The Matic Robot Vacuum Charms and Sucks (in a Good Way)

I can recall my first experience using a robot vacuum. Can you recall yours? It was one of the first Roombas made by iRobot. Watching this large black disc spin noisily around, crashing into furniture and walls before darting off in seemingly random directions like a hockey puck slapped carelessly across the ice, had me completely enthralled. In some ways, its awkward chaos made it endearing, even though it wasn’t very good at its job.

Nowadays, most robot vacuums lack any charm. Indeed, the majority of them are extremely dull. Don’t get me wrong, having them can be pleasant. However, it appears that manufacturers have decided to ignore the R2-D2 of everything in their attempt to make their products Very Serious Appliances. Anyone can speculate as to why, but I believe it’s either because they haven’t thought of a humorous way to make a robot vacuum or because they want their products to be perceived as high-tech innovation. Or perhaps having a good time is just really difficult.

For whatever reason, it has brought us to this point where robot vacuums all have a similar appearance: the early models’ amiable, rounded curves have been replaced by harsher edges and a sheer, flat design. Unlike my roving Roomba of the past, many have sensor clusters protruding from the top so they truly know where they’re going. Additionally, they have robotic components that enable them to reach more locations, are smarter, and are less likely to become stuck beneath your couch. (Observe the new Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller’s periscope-like sensor cluster or the autonomous lifting wheels from the Roborock Saros 10R. Additionally, in recent years, their docks have evolved into much more than just a location to refuel and possibly empty trash cans; they can now replace mopping solutions and even clean the robots’ own parts.

The issue is that far too many of them are still terrible at simple cleaning duties. They are still susceptible to being disabled by misplaced trinkets, leaving visible trash on carpets, or forming a moat of dirt around the edge of rugs, though some are better than others. Although their automated docks are impressive, they make noise all the time. For many of these businesses, “better” equates to “busier and more complicated.”. “”.

Enter Matic, a company founded by former Nest engineers who wanted to develop a robot vacuum, also known as the Matic, that could “mimic human perception and self-learning through cameras and Neural Networks” to clean more like a human. The Matic operates locally, without requiring a cloud connection. Since then, the home robotics company has released a product that is more expensive than most of its rivals but better in terms of both appearance and functionality. However, it does so with a captivating charm that I haven’t seen in a device in a long time.

From the very first moment, the Matic is a spectacle. Starting with the shipping box, you can see the Matic sitting on a small cardboard platform with a flop-down ramp by releasing four tabs on the bottom of the packaging and lifting the top instead of cutting through packing tape and removing a device wrapped in plastic and hugged by Styrofoam. In addition to not being zip-tied or secured in any manner, it removes itself from the platform when you long-press the start button on top. A message that reads (in my case), “Hello, Davis Family,” is displayed next to the button. It is festooned with digital balloons and ticker tape. It has the feel of a phony robot created for a near-future television program in the early 2010s.

The top part of the box contains spare parts, such as dust bags and an additional mop roller. With a tiny 3D-printed Matic robot vacuum key chain, a sticker sheet featuring dog ears and a name tag (my child decided to call it “Martie”), a pair of googly eyes, and a set of friggin’ Legos with building instructions, Matic also gives you a love bomb. Not all Matic deliveries include the Lego kit; Mehul Nariyawala, the CEO of Matic, told me in an interview that while the company had included them with early orders, it was difficult to obtain the individual pieces at scale because it had to special order some. However, this was a fun little build, so I believe the company should give it a shot.

As soon as you look at the Matic, it captivates you. Instead of being a huge, squat hockey puck, the Matic is 7:8 inches tall with a curvy, blocky cuboid body. Although I kept thinking it looked more like M-O, a black-and-white floor-cleaning robot who defies its programming by deviating from its predetermined course because of its obsession with cleaning Wall-E’s filth, the obvious comparison is Pixar’s Wall-E.

