Today's Tech News and Reviews
Robot Vacuums started off as a technology that needed a lot of work. From not having enough suction power to poor battery life to connectivity issues and more. However, over the years they have come a long way. Eventually becoming one of those things you find yourself thankful for having around the house. The yeedi vac max is no exception.
This robot has plenty of suction power, can identify if it’s on carpet or a hard-surface floor, and can easily get underneath the furniture to get to some of those hard-to-reach areas (ie, under the bed, under cabinets, etc). It can even work with the company’s dust collection bin (an optional purchase), minimizing the number of times you have to worry yourself with emptying it out into the garbage.
The design is quite familiar with a circular body, a single brush (not many models make use of the dual-brush design anymore), and a push/bump sensor on the front for when it taps into objects as it is finding its way around.
It operates using a camera to map its environment and find its way around. Something that has improved quite a bit over the years (mentioned in the below video, under the conclusion). Leading to many companies moving away from Lidar to more affordable options, such as this. Lidar has a lot of promise, but it raises the costs for everyone. Instead, these efforts at put into AI and other forms of software that can get the job done just as well using visual aids (ie, cameras). The end result is a vacuum that costs $250-$400 instead of $500-$1,000.
There is a plastic reservoir that slides in and out that can be filled with water, allowing the robot to both mop and vacuum floors. While having the ability to automatically identify what kind of floor it is on so that it doesn’t accidentally dump water all over your nice carpet.
It will even adjust its suction automatically if it feels it needs to. Allowing it to save energy during use while also kicking things up to 3000Pa when the job requires it. This also means that it is relatively quiet through a lot of its use while also gaining its ability to run for up to 200 minutes before having to head back to charge (5200mAh battery inside).
Keep in mind that a robot isn’t a solve-all solution. These vacuums are there for simple tasks that keep repetitive cleaning down to a minimum. You still have to go back and do a manual clean of your floors from time to time to get those stains or deeper messes out. However, dust, particles, cereal, and other small trash and dirt will be swept away easily by this model.
That last part is an important spec since many of these models can only clean for 15 or so minutes before having to take a breath on its dock and then go back for me. Being able to run for up to 200 minutes should mean that it will be able to clean just about any room or even floor of a home without having to take breaks. However, if it did need a recharge in the middle of the clean, it will still auto-resume where it left off like most useful models.
It comes with a number of pads and a plastic accessory that you attach for when it is mopping. This holds the pad to the bottom of the robot. The reservoir isn’t that large, but it is enough to get simple jobs done. You may not be able to mop an entire floor of the house (if it’s all tiled) in one go, but most units experience this because you only have so much space to slide a reservoir into. This also depends on how much water you use (you have three density levels to choose from in the app).
This leads us to the app! (details continue below all these wonderful images)
As you can see here, the app is easy to work with. It runs you through setting up the robot and adding it to your network. You can name the robot to whatever you want (we always choose fun droid/robot names like R2D2, BB-8, Dot Matrix, or WALL-E).
Just remember to add the robot to a 2.4Ghz network (not 5Ghz). It’s fine if your router combines these networks as it should automatically designate the proper one for it.
Once it has been added to the app, you want to eyeball the cleaning area. Make sure there are no loose/thin cables lying around that it can tangle up in. Or anything else it can get caught up in. This is the same with any robot vacuum. You may want to move chairs off the ground so it can get underneath them, but this is up to you.
When you are ready, tell it to clean and it will start exploring the area. As it does, it will create a visual map in the app. When finished, you can then edit the map by designating “no go” zones where you don’t want the robot to clean in the future. You can designate areas you want to clean, create schedules, and all sorts of functions you would expect to find in a modern robot vacuum. You can start, stop, and resume its function from the app all you want.
The app is proprietary so there is no adding the robot to a larger ecosystem directly (ie, SmartThings, Smart Life, etc). However, the app does support Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, allowing you to control the robot from there. Once (or if) yeedi releases a public API, you may be able to find deeper integrations that are possible.
As mentioned, we do recommend the self-emptying bin/station as not everyone remembers to empty the little bin inside the robot after every clean. Especially, if you make use of cleaning schedules. You may not be around to empty it each time. When using the station, it will empty itself into the bin when it goes back to charge. Minimizing the number of times you have to worry about it as the station holds a lot more content than the little bin inside the robot.
We find that the 200-minute run time is a huge benefit with some of these new models coming out. Allowing the robot to get the job done in one sweep (pun intended). the suction power is enough for most jobs you’d expect a robot vacuum to be capable of and it has all the right sensors to get the job done without leaving a mess behind.
We like this model as it seems to get the job done as you’d expect it to. We used it on carpets that were layered with dust under beds and other areas in spaces that haven’t been visited in over a year. Making it the best scenario to see how well it performs. In one clean, the carpet looked new again, and in two cleans, you couldn’t even remember the dust was there. Of course, the little bin definitely needed to be emptied each time. These are extreme use cases, yet it still did a great job.
We also feel that it did a great job mapping everything out with its camera. It was able to avoid stairs and we only had to save it from being caught on something once.
Also, at the time of writing this, some locations have it on sale for as low as $279 which is a great price for this one. Seeing that it falls on sale like that did have an effect on our scoring of it in the end. This helps to make it more appealing to the average household and not so much an expensive luxury item or gimmick.
*Average price is based on the time this article was published
Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.
Don’t forget to subscribe for a chance to win cool prizes!
Designer, Editor and Product Reviewer Poc Network Ryan is an avid gamer that spends most of his time either commanding teams on the Xbox One or out on the grass kicking the soccer ball around when others are willing to take the challenge. He comes with a bachelors in electrical engineering and a hobby in the installation of advanced audio-video environments.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.