Trifo Ollie Pet Edition Robotic Vacuum Review – A Hands On Test

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4

Smart Functions

4.5

Ease of Use

4.5

Navigation

4

Smartphone App

Overall Score
4.1 / 5
The Verdict

The Trifo Ollie Pet Edition robotic vacuum is a well-equipped device tailored for pet owners, boasting unique features like a pet hair extractor and an onboard camera.

It excels in obstacle avoidance, smart navigation, and has a robust 120-minute battery life. However, it has limitations, such as the foam prefilter blocking quickly and inability to save multiple maps.

Ideal for small spaces and regular use, it may not be as effective for larger areas with heavy pet hair.

With features like an odor-eliminating air freshener and a detachable laser pointer, it offers more than just cleaning, providing entertainment for pets and peace of mind for owners​

Read about how we review products here.

Pros
  • Up to 4,000Pa suction
  • Special brushless pet hair extractor
  • Intelligent obstacle avoidance system and motion detection
  • Smart mapping technology
  • Onboard high definition camera with microphone
  • Can connect to Alexa and Google Assistant 
  • Large and easily accessible dust bin 
  • Includes HEPA filter and an activated charcoal filter
Cons
  • Foam prefilter gets blocked quickly
  • Can only save one map at a time
  • No mop functionality
Who Should Buy It?

The Trifo Ollie Pet Edition is ideal for pet owners seeking a multifunctional robotic vacuum. It’s especially suited for those dealing with regular pet hair accumulation and who would appreciate added features like pet monitoring and play.

This vacuum is a good fit for homes with small to medium-sized spaces and for users who value innovative technology for easier pet care.

Who Shouldn’t Buy It?

The Trifo Ollie Pet Edition may not be the best choice for those with large homes or multi-level spaces, due to its single map storage limit and less effective performance on heavy pet hair in expansive areas.

Additionally, if you prioritize deep carpet cleaning or need a vacuum with mop functionality, this model may fall short of your expectations. It’s also less suitable for those who prefer a vacuum that requires minimal maintenance, as its filter tends to clog quickly and requires regular cleaning

Trifo Ollie Pet Edition Overview

unboxing the Trifo Ollie Pet Edition Robotic Vaccum

As someone who has personally tested multiple Trifo products, the Ollie Pet Edition Robot Vacuum is the second one I’ve experienced in my own home

The Lucy Robot Vacuum, which still lives upstairs in my house and cleans the floors daily, impressed me with its specialty pet hair extractor brush and effective obstacle avoidance features.

The Ollie robot has many of the same features as Lucy, including up to 4,000Pa suction, a high-definition onboard camera, motion detections, and 3D-SLAM navigation. But what makes Ollie even better suited for homes with pets is the addition of an odor-eliminating air freshener and detachable laser pointer.

picture showing the laser attachment and detachable air freshener of Trifo Ollie Pet Edition

Additionally, Ollie has a 120-minute battery life, artificial intelligence time-of-flight sensors, over-the-air updates, and customizable mapping.

Trifo, a Silicon Valley-based company specializing in AI-enabled automated household helpers, has four robot vacuums, ranging from the simplified Emma cleaning bot to the original home security vacuum, Max.

In my home, I thoroughly tested the added features of the Ollie vac, assessing its performance in a real-life setting.

How The Ollie Pet Performs

Using my home as a testing ground, along with my two dogs, a cat, and a toddler, I rigorously evaluated Ollie’s effectiveness in a real-world scenario.

Cleaning Power

different attachments of Trifo Ollie Pet Edition

The Ollie Pet Edition comes with two brush options. 

The first is the standard bristle brush you’ll get with all Trifo robotic vacuums. This attachment works well enough but doesn’t allow the system to reach that top suction point of 4,000Pa. And, most importantly for pet owners, hair gets tangled around it fairly quickly.

The alternative attachment is the pet hair extractor. This piece is brushless and has a focused rubber slit opening to remove hair and debris. Because the opening is so narrow, this attachment amplifies the suction power.

I found that this pet hair extractor attachment worked exceptionally well on hard flooring but, like most robotic vacuums, struggled to release pet hair and fine dust from the carpet.

dust and pet hair collected from Ollie vs Shark vacuum

I used my standard carpet vacuum test to look at this. In this test, I run the robot vacuum over my large area rug, then use my Shark plug-in vacuum over the same area to get an accurate idea of how well the robot vacuum compares to a traditional high-suction manual vacuum.

As you can see from the pictures, the Ollie picked up plenty of dog hair and larger debris, but the Shark was still able to collect a substantial amount of pet hair and fine particles. Like many robot vacuums, the Ollie was not able to penetrate deeply enough into the carpet fiber to suck up embedded dust and hair to match the deep-cleaning power of a manual vacuum.

clogged filter of the Trifo Ollie Pet Edition

This leads me to my biggest gripe about the Ollie, which is something I also experienced with the Trifo Lucy model. For some reason, all of the debris that’s pulled into the vacuum accumulates on the washable filter screen, despite the large dustbin.

This means that, while suction starts off high, it drops off rapidly as hair and debris clog the filter. Interestingly, the prefilter material of the Ollie is different from that in the Lucy. Unfortunately, the problem persists in both models. Though, I will say the coarser prefilter of the Ollie is easier to clean than the Lucy. 

All this is to say that, while the Ollie does a great job cleaning small spaces and flooring that is vacuumed frequently, the filter clogs too quickly, so regular cleaning is a must. 

Overall, the Ollie has the power to suck up a lot of pet hair and debris, but this power is limited by the filter design. If you plan to run your Ollie daily or clean only a small space, this likely won’t be an issue. But if you have a lot of pet hair to tackle or a large space, you may be disappointed in its overall cleaning performance.

Battery Life

Trifo Ollie Pet Edition docked

The battery life of the Ollie is comparable to that of the Lucy at around 120 minutes of runtime when fully charged

In my testing during a mega-cleanup Sunday, Ollie’s battery impressively lasted the entire two hours, covering the whole house in one go.

Since Ollie can only store one map at a time and is only optimized for cleaning one level of your home, this runtime should be more than enough to get the job done. If you have an expansive ranch home that takes more than two hours to vacuum, the continuous clean mode assures the job will be finished as soon as the robot is recharged.

Navigation

In terms of navigating to create maps and clean, the Ollie does a fairly good job. 

This robot does not use LIDAR. It relies on visual 3D-SLAM, depth sensors, and AI learning to map your home. This system isn’t as quick at mapping as LIDAR bots, but it is faster than most other alternatives. The absence of LIDAR also has an upside – the Ollie has a lower profile that can easily clean under furniture and cupboards.

The first cleaning with the Ollie took a while as the robot went back and forth between different rooms to complete the map. This back and forth behavior did lessen with each clean, but the pattern was never as efficient as the LIDAR bots I’ve tried. Still, no corner was left unvacuumed when the robot returned to charge.

Mapping

one-level map of Ollie Pet Edition from Trifo

The maps the Ollie creates are not as clean as those made through LIDAR. Strange artifacts caused by furniture position and stairways are common. These maps aren’t as customizable either. There is no way to separate rooms that accidentally get lumped together or merge rooms that should be one.

With each repeated clean, these maps are refined and take on a more accurate shape over time.

As of this testing, the Trifo robotic vacuum can only save one map at a time. Unfortunately, if you’re a multi-level homeowner,  you’ll have to remap each time you clean a new level. The good news is, according to Trifo, there will be a mapping feature software over the air (OTA) update in the future so users can save up to three maps. You can follow the brand’s social media accounts for the announcement. 

Obstacle Avoidance 

Where the Ollie truly shined, though, was in obstacle avoidance.

There’s a reason the Trifo Lucy remains the only robot vacuum I have ever put on an automated cleaning schedule in my house. And that’s because it’s the only robot I trust not to suck up my toddler’s toys or get tangled in stray cords.

The Ollie, which has the same impressive obstacle avoidance system, also proved it could be trusted to clean my floors without me tidying them up first.

In my obstacle avoidance test, the Ollie easily avoided pet toys like small kongs and balls. Thanks to the cameras, it never even touched these objects and simply navigated around them with ease. This same system also kept my dogs from getting run into as they lazed about on the floor.

The Ollie was even able to identify and avoid an iPhone cord on the ground and go around it, though it did catch the stray end at one point. Still, thanks to the brushless pet hair extractor, there was nowhere for the cord to get tangled, so it wasn’t damaged, and cleaning wasn’t interrupted.

If you’ve been hesitant to get a robot vacuum because your floors are constantly littered with discarded pet toys, kids’ toys, or other smaller objects, the Ollie is a safe bet.

Smartphone App and Features

screenshots of Trifo Ollie Pet Edition’s smartphone app

The Trifo smartphone app takes a bit of getting used to, especially if you’ve used other robot vacuum apps in the past. Some of this confusion comes from the fact that a few of the features work differently than in other systems.

For instance, the spot clean or “designated clean” function must be pre-programmed into the map. This means you can’t just send the robot to clean a random mess by tapping a spot on the map. It is a nice feature for areas around the cat box, dog bed, and other spots that routinely need extra cleaning.

Overall, the Ollie has many impressive extra features that you won’t find on many other robot vacuums. These include:

  • High definition video – Stream video from your robot as it vacuums or while charging to check on your pets while you’re away. You can even use the microphone feature to talk to them.
  • Manual control – Use the manual control to direct your vacuum to a specific spot to clean or direct the camera to get a close-up of your pet.
  • Sliding scale for suction – Over 10 suction settings for ultimate control over noise output and power.
  • Room cleaning mode – Clean only specific rooms.
  • Global cleaning mode – Clean the entire map.
  • Designated cleaning mode – Clean predetermined areas.
  • Customizable maps – Label rooms and set no-go zones.
  • Do not disturb mode – Prevent disturbances by restricting cleaning to certain hours.
  • Motion detection – Get alerts when your robot sees your pets or others moving through your house.
  • Cleaning schedule – Set predetermined schedules for automatic cleaning.
  • Air freshener – Attached air freshener freshens the air while the unit vacuums.
  • Laser pointer – Ollie can entertain your cat while cleaning, or you can remove the detachable laser and play with your cat yourself.

Conclusion

A robotic vacuum is a great investment, especially for pet owners who are constantly cleaning up dog and cat hair.

The Trifo Ollie Pet Edition robot vacuum offers a ton of extra features that are incredibly useful when you have pets in the house. The special pet hair extractor won’t get tangled, and the air freshener attachment helps reduce odors. Plus, bonus features like a high-definition camera and intelligent obstacle avoidance will help you keep an eye on your furry friends while keeping your floors pet-hair free.

To learn more about the Trifo Ollie or purchase one yourself, click here.

Do you have any questions relating to this article? Email us at [email protected] or call us on +1 (310) 961-4908

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Author
Sara Seitz is a freelance writer and novelist. She lives with her husband and wildling toddler in Colorado where she spends her days working on their house, gardening, and reconnecting with nature.

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