eufy Robot Vacuum 11S MAX, Super Thin, Powerful Suction, Quiet, Self-Charging Robotic Vacuum Cleaner, Cleans Hard Floors to Medium-Pile Carpets, Black

This (really long) review is for the Eufy 11S Max robot vacuum (Robovac). Please note “Max” vs regular 11S. They may look the same; but the Max uses a different filter and has the higher 2000pa suction. Otherwise the functions and options (other than suction choices) are the same. I've used the 11S Max for the last month on my low pile carpet (about 80% of the roaming area) with the rest being tile or linoleum flooring. It has been quite fascinating to watch so I've actually put about 85-90 charge cycles on the unit over the last month (yes, three times a day on most days and it's still finding more dirt/dust than I would expect).Right up front, I'd definitely buy another when it comes time to replace this one. After comparing how I vacuum my flooring, especially to pick up my biggest carpet enemy; short stray bits of dried grass stems, the “random” wandering of this vacuum model made more sense to me than the other fancier choices. Most vacs do a good job with dust, dirt, sand, cheerios, etc. but these stem pieces are only picked up by a vacuum when it comes at the stem with the brush roller pretty much parallel to the stem. That means random directions will more likely get these pesky problems than an organized back & forth cleaning approach. Granted it may take a few cleaning cycles or several passes over the same area during one cycle; but since the Robovac has completed its first 5-6 cycles I rarely find them anymore or if I do spot one it's not for very long.Robovac is a big time saver as well as an energy saver for me. I would use my canister vacuum about an hour each week for routine cleaning and once a month for 2+ hours to do a more thorough cleaning. A watt-hour meter indicated that my canister vacuum used 5-6 kw-hr of electricity each month. Robovac uses about 12 watts continuously for about 4 hours when charging (surprisingly less than the 5-6 hrs listed in the manual; but it is brand new). Once the battery is charged, the power consumption drops to about ½ watt. When Robovac is away cleaning, the charging base uses just ¼ watt for the homing beacon. So if used just once a day; Robovac would only use about 60 watts per day. That means once-a-day cleaning would only use 1.8 Kw-hr energy per month. By letting Robovac take over the regular weekly cleaning with once a day operation (or less), I'm able to cut my electric bill by an easy 3-4 kw-hr/month.With that said, there are a few things that I think need improved:First, there should be an interlock on the dust bin – Robovac will merrily go off about it's scheduled cleaning cycle without the bin installed! So if removed for emptying; don't forget to re-install the bin before the next scheduled operation. Plus, I noticed on a couple occasions, that I wasn't paying attention and I left one corner was about 1/8” out from fully inserted. Not sure if that will cause suction leaks; but you need to make sure the bin is completely inserted.Second, you can't select “max” (or any power level) when using the remote to manually clean an area. It appears to only operate on “standard” suction with manual operation (i.e., when Robovac is not running a regular cleaning mode and you chose to override it's direction). In addition, if you select the remotes' edge or spot cleaning modes it will automatically go to “max” power for the duration of that mode and you can't choose IQBoost or standard power level on those selections.Third, I don't know why the 20 minutes for edge cleaning or 30 minutes for quick cleaning was selected. Robovac can make it about 60-70% around my home in the 20 minutes of edge cleaning. If edge cleaning mode was permitted to run until it made a trip all way around and back to the charging station where it could dock to finish that mode would work better. An alternate solution would be if I could set the cycle time for edge cleaning and quick cleaning modes. Plus I'd like having an option for it to simply stop when the time is up rather than automatically returning to the base. When I want just one room cleaned; I'll set Robovac to auto or quick mode in that room, then close the door or put down a barrier, and return later to stop it manually and take it back to the charging base. If I don't return in a timely manner Robovac will be trying to locate the charging base and running the battery down.Fourth, Robovac cleans edges using only its right side pretty much all of the time. It would be helpful to have it randomly choose using either the right or left side whenever edge cleaning. I watched it edge clean a carpet/wall area three times going only in a counterclockwise direction (right side) and it still didn't pick up all the dust bunnies. I used manual control with it hugging the wall on its left side and it picked them up with no problem. Also, be aware that manual operation, when Robovac is not already working in a selected cleaning mode (overriding