One-minute review
Eufy might be a smart home company, majoring in the best video doorbells and home security cameras besides robot vacuums, but unlike some, making easy-to-use products is its USP. So it comes as no surprise that one of its entry-level models, the RoboVac 11S, is devilishly simple to use. There’s no app, no WiFi control, no voice control – just a charging station, remote control, and a sleek, slimline vacuum cleaner.
This isn’t to say it’s a basic appliance. If anything, much of its simplicity comes from a thoughtful design and an excellent balance of functionality – there’s enough flexibility to be able to switch between spot, overall and perimeter cleaning, and three power levels, but not so many options that it’s overwhelming. A programmable timer means you can quite easily set it and forget it.
The other reason to choose RoboVac 11S is that it’s Eufy’s slimmest RoboVac at 2.8 inches / 7.25 cm tall, enabling it to sneak under beds and other furniture to keep dust bunnies at bay. And even with its shorter stature, there’s still a 0.15-gallon / 0.6-litre dust canister hidden inside.
The Eufy RoboVac 11S is effective at collecting fine dust and larger debris from hard floors, but struggles to give medium and thick pile carpets an effective deep clean. Eufy claims the robot vacuum will last for 100 minutes between charges, but this is in Standard mode on hard floor.
There’s also a BoostIQ mode that cycles between high and low power when the robot vacuum switches between carpet and hard floors, but this knocks the battery life down to 60 minutes, while when used in Max Mode the battery lasts just 50 minutes. All of this means that if it’s presented with particularly dusty or dirty larger floors, it may run down before the job is done.
The Eufy RoboVac 11S is the ideal robot vacuum for newbies and technophobes. It’s effective at light daily cleaning of large areas but doesn’t come with a raft of features that can complicate the robot vacuum, making it more complicated to use.
Eufy RoboVac 11S price and availability
- List price: $219.99 / £189.99 / AU$229
The Eufy RoboVac 11S is priced at $219.99 / £189.99 / AU$229. It’s available to buy now in the US and UK from Eufy or Amazon, while in Australia, it’s available at Kogan.com.
The Eufy RoboVac 11S Max, which offers more powerful suction is available in the US and UK for $249 / £239.99 respectively but isn’t available in Australia. Aside from power, the Eufy RoboVac 11S Max is very similar in terms of features, size, and dust capacity.
Design
- 0.15-gallon / 0.6-litre dust box
- 3 power levels and 4 cleaning modes
- Anti-scratch tempered glass-top cover
The Eufy RoboVac 11S is anything but chunky. It’s a mere 2.85 inches / 7.25cm off the floor, meaning that it can scoot under low furniture, and is also light enough to carry from room to room if required, at 5.73lb / 2.6kg. The charging station is similarly compact at 6.5 inches / 16.5cm wide, with a recess at the back for storing excess cable. Like many robot vacuums, you’ll need some clearance against a wall at either side of the charging station, but the station itself is so small that this should be easy.
Its design is pared-back – there’s a single button on top to wake it up (an on-off switch sits underneath the unit for a more permanent turn-off), tempered black glass surface, and infrared sensors at the front to help it steer clear of obstacles.
Underneath, you’ll find a pair of counter-rotating side brushes twinned with a 14.5 cm rolling brush. The 0.15-gallons / 0.6-liter dust box simply slides out from the back of the robot vacuum, but there’s no warning light when it’s full – we found the best way to know when it needs emptying, is if it isn’t picking up as well as usual.
From the box, it’s easy to get it up and running – clip on the side brushes, charge it up and you’re ready to go. There are five different cleaning modes; Auto, which ensures the robot vacuum pottles from room to room cleaning as it goes, as well as Spot for cleaning for specific areas, and Edge for 20 minutes of perimeter wall cleaning. These are joined by Single Room, which unsurprisingly will clean just one room, and Manual, where you can use the directional buttons on the remote to tell it where you want it to go – back, forward, right, or left.
The Eufy 11S also offers three power levels – Standard, BoostIQ, which uses a mix of Standard and Max when moving between hard floors and carpet, although this only works in Auto or Single Room cleaning mode, and Max.
