As someone with two cats, a messy eight-year-old child, and a personal aversion to crumbs, debris and mess, the canister vacuum in our house usually gets trotted out multiple times a day.
But as a disabled person with limited mobility, chronic pain and a genetic disease that leaves me prone to dislocating my joints during simple activities, vacuuming is physically very hard. That’s why I was thrilled to test the eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro with self cleaning, emptying and mop drying.
It has all the bells and whistles you’d expect of a top-of-the-range and pricey robot vacuum to rival the OG Roomba, and I hoped it would be the key to unlocking easier daily cleaning in my home without pain. I'm thrilled to report it really has.
Overall, I can confidently declare it to be one of the best robot vacuums on the market, entirely worthy of its price-tag. I’m really thrilled to have one at my disposal, but my Miele canister vacuum is staying put for large powdery spills.
What I loved about the eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro
eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro: Specifications
Setting up the eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro
It came in a large, moderately heavy box (the vacuum and its docking station alone weighs 13.8 kg, that's 30.4 lbs) with lots of internal packaging to keep it intact in transit. As I have chronic pain, I was unable to lift it out, but my husband did so with ease.
Aside from the base unit and robot vacuum itself, it came with a spare mop roller, one bottle of its non-toxic cleaning fluid for mopping, a UK and US compatible lead for the mains at 56-inches long, full manual and a large nine-step A3 document with simple Quick Start instructions and graphics, which made setup an absolute breeze and not at all overwhelming.
I’ll be honest that I put off starting the review for my first ever robot vacuum as I had no idea what to expect in terms of setup, and needed the time, mental energy and a low-enough-pain-day for it. Thankfully, it was easy and quick, taking 15 minutes overall. If we hadn’t needed pictures or have our excited daughter wanting to get involved, setup would have been complete in under 10 minutes.
Each step was simple, went exactly as described or pictured on the Quick Start sheet, and the vacuum came already loaded with 57% charge. It charged to full within 90 minutes, which it encourages users to allow before mapping or using for the first time.
The accompanying eufy app (available on Apple store and Google Play) was simple to sign up and use, leading to the vacuum precisely mapping our downstairs area, which has linoleum floors in the kitchen-diner and bathrooms, and carpet, plus a medium-pile large area rug in the living room, and jute in the entryway. To add an extra floor, the base unit needs to be taken upstairs to allow the robot to return to base and therefore save the map. Its stair detection tech was superb and it mapped upstairs as easily as it mapped down.
The app also allows you to add multiple vacuums with ease, skipping WiFi password-requesting after the first robot is on board.
It took my eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro 7 mins to map our 500 square feet ground floor accurately and about the same upstairs. We lifted everything we could off the floor and out from under our three sofas so even if later on there are things under there, the robot knows the layout of our ground floor well.
It maneuvered easily around the dining table, chairs, and switched between flooring with ease, including the in-built jute portion of our entryway flooring. I also discovered later that if we moved something in our home, such as our cat-scratching post, it would automatically re-map the change and remember it, meaning it didn't skip any areas just because something had moved.
Vacuuming with the eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro robot
It navigates within two inches of an obstruction such as a chair leg, then spins around it with next to nothing clearance so its two spinning brush arms can go all around without missing any flooring.
It handled the fluffy 2-inch tassels of our area rug with ease, and usually did not get tangled or stuck. When it did get itself into a pickle, it reversed and went around, or lifted up its front end, untangled itself and carried on. If you ever saw Batteries Not Included, it looks like one of those flying robot-aliens when they lifted their front legs up in excitement. The clearance was impressive.
The two spinning brush arms that sit on the front corners of the vacuum protrude out further than the body of the robot vacuum, meaning it can clear debris right up to walls, baseboard and doors without scratching anything.
When it ran over a phone charger wire, it reversed back to eject it. A few of my daughter's loose Barbie hair got tangled around those arms but with a one-button click and clean system, it was easy to remove the arm and clear the hair. The minimal amount of hair on those front arms did not impede its spin or function.
The only item item that confused the robot in my home was a rogue rubber door stop. It gently nudged it three times then changed course.
During month-long testing, I encountered one blockage in the rubber roller – which by the way is the key to not getting tangled with hair and in my view worth its weight in gold. After it announced the block and paused its vacuum cycle, the app prompted me with step-by-step instructions to fix the blockage. It was easy and resolved the problem.
Afterwards I put it back together and turned it the right way up, and clicked the confirmation on the app screen that I'd cleared the blockage and on went the clean. The red tabs and indicators make it really easy to see which parts you need to push, pull, squeeze or lift to maintain it. That makes it a breeze to clean and maintain – more on this later.
