Review of the Genio Deluxe 550 Pro robot vacuum cleaner with wet cleaning

The Genio Deluxe 550 Pro robot vacuum cleaner that arrived for testing belongs to the category of relatively simple models by modern standards. It lacks even a basic lidar sensor, which allows you to more accurately navigate in space. Such devices are becoming increasingly rare, and we have already forgotten how to work with them a little. However, it will be particularly interesting to compare the performance of this robot with the latest models equipped with both lidar and self-cleaning stations to evaluate differences in their operation and performance.

^* Contrary to popular belief, this is not the time limit after which the device will necessarily break down. However, after this period, the manufacturer ceases to bear any responsibility for its performance and has the right to refuse to repair it, even for a fee.

The Genio Deluxe 550 Pro robot vacuum cleaner was packaged in a double cardboard box. The outer box, made of technical (brown) cardboard, is designed to protect the main box from damage during transportation and storage.

The inner box, done in soothing gray-blue shades, contains a minimum of information on the front side, adhering to the minimalist style that designers clearly value.

To protect against damage and secure the contents, pressed cardboard forms and plastic bags are used. The box is equipped with a plastic handle, so it will not be difficult to carry your purchase home (however, in this case you will have to abandon the external protective box — you will have to choose what is more important).

Having opened the box, inside we found:

• the vacuum cleaner itself with an electric brush and a dust collector
• container for wet cleaning and spare rag
• two sets of side brushes
• spare napkin for wet cleaning
• spare HEPA filter and spare foam filter
• charging base
• base power adapter
• remote control
• knife brush for cleaning the device
• virtual wall
• manual
• warranty card
• promotional materials

Spare parts and consumables included in the package thus included a spare HEPA filter, a wet cleaning cloth and an additional set of side brushes. Very generous!

After unboxing, we noticed that our robot vacuum cleaner looked quite typical for devices in this price range. Despite the fact that Genio Deluxe 550 Pro belongs to the budget class, it has a decent appearance. The advantages include high-quality plastic, stylish design, as well as good quality materials and workmanship. The entire design feels solid, reliable and of high quality.

Let's look at the details in more detail.

At the top of the robot there is a glossy panel with a single control button equipped with LED backlighting, as well as an LED indicator for Wi-Fi connection. Directly below it is the Genio logo.

The design of the device is a classic design: the body is mounted on three wheels. Two of them serve as leaders, and one serves as a guide. Rubber treads on the drive wheels have a pronounced tread pattern that prevents slipping on smooth surfaces and improves maneuverability on carpeted surfaces.

The spring-loaded suspension has a travel of approximately 26-27 mm. The height of the robot in working position is about 75 mm. According to the developer, the robot must successfully overcome obstacles up to 2 cm high.

The front guide wheel is made of plastic and is placed in a plastic sphere, allowing 360° free rotation. If necessary, this wheel can be removed by grasping it, for example, with a screwdriver. On both sides of this wheel are contacts for charging on the base.

In the front part of the body there are special holes for attaching side brushes, and on the central and side parts there are windows for optical (infrared) surface sensors. The side brushes are divided into “right” and “left”, which is indicated by plastic elements of different colors. Installation of brushes occurs easily and effortlessly, until they click, into special holes.

The device comes with two pairs of side brushes, as well as a tool (knife brush) for cleaning the robot.

On the right side there is a mechanical switch to turn on the device. Nearby is a connector for connecting a power adapter, bypassing the base.

Alt panelin ortasında, V şeklinde sentetik kıl sıralarına sahip ana elektrikli fırça bulunur.

The electric brush is fixed inside the housing using a plastic frame with two latches. There are no devices to protect the brush from winding wires.

The left brush axis is inserted into the round hole of the bearing, and the right one into the quadrangular hole of the drive. This provides the only (correct) way to install the brush into the vacuum cleaner.