current movement), only works while the remote buttons are pressed. Robovac stops all functions shortly after a button is released when used manually.Fifth, I really don't need to run Robovac on a daily schedule – there should be a weekly scheduling capability even for the least expensive robot vacuums. It shouldn't be that difficult or expensive to update this model to correct this issue. Even if it's the same set cleaning time, every day for the selected days; just give me the ability to schedule cleaning cycles one to seven times a week.Sixth, when the battery runs low, Robovac can take forever, if it makes it back at all, to the charging base. I will routinely go looking for it if I haven't seen it return within 10-15 minutes after the approximate cleaning time has passed. The age-old solution for solving a maze (your home from Robovacs' perspective) is to constantly follow along obstacles using just one side (Robovac does recognize when it's circling something like a coffee table and adjusts accordingly after a 360 degree rotation). This method is how Robovac tries getting closer to the charging station when it's more than about 15ft away and not in line-of-sight (the charging base emits an infrared signal for homing action – make sure you keep Robovacs' bumper and the base clean). Sometimes Robovac occasionally gets diverted or the software tells it to try something different) and it will go off in another (often wrong) direction (extremely frustrating!). I highly recommend observing Robovac perform it's return operation from various areas in your home. I ended up placing a 2x4 along the end legs of my sofa as Robovac was consistently going along the side skirt, under the skirt at front of the sofa, then around the front leg exiting the side of the skirt, and then heading straight across the room. It would then go thru three other rooms and come back to the sofa again. The 2x4 forced Robovac to continue edging under the sofa, along the back wall, and out the other end which has an end table that mimics the 2x4 at the opposite end. Before using the 2x4, Robovac took well over an hour to get back to the charging base (it eventually changes up it's routine, usually after three tries) and required 5 hrs to recharge. With the 2x4, Robovac has been able to get back from the far end of my house to the charging base in under 20 minutes very consistently. While the ability to improve Robovacs' return mode is really limited to what you can do, the key point I'm making here is that the battery will always give you more charge cycles (longer life) before needing replacement if you can get Robovac back to the charging base as soon possible.Seventh, pay attention to the thin rubber wiping strip on the brush guard. After 60+ cycles I noticed the ends of the thin rubber strip (about 1/16” of it's height) were tearing away. I believe this was most likely due to moving back and forth over edging from tile/linoleum to carpet or maybe due to the floor mounted furnace registers in my home. I simply trimmed the torn bits off to keep them from getting caught by the brush. After about 100 cycles I noted the rest of the 1/16” strip was now gone. This impacts the tile/linoleum cleaning far more than carpet; but it is something to watch for. I highly recommend checking the rubber strip during brush cleaning and purchasing a brush guard replacement as part of a maintenance set. Hopefully the manufacturer will improve the thickness or type of material used to prevent or at least reduce this problem occurring in the future.Next, a few helpful hints I've learned or didn't find in the owner's manual:The “bowl” shape on top of the charging base with the white LED is just right to hold the remote control, button-side up. However, I prefer to turn remote controls' button-side down to keep them cleaner so it's up to you if you use it or not.I've had a few occasions when Robovac actually bumped into the charging base so it was no longer sitting square against the wall. This will impact it's ability to find the base when the battery is low. I took a used rectangular-shaped one quart motor oil bottle from my recycling bin, cleaned it thoroughly, and filled it with sand. It's now a 3-4lb weight sitting on top of the charging base. I haven't had the base re-positioned since adding the weight. Normally Robovac does a good job avoiding the charging base; but not always.Robovac “parks” about 1/2” away from the charging base tower. If you are careful, you can swipe a cloth over the bumper sensors to clean off any surface dust that has collected (always seems to be some); however, be careful as Robovac might activate while you are doing this. You might also get a solid red indicator without any beeps. This error isn't described in the manual; but I've found if I just lift Robovac off the charging base for few seconds and then replace it, it will change back to the charging orange color. (I suspect the solid red indicates a sensor error) It's also quite easy to remove/replace the dust bin during