The cost of robot vacuums has been decreasing over the years. You can now pick up a robotic vacuum from just $199, all the way up to over $1000. You may think the gap between these prices ranges is vast, but if you know what to look for, even the low end of this price bracket can get you a decent level robot vacuum for your home.
The Eufy RoboVac G10 Hybrid sits in the low to medium range of robot vacuum cleaners. Across their entire range of robot vacuums, it sits at the top at a price of £299. Considering you can pay utmost of over a thousand pounds for the top of the line robot vacuum, the G10 is a good deal for what you get.
In the box you get the RoboVac itself. Its charging base, a wall power adapter to keep it continuously charged when docked, four slide brushes, of which once attached you have two spare. You also get an additional filter, a cleaning tool, the plug-in water tank with a pre-attached mopping cloth underneath, and there is a spare washable mopping cloth too. There is also a large plastic base that goes underneath the docking station to prevent any water leaks or dampness from forming whilst the mop is attached and damaging your floor. Finally, you get some cable ties to keep its power cable neatly tucked away, four filter elements and a paper manual and quick start guide.
The initial setup of the Eufy G10 Hybrid is really simple. You first attach two of the slide brushes firmly onto the base of the RoboVac, then find a suitable location for the charging station and vacuum to live. I found placing it against the wall under my sofa to be really convenient and out of the way location for my vacuum – no one would know that it’s there, ready for action!
Once you place the RoboVac onto the powered charging station the G10 will begin charging. It comes with some small charge in its internal battery, but it is recommended that you charge it completely, so that it can tackle its first cleaning task with a full battery.
While you wait for it to fully charge (which can take a few hours) you can download its Eufy Home smartphone app and connect it to your Wi-Fi network. Once connected you can manage the G10’s functions and settings, from starting a clean, make it return to the base station to recharge, to spot cleaning and setting up a daily schedule. You can also switch between its two suction power modes in the app too.
Personally I would have liked to see the cleaning program and how it was mapping my house in the app, this is something I was used to seeing with Xiaomi Mijia that I have reviewed in the past. This is likely due to the limits of the Eufy’s hardware, in that the G10 doesn’t feature SLAM (Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping) sensors or the LDS (Laser Distance Sensors) sensors.
Once you command it to clean, by pressing either its top button or via the app, the G10 will spring into life and begin to move around your home. Rather than bouncing off the walls at various angles, the G10 uses a bow-shaped Gyro navigation method. What this means is that the G10 will leave the base station and travel in straight lines until it hits a wall, it will then turn around 180-degrees and return at roughly the same distance of the width of the vacuum. Its firm side brushes do a decent job of collecting any loose particles that it encounters along its path, yet like most robot vacuums you will still get small corners and areas where the brushes physically cannot get to.
It’s fairly lightweight and powerful motorised rollers and sweeping brush help the G10 climb up onto carpets and mats from any hard surface without any problems. It can be pretty aggressive too with its front bump sensor, in that it can test a few surfaces by bumping into it before it decides it is a solid obstacle. This, in turn, can sometimes mean light objects and doors can get bumped or moved, which can sometimes block the robot or close a door to a room and prevent the vacuum from cleaning the whole house. And without any way to view its progress or where it has been in the app, you have no idea what rooms it has or hasn’t cleaned, which can be frustrating.
All dust and dirt that the Eufy G10 collects are stored in its filtered 450ml waste bin compartment. To empty it, you simply slide it away from the back of the G10 and open its clamshell case to empty it. It’s a generous size compared to some other robot vacuums I have used, however, the clamshell opening can easily cause dirt to jump out and fall around the bin you’re trying to empty it into. A more Dyson-like approach of opening it away from you would have been better here.
If you have hardwood, laminated or tiled floors, the G10 hybrid has a mopping function. But don’t get too excited for any kind of Fantasia moping magic here. The water compartment barely holds much water and it simply drips onto its mopping cloth pad, that you must dampen under a water tap first. The water tank and pad is then inserted onto the bottom of the waste container and it is then dragged behind the RoboVac as it travels around your home. Any rugs along the way can’t be marked off or avoided, which means they get the wet mop treatment too, which isn’t great.
You’re told not to leave the G10 unattended whilst it is mopping either, which I feel defeats the point of owning a robot vacuum – you just want to fill it with water, have it detect what is hard flooring and do the job unattended. Personally, I can’t see myself using the mopping function after its first lacklustre test. As a positive note, though, it is great that you don’t have to sacrifice the dirt compartment when it mops, which means the G10 can clean and mop at the same time.
The Eufy G10’s spot cleaning mode functions as you would expect. You can clean or mop in this mode by simply placing the G10 at the centre of a dirty area, it will then start from the centre and spiral outwards to clean a wide area of a spill or dirty patch. It also features fall detection, so you won’t find it falling from stairs or ledges in your home, and if it can’t clean the entire house on a full charge, it will find its way back to the base station to recharge and resume cleaning once its battery has recharged.
Thanks to its Wi-Fi connection, you can tell RoboVac to start cleaning from your smartphone or if connected to a Google or Amazon device, you can simply tell Google or Alexa to start cleaning. You can also download and apply firmware updates, and if you wish to customise the voice of your RoboVac, you can download and install various language packs of female and male voices types, as well as some comical ones too. Sadly, you can’t easily switch between these voices, you must re-download and install each one to use it, even if you’ve installed it before.
So is the Eufy RoboVac G10 Hybrid up to the job of cleaning your home? For me, I found it to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. Its mopping function leaves little to be excited about, whilst its lack of LDS Sensors and SLAM technology means you’re left guessing where it has cleaned and doubting if it has done a thorough job. Its battery wasn’t able to clean my entire house on a single charge whilst the Mijia Smart Robot we reviewed last year could have almost completed it twice on its single charge.
Its smartphone app, although nicely presented, left me wanting more features and a display of progress is a must for any robot vacuum. Retailing for £299 from Amazon its price reflects its dual function, of which it could have easily done without. Opting for the better equipped Xiamoi Mijia 1C or Mijia 1S Robot Vaccum would be my recommendation. Both are similarly priced, yet you get room-mapping feature and progress, better battery life, multiple suction modes and they are, overall, a far more intelligent robot vacuum that I would feel comfortable in leaving unattended in my home.