Because of this, the Matic has a distinct cartoonish face, consisting of two RGB cameras on top and a cleaning head that resembles a broom with a mustache underneath (the part that has the brush and mop rollers). When in mopping mode, it drives backwards and displays a face in the form of two additional cameras above an air vent, which gives it a smile reminiscent of Wallace and Gromit. These four cameras, a fifth mounted on top, and a number of infrared sensors positioned throughout the body are used by the Matic to map and navigate its environment, as well as to recognize and steer clear of obstacles.

When you send it off on an initial mapping run, which I can only characterize as delightful, the Matic’s endearing cartoonishness continues. Unlike most vacuums, it does more than just creep around your house, gradually assessing boundaries and creating a virtual layout. Rather, it seems to run with excitement from one location to another, stopping occasionally for fanciful pirouettes. Like any other robot vacuum, it is gathering data, but when it sees every inch of its new home, it feels like a Pixar character. It’s a fantastic example of design excess that’s difficult to avoid.

The result of the mapping process is what might be the best robot vacuum map available. By stitching together images of your flooring, the Matic app produces a full-color image instead of representing the layout of your house as a collection of generic rectangles. The robot is too short to see the tops of the furniture, but it’s nearly what it would look like if a giant lifted my roof and took a picture of my house—which again just reminds me of cartoons. The map can be tilted and rotated, and the robot can be moved with an onscreen joystick, just like in a mobile game. The map accurately depicts the details you see in real life, making it simple to locate the Matic and guide it to the exact location you desire.

All of this is very helpful in the event that the Matic becomes stuck, which is something that this robot is known to do, though maybe not as frequently as other robot vacuums. To force it out of a difficult situation, you can switch it to remote control mode. Even though I couldn’t see it in person, I was still able to drive it around and be fairly certain that I wouldn’t bump into any walls despite the slight lag between your action and the robot’s.

Is the intricate depiction of my house on this map a little unsettling reminder that I’m letting a tiny mobile camera roam your home? Definitely. However, by being nearly self-contained and only needing an internet connection for software updates, Matic has positioned itself in a unique way to get away with that. To train the models that power their object avoidance features, other robot vacuum manufacturers, such as iRobot, may request that you send them images taken inside your house. In contrast, the Matic uses an Nvidia Orin Jetson Nano, a tiny computer designed for artificial intelligence and robotics, to manage navigation and object recognition within the device.

Although it is easier to control the Matic when you connect it to your home Wi-Fi network, the company does not penalize you for using Bluetooth. You might not notice the difference unless a software bug that kills robots appears, aside from not receiving software updates. At least in my very old house, which has wireless signal-crushing plaster-and-lathe walls, the app functions exactly the same over Bluetooth; it’s just a little slower and the connection becomes shaky from one room to the next and nonexistent anything further. If you prefer the robot’s current functionality and don’t mind that it won’t receive software updates, you can simply program the Matic to run on a schedule, unplug it from Wi-Fi, and then permanently remove the app.

You also get enough information from the top-mounted display to almost always understand what it’s doing or why it might be stuck. Additionally, you won’t ever have to worry about the Matic gathering and calling home with photos of you on the toilet that are later posted on Facebook. We’ll talk about that soon. Matic, the company, might fail, and this robot might continue to function and be helpful for as long as its components permit, which, to be fair, wouldn’t be long if the vacuum bags were no longer available.

My vacuuming skills are inferior to the Matic’s.

Well, so it’s a cute little Wall-E with interesting maps. It makes no difference at all if the Matic’s cleaning performance is no better than that of so many other robot vacuums. Luckily, it works really well; I use my Roomba J7 every night, and even in that case, the Matic collected enough hair and dust in a single testing day to fill its dust bag, which Nariyawala informed me has a 1-liter capacity. After that first day, I ran nightly and cleaned a spot or two a day for two weeks, going through about a bag every week. Compared to when I used my Roomba J7 or Eufy L35 Hybrid, my carpets and hard floors felt cleaner and more comfortable to walk on.

The Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller and the Ecovacs Deebot X11, two of its priciest recent rivals, promise 30,000 Pa and 19,500 Pa, respectively, while the Matic requires only 3,200 Pa of suction to achieve this. Its chunkier fins on the roller brush, which dig deeper into your carpet and are angled so that hair and string are shunted to the side rather than wrapping around the roller, are partly to blame for that. It could also have to do with the way it cleans; instead of just clumsily moving in rows across a room and avoiding furniture as needed, like my Roomba J7 or Eufy L35 Hybrid, it seems to recognize when it has missed something and frequently returns to try again from different directions. Here, I remembered Wall-E’s M-O deviating from its intended path once more. ).

Although it can hesitate if there are objects too close to either side, the Matic even docks well, moving smoothly over its metal charging contacts. (Matic advises having a foot of space above and next to the dock. Additionally, it’s quiet—Matic settings it for vacuuming at 55 dB, which is about the volume of a typical human voice—but it’s still noisy if something too large to be easily sucked into the vacuum tube gets inside the cleaning head and bangs around inside until it’s eventually sucked up or ejected.

The Matic has great vision-based object avoidance; it never runs into furniture or walls. In fact, it can turn with such close clearance that I once thought, “Ah ha! This time it will smack that wall,” but I was proven wrong. It does a good job of ignoring objects that it shouldn’t be suckling up; I never once saw it pulling a blanket or a dangling USB-C cable. It’s almost gentle when it comes to living things, slowing down if it sees a dog or a person in its path and either avoiding them or simply stopping and patiently waiting for the path to clear. However, if you jam your foot directly in front of it while it’s rolling, it can still run into you.

However, the Matic’s ability to avoid objects isn’t flawless; it will still grab small objects like Lego bricks and hair ties while avoiding larger pieces of paper. Additionally, it became stuck once when the cleaning head jammed the handle of a foldable cloth laundry basket that had been left flat on the floor of our living room. But I wasn’t taking extra precautions to prevent those kinds of jams from occurring because they weren’t common.

Many older mop-bots that merely smear plain water across your floor are inferior to the Matic when it comes to mopping. Although Matic only recommends Aunt Fannie’s floor-cleaning products, it does use one. Following several planned cleanings, my floors feel and look better. With the Matic’s spot-cleaning feature, you can pay closer attention to fresh spills or dried stains by making several passes and driving more slowly over them. The ketchup I squirted all over the floor and the crusty stain I discovered beneath my kitchen trash can were both expertly cleaned by it. Don’t expect miracles, though, because it didn’t scratch the enigmatic substance that was adhered to the floor of my dining room. To the Matic’s credit, I was unable to remove it with my manual mop and I’m fairly certain the material was gum mixed with a little paint—did I mention I have a child?

A refill of a water tank can cover roughly 1,300 square feet of floor space, according to Matic. Although I only have 100 to 200 square feet of moppable surface in my house, I would say that it came close to that during my testing period’s multiple scheduled and sporadic mopping runs. When the water runs out, you can set the Matic to wait by your kitchen sink—or really, anywhere—which I think is both cute and practical. If assistance is not provided within 15 minutes, the device docks itself and the app alerts you when it is thirsty.

There is always room for improvement.

The company wanted to create a vacuuming robot that would be identifiable if it were transported back in time to the 1960s, Nariyawala told me. It’s the correct instinct and a good idea. Specifically, its height allows for those large wheels that eliminate the need for high rugs or the bulky transition between my kitchen and dining area. Its sensors’ higher altitude allows them to remain clean for longer and provides the robot with more details about the objects it observes on the ground. According to Nariyawala, all of those elements were purposefully included in the design.

