could be useful if it ever needs replacing. But failure is unlikely, since it uses a brushless motor (or at least a control board) from Nidec. This is a large Japanese company that makes various kinds of electronics, including products for industrial use.
In any case, it’s a very powerful and fairly reliable solution.

The main brush drive motor is exactly the same as in the A4: nothing unusual, just a standard brushed motor. Although at first I thought it was a little longer.

The external and internal inspection is done, so now we can move on to the tests. Though there isn’t much to test here, since the differences from the previous version aren’t very significant. More precisely, there’s only one difference when it comes to cleaning: the brush has a different design.

Here’s the “test course” I set up. I used dust from the bin, flour, powdered sugar, rice, buckwheat, small pasta, and shredded paper.
Obviously, you’re unlikely to encounter such a variety in real life, but a test is a test.
I marked off a small “pen,” part of which is blocked off by a “virtual wall.” During the test, I had to move the “wall” a little farther to the right, because the beam reflecting off the box made it impossible to get close to the right corner.

I was most worried that it wouldn’t pick up the flour and powdered sugar.

The left and right corners.

Video of the test.

The test showed that:
1. It picked up the flour and powdered sugar, although I wouldn’t say it was easy.
2. The rice ended up not only behind the “virtual wall”—one grain even landed on the vacuum cleaner.
3. If it can push debris behind the “virtual wall,” it will.
4. Paper causes a lot of problems: it’s flat and “sticks” to the floor.
5. It cleaned the left corner without any trouble, but the right one was beyond it. The problem may be that it moves clockwise. It should clean the corner just fine if there are baseboards, though. In any case, I’d recommend that the developers reverse its direction of travel after a while.

It did a good job picking up the flour and powdered sugar.

The left corner is practically clean, but it just couldn’t manage the right one. As I mentioned above, at first the “virtual wall” seemed to be in the way. After I moved it, things improved, but it still wasn’t quite right.

This rascal scattered the rice and vermicelli all over the room :) More precisely, behind the “wall.”

A short video showing:
0.00-1.07 - spot cleaning.
1.07-3.09 - edge cleaning
3.09-4.04 - automatic mode at minimum power.
4.04-5.15 - automatic mode at maximum power.
5.15-6.32 - returning to the dock
6.32-7.24 - returning to the dock over an obstacle: 10 mm OSB, then 18 mm particleboard.
7.24-7.58 - 18 mm particleboard
7.58-8.40 - 10 mm OSB + 2 mm shim, 12 mm total.

So, what’s the verdict? First, here are the differences between the A4 and A6.
1. A “virtual wall” is included.
2. Spare brush.
3. Additional protection for the circuit board.
4. The brush motor control circuitry has been improved.
5. The dustbin design has been changed.
6. Air is vented through the side rather than near the wheel.
7. The appearance has changed.
8. Minor “cosmetic” changes.
9. Mini room mode.

Now, a little more detail.
The rubber brush really doesn’t wind up threads and hair, so it’s a much better choice for pet owners, especially those with long-haired pets. In terms of cleaning performance, the familiar bristle brush is better. On completely smooth surfaces, the difference isn’t very noticeable, but on textured surfaces the bristle brush gets the job done faster. In my opinion, the manufacturer should have included a bristle brush as the spare.
The “virtual wall” is genuinely useful. It uses very little power, works over a good distance (2–2.5 meters for sure), and doesn’t block the way. It’s described as one-way, but mine sometimes blocked the robot in both directions—possibly by accident.
The operating algorithm is the same as before: pseudo-random movement. It will cover some spots once and others five times.
The corner test showed that automatic direction reversal would be useful.
It handles dust and light debris very well. Hard, slippery items (like rice) will fly all over the floor, although it will eventually pick them up too. Ordinary finely chopped paper proved quite difficult to clean up. I later tested the bristle brush specifically, and it picks up the paper better.
I noticed that the manufacturer is keeping an eye on the product: they changed the motor control circuitry, added a protective cover over the board, and revised the design. That deserves a plus. If only they’d polish the software, it would be hard to beat. There’s a Mini room mode, but it’s only suitable for very small rooms. In this mode, the robot alternates between automatic cleaning and cleaning along the perimeter.
I have almost no complaints about the appearance. It looks nice and understated, but it shows dirt very easily—very easily.

In any case, devices like this are meant to help keep things clean, not to do the main cleaning. And they’re no substitute for wet mopping, either.

That’s all. The vacuum cleaner currently costs around $250. I think that’s because it’s a new model, but the manager said the store is planning big discounts on this model, as well as the V3S Pro and A4s, from June 29 to 30. There’s also some kind of contest on VK. If anyone’s interested, I can share the link. VK is blocked where I am, so I can’t check it.

I hope you found the review useful. As always, I’ll be happy to answer your questions.

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