The noise levels were as loud as a vacuum cleaner, according to my Decibel X phone app, but it sounds quieter than my Miele Complete Cat and Dog C3 vacuum, which we've also reviewed, though it turned out to be around 10 decibels louder than its older sister, the eufy X10 Pro Omni robot vacuum and mop at the same suction setting.
The mopping function itself was quiet, but noisy when the dirty water drained at the base station. My decibel app found that to be as loud as a hairdryer (60-80 decibels) but that was short lived, lasting only 20-30 seconds. I tried to avoid this during my husband’s video meetings in the kitchen, but sometimes it cut in to them and he had to mute himself.
I love how accurate the Pro S1's mapping has been, allowing it to move underneath our sofas, which have half a foot of clearance from the floor. The height of this robot is 3.77 inches and that means the minimum clearance it needs is 4 inches.
Its sister, the eufy Omni, for comparison, banged into my highly-reflective chrome shower door, though it largely avoided other obstacles around the home. I don’t have anything that fits this description in our home to test it out. They recommend 4.3 inches clearance for smooth cleaning under furniture, but also say its infrared tech will help it see in the dark if you decide to runs yours overnight. I found it to work just fine in bright light, daytime and dark. The only area it got stuck on was under my TV stand so I marked it a ‘virtual no go zone’ on the map which stopped it getting wedged.
After testing the eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro in my home over the course of a month, I found our cadence of use to be vacuuming every evening before my daughter went to bed, and mopping once midweek in the day time, and again on the weekend or when there were spills, such as a bright blue crushed ice drink, below.
The eufy S1 Omni Pro robot vac cleaned it up on a zoned clean, which is when you draw a box on the map via the app, for it to do a targeted vacuum, mop or combination with ease. It left no sticky or blue residue and did not spread it at all. It also was clear to me the robot’s sensors were detecting exactly where spilled liquid was, as it went over that section in close detail till it was all mopped up.
This robot vac has excellent 3D MatrixEye™ Obstacle Avoidance collision sensors and technology and didn't bang into anything over the course of a month of daily cleans. I did, however, find clearing the floor or side tables and toys off the ground made the cycle a little quicker, as the robot didn't have to navigate around lots of stuff it didn't expect to find.
If it was quieter, I wouldn’t bother clearing stuff off the floor to speed it up. I should make it clear that the noise levels are not painful or bothersome. I just can’t watch TV at a normal volume and have to speak louder to my husband or daughter during it.
Test 1: Cereal on kitchen Iinoleum floors
I poured a cup of dry cereal over the kitchen floor and set a zoned clean on Standard suction. It handled the volume of cereal with ease and only bumped a few pieces of the cereal debris forward or to the side, taking in 99% of the debris on its first sweep.
During this test, I realized I had zoned the space inaccurately so after it had completed and returned to base, I set it on a room vacuum for the kitchen only, and it set to work. It grabbed all the extra cereal with ease, and some rogue cat litter. I noticed at a lower volume of cereal, it didn’t ping any of them outwards.
However, when it returned to base and commenced dust collection (it’s self emptying function) it spat out a quarter cup worth of cereal.
It is worth noting I checked the robot and the base unit after the same happened following a flour vacuum test, and noticed there was a lot of cat fur, about two handfuls, blocking the dust tube, as well as a hair band, and a square of plastic. After a month of regular testing, this problem did not occur again no matter what I tried, so I’m putting the self-emptying fails that day down to a rogue blockage.
The plastic I had found in the self-emptying chute was an unusual blockage that the eufy engineering team did not expect to occur. I also checked with the eufy engineering team, who viewed my footage of the fail, pictured above, and they told me the volume of flour I'd used in the test was likely too high, and may have clogged the robot's filters, stopping its usual suction prowess.
Our home tech editor, Dan Fauzi, adds, 'When I test vacuum cleaners, I use flour as a stand in for dust in a test center. The volume of flour used in this test is more than normal and isn't representative of a typical household's level of dust.'
I agree with them both and used less moving forward.
The small square opening of the self-emptying function, which is around 1 inch by 1.5 inches, is a key part of the self-emptying function so it became clear to me why the intense spitting out of vacuumed contents had occurred at the base earlier in testing.
It was obvious too that it also picked up a lot of cat fur from our carpets, though I used my manual floor fur scraper and collected a decent amount following a vacuum on Standard suction.
I have not seen a better result for removing pet hair from my carpets than hand scraping, using a pet hair scraping tool from Amazon, even with my canister pet vacuum. The next time I’m in the market for a vacuum, I’m definitely coughing up for one of the best pet hair vacuum cleaners as even when I had professional cleaners in every other week, they would vacuum the house top to bottom and still scrape a bucket load of fur from the carpets.
I was really pleased to see the robot vacuum’s anti hair-wrap technology, which is a rotating rubber brush rather than a bristled one, stayed entirely fur and hair free. I shed hair and so do my cats, and I am usually cleaning my canister vacuum's floorhead and brushroll mid vacuum (learn more with our vacuum jargon buster).
To compare, after a month of use, there was no hair wrapped around the rubber brushroll, whereas after the first use, its sister robot vacuum the X10 Omni Pro had hair wrapped around half of its rubber and brush combo roller.
Previously, when I had a budget cordless vacuum I purchased for under $200, I had to remove the brushroll every month, and over a trash bag, cut a nauseating amount of human and pet hair out of the brush to get it functioning.
This SI Pro robot vacuum has zero hairs caught on the brushroll or the front arms after a month of use. Impressive.
Test 1.1: Cereal on carpet
I used an eighth of a cup of cereal on the same amount of floor space, this time on carpet, it did a great job clearing it on Standard suction and only pinged a few pieces away from itself, which it collected on its next run. Even when the cereal was right up against the edge of something such as our sideboard, the robot vacuum did not falter or miss.
It became clear this robot vacuum can handle larger debris particularly well, which I would consider more typical of everyday spills than large volumes of flour, especially if you have kids, grand kids or pets running around. Most household vacuum manufacturers warn against using their vacuums on dense dust for the same reason: thick dust can clog filters and bust motors.
It is worth noting that I have never spilled a whole bowl, or cup full of dry cereal or flour anywhere in my home naturally, so my debris tests were on the over-zealous side. In normal every day spills, the eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro did brilliantly, never leaving any debris behind.
Having cleared the earlier blockage in the dust-emptying chute, I was interested to see what it did after it returned to base post-cereal-on-carpet vacuuming. It did not empty itself on this occasion, as it needs to vacuum a certain square footage before emptying. I prompted it to on the app instead, and it didn’t kick out any debris. Hurrah!
As an aside, this is a worthy moment to note this appliance’s brilliant battery power. It used just 4 per cent during these tests and returned to 100 percent within 10 minutes. The real-life benefit is if you have a large home, the robot should get through a lot of cleaning before it needs to pause for a battery recharge. It will still periodically return to base to empty its dustbin, dirty water and clean its mop.
Test 2: Flour on hard floors
On Standard suction mode, it tripled the spread of the flour debris field and pushed flour particles over other clear areas of the cleaning zone in the kitchen. This made the kitchen floor slippery and a bit of a hazard.
On Turbo suction mode, it picked up more of the flour debris but on Max Power, it started puffing flour out of it vents creating a real mess on the floor and in the air, so I switched it back to Standard suction mode via the app. Afterwards, there were areas of flour in kitchen zones I hadn’t spread it for testing, that were visible to the eye, as pictured below:
The flour was even pushed by the robot vacuum into the crevices of the linoleum floors, which is designed to look like wood flooring. The robot was unable to suction that up. My Miele canister vacuum for pet hair made light work of the floor and cleared the crevices and floor debris in one pass.
Again, it's worth noting that it's not a usual amount of day-to-day dust spillage, and I haven't had any problems on day-to-day cleaning, which is why I have rated this a 5 star robot vacuum.
Test 2.2: Flour on carpet
Given what I experienced during the first round of tests, I used much less flour on my carpet, around an eighth of a 1/4 cup. The robot did not pick it all up on standard suction mode, or turbo, though the mode turbo fared a bit better. I have asthma and so does my daughter so I didn’t use the max mode again as I didn’t want more flour particles in the air.
After a month of testing I am yet to have to empty the docking station, and the manufacturer says it holds up to 68L of dust. That's a lot...! After this testing experience, I am going to review how much flour we use in our testing as I don’t think this is an entirely representative or helpful medium. If you drop a bag of floor, you’ll likely sweep the majority, then hoover the residue.
Mopping with the eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro
Eufy’s mopping mix cartridge, which comes included, just needs to be turned upside down and placed in the tank area as indicated. Then, fill the removable clean water tank, pictured above, with tap water to the max fill line.
The base station comes loaded with Eco-Clean Ozone™ tech that electrolyzes your tap water in the machine for extra cleaning power. This acts as a sanitizer, killing germs on your floors, your machine, and in the mop-cleaning cycle.
The Pro S1 robot vacuum took just 3 minutes to mix and go, mopping the kitchen diner in around 10 mins. I set it to 2 out of 4 for wetness and the mix dried in under 10 minutes, leaving a subtle but slip-free shine and no sensation of stickiness that some chemical cleaners can leave.
It is very lightly fragranced but not enough of a fragrance for even my hound of a nose to pick up on any particular scent. The Eufy multi-surface non-toxic floor cleaner is the only one recommended for use with this system by the manufacturer, and it’s around $22 for a single Eufy hard floor cleaner 600 ml refill on Amazon.