Nevertheless, there are drawbacks to those unconventional design decisions. First and foremost, unlike the majority of puck-shaped robots, the Matic’s height prevents it from navigating beneath furniture that is less than 12 inches off the ground. For the most part, that means it can’t clean beneath my chairs and couches like most people can. However, after a software update near the end of this review, it did begin to slide under one of my dining room chairs that is only marginally higher than its top. That’s a good trade-off, in my opinion, given how well it cleans everywhere else. Its boxy body cannot spin freely to pick up dirt in extremely small spaces if it does not have that tried-and-true circular shape. My circular robot vacuums, for example, are perfectly capable of cleaning a tiny nook next to my refrigerator, but the Matic won’t even try. The fact that it barely fits is probably due in part to its reluctance to touch furniture and walls.

Even though I really enjoy the Matic app, there is room for improvement in the cleaning history section. There were a few instances where the device stopped in the middle of cleaning, but I couldn’t pinpoint the cause. In one instance, my partner discovered a blob of yarn next to the Matic, preventing it from leaving its dock, where it had most likely paused to refuel in the middle of cleaning before proceeding. The app’s cleaning history stated that it hadn’t cleaned every room, but it didn’t explain why. My Roomba J7’s cleaning history may have told me that the device had stopped cleaning because it was stuck. Another time, I discovered the Matic motionless in the center of my dining room with the message “Paused” displayed on its display. If I had known that I hadn’t paused it and that everyone but my cat had been asleep when it began cleaning, I could have determined whether I needed to report a software bug or simply reprimand my cat. ).

Additionally, the Matic has no integration with smart homes. Although Nariyawala acknowledged that it is “at the bottom of the list,” she told me that the company is considering implementing that in the future. That primarily means that you won’t be able to use voice control or access automations that could integrate your other smart home devices, like shutting off the lights when the Matic is done cleaning (though it does a good job in the dark). Smart home integration doesn’t seem like it would add much, though, because the Matic robot vacuum and its app are so good and Matter’s vacuum support is so limited.

I think the Matic’s continuous expenses, especially those of its throwaway dust bags, are its biggest drawback. The 1-liter onboard one, which has an integrated HEPA filter and can hold both wet and dry materials, is convenient, and I do like it. That is more than twice as much as the plastic dustbin that comes with my Roomba. However, a 12-pack costs $36, and a four-pack costs $12 as well. I used it to clean about 900 square feet of my main floor every night, and according to the company, one bag should last about a week, depending on usage. In addition to the less frequent replacement of other wearable components like the mop, dust rollers, and side brush, going through a four-pack each month is nearly as expensive as an ad-supported streaming plan. Not to mention how much it costs to purchase the item.

In contrast, a three-pack of 3-liter dustbags for the Eufy Omni E28 only costs $16.99. When purchased at its retail price of $1,399.99, that robot is pricey; however, as I write this, Eufy is offering a $649.99 discount, making it more affordable than the $1,095 Matic.

At that point, it might depend on feelings whether the Matic is a better investment. Since I haven’t tested it, I can’t say, but the Omni E28 might clean just as well as the Matic. However, because of its highly automated multipurpose dock, it occupies a lot more room and is probably going to be a lot noisier in your house. On the other hand, if we’re not in the same room, I barely notice the Matic’s operation because it’s so quiet, easy to locate, and effective.

If you can afford it, it’s worth thinking about.

In my experience, the Matic is the best robot vacuum. Its amiable appearance and vibe are so popular in my home that my child now keeps the floor of his bedroom spotless so the Matic can vacuum it every night before bed. That alone, in my opinion, nearly justifies the $1,095 price tag.

The Matic provides excellent carpet cleaning, strong mopping capabilities, and a remarkably well-designed app for those who are prepared to spend that much money. If I have a robot that cleans everything else so well, I’m willing to clean under low furniture myself.

There’s also the fact that the Matic is designed for privacy and longevity, at least according to Nariyawala when we spoke. It is well-built, and it is a great advantage that it can function without an internet connection. The fact that most robot vacuums need the internet to function properly has always been one of my main complaints about them. However, Matic has demonstrated that this is not always the case; if you’re comfortable with the speed and range restrictions of a Bluetooth connection, your robot can function flawlessly without Wi-Fi.