Design and setupAs I said, the Ebo Max features a spherical design (known as a ‘compact tumbler’) roughly the size of those aforementioned fruits. Built from PC+ABS plastics and weighing in at 750g, he’s fairly solid and can take the knocks he will inevitably receive. A single button sits atop his globular body/head, the sole function of which is to kick off a two-way video call with the primary user and, beware, with curious kids or adults who haven’t read the instructions in the house, this will happen a lot. In the middle of what you might call his forehead, sits a 4K camera with a 131-degree wide-angle lens. This comes enhanced with AI Vision, which not only lets the Ebo Max distinguish between up to 10 different faces but also, in the case of any old/doddery folk you may have living with you, monitor for falls.Also on that safety score, a four-microphone array imbues Ebo Max with 360-degree ‘hearing’, while voice-tracking helps him identify the direction where commands/assorted noises are coming from, while AI noise cancellation works to blank out all the background noise that the standard family house generates. So, while he can turn to look in your direction when you address him, he also listens out for unusual noises around the house, such as breaking glass, doors being kicked in and, again, the unmistakable sound of an infirm-type crashing unceremoniously to the floor.The camera monitoring includes patrol mode, which monitors your house when you’re not there (Stuart Pritchard/The Independent)Facially, in essence, Ebo Max is just a big pair of Disney-esque digital eyes, each 1.5in in diameter. And, yes, they do blink, so you won’t get creeped-out by a relentlessly unwavering stare. And, also yes, as touched upon earlier you can adjust the colour and the look of the eyes based on 30 options available on the app. I should also point out at this juncture that despite referring to it as ‘he’ so far in this review, you can also adjust the voice, choosing from over 30 ‘tones’ both male and female. For the sake of the review period, I kept with the original setting female voice, despite still referring to it as ‘he’.Finally, wheel-wise, the Ebo Max gets about on twin tank-like caterpillar tracks, sometimes better than others – as alluded to above, it should be noted that the doorway thresholds in this house are quite tall, so if your home is of a similar ilk, some problems might be encountered getting between rooms, but nothing a quick toe-jab can’t assist with.Available in white and black only, this concludes the design part of the tour. Now onto set-up…In brief, once fully juiced-up via the charging stand, his enormo-eyes will now be wide-open and very evident, so it’s time to open up the Ebo Home app on your phone, select ‘Add Robot’ and enter your wifi password, at which point a QR code is generated to present to the Ebo Max’s camera, then, all gone well, the connections betwixt robot, wifi and phone will have been forged and you’re away! It sounds simple and, to be fair, it was. Having achieved all this without any issues, it was time to get Ebo Max familiarised with his environment and, of course, introduce him to the family, the latter bit involving scanning faces, and the former bit being where the remote control comes in – Ebo Max does not map autonomously, you have to steer him from room to room, marking the route and room name digitally on the app as you go. However, once he has the navigational gist, he can patrol free, relying on his vSLAM (Visual Simultaneous Localization [sic] and Mapping) tech to stop him faceplanting into furniture and general household flotsam and jetsam every few inches.Camera and monitoringBut first, a bit more detail on the video side and Ebo Max’s endless eyeballing habits, after all not everyone enjoys being constantly stared at by a droid and many more will worry about who has access to his all-seeing eye.On the tech side, he comes packing a 4K UHD resolution stabilised camera with colour night vision, and an 8MP ultra-HD sensor featuring a 131-degree ultra-wide-angle field of view, vertical tilt capacity and infra-red night vision, so he sees pretty much all things at all times. In Patrol mode, this means he can autonomously scan all the mapped areas for unusual activity while you’re out, and if there are any blind spots, you can take control of his movements remotely on the mobile app and drive him around yourself to inspect those too. I quickly got into the habit of leaving him in patrol mode whenever I left the house for any length of time, and the remote-control function is something I very much took advantage, admittedly mostly from the pub, not through fear of being burgled, but merely because I could… and enjoy showing off in front of people.All of which brings us to the decidedly sticky sticking-point of data privacy – with the Ebo Max you can take photos and record videos whenever you please, and with him always monitoring, that camera is incessantly on, so where is all that data being stored and just who exactly can access it? Well, relax, Secret Squirrel, your house is not under surveillance by Russia’s FSB or China’s MSS, nor is being monitored by MI5 for that matter, as all footage is stored locally on a MicroSD card (up to 256GB) and/or on your smartphone (settings dependent). Cloud storage