Aside from producing a wide range of excellent security devices along with the T3 Platinum-awarded MACH V1 Ultra cordless steam cop I recently wrote about, Eufy also has a roster of smart robot vacuums that also mop hard floors while they sweep. Like this cracking new hybrid model that promises to give even the class-leading Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra and its improved stablemate, the S8 Pro Ultra, a good innings.
Like all good hard-working robot vacuums, the Clean X9 Pro will trundle around the home on a regular basis, sweeping here, sweeping there while wet mopping the floor at the same time – and all without so much as a squeak of disapproval.
Given the speed with which this particular area of technology has so rapidly advanced, it’s hardly surprising to see that the Eufy Clean X9 Pro comes rammed to the rafters with a smorgasbord of intriguing tech, including a plethora of sensors, LiDAR navigation, a front-mounted 3D camera, a rear-mounted twin mop that raises by 12 millimetres when carpet is detected and a self-cleaning dock that scrubs the mop pads in readiness for its next outing.
Let’s see if the Eufy Clean X9 Pro is as good at mopping – and vacuuming – as the best robot mops on the market.
Eufy Clean X9 Pro review: price and availability
The Eufy X9 Pro retails at £899 which, believe it or not, isn’t too bad for a hybrid robot of this nature. You can purchase it direct from Eufy or Argos, Currys and Amazon.
Eufy Clean X9 Pro review: design
Hats off to Eufy’s design team for creating one of the most attractive docking bays since the iRobot Roomba J7+. At 43cm in height and 41cm in width, the X9 Pro dock is certainly no small fry but it’s not too incongruous either. Nevertheless, you still might want to consider placing it out of sight in another room lest it becomes a focus of attention. As I will divulge a little lower down, the dock itself contains two huge water containers but no dust-bag section for the self-emptying of carpet matter.
The vac unit itself is slightly squared off at the front as opposed to being completely round like most robot vacs. I’ve personally always preferred this design – witness my review of the iRobot Roomba S9+ – because it can reach into corners a little easier so its spinning side brush can make a better fist of sweeping loose debris into the path of the roller.
The Eufy Clean X9 Pro is fully endowed on the sensor front and there’s a LiDAR turret on the top to aid navigation and help the X9 Pro map a room in record time. Three buttons on the top provide access to start/pause, spot cleaning/lock and recharge, which sends the bot back to its dock. That said, you will almost certainly control all of its functions from the accompanying Eufy Clean app, which I shall go into in more detail a little further down.
Eufy Clean X9 Pro review: vacuum features
Let’s move the elephant in the room out of the way first. Although the Eufy Clean X9 Pro comes with a large self-cleaning dock, it only has room for two large water containers – one for clean water and the other for dirty water. What the dock doesn’t have is a separate onboard dustbin to collect the muck the robot has swept off the carpet and floors.
If you’ve read any of my robot vac reviews you’ll know that I am not a fan of robot vacs that can’t empty their own bins. But maybe that’s because I have a house full of hairy animals – three cats and two labs. You see, in my home it takes an average robot vac about five minutes to fill its internal bin with hair and that means I have to pause it frequently to empty its contents. My Roborock S8 Pro Ultra, by contrast, will go back to the docking bin when it’s full, empty its contents into the dock’s dust bag and carry on with the task of vacuuming and mopping.
Nevertheless, thousands of buyers go out every day and buy a normal robot vac that doesn’t have a self bin-emptying system. Why? Because they likely don’t have any pets and their homes are therefore just dusty rather than looking like the floor of a wool factory. In that regard, if you have a normal home unlike me, then there is no reason not to consider this model.
Regarding its vacuum specs, the Eufy Clean X9 Pro sports 5,000 Pascals of suction power and that’s more than enough oomph for daily or bi-weekly cleanups. You get three levels of suction with this model and a silent mode for stealthy clean ups.
Although the ribbed rubber brush head is only 16cm wide (16cm shorter than the unit’s entire width) it does rotate in both directions so it’s able collect debris no matter which way the robot is moving. It also has the obligatory side sweep brush on one side that is pretty good at gathering detritus from edges of the floor.
Eufy Clean X9 Pro review: mopping features
Where the majority of robot mops use a simple damp pad that drags along the floor, the X9 Pro adopts the same system every professional-spec floor cleaner and polisher uses – two circular mops that use pressure and centrifugal force to remove every last trace of muck and stains, quickly. Granted, Roborock improved its S7 and S8 series by equipping their pads with a vibrating mechanism that helps loosen ingrained dirt.
But it doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to know that two circular towelling mops that spin at 180 revolutions per minute – three rotations per second – will be more effective at mopping than a simple pad being dragged around. And that’s the Eufy Clean X9 Pro in a nutshell. The vacuuming part, while extremely effective, isn’t the main reason you should buy it – it’s its mopping ability which, in the pantheon of robot mops, is quite some way ahead of the competition.
Let’s take a look at the X9 Pro’s water containers. Where the industry-leading Roborock S8 Pro Ultra has a 3-litre clean water tank and a 2.5-litre dirty water tank, the Eufy’s clean water tank is a whopping 4 litres and its dirty water tank an equally impressive 3.6 litres – no wonder they didn’t have the space for a dust bin. This extra volume means that the X9 Pro is better for larger homes with a lot of hard flooring. It also means you won’t have to empty the dirty water tank too often.
