Eufy S1 Pro review: Should you buy it?

Should you buy the Eufy S1 Pro?

If you were to run down a checklist of what makes for the best robot vacuum on the market today, the Eufy S1 Pro would tick nearly all of the right boxes. It cleans well, it navigates safely, it has more than enough run-time for most homes, the base station keeps the bot itself clean and operating for weeks without intervention, and scheduled operation means you don’t have to think about it.

Key features of the Eufy S1 Pro

• Design: The S1 Pro has a square-ish design, giving a geometric advantage over rounded bots for floor coverage in typically square rooms. The full-width mop roller offers 290mm of cleaning per pass, reducing the time it takes to clean your floors.
• UniClean Station: The charging dock for the S1 Pro doubles as a cleaning station for the bot itself. After every operation, the base station will vacuum the debris out of the bot, to be stored in a larger bag in the base. For mopping operations, the UniClean Station houses clean water and detergent to fill the bot, and accepts the dirty water to be discarded in the end. In addition, it offers a heated drying cycle, to avoid any standing water at the end of a mopping cycle. The base station has a simple LCD display on top, allowing you to trigger some per-configured cleaning routines. You will need the companion app to get the most out of your device, but at least you can run a basic clean without your phone on hand.
• Eco-Clean Ozone: Using the clean water reservoir, there is an ozone generator inside the base station that sterilizes both the bot and the water to help reduce contaminants in your home.
• Power: With a vacuum that produces up to 8,000 Pa of suction force, and a mop that spins at up to 170 RPM with up to 10N of pressure, the S1 Pro can collect debris from deep inside your carpets, and scrub all but the toughest spills.
• 3D MatrixEye: Mapping your space and navigating your home are managed by multiple sensors, including RGB cameras and LiDAR.
• Mach app: The companion app is where the real magic happens. Use it to control the recorded map of your space, set schedules, control which cleaning methods are used at what time and in what places of your home, and keep tabs on the state of the consumables.

Compared to the leading robot vacuums today, the S1 Pro is a top contender, but it does have some areas where I had a few concerns.

The first thing is the cleanliness of the bot and base station. The bot collects dry debris and dirty mop water into temporary canisters, the base station then sucks up that trash and water into larger storage canisters. This is superbly convenient, but even after the lengthy heated-dry cycle, the water canister in the bot still has standing water. It is not hard to pull that canister and give it a quick dump and rinse, but the very need to do so undermines the advertised convenience of the system.

The base station vacuum function works far better; it does a great job of removing dust and trash from the bot to be stored in a larger vacuum bag. After running at least once per day for a while now, the vacuum canister inside the bot is nearly spotless. My concern is in the base station, as I cannot see or access the tubes that take the trash up to the vacuum bag. I assume that this tube will retain dust and hair exactly as my older manual vacuums have, which makes me believe this inaccessible tube would require cleaning a few times per year, but that looks like it’d be very tricky to do.

The Eufy S1 Pro’s obstacle avoidance is a little aggressive. In particular, as it cleans around things like chair legs, it fails to get very close to them. I decided to test this with some rice around my desk leg. The 3D MatrixEye managed to identify the skinny bolt that raises the height of my desk as an obstacle, and the bot itself got nice and close to the leg, but the brushes never did, leaving a fair amount of rice behind. This issue, combined with the bot’s refusal to go into places that it can actually fit, means that the area around and under my kitchen table won’t ever be fully cleared by the bot.

With that said, I’ve never had to rescue this bot from getting trapped under a chair, which I can’t say for some robot vacuums I’ve tested. I did have to rescue it from trying to eat up our fluffy bath mat, though, but thankfully I could easily set that as a no-go zone in the app.

What are the best Eufy S1 Pro alternatives?

There are many robot vacuums on the market today. Devices that only vacuum the floor are common, while machines that also mop floors are only now growing in prevalence. The best of the best come from brands like Narwal and Roborock, which makes us happy to see a third contender at the top.

• Narwal Freo X Ultra ($999.99 at Amazon): My top pick for robot vacuums in early 2024, the Freo X Ultra offers mopping and vacuuming functions with up to 8,200 Pa of suction force, has a base station that handles clean and dirty water, and runs for weeks without intervention. LiDAR and lasers are used for navigation, there are no cameras on this bot, so you’ll never have to worry about your privacy. An in-bot trash compression system and Hepa filters excel at cleanliness.
• Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra (on the product’s website): With the party trick of an extending sweeper arm to get into the corners of your room, the S8 MaxV Ultra is the best of many robot vacuums from Roborock. 10,000 Pa of suction power is an industry leading number.
• Narwal Freo ($1099.99 at Amazon): The precursor to the Freo X Ultra, the older Freo robot vacuum offers solid navigation, vacuuming and mopping capabilities, and shares many parts with the newer device.
• Roborock S8 Max Ultra (on the product’s website): The smaller sibling to the S8 MaxV Ultra, this machine offers only 8,000 Pa of suction power and does not offer voice commands, but is otherwise nearly identical.

Eufy S1 Pro specs

Eufy S1 Pro review: FAQ