Over the eight mopping cycles I ran on my 250 square feet of hard floors in a month of testing, around half a tank of water was used. It is not possible to tell within that, how much of the mopping mix was used up. I am yet to be prompted to replace the Eufy cleaning solution. When I have real world usage to report, I will update this article.
The mop function is self emptying into the docking station and it has a separate dirty water tank to avoid nasty smells being spread. Similarly, the auto-drying function on the mop roller is fantastic, the noise unobtrusive and excellent, meaning the foam mop brushroll doesn't end up smelling like a wet dog. It still looks pristine.
Using the eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro with pets in the house
My two cats were both freaked out and intrigued by our new helper but after some initial heckle-raising, they quickly relaxed and popped up on higher surfaces to watch our robot vacuum, which we have now affectionately nicknamed Euphegenia Doubtfire, at work.
The eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro does not overlap its mopping, and made clean, joined up lines with ease, clearing my cats’ muddy paw prints in one pass. It also mopped around their food mats without disturbing their water bowls or knocking their shallow food plates. I forgot to lift these off and away for its maiden mop.
On every mopping cycle, the robot’s sensors were able to distinguish between the jute doormat in the kitchen and hall, the linoleum floor, and the spot where the carpet of the living room meets the hard floors, which is separated by a set of doors we usually have open.
Even when it navigated up to my cats' scratching post, it hopped up – it can rise 1.5 inches – and gave that a good vacuum too.
It tackled sticky, sugary liquid spills with ease, and much like the tests available to view on the manufacturer’s website, blasted through coffee, milk and ketchup stains with zero issue, residue or spread.
The manufacturer does warn not to use the robot on too much liquid as that may damage its motor. This just means much like a normal, manual mop-worthy household spill, use paper towels to collect some of the excess liquid first.
The eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro on different surfaces
During vacuuming, it had no problem going over our medium pile area rug, which has a changing design that includes ridged arcs, as well as horizontal and vertical lines. It actually fared impressively better than when I manually vacuum between the ridges with my Miele corded canister pet vacuum as I find it physically difficult to push over the ridges.
Cleaning and maintaining the eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro
I'll be honest, that there hasn't been much for me to do. The mop self cleans and dries, the rubber brushroll is anti-hair tangling, and the vacuum and mop both empty into the base tower.
So far, all I've had to deal with was the rogue plastic blockage in the chute. I also emptied the dirty water tank, for my own curiosity, rather than needing to because it was full. I emptied it down the toilet and cleaned the inside with dish soap. Simple.
When the 64-liter dust bag gets full, I'll just have to bin that and replace it with a new bag. Whilst the filters are free for life, you will have to purchase the dust bags and mopping solutions when you run out and generic ones are not advised by the manufacturer.
Having had both a bagless and bagged vacuum before, I’ll take the cost of a vacuum bag any day as I loathe the filth and dust of cleaning a bagless vacuum dust bin.
My verdict eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro
I suffer chronic pain from a genetic connective tissue disorder and vacuuming is especially hard on my body, leading to pain flares and injuries such as dislocations. And yet, vacuuming remains one of those household chores that is vital daily in our home because of our two cats and averagely messy eight-year-old child.
When I was in better health, I vacuumed daily, if not twice daily to keep our home clear of dust, crumbs and fur, but my health has declined so much I rarely have days where I feel well enough to even vacuum the living room. I now can no longer put weight on my right foot, which makes any kind of housework extremely challenging.
This robot vacuum is therefore a really welcome and helpful addition, alleviating the daily vacuuming person-power our busy little household needs, and tackling it well. I love the automation, the bells and whistles it has for self emptying and mop drying, and the easy-to-use and very handy app. You can even set daily cycles up so the robot sticks to a particular cleaning schedule that helps you keep on top of cleaning.
I adore also how effective the robot and mop is and am not holding the flour blooper against it. Nothing in my testing found it was unable to handle day-to-day debris, dust and mess (human, pet and otherwise).
After the eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro mops finishes, the level of debris collection and cleanliness is akin to when we used to have a professional cleaner come in weekly for a thorough clean. I really love this robot vacuum and it has replaced our need for a canister vacuum downstairs almost entirely.
We will keep our Miele canister vacuum as the robot can’t do the stairs or deal with excessive powdery-filled mess.
If you’re considering investing in a robot vacuum and mopping system to help you keep on top of household cleaning, this one is absolutely worth the spend, especially if you have pets, or like me, are disabled or in pain.
Next, delve into our best Dyson alternatives, fully tested by our experienced home tech team for an awesome but more budget-friendly vacuum for your home.
