Robovacs are a wonderful time-saving tool for your home, so it’s not surprising to see them take center stage at CES 2025 with unique new offerings like the Roborock Saros Z70 with its mechanical arm. They can scoot around cleaning up dust, debris and other messes, and many of the best robot vacuums we’ve tested have self-docking and self-emptying features to save you even more time and effort. The downside is that while many robovacs come with mopping features, they often require you to swap out attachments to change modes or manually untangle brushes.
Not so with the Eurkea J15 Max Ultra. This is a combo wet/dry robovac similar to the Ecovacs Deebot T30S Combo and iRobot Roomba Combo J7 Plus, but the J15 Max Ultra differentiates itself by using AI. Eureka’s IntelliView AI 2.0 can detect transparent liquid spills and adjust its modes and brushes automatically.
IntelliView AI 2.0: Liquid stain detection technology
Technically, this feature first debuted on the Eurkea J15 Pro Ultra. When a liquid stain is detected, the J15 Pro automatically rotates its body to prioritize mop cleaning and lifts the roller brush to prevent liquid from getting into the dustbin. The J15 Pro Ultra couldn’t always detect every transparent liquid because ambient light affects the vision sensors.
The way Eurkea has solved this is by — you guessed it — incorporating AI. Called IntelliView AI 2.0, the J15 Max Ultra comes with an infrared vision system and an FHD vision sensor. That means the robovac generates two kinds of views in real time: one infrared and the other a high-definition image of objects and surface structures that aren’t impacted by ambient light or lighting variations.
The images are then processed by AI algorithms trained to identify differences in surface reflections and textures, allowing the robot to detect various liquids, even transparent ones. After that, the J15 Max Ultra works the same way as the J15 Pro Ultra, adjusting its brushes and behavior to account for the spill.
Self-untangling brushes
Just dealing with spills isn’t the only challenge robovacs faces. One of the big irritations is when a brush or the robovac itself gets tangled with other objects or fails to clean corners effectively.
Eureka is working on this problem too, with something it calls the dual extension system. This consists of the ScrubExtend mop extension that is featured on the J15 Pro Ultra with the new SweepExtend you’ll find on the J15 Max Ultra. Essentially, this mop and side brush automatically extend when detecting corners and edges, giving you more complete coverage in tight spaces.
To tackle the problem of brushes getting tangled, the J15 Max Ultra also has the DragonClaw side brush. It’s a uniquely shaped side brush with equilateral triangle bristles (V-shaped). According to Eureka, the design uses centrifugal forces during rotation to actively untangle hair, whether human or pet.
Obstacle crossing and suction power
In terms of other features, the J15 Max Ultra has 22,000 Pa of suction power, a 35% increase over the J15 Pro Ultra (16,200 Pa). It also can more effectively navigate obstacles with Eurekea’s proprietary ObstaCross, allowing it to navigate standard thresholds up to 1.18 inches and double-layer thresholds up to 1.57 inches. As someone who has fairly large level changes between my living room, kitchen, bedroom and hallway, this seems like a pretty stellar feature.
Pricing and availability
The Eureka J15 Max Ultra is expected to launch in June 2025 in the US, Germany, France, Italy and Spain at a $1,299 price point. That makes it slightly more expensive than the $1,200 Ecovacs Deebot T30S Combo and significantly more expensive than the currently $500 Roomba J7+.
A more affordable entry-level model, the Eureka J15, is set to launch in March 2025 at a $799 price point. This version comes with most of the same features, including the FlexiRazor technology, ScrubExtend and all-one-base station, but it won’t feature the liquid detection capabilities and has a reduced 19,000 Pa of suction power.
For more CES 2025 announcements, the CNET team in Las Vegas has you covered with the latest news, product announcements, cool things we’ve seen and more.
Read the full article here