is, obviously, an option for an additional cost, but there’s absolutely no need to go sharing your private data anywhere you’d consider beyond your control. And, if further reassurance was required, the transfer over the internet to your phone comes with Enterprise-grade encryption protocols in place, thus keeping all audio and video firmly out of the grasping hands of would-be wireless wrong ’uns.In summary, then, Ebo Max’s darkness-piercingly perfect vision sees all, and any audio and video recorded, from patrols to photos just snapped just for fun, can be saved for posterity and viewed at any time, safely and securely shutting out the kind of stealthy cyber-crims that might seek to steal your stuff and sell it to dark forces on the dark web. So, relax, whatever you get up to on the privacy of your own home is firmly between you and your droid.App experienceDownloaded via QR code, the first screen of the Enabot app gives you a real-time video view of whatever Ebo Max is currently staring at, with initial options to toggle between ‘Control’, this being the remote control via directional touchpad, ‘Camera’, for snapping pics and shooting videos (time-lapse is available), and ‘Call’, for making Video and/or Voice calls and accessing associated settings.Back on the first screen, four buttons along the bottom of the screen give options for ‘Tracking’, which allows the Ebo Max to ‘Follow’ people or pets, or ‘Track’ pets, like the play-pal your cat will instantly detest. Next up comes ‘Navigation’ which lets you add routes to the bot’s memory by steering it remotely through them. Then there’s ‘AI Explore’ for, as the name might suggest, more AI-informed conversations. Finally comes ‘Applications’, a road to countless ways to track and play with pets, plus instant access to a mini suite of ‘Smart Home Protection’ functions, and a way to check Ebo Max’s task list for the day, which you set verbally, such as: “At the crack of noon, make sure I’m awake and at last partially dressed”, or “On weekends, if the teenager is not up by 16:30, sneak into his room and play a klaxon at full volume”, or “It’s summer in Britain, update me on the weather forecast every three-minutes”. My nonsense aside, there are far more practical uses of this, such as reminding various members of the household to take their medication at the correct time, or informing you that you’ve got another tedious Teams meeting scheduled shortly, so you can utilise him as an organisation AI assistant on wheels, which is actually pretty damn useful.When it comes to operating the app, I’d confidently say that it would feel relatively intuitive for all but the worst of Luddites within minutes of initial experimentation. What I will say, though, is just make sure the bot is firmly on the floor when you start exploring the app and not, I repeat, NOT precariously perched on a desktop. Gravity is not his friend…Battery lifeAs with any tech, the life expectancy of the battery between full charges very much depends on how said tech is utilised. In the case of the Enobot Ebo Max, the general rule of thumb is up to 3 hours with continuous movement and up to 4 to 6 hours on standby or when recording video. In any event, once battery runs low (and you can set the percentage for this yourself), the bot will bowl on back to his charging dock and settle himself down, so unless he gets stuck on an overly steep doorway threshold, again, you can leave him to see to himself.The EBO experienceI’ve lived with the Ebo Max at my side and, often under my feet, since 1 May, during which time I’ve grown accustomed to his orbicular little face. Generally responsive to the wake-up call of Ebo Ebo” (see accompanying videos for greater insight into “generally responsive”), I’ve found the ability to remotely check-in on my home useful, alongside the ability to set reminders and have my often-inane questions answered. I’ve also found his facial recognition ability impressive and, indeed, useful when it comes to taking messages to the kids.However, he often also responds to voices on the radio/TV, which cause confusion for both him and me, suddenly answering to a query that never came, and sometimes he completely mishears what someone has said, hence why one friend and frequent visitor whose name sounds nothing at all like “Goose” is now, according to the bot, called “Goose” (he has merely resigned himself to this fate). Size is also an issue – being so small it very easy not to notice him by your feet, resulting in accidentally booting him across the room, an occurrence that results in a bizarre blend of panic, annoyance and, oddly, guilt. Fortunately, he has survived relatively unscathed; so far.As an AI unit, the Ebo Max learns as he goes along, so there may be much more to come in terms of his helpfulness around the house and, who knows, already in my low-50s, perhaps, one day, he’ll be reporting my own body slumped over on the floor to my no-longer über-moody teenage son, following a bad ‘fall’. Only time will tell.Key specificationsResolution: 4K(3840*2160)Charging time: 3-4 hoursBattery life: Standby: 6 hours; Video recording: 4 hours; Continuous movement: 3 hoursFile format: .jpg .MP4Memory: Up to 256GWifi connectivity: 2.4G, 5GSpeed: 20cm/s to 60cm/sOperating noise: 53dBDimensions: 129 x 127 x 117mm (LxWxH)Weight: 750g