I bought the Tenergy Otis TRV01 Robot Vacuum Cleaner off of Woot on March 18, 2019. It has taken time to figure out the quirks of this machine. So I’ve had a good solid 2 months of running this thing. Here are my tips:
- It sucks all the cords in the world. Get cord keepers. I bought a huge pack of some cheapy velcro ones on Amazon. But it does love to eat cords, so make sure they’re off the floor or behind something that keeps the vacuum from getting to them. This includes the cord to its own charge base.
- Furniture needs a 4" solid clearance for this thing to get under it and back out safely. It goes under one of my couches, but not the other. It can get under my bookshelf, but not back out, because it is 3.5" off of the floor.
- This is related to clearance too: It gets wedged under the weirdest things. Namely, the edge of my couch that is 3" off the floor. My office chair’s roller legs. The edge of my fridge. It can’t escape 70% of the time. It has a front sensor, but when it does the dime-turn-pivot thing, it wedges itself under things. If it had hit it head on, it wouldn’t have went under because of the little eye that is front and center.
- The cliff sensor is simultaneously smart but stupid. It won’t go over my cold air return vents on the floor because it senses them as a cliff. But it doesn’t sense my cliff off my stairs. Because there is a .25" threshold between my kitchen flooring and the start of the stairs. So it ramps up to go over the little threshold, but by the time it senses it is over a cliff, it has too much momentum to stop. I’ve come home several times to it sadly over the first step, stuck. I have to block this off every day while the vacuum runs. (see photo) But that does mean it can get over small thresholds fine.
- It is great at sucking up cat litter, cat food, cat fur, and human hair. But long human hair will rapidly wrap around the main spinning brush. It warned me after about 3 weeks that the main roller brush failed. I cleaned it out and it was nasty! I definitely would recommend doing that once a week if you have long hair. It is excellent for cutting down the tumblekittens (dust bunnies if you don’t have cats) and has made it so I am only getting out the big Dyson once a month rather than every week. I have hardwood floors and only 1 area rug (low pile) and it navigates them just fine.
- The main roller brush broke a little bit the 3rd time I cleaned it (crappy plastic parts!) but still works okay. But I can’t find replacement roller brushes (or for that matter wheels or the dust bin). I can only find the side brushes and HEPA filters. I can’t even find them on Tenergy’s website. I lost the little flappy thing on the dust bin probably 2 weeks into owning the thing. I think I emptied the dustpan out and it fell out with it. That’s gonna become a major concern really quickly as I’m already working on borrowed time with that main roller brush as it is.
- Definitely rinse the dustbin out once every month. And empty the dustbin after each vacuum. I’ve forgot once so it had two day’s work inside it, but it was very full. Totally needs emptied each time if you have two medium hair cats like me. And I have long hair too.
- The programming was easy and is in 24 hour time so you don’t mess up AM and PM. However, I noticed it lost the programming when I had a power outage once. That was annoying but not a complete pain to re-set the time and schedule. I actually like that this is NOT integrated to my Internet of Things (IOT) like Google Home. But I hear you can do it if you wanted to.
- Run this thing when you are home. I thought I could let it run when I wasn’t home, but I kept coming home to it wedged under something or it fell off the stairs and the battery was dead because it sat there all day waiting for you to come get it. It’s like a toddler who falls down and doesn’t know what to do. You have to be there to pick it up. I’ve found the best time to run it is when I am getting ready in the morning. The audio sensors yell out whenever it panics and you need to help it.
- The only thing that would make this get 5 out of 5 would be: Better drop sensors. Better side sensors so it doesn’t get wedged. An actual place to buy replacement parts.
TL;DR
It’s great for daily vacuuming for a household with cats and hardwood floors. It relieved me from daily cleaning duty. It has some quirks that you have to learn by watching it the first few times. It really really needs to have a place to get replacement parts.
In my picture, it has wrecked my little shoe holder. The cling wrap stuff is still on the top part of the vacuum too.
Whoa, great review. Thank you for taking the time to do that!
I bought mine in March of 2019. I emailed Tenergy directly (number on their website) and was given a replacement main roller brush once before. Well, its broken again. You can tell when the thing starts to sound like a lawn mower. The main roller brush seems to break pretty easily. It consistently fails at the plastic square peg that keeps it held in. You literally have to clean it after every round for it to maintain integrity. I’m talking remove the roller brush, the peg that likes to break, carve out any hair on both pegs. Remove the side brushes and remove hair wrapped around the metal pegs. Remove the tiny guidance front wheel and remove hair from the 1 inch long metal bar. Be sure to empty the bin every time. And replace the hepa filter about once every month or two. I’m in the process of contacting them again via their online Chat “Leave a Message”. But its frustrating that I can’t find replacement parts on Amazon nor the Tenergy site itself. I’d like to even see replacement WHEELS at this point, this thing seems to make so much noise when it runs!