Gadget Guru: High-end robotic vacuum delivers

Once you prepare your house for vacuuming, there’s nothing for you to do to clean your floors and carpet except press a button.

From there, the Deebot R95 robotic vacuum cleaner ($549.99) takes over and does the work.

I own one of the other robotic vacuums, and while it does a good job, it often gets hung up in areas such as high carpet, tangled with cords or stuck between my kitchen table chairs.

The Deebot came with specific instructions on how to operate the first run. This included setting up a WiFi connection to its app, which works with the vacuum to set up a floor plan map using Smart Navi technology for an unobstructed course around the house.

Since the mapping had to be set up, the instructions suggested I followed the vacuum for the initial voyage to make sure it didn’t get stuck. You can start with the entire home or a few rooms and add more as wanted.

In the past, I thought it was cool to have a robot vacuum, but now – as Deebot said I would – I find myself opening the app to watch the map and see where the vacuum is working.

Why? Because I can.

The app lets users start and stop the vacuum from anywhere. If you have the Alexa voice assistant close by, you can ask her to start the cleaning.

The Deebot has left- and right-handed rotor brushes to get most everything in its way. A base is its home and charging station. If your vacuum road course isn’t completed before the battery runs out, it is smart enough to return to get a charge and then complete its chore. The run time is about 90 minutes before a charge is needed.

More: ecovacs.com

Headphones

Blue Microphone’s new Satellite wireless noise-canceling headphones ($399.99) are promoted as the first with a built-in amp along with two separate pairs of drivers.

I knew they were as great as advertised after a few seconds of listening. Moreover, they have a great modern look. So I went digging around to find out what makes the sound come to life.

According to Blue, the Satellite over-the-head headphones uses two separate drivers in each ear-cup. One is dedicated to high-fidelity audio and the other for noise-canceling.

The dual drivers allow the audio’s sound to stay at high-quality levels, while the noise-canceling technology removes unwanted noise.

Blue has built the headphones with an analog audiophile amplifier for hi-fi sound.

The Satellites have built-in rechargeable batteries, which are rated to last for 24 hours of straight wireless sound or eight hours of hi-fi sound using the active noise-canceling.

More: bluedesigns.com

This story was originally published September 13, 2017 at 1:41 PM with the headline "Gadget Guru: High-end robotic vacuum delivers."