charging. Unfortunately you will need to flip Robovac on it's back to remove/clean the side and roller brushes as well as the bottom IR sensors and charging contacts, so remember to turn Robovac off with the topside button before doing this or get used to it trying to start up while you are cleaning it. Also make sure the blue/orange indicator light is on when you reposition it on the base. Sometimes Robovac will remain off rather than return to charging mode.After two or three cleaning cycles I'll do a regular check on the all the brushes and swap left and right side brushes when they are re-installed; seems to straighten and make them work a little better, maybe last longer too.Oddly the remote control spot clean button symbol and the manual indicate a clockwise spiral for the cleaning operation; but when I've selected it, Robovac has always used a counterclockwise rotation.If the side brushes happen to “hang up” on something, Robovac will stop spinning them while it maneuvers around the obstacle and then restart the brushes when it thinks it is clear. Don't assume there's a problem when you see this unless Robovac beeps and the indicator turns red.The flat handle end of a spoon or fork works great for prying the filter free from the bin for cleaning. Every time I have tried using my fingers; it pops out tossing dust/lint everywhere.The IQBoost mode doesn't seem to change going from hard flooring to low pile carpet or vice versa in my home. I think this is because the low pile carpet just doesn't cause enough “drag” for it to recognize that it could adjust the suction level. (I'm still not clear as to whether there's just two suction levels or if Robovac can vary linearly between the two) While the manual indicates a 40 min run time in “max” mode with medium nap carpet, I'm obtaining about 60 minutes with my low nap carpet. I do find the “max” mode clearly picks up more dust. I ran Robovac 20+ times on IQ mode before switching to “max” for its scheduled operation. The filter has clearly shown a thicker layer of accumulation on the filter.When “max” mode is set as default you will occasionally hear the vacuum whining noise change briefly. Best I can figure is it's a software glitch where the IQBoost code tries to adjust the suction level; but then resets it to max. I normally hear this shortly after Robovac goes from one flooring type to another. It also occurs shortly after it starts it's routine.Robovac does not communicate back to the remote. So if for instance, you press edge cleaning and Robovac doesn't get the message, the remote will show it should be performing edge cleaning even though it's not. Similar situation when Robovac is recharging or is returning to recharge; the remote will still show it's in the selected cleaning mode rather than the “charging” icon. You simply have to pay attention that Robovac has recognized your command by a “beep”.I found using the basketball nozzle with my Ryobi P737 inflator does an excellent job cleaning the filter. It takes only a couple minutes to clean both the filter and the bin (outdoors of course!). The original filter has been cleaned well over 100 times now and other than being a little dingy it's still working great. This should help stretch the recommended replacement interval to more than 2 months compared to the recommended “tapping it” to clean. Do not use the “canned” compressed air as I frequently find it wets surfaces during extended spraying and the Robovac filter is a paper element.If you have a sofa, chair, etc, with stiff or heavy cloth skirting down to the floor; I suggest safety pinning up at least a foot or two of the skirting on an open side. When or if Robovac switches to using the proximity mode for cleaning AFTER it gets under the furniture, the skirt will appear like a wall and it will keep running around underneath the furniture until it switches to a collision mode where the weight of the skirt generally will not trip the bumper sensors and stop it from escaping.I'm glad I've used Robovac during the daytime so I could track it down and figure out what trouble it got into during its normal operation or when I expected it to be back at the charging base. The alarm beep sounds can easily be missed when it's far away from you. Plus, when it powers down after getting stuck can make it lot more challenging to find! It's a lot easier to locate when the vacuum sound is still going or even if it's just the quieter wheel motors running it around looking for the charging base.To wrap up my review. I've found Robovac to be a well built, nicely designed, and quite durable robot vacuum. The $160 price I paid is quite reasonable with excellent cleaning ability (given it has about 1/10 the suction of a typical canister vac). It has good battery run times (my mixed flooring on IQ mode lets Robovac run about 80-85 minutes before recharging), and it is a wonderful time and energy saver. If you've been thinking about a robot vacuum without all the extras (or just don't like vacuuming), the Eufy 11S Max is a great choice.

