eufy S1 Pro Omni Robot Vacuum Cleaner

The quick summary version:

This machine is so helpful and easily usable that it feels like magic sometimes, but I wish the software handled multiple floor/maps better. Also, the iOS/iPadOS app works very well, is responsive, and is easy to use, but the interface is currently less than beautiful. The minor negatives there are vastly overshadowed by all of the positives.

The longer version:

We have the base-station setup in the kitchen, on the center level of a 3 floor home. It’s set in a corner at 45º, and works perfectly well there even though the written instructions tell us to have more clearance on either side. I’ve also tested with the base-station directly touching a wall on one side, and it works fine there as well. The idea of having it in the center floor of the house is to more easily reach the other two floors from the center location. I wish this worked better, but more on that in a bit.

There was no complicated setup for this machine. I highly value that. I was not looking forward to an in depth sign-up, hardware assembly, or software setup, and I was extremely happy with how easy and quick all of those were. In just a couple minutes we were following it around as it mapped out the entire floor ON ITS OWN. It does a fantastic job of this, and the map is constantly being updated during use. So, you don’t need to worry about leaving things like chairs and other obstacles in different locations. For example, we have a step-stool in the kitchen that is always changing positions depending on where we need it. This is not a concern because the bot just notices the difference, avoids it, and updates the map for next time. We also had an entryway carpet that was a bit too shaggy with the corners lifting at our doorway. During the mapping, the bot noted it as being a carpet, then after we moved it due to it being problematic for the bot, the map was updated on the next pass. This is such an incredible feature. I should say here that we have other carpets that are completely compatible with the bot and it does a great job cleaning them. This one we removed was obviously incompatible, but I wanted to test anyway. The bot just ended up sucking up a corner of it, and getting stuck without doing any damage to itself or anything else.

When first looking at the information online and seeing the required Wi-Fi router was 2.4ghz, I was worried. I couldn’t find definitive information about mine being anything other than 5ghz, although some searches led me to think that it might be dual band support both 2.4ghz and 5ghz. During setup of the app, the Wi-Fi network COULD NOT be found. I was let down thinking I needed to buy a dual band router. Luckily there is an option to manually enter the Wi-Fi information, just name and password