Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I’ve been using Eufy robovacs for months now, and this is one of their best. It is their first “mapping” robovac that is capable of mapping out your home and navigating intelligently around it while it vacuums using a built-in laser to determine distances to walls and objects in its environment. With this map you can go into the app and create no-go zones where you do not wish the robot to go, or you can point it to a particular area/room that you want it to focus on. Additionally, this unit is a “hybrid” and is capable of doing some rudimentary mopping of the floors. I have not utilized this feature yet (the device just came out a few weeks ago), and I’m not sure it’s as well implemented as the vacuum is based on looking at the manual and the device. I’ll mention a short blurb on that, though, just for information. Vacuuming As a robovac, this is about the same power and quietness as the other higher-end Eufy models. It has some advantages and disadvantages, though. Pros: -More comprehensive coverage. Given that this dynamically maps and determines a pattern to vacuum in as it enters each room, it is more thorough and less wasteful than the semi-random patterns of the other models of robovacs without intelligent mapping/nav. This leads to less wasted time. -Able to intelligently return to dock, both to recharge and to finish its run. This means it is much less likely to get lost on the way back to its charging dock since it knows where that dock is located in the home. Also, if it doesn’t completely vacuum the whole house in one charge, it will return to the dock, recharge, and resume vacuuming where it left off. -Battery life seems pretty good, and considerably better than any other Eufy robovac. On one charge, this can get about 2/3rds of my 2700 sq ft house before returning to charge. Considering how thorough the cleaning is, this is much more than any other Eufy robovac, or other brand robovacs, have done for me. -The app helps locate the device when it gets stuck or throws an error (which is often). Since the smartphone app shows the map of the house and what parts the vacuum has cleaned already, it has a little icon for where the robovac is currently located, making it easy to hunt down when it gets stuck. Cons: -This gets very easily hung up on obstacles that no other robovac is bothered by. This is actually a two-part issue. First, there’s a sort of conning tower, a circular disk about the size of a coaster sitting on top of the robovac that adds more than an inch of height to the device. It has a built-in bump sensor so it will back up upon encountering resistance, but it still gets hung up on everything. It’s sort of like when you whack your thumb with a hammer and then it seems to catch on everything and hurts all the time. This seems to magically find places to get hung up on. This includes low-hanging cables plugged into the wall, edges of furniture (meaning it doesn’t vacuum well underneath furniture), etc. This device seems to already be thicker than other Eufy robovacs, and this added height only makes it worse. It also seems to struggle with minor floor obstacles, including both cables and thresholds in doorways from room to room. I’ve never had any other robovac hang up on these items, including other Eufy models, yet this seems to just get easily frustrated and stops. I suspect this is because it has much less ground clearance, probably to help with the mopping function. -Harder to empty. The earlier Eufy robovacs have an easy to remove and dump dustbin on them. This unit, because of its hybrid nature, requires you to open a flap on top of the device like a car’s hood, pinch a release latch, lift out and then remove the filters to open up the dumping hole. This is likely due to the hybrid capabilities of the device. This dustbin is the same container that you fill with water to let it mop the floors. It’s a much more complicated process, though not really that hard. Just not simple like Eufy’s other machines. -Takes a long time to charge. If it runs and needs to recharge, it will take about 5 hours to recharge to 80% at which point it will resume cleaning. Lithium ion batteries charge fairly fast up to about 80% and then the charge rate really slows down, so it makes sense to charge only to 80% since that will permit it to complete a full cleaning cycle much sooner. However, since the battery life is longer, presumably the battery itself is larger capacity which means much longer charge times. Mopping Pros: -It can be converted to do rudimentary mopping functions for floors. -It includes all necessary pieces to do this, including a sort of drip-pad attachment to the charge base to prevent water damage to wood floors if the charge base is on wood, not tile. -Automatically detects when you attach the mopping attachments and switches modes. Cons: -Conversion from vacuum to mop takes a long time. In order to switch from vacuum mode to mop mode, you must remove the dustbin and rinse it out, fill it with water (no cleaning solution, only water per the manual), attach a mop pad shoe/attachment to the bottom, and attach a pad. -No cleaning solution allowed. Only straight water, according to the manual, should be used. This seems odd, but I can see how solvents could cause problems with both the robot and the floor, since the floor is not being wiped off. -Cannot both mop and vacuum in one cycle. This makes sense when you think about it. In order to both mop and vacuum, there would have to be separate reservoirs for the water and the dustbin, and this would make it even bigger and more unwieldy. Suggestions for Eufy: -Make a standalone, mapping vacuum and mapping mopping robots. Don’t combine them. I feel like this could be a much superior vacuum if it were focused on that task alone, as the navigation capabilities already make it superior to the best previous model. A dedicated mopping model would likely do a better job mopping, too. -Find a way to make it less tall, or at least integrate the laser sensor on top of the device better so as to be less likely to get hung up on furniture, cords, etc. This would be much easier for a dedicated vacuum. -Make the dustbin easier to access and empty, or better yet, create an external attachment that empties out the bin automatically at the charging station like the high-end Roomba has. -Allow us to use some sort of cleaning/mopping solution with the device, even if it is in-house Eufy brand. Better yet, select a mild cleaner that is commonly available at the local store that can be added/poured in easily. Overall This is a great value for a mapping/navigating robovac of this quality, especially if you can catch it on sale. The mopping features seem poorly thought out and implemented, though I admit I haven’t tried them out (mostly because first impressions are that it won’t do what I want). As a vacuum, this is probably Eufy’s best model right now, and I have (and still use) their previous top-of-the-line model.