Next to the charging contacts on the base there is a battery compartment cover that is closed with two screws. Inside the power supply there is an assembly of four 18650 batteries. The nominal capacity of the battery (Typical Capacity) is 5200 mAh.

It is always worth noting the use of standard battery form factors to power the vacuum cleaner. This allows you to restore or replace the battery yourself if the model becomes obsolete or the manufacturer stops producing ready-made assemblies in the future.

On the front half of the side of the device there is a movable spring-loaded bumper with a stroke of about 3-4 mm.

Pressing this bumper activates the mechanical proximity sensors. Behind the protective glass of the bumper there are infrared sensors that allow the vacuum cleaner to detect obstacles, find the base and receive signals from the control panel. The rubber strip on the front of the bumper serves to absorb shock.

The robot does not have sensors on the back. There are air outlet grilles on the sides of the device.

The dust collector is installed at the rear and secured with a snap button.

The appearance and design of the dust collector turned out to be familiar to us: we have already seen such a solution.

Under the hinged cover of the module there is a coarse filter made of synthetic material, a foam filter and a HEPA filter. They are accessed through a small hatch with a hinged lid.

We believe that the solution with a dust container is quite successful and convenient for care and cleaning. However, it is worth noting the absence of a folding “curtain”, which prevents debris from falling out when transporting the container. Users need to be careful not to turn the container upside down to avoid spilling debris.

The wet cleaning container is also a standard item that comes as no surprise. It is fixed on the device body using a latch button. The top of the container has a rubber stopper that closes the hole for pouring water.

Hidden inside is a miniature pump that controls the flow rate of water to the napkin.

This is what a water container looks like installed in the robot body.

The upper part of the plastic base is made of IR transparent material, under which there are sensors responsible for positioning the robot when it returns to charge. The base also has an LED that indicates the battery is charging. The contacts on the base are provided with a spring system and have a stroke of about 3 mm. To prevent slipping, rubber pads are glued to the bottom of the base.

The cord length is 1.5 meters.

The infrared remote control runs on two AAA batteries. The device is equipped with a black and white screen, navigation keys and a number of additional buttons for selecting programs and modes. The buttons have a soft press. The remote control looks simple and is easy to use.

In the kit we also found a “virtual wall” — a strip that, when spread on the floor, can block the robot’s access to a certain area (for example, a staircase).

The user manual for the vacuum cleaner is a compact black and white brochure printed on high-quality matte paper. All information is presented in Russian, and the developer has composed as many as 35 pages of text and illustrations.

The instructions are standard and include the following sections: technical specifications, packaging, assembly and use, selection of operating modes and control, care of the device, as well as sections devoted to solving standard problems, etc.

As is customary among developers of robotic vacuum cleaners, all the necessary actions and procedures that will be encountered while using the device are illustrated with black and white images. This greatly simplifies the understanding of the rules of operation and care of the vacuum cleaner. Theoretically, almost everything can be understood «from pictures», but reading several pages of text will also be useful. This is especially important if this is your first robot vacuum cleaner and you have no experience in maintaining and using such devices.

The robot vacuum cleaner is controlled by a single button located on the top panel, which performs the function of starting/stopping the standard cleaning mode.

A nearby LED Wi-Fi indicator will help you understand whether the robot is connected to your home network and whether it can be controlled via the application.

The infrared remote control significantly expands the user's ability to control the device.

Using the remote control we can:

• enable and disable the device
• control the device manually
• start standard cleaning mode
• start spot cleaning mode
• start cleaning mode along the walls
• return the robot to the charging station
• set the time and set a scheduled cleaning schedule

Note that scheduled cleaning, configured using the remote control, will be performed daily, but the mobile application will allow you to set up more complex schedules, for example, by day of the week.

The device also has the ability to be controlled via a mobile application, provided that there is a Wi-Fi network in the house operating at a frequency of 2.4 GHz and a special Genio application installed on the smartphone.