Setting a schedule for cleaning is easy as it’s a case of choosing the hour and minute you’d like it to start using the remote control. The only downside is that there’s no option to clean every other day or twice a day but a daily vacuum should suffice for most. It comes with an extra set of filters, two additional side brushes, and even some cable ties so you can clip power cords out of its way.
Performance
- Adequate suction for most jobs
- Quiet in use
- Takes a random path around the room
If it’s larger particles that often litter your home, the Eufy RoboVac 11S can handle them. It picked up dry oats from both a medium-pile carpet and a hard floor with ease, with no need to resort to the higher settings. Finer dust made from flour and cookies was also no problem for it on a hard floor but when it came to picking that up from the carpet, the RoboVac 11S struggled. Even the Max suction setting couldn’t pull it out from the fibres once it had been trampled in by wheels running over the surface.
The RoboVac 11S’s cleaning pattern doesn’t always look logical – sometimes it’ll go in straight lines, sometimes seek out the edges of a room, sometimes it’ll want to travel in circles – but this random path of Bounce Navigation results in the entire room being cleaned, even if it can take some time. It wasn’t always that good at moving around objects – low-level things seemed to fox it the most, such as deep-pile rugs, piano pedals and pet food bowls.
While we had vacuumed before testing, the Eufy RoboVac did still manage to pick up other dust, pet dander and human hair from the edges of our rooms, although the latter tended to tangle around the rolling brush. The rotating brushes didn’t gather any dirt but a few of the bristles were bent or twisted slightly by the time we’d finished testing, so it’s a good idea to check on the condition of these regularly to maintain efficient cleaning.
It’s not especially noisy while in use – our decibel meter measured 55db when cleaning hard floors on the Standard mode, rising to 60db in Max. This is the equivalent of the sound a dishwasher makes mid-cycle, which is more than acceptable.
There’s no alert when the dust box is full, so you’ll need to remember to empty it or watch for when it doesn’t do a great job. The box is simple to empty though – it slides out with a button push, flips open and dust can be tipped out in one motion. Finer dust tended to clump in the corners, but this could be brushed out with the cleaning tool provided. This also serves for cleaning the rolling brush and filters, which is a weekly job.
Battery life
- Ranges from 50 to 100 minutes
- Battery takes around 5 hours to recharge from empty
- No battery level indicator
As mentioned, Eufy claims the battery will last 100 minutes on standard cleaning, and during our testing, it actually outdid this by lasting 105 minutes before its light turned from blue to orange and it trundled back to base to recharge.
However, we were disappointed there’s no battery level indicator that offers more detailed stats about just how much charge remains. That said, the battery took 4.5 hours to fully recharge, which is speedier than the claims made by Eufy.
Should I buy the Eufy RoboVac 11S?
Buy it if…
You want a simplistic robot vacuum
Fairly low maintenance and with enough functionality to be useful without being complicated, the Eufy RoboVac 11S is a robot vacuum for those who value simplicity over everything else.
You want a budget-friendly vacuum
While it’s not so cheap as to doubt its quality, the Eufy RoboVac 11S is far cheaper than many competitors, making it a smart buy if you’re on a budget.
You favor light daily vacuuming over weekly deep cleans
While the Eufy RoboVac 11S picked up larger particles, it struggled with fine dust on a carpet, making this a better model for those with hard floors or everyday cleaning.
Don’t buy it if..
Your home is quite crowded
While the Eufy RoboVac 11S was good at scooting under furniture, its sensors didn’t always pick up things in the way, meaning it got stuck a few times.
You want cleaning on demand
The Eufy RoboVac 11S’s lack of app or voice control means you either need to set a daily schedule using the remote control or be in the house to set it going – there’s no way of doing it from your smartphone on your way home.
You don’t want to have to keep remembering to empty it
Unfortunately, the lack of a ‘dust box full’ alert means you’ll have to check when the Eufy RoboVac 11S needs emptying rather than relying on it to tell you.
First reviewed: July 2021