Summary: I read a LOT of reviews about a LOT of products of a similar nature before I leapt in to buy this, my first robot. Overall, this product was good SOLID value for the money.I have now owned it for for OVER a year now, used daily and this analysis is based on close observations during that period. NOT one of those folks who buy it an write a review five minutes after they pull something out of the box. Here are the key points you should consider when buying a Robot to sweep your floors.1. Price - Look...Price was definitely a consideration at buy in. I studied many models before I bought this one. These kinds of robots overall cost money. $$$. Of course, I am old school. These days some folks buy a Cell phone that cost $500 dollars to $1000 and think nothing of it. To me that is WAY too much. Ditto many models of similar robots. At the time I bought it the robot was on sale so I got a price that was $100 cheaper than competitors whose reviews read about the same as this one did. So the buy in pricewise was a good solid deal that was in what I consider the medium to upper low cost affordability range. Perhaps you would think nothing of spending $850 on a robot. Not me. Like goldilocks, this one was just right.SECRET Costs you may not think about: Some reviews address this, but consider these things as being costs IN ADDITION to buy in:Filters: This thing has a filter. I recall one review whining that filters cost too much. Let me be clear. If you want a new HEPA filter for it every week or two, they will cost you. Me? The filter does not seem to me to very critical since I do not really plan on the robot cleaning my air. It gets dirty and dusty. As a result, I pull it every other use and wash it out under a faucet in my kitchen (a two minute job), let it dry a bit and then put it right back in the machine (Which is super easy to do...no tools or anything - just pull out - click in.) After reading one alarmist review prior to buying, I bought one spare filter at the same time I bought the robot thinking I might find it was true. So far, after a year or more of use, I STILL have not replaced the filter. Just keep using the original. Think about it.Brushes - I bought a kit with spare brushes when I bought the robot. Glad I did. Buy at least one set just to you have them around when you need them. The brushes twirl around and shove cat hair into the maw of the thing as it races around. Somewhere. Somehow, as it toodled about around the six month mark, it threw a brush. (They snap on and off easily) Like a horse throwing a shoe, this is to be expected. This thing runs all over on its own so I could not find where it lost it. To this day I STILL have not found the missing brush. No problem. I just grabbed a spare, snapped it on and it kept on going.Tools - The kit I bought early came with a little cleaning/maintenance tool. See my section on Maintenance below about tools.2. Utility - Utility to me means ease of use. Based on a year of hard use for my robot you should consider the following lessons learned about utility:CLEANING FLOORSa. Does is really sweep ALL the floor? Read a lot of reviews and looked at a variety of designs. Some reviews that I recall said "This thing finds a LOT of dirt. Where does it get it all?" After a year of emptying it (You DO need to empty its evening sweep into your trash, usually every day - VERY easy to do - again click out- click in) I totally agree! This thing finds a TON of dirt and dust that is NOT obvious to the naked eye. Frankly, that is its job and I need to make clear here that it does its job really really well. VERY SATISFIEDb. To be utter clear however... I have a three story house. To define that though that is two stories with WOODEN and some tile Floors and a third floor that is mixed wood, carpet and concrete.PRO: I cheat. One robot for three floors of my house! Every day or two I pick it up from its charger, move it from floor to floor to let it clean a different floor whenever the mood strikes me. Works great! More, this thing cleans almost all of those floors flawlessly - especially the wood, tile and concrete bits. It sneaks into lots and lots of corners, under furniture and stuff and it never, ever runs off the edge of stairs. Completely satisfied. I admit I may be so satisfied because wood, tile and concrete are 92% of my floors and it is flawless on those types of floors.CON: This is a real review, not a feel good propaganda babble. If there is a con to this robot it is carpets. Specifically, it WILL work across modern carpet. That is carpet that is tight, laid level with the rest of the floor and has nothing to hang it up on. However, it struggles to go over edges, so if there is an edge to your carpet, a strip that it has to ride up over OR (Like me) you have a carpet or two that are Persian Style rugs with tassels at the end, just be advised that it WILL choke as it tries to cross these barriers. You can still do these surfaces, but you will have to stay nearby and bail it out when/if it hangs up... which feels time wasting. This should not make you hesitate to buy based on this review UNLESS you have a lot of these carpet barrier things about your house, in which case you will be annoyed by this robot. To be fair however, you may be annoyed by ANY robot under those conditions. Just think about it before you buy.