For initial setup, you need to add the vacuum cleaner to the list of devices. To do this, you need to find the robot in the list of available devices, connect to the vacuum cleaner’s Wi-Fi network and transfer it information about your home network (name and password).

After the initial setup, the application does not require any additional actions (we were immediately offered to update the firmware to the most current version).

After the update is completed, the user has access to a variety of information and additional functions and settings. The main screen looks like this:

Here the user can view information about the last cleaning, such as the area cleaned and the time spent cleaning. You can also check the robot’s charge level, launch one of the standard cleaning modes, and also go to the “schedule” or “settings” sections.

This vacuum cleaner claims to have the function of building a map of the room. However, in practice, such capabilities may be questionable: devices without a lidar sensor that seek to create a map of a room often encounter difficulties. In the absence of this sensor, robots may have difficulty correctly determining their position and rotation angle, which leads to inaccurate construction of a map of the room. This can cause bias in the map and make it uninformative or unclear. As a result of cleaning, the vacuum cleaner may “move” to one of the corners, which makes the map unreadable and makes it difficult to identify the test room on it.

In the “Schedule” section, the application provides access to complex schedules (by day of the week), which can be turned on and off independently of each other.

In the «Settings» section you can adjust the water supply level (3 modes), select suction power (4 options), view the log of cleaning performed, and enable or disable voice notifications.

The initial setup went without any difficulties, all functions worked correctly right away. The functionality of the application turned out to be simple, but sufficient for convenient control of the robot.

Before using the vacuum cleaner, you must empty it of all packaging materials, including the porous rubber shipping pads that secure the bumper, and also remove advertising stickers from the body.

Install the side brushes in special places. Turn the vacuum cleaner upside down and install the brushes until they click.

Connect the base to the power adapter and place it so that there are no obstacles in the surroundings (on the sides — one meter away, in front — two meters away). Also make sure there are no mirrors or reflective surfaces near the base to avoid confusion with the vacuum cleaner.

It is recommended to fully charge the battery before first use. The vacuum cleaner's built-in software monitors the charge level and will send the device to the base before the charge drops to critically low levels in order to preserve the battery. It is recommended to spend at least 12 hours for the first charge.

Set the time on the remote control immediately after installing the batteries. Using the remote control, you can set a cleaning schedule once a day at a certain time. However, the device does not support different scenarios or operating modes when setting scheduled cleaning via the remote control. The developers emphasize that app control and remote control are not synchronized, so it is recommended to choose one control method and use it, preferably the app, to avoid confusion.

Our robot has several programs that can be launched depending on the tasks assigned.

• classic (main) program — standard mode
• spot (local spot cleaning) — for cleaning particularly contaminated areas
• perimeter cleaning — cleaning debris along the walls
• enable or disable wet cleaning
• control the robot manually

When turned on and in various operating scenarios, the vacuum cleaner uses sound signals and voice notifications. Voice messages are characterized by a pleasant female voice without noticeable accents or intonation features.

In automatic mode, the device moves with random turns when colliding with obstacles. It continues cleaning until the minimum charge level required to return to the charging base (about 10-15%). Under test conditions, the device successfully navigated and had no problems finding a charging base.

When cleaning with a damp cloth, the vacuum cleaner evenly moistens the surface, avoiding streaks and water droplets in accordance with the selected mode.

When you select the cleaning mode along the walls, the device goes around the room along the perimeter, and when local cleaning is activated, the vacuum cleaner cleans an area in a spiral with a diameter of about 1 meter.

The care and maintenance instructions for the robot vacuum cleaner are standard procedures typical for devices of this class.

The plastic parts of the device can be wiped with a damp but wrung-out cloth or soft cloth. It is recommended to empty the dust container after each cleaning, avoiding overfilling it. It is not recommended to wash the HEPA filter, and the manufacturer recommends replacing it every 3 months.

The water container does not require special cleaning (it is enough to pour out the remaining water before long-term storage), however, the cloth used for cleaning must be regularly removed and washed under running water or washed with detergent.

