The Enabot Ebo Max FamilyBot is your new home security companion

Enabot launched the Ebo Max FamilyBot, a spherical home security robot with AI-powered features including 4K video, fall detection, and facial recognition. The device aims to provide families with security, assistance, and entertainment through its multimodal AI capabilities.

The Independent's journalism is supported by our readers. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn commission. Why trust us? /extras/indybest/indybest-about-us-who-team-experts-how-test-review-products-b2229694.html The Enabot Ebo Max FamilyBot is your new home security companion This little ball of fun won’t just AI-enhance your family unit, it’ll also act as a virtual guard dog - Bookmark This is not written by AI… I mean, in a review of a ‘FamilyBot’ that comes flaunting multimodal Artificial Intelligence, you can be sure I’m going to mention AI a lot more than I would, say, in my reviews of the best gaming chairs /extras/indybest/gadgets-tech/video-games-consoles/best-gaming-chairs-uk-b2319978.html . So, say hello to the latest learning machine to roll off the Enabot production line and into the everyday lives of families the world over, the Ebo Max, a companion droid about the size of a large grapefruit or small cantaloupe, depending on your taste, that can provide your home and the people in it with security, assistance and, yes, entertainment. To quote the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy : “Your plastic pal who’s fun to be with ” Okay, the concept of domestic robots has been around for a very long time. In fact, the word “robot” itself comes from the Czech word “robota”, coined in 1920 and meaning “forced labour” or “drudgery”, which is nice. But the road from the ‘robots of the future’ as touted on American TV in the 1950s and in the UK on the likes of Tomorrow’s World back in the 1970s has been a long one, and only the advent of AI has brought us anywhere even close to finally being able to have a genuinely useful plastic pal who’s functional to be with. And, like the sceptical ape-descended lifeform I am, while I still very much have my doubts about AI-enhanced automatons allowed free-roam of the home, the little Enabot Ebo Max has proved eye-opening. Read more: Best video doorbells, reviewed Read more: Best VPN services, reviewed Enabot Ebo Max FamilyBot Why we love it - He/she is a lot of fun - Great for monitoring the home - AI assistant handy for helping kids - Can change digital appearance and voice - App is intuitive to use Take note - Expensive - Cannot manoeuvre over high thresholds - Navigation system not great - Far too easy to accidentally kick or step on Design and setup As 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. 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 monitoring But 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 experience Downloaded 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 life As 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 experience I’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 specifications Resolution: 4K 3840 2160 Charging time: 3-4 hours Battery life: Standby: 6 hours; Video recording: 4 hours; Continuous movement: 3 hours File format: .jpg .MP4 Memory: Up to 256G Wifi connectivity: 2.4G, 5G Speed: 20cm/s to 60cm/s Operating noise: 53dB Dimensions: 129 x 127 x 117mm LxWxH Weight: 750g Back to top articleHeader Is the Ebo Max worth it? So, Ebo Max... a mobile 4K security camera that’s AI-enhanced and armed with all the techie gubbins needed to make voice and video calls. He’s also, for pets at the very least, your plastic pal who’s fun to be with. But what’s the bottom line on this £550 bit of chatty kit? Well, in a nutshell, he’s a bit of fun with some practical aspects. As a stumpy sentinel of home security, he works exceptionally well, patrolling the house while I’m away, shooting 4K video of anything deemed ‘unusual’ and allowing me to view my gaff in real-time over the app to check that nothing’s on fire, no one’s fallen over and no larceny loving thugs have forced their way in. And on the virtual assistant front, he’s handy to have at your border-line-literal beck and call for general enquiries and particularly so for helping younger children with their homework, answering all the questions that their hapless dad is too busy reviewing robots to respond to. Yes, the Enabot Ebo Max http://buy.geni.us/Proxy.ashx?tsid=3658&platform=PLACEHOLDER WEB&GR URL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FEnabot-EBO-Max-FamilyBot-Interactive%2Fdp%2FB0GYR5SLTB%3Fascsubtag%3DIN%7C3010322%7CB0GYR5SLTB%7CPLACEHOLDER WEB%23isAffiliate is expensive for what it is, there’s no doubt about that. But if you live in a multi-generational household, free from fixed-point interior security cameras and pets that succumb to insufferable boredom when you’re out, this little ball of AI-enhanced techie tricks, could well be the perfect fit for you and your 21st century family. How I tested Designed as a ‘family companion’, the first thing I required for the review was a family. This being the case, I installed an average British family of 2.36 people and monitored their interaction with security cameras hidden throughout the house. Okay, not really, that’d just be weird. In reality, the Ebo Max review unit covered here was first powered-up on 1 May, 2026, in a household containing two mostly-adults and two full children. And this is where the true testing began, as Ebo Max took his first curious caterpillar track-like steps in a decidedly noisy and cluttered household, occupied by a deeply droid-suspicious data analyst, a deeply cynical tech journalist, a deeply moody teenager and a deeply fascinated, albeit in brief TikTok-trained spurts, 10-year-old, off on his initial voyage of discovery to trundle off and 3D map the layout of all the downstairs rooms, as I watched him struggle to mount the threshold of the doorway from my study into the lounge, I couldn’t help but wish him luck. But before the constant accidental kicking, the 360-degree audio-confusion endured, and the brief story of a man now forever known as ‘Goose’, here’s how I tested the Enabot Ebo Max FamilyBot. The set-up: how easy is ENO Bot Max to get going? Setting connections between bot, app and Wi-Fi. The app: how idiot-proof is the app in operation? Is it easy to navigate, intuitive enough that even an actual idiot can use it? Setting routes: using the remote-control function, how simple is it to guide EBO Max around and set routes to familiarise him with his environment? Auto navigation: how well does the bot cope with guiding himself through a fairly busy cluttered environment and how effective is the vSLAM spatial AI tech? Responsiveness: does the wake word “EBO EBO” work instantly and does it work every time? AI assistant: useful or just another mishearing Alexa/Siri/Bixby/Cortana/Google Assistant? Robots on patrol: how effective is the ‘Patrol’ function? Security: i s the EBO Max actually useful as a way to monitor the home while away? Why you can trust IndyBest reviews Stuart Pritchard i /author/stuart-pritchard s a seasoned journalist and editor with decades of experience in casting a critical eye over consumer tech – if a gadget or gizmo doesn’t make the grade, it doesn’t make his roundups. Stuart’s reviews for IndyBest are based on real-world testing, so he can go beyond the spec sheet to bring you the products he believes are worth your time and money. Read more: Simplisafe review: a comprehensive DIY kit with 24/7 monitoring