When I reviewed the first version of Enabot’s Ebo Air, the conclusion was that it was a fun toy, but not an essential device.
It billed itself as a small companion robot, but it was more like a mobile security camera than a robotic buddy, roaming your house to make sure that you haven’t left the oven on or the back door wide open.
Three years on, has much changed? Enabot has a new version of Ebo, the Air 2, and while it doesn’t have some of the bells and whistles of the upcoming Air 2 Plus – including colourful cartoonish expressions – there are a few improvements.
It is hard to tell at first glance, though. The new version of Ebo looks and sounds remarkably like the old one. The company has stuck with the same tumbler design to help it balance, which means the odd knock won’t trouble it too much. There is a small display that acts as a sort of expression for Ebo, with hearts instead of eyes and so on. That can be customised to your individual preference, within reason. And it still chats away as it moves, which will either make it seem cute or scare the life out of pets.
The Air 2 brings in some new colours, including pink and blue, with the latter sent for this review, and overall, the robot is still cute rather than intimidating. It comes with a USB dock that it will return to when the battery starts to run low.
It is not just about looks, though. The resolution of the camera has been upped to 2K from the previous version’s 1080, so your video footage will be better quality. The battery life has been improved too, from a minimum of two hours to four, which gets you extra time for playing with your pet or stalking the family around the house while Ebo babbles to itself.
There is two-way audio, so you can communicate with your pet or loved one when you are outside the house
Setting it up is easy enough through Enabot’s app. The device supports 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz wifi, which is a refreshing change, with many home devices only opting for 2.4Ghz. That should have made it easy for the Ebo to keep its wifi connection, but it still intermittently dropped the signal in some areas of the house despite a mesh network that keeps wifi strong throughout. It occasionally got itself trapped too, which meant I came home to a marooned robot that I had to hunt for, as the battery had wound down.
It has a laser cat toy that is designed to keep the feline members of the household busy. Our menace took one look at it, threw it a glare of disdain and kept going. Clever cat; the laser is the one toy she will never catch, and the one the vet had advised us against using, unless we wanted a frustrated cat taking her mood out on us.
As a pet toy, Ebo didn’t work for us, mainly because when the cat wasn’t sitting at a safe distance giving the robot the hard stare of disgust, she just refused to interact with it. The occasional noises the robot makes didn’t help. Even sticking the optional silicon feathers to turn it into a cat toy didn’t tempt her.
Ebo is supposed to be interactive, whether you are using it as a toy for your pet or as a security camera. There is two-way audio, so you can communicate with your pet or loved one when you are outside the house, similar to the first generation of Ebo Air. However, the new generation includes AI noise cancellation, which is not a reason to buy this robot, but helps to cut out a bit of background noise if needed. That was rare during this test, as the camera was mainly used when we were out of the house, when the background noise was at a minimum.
You can save footage to a removable microSD card too, so you can play back your pet’s classic moments if desired.
Good
Battery life is improved, if not stellar. The robot (mostly) found its way back to the dock when needed though, so it kept itself charged up and ready to go.
Bad
Our pet chose to ignore this, like many other pet toys we have, but the difference here is that usually we don’t spend more than €30 on a toy we aren’t sure she will love.
Everything else
We have mostly hard floors around the house, but the Ebo Air 2 tackled any carpeted areas easily, and managed to deal with a few rugs too. It might struggle with anything with a deeper pile though.
Verdict
Is it essential? No. But it is certainly fun, despite a few hiccups.