The central brush should be cleaned after each cleaning, especially removing long hair, wool or threads, as they can damage the brush motor.

The side brushes may also require cleaning and can be removed and wiped with a cloth dampened in warm water. It is also important to regularly check the side brush axles for trapped debris and remove it if necessary.

It is recommended to clean sensors and contacts with a dry soft cloth, avoiding mechanical impact.

After the first 10 minutes of operation, the robot vacuum cleaner walked around the perimeter of the test area several times, sometimes climbing into traps. When encountering obstacles, such as a computer system unit and a water pipe, it moved around them, however, it showed somewhat indivisible accuracy: the robot moved light objects without difficulty. Cleanup in the central area of the test site was somewhat incomplete. Overall, the result was satisfactory — 84.5% of the garbage was collected. We leave the next stages of testing to us to obtain a more complete picture of the operation of the robot vacuum cleaner.

During the second ten minutes, the vacuum cleaner continued to clean mainly along the walls, in some cases repeatedly passing through areas that had already been cleaned. When faced with obstacles, his actions turned out to be more energetic: a piece of pipe was moved to the corner of the test room. However, the area near the system unit (in the center of the test area) remained uncleaned. At the same time, the percentage of collected garbage increased by 4.4%.

The third ten-minute cleaning period ended ahead of schedule: after 6 minutes 45 seconds, the robot decided that the room was already clean enough and it was time to return to base.

Unfortunately, this time Genio spent almost all of its time cleaning along the walls, which had almost no effect on the overall quality of cleaning: less than 1% of garbage was collected.

Note that the result could have been significantly better if not for a small area in the center of the room, which the robot simply ignored. Obviously, problems with navigation had an impact: without a lidar sensor, the robot is forced to move largely chaotically, which can lead to such misunderstandings.

Well, if you look at the map, you will see that the robot is “swept” up and to the right, as a result of which it gets confused in the constructed map and cannot always correctly determine which areas have been removed and which have not yet been removed.

It is clear that with daily cleaning such problems will turn out to be less significant: today the robot passed by garbage here, tomorrow there, but on average it still turns out clean.

However, it is worth keeping in mind that with one-time cleaning, some areas may remain dusty.

The device, which is placed on the base after completion of work in automatic mode, is charged in approximately 4 hours. During charging, the base consumes up to 15 W, and in standby mode — less than 0.1 W.

In the first hour of charging, the device manages to be filled by 25%-30%, but then the charging speed decreases slightly (possibly due to an error in the automatic measurement of the remaining battery charge).

After 30 minutes of work in the test room, the robot’s battery, according to the mobile application, is discharged by approximately 20%.

The noise level in the standard mode in close proximity (at a distance of about 1 meter) from the vacuum cleaner reaches 54 dBA, and in the enhanced suction mode — up to 58 dBA. In the room, this noise is perceived as not too loud, a little quieter than the average robot vacuum cleaner.

In our full test, the Genio Deluxe 550 Pro performed well, but not perfectly. During the test, which was just under 30 minutes, it collected just under 90% of the test garbage. However, some of the debris remained in a small area that the vacuum cleaner for some reason decided to ignore.

The general conclusion about the Genio Deluxe 550 Pro should be formulated taking into account its characteristics and test results. This device, although not equipped with advanced features, showed good performance for a robot vacuum cleaner without a lidar sensor. However, with more diverse and smarter models on the market, the pricing for the Genio Deluxe 550 Pro may be a bit steep.

The purchase recommendation depends on personal preference and functionality requirements. If a more affordable price is important, it's worth looking at alternatives with more attractive features for the same money or a little more. If a simpler, more affordable model is the main factor, the Genio Deluxe 550 Pro may be a viable choice, despite some limitations in functionality.

Pros:

• decent quality garbage collection
• dry and wet cleaning
• Wi-Fi control
• convenient and high-quality application

Minuses:

• unable to draw a map of the room
• no lidar sensor