Like any hybrid bot of this nature, whenever a task is completed the X9 Pro returns to its charging dock where its mops are given a good wash. Like the new Roborock S8 Pro Ultra, this model’s dock is also equipped with a blow dryer that dries the mop over a period of a few hours. This not only freshens the mop up in readiness for another session, but it prevents mould from developing.
One major issue with cheaper robot mops is that they can’t discern carpets from hard flooring so they will simply carry on mopping no matter what the surface. This one doesn’t do that because it raises its mops by 12mm whenever its sensor and camera detect carpet or rugs. The upshot is that you can just leave it to do its thing safe in the knowledge that it will always avoid mopping any rugs or sections of carpet.
I should add that a robot mop – or indeed any mop – is not a great choice for laminated or untreated flooring. This is because the mop leaves a very thin film of water in its wake. Granted it does dry quickly but even so, laminated floors especially are very susceptible to warping if wet. Engineered wooden flooring is probably okay as long as you set it to minimal water use. Thankfully, there is no limit to the amount of water dispensed if using the X9 Pro on tile, polished concrete, linoleum or any other non-porous material.
Eufy Clean X9 Pro review: navigation
The first thing you’ll want to do when setting up the X9 Pro is to let it do a mapping run of your home’s entire floor plan. In this mode the suction and mopping is off so the bot can speedily map the home. And by speedily I mean rapidly, quickly, in minutes. Since my home is open planned, it treated each threshold as a dividing line, even though it wasn’t necessarily a doorway. Hence it divided my floor plan into seven separate rooms but this was easily rectified my merging specific rooms so I ended up with five separate locations instead.
The beauty of having LiDAR on board is that it scans the entire room in seconds and you can watch it do it in real time on the Eufy app’s map. The X9 Pro will continue adjusting its map as it goes about its cleaning regime, fine tuning corners and obstructions along the way. Just be aware that robot vacs equipped with LiDAR won’t penetrate a valance hanging over the front of a sofa or a bed so you may need to tuck all valances under the cushions or mattress. On the plus side, this bot is very good at negotiating rugs, though there will be some inevitable ruffling of edges from time to time. And because it’s also equipped with a 3D camera, it positively won’t run slipshod over wires, toys and other obstacles.
Eufy Clean X9 Pro review: app
I’m amazed how similar the Eufy Clean app is to Roborock’s equivalent. It doesn’t have the full bells-and-whistles comprehensiveness of the Roborock app which lets you place furniture around the home and even view the room in 3D, but it’s perfectly serviceable nonetheless and is just as easy to negotiate.
Like all decent robot apps, the Eufy Clean allows wide customisation of rooms, including adding room divisions, no-go zones, virtual boundaries and no mop zones. You can also set up schedules, select whether you want vacuuming and mopping at the same time or just vacuuming or mopping, and also adjust the amount of suction and water density in three stages. Everything is very clearly laid out so even the most vociferous of luddites will get a handle on it.
Eufy Clean X9 Pro review: vacuum performance
I’ve already mentioned my own personal disappointment at the X9 Pro not having a self bin-emptying facility but for many this won’t be an issue. All you need to know is that the X9 Pro is a sterling operator when it comes to vacuuming. The dual-direction rubber roller is expert at beating dust out of rugs and medium pile carpets while its 5,000Pa of suction power is more than enough to quickly fill the bot’s onboard 410ml bin, especially if there are pets in the home.
To demonstrate this I let it loose on a single rug and the bin was filled with hair in just five minutes. I should add that my house isn’t a filthy flea pit because I occasionally give it a whizz with a Dyson Gen5 while the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra chips in with its regular schedule. Rather, it is because of three hairy cats, two moulting Labradors and the fact that my home is surrounded by farms where crop and general outdoor dust is a constant influx. If anyone’s more suited to testing vacuum cleaners it’s me.
Eufy Clean X9 Pro review: mopping performance
Unlike other bots that just rag a wet pad around, this model has two circular 13cm pops that spin at 180rpm while being forced into the floor using the weight of the machine. You can see when the mops are functioning because the word ‘MopMaster’ appears in red on the rear. Also, the mops automatically raise by 12mm whenever the front mounted sensor detects carpet or a rug.
For all my tests I set the water dispenser to low because I have engineered wood flooring which, while more robust than standard laminated flooring, is still susceptible to becoming dull and possibly damaged in the long term. Needless to say, it mopped the kitchen floor almost as well as its stablemate, the ultra efficient MACH V1 Ultra upright cordless mop I tested a few weeks ago. It even handled a light spill of milk I strategically placed in it path.
The X9 Pro then trundled back to its dock where the mops were spun under some water from the clean water tank before being deposited into the dirty water tank. The pads were then dried for about three hours with a heated onboard fan. Depending on usage, you will need to empty and clean the dirty water tank from time to time – the loo’s the best place to empty it – and refill the clean water reservoir, ideally with filtered water to prevent limescale from developing.
Eufy Clean X9 Pro review: verdict
If you don’t have too many pets and are in the market for an exceptionally efficient robot mopping system that vacuums floors, carpets and rugs at the same time, put the Eufy Clean X9 Pro near the top of the list. Granted, had this model featured an auto dustbin-emptying system, I’d have had no compunction in giving it a full five stars and putting it alongside the industry-leading Roborock S8 Pro Ultra as one of the very best all-round robot cleaning systems on the market. Nevertheless, from a mopping point of view, I really don’t think I’ve tried a more efficient robot model. And that, in my book, is cause for celebration.
