The Eureka E10S (or Reggie as we’ve affectionately named ours) is a competitively priced robot vacuum cleaner with both mopping and self-emptying functions. As many on the market have come to offer, it maps the layout of your home and can vacuum/mop on a schedule via the companion app. Considering it’s regularly priced under $800 on a sale, it represents decent value for money, albeit with several shortcomings.
Setup is a piece of cake. Minimal assembly is required, simply topping up the water tank, inserting the dust collection bin and inserting the rotating side brushes. The footprint of the base station with the robot attached is rather large, but not substantially different to the competition. Accommodating space in our apartment hallway was easy enough, ensuring it had quick access to high foot traffic areas.
Getting started via the app was straightforward too, as was adding it to my Google Home. The Eureka app isn’t bad, giving you the control to clean only certain rooms or zones, set a schedule, or customise settings. There’s added controls around the level of suction power (which can help keep noise down too) and water level used in mopping. The water tank I only needed to top up every couple of mops.
Bar some initial logout issues with the app, I was pleased with the sophisticated software. No-go zones and invisible walls can easily be added to your map after the initial scan. A recent update has added widget support on iOS too, which is a welcome addition for even easier cleaning. It’s encouraging to see regular updates coming through, and firmware automatically updating.
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As for the cleaning itself, I was very impressed. It’s served me exceptionally well over the last few months, running about the flat with surprising speed and efficiency. The cleanliness of difference post vacuum and mop was noticeable. The robot does an excellent job getting into nooks and crannies, getting up against skirting boards and around doorways. Returning to its dock to empty at the end of its rotation, I was blown away how much it was able to pick up — but maybe that’s more a reflection of the state of my apartment!
The dust container back at the base station makes a racket as it empties the robot but does a cracking job. In one motion you can remove the container and easily empty it into your waste bin. Its bagless which is a huge bonus, and spare filters and mop clothes are readily available at less than $30 a pair.
The robot had little trouble with hair too. I don’t have any pets in the house, but it fared well enough with both my girlfriend and I’s long hair. I have little concern it would do an ace job cleaning up after a cat or a dog and be invaluable in staying on top of the worst of the hair build up. You may just have to detangle the side brushes every couple of months.
My apartment is also entirely hardwood floors which, as you’d expect, presented no issues for the Eureka E10S. There’s a bit of a lip to mantle over onto the bathroom tiles which it managed to muscle over, only encountering a bit of an issue lifting-up the bathmat.
It also ran into a spot of bother tackling a high pile rug in the living room. Perhaps if it weren’t operating in and around a coffee table it might have fared better, but it struggled to navigate the length despite being suitable for carpets with a Carpet Mode that adjusts the height of the device. I have little concern with normal pile carpet you’d have any issues.
Despite the array of sensors protruding from the top of the unit like a periscope, I was a little disappointed by how clumsy it was. Irregular items like a clothes horse in the house created an issue: it would ram into one of the narrow legs and move the clothes horse a bit before realising a problem and make an audacious attempt to clamber over the horizontal part of the leg on another occasion.
In one of the more concerning misdemeanours, the Eureka E10S nabbed my girlfriend’s laptop charger and dragged it halfway across the flat before flagging a problem. On another occasion it got under the entertainment unit (its low profile coming in handy) but got tangled in the wires connecting all the devices.
I’d advise caution leaving loose items or cables about; a quick tidy up and check before setting off the machine is recommended. For most at this price point, that’s very much the case — you could spend twice, if not three times as much, to get smarter obstacle avoidance.