******** Utility NOTE! This is a final note on utility. The REAL Nemesis of any robot is WIRES/Cords. Once you own one, you will figure this out pretty quick. You will need to get your cords under control since the robots will find power cords on computers, lamps etcetera and choke up on them. 80% of the time when it does not return to its charger at after you program it to clean (Smart folks program that between 1AM and 3AM - unless you tell it to go manually for some reason) you will have to track it down to find it hung up on wires. Once again, to be fair, I think this is true of virtually all robots. They are not too bright about wires. The other 20% of hang-ups comes from some oddity in your furniture. I have particular chair in my study whose side supports are JUST a bit too short for the robot to go under, so it drive in there and wedges itself into the spot and cannot get free on its own. Just to you know, this is fair enough, robot makers cannot anticipate every single possible piece of odd furniture. Just figure it out through trial and error, but enjoy all the cleaning it does WITHOUT you paying the slightest attention. A small price to pay.*********Utility NOTE 2: The control - Comes with a remote. To be frank, I only use two or three features on the control. I tested them all at the beginning, but I've forgotten what the rest do. Most used? Manual use button. Because of how I use it on other floors, the automatic run feature is only good on one floor. Works flawlessly as far as I can see. I tote it to the second floor, put it down, hit the manual timed button and off it goes. I wander back up an hour two later, hit the off button and walk it back to its charger. Second most used? The recharge button - This tells it got back to recharge station manually. If you you do not want it to keep going you can interrupt its cycle and it will go back to its recharging. Usually use this when I am watching a show, it starts on its own and I find the noise distracts me from watching. Third most used feature? The manual steering controls. One review I read said this machine is really stupid. That is half true. It does fine most of the time, but if you want to steer it manually on occasion you can. I have a table I want to make sure it does under in a certain way, so I just point and click it to drive it into the bits when I want them to be cleaned.3. Maintenance - Look. Old soldiers will tell you. Preventative maintenance will allow you to keep using your equipment day in and day out. This robot IS reliable IF you know you will need to maintain it! If you are lazy you will hate doing maintenance. I just make it part of day's routine and do not resent it. Thus I am very satisfied. My routine is to pick it up about 5 PM, sit and work on it for three to five minutes WHILE I watch TV. WHAT? You cry! Why so much work! The work is there because the robot does its job. All you are doing is making sure it keeps doing the job without hassle. Once again, whatever nonsense if advertised, I imagine ALL robots require this kind of looking after. PLAN on it. This one I suspect is no better or worse than any other. Do not go into it blind though.Here is what you need to know:a. You will need a little tool to do maintenance. If you buy the little kit with filters, brushes and a tool in it, know this. The tool is a hokey little plastic thing that CAN work... but takes a bit more time to use. Specifically it has a comb to clear tangle in your brushes. This works well. It has a little brush to brush dust off filters, off the inside of the dust/dirt collection box, etc. This works adequately. It ALSO has a little razor blade letter opener thing on one side intended to clear hair from rotors (Two types) This is a weak tool that works, but is time consuming and tedious to use. You are better off getting a little tool with steel blade or hook on it. Something you can use to really dig hair out of spots where it winds itself around a brush or rotor. Dig through your kitchen drawers, tool boxes or the $2.00 bins a the hardware store until you find something that works better for you.Maintenance: Enemy number one if long hairs. I have two women in the house. I am sure they do not mean to shed, but shed it they do somehow. This is what happens. As the little brushes turn they pick up hair and push some of it into the bin...BUT they also wind around and around the spinning brushes. Every other cleaning I find a wad of it around both brushes. There is also a rotor on the bottom the turns and does the sweeping up.. It ALSO picks up long hairs. Some will wind around the rotor proper and must be cut off or pulled off. This is the easy part. The hard part is that some will wind around at the ends where the bristles stop. This is where the recommended tool I mentioned will pay for itself as the hair tends to knot up tight in wind after wind. You will have to dig it out and cut it loose. You must also empty the bin at the same time. I also wash the bin out now and then along with the filter. Once a month or month and half the front wheel may also need to be tugged out (It pulls out and pushed back in easily) It ALSO gets hair down in there around its axle, though not nearly as fast as the rotors and brushes do. That is it. I will only close by saying I have NOT owned every robot in the world, but I imagine these periodic maintenance requirements will be very similar for ANY robot... NOT just this one, so if my maintenance picture here appear to be too gloomy, don't let it be.OVERALL: I am totally sold on having a slave machine keep my floors swept. Rather it than me! Call me lazy bones. A little maintenance now and then is well worth this machine. Go ahead and buy one. Jump in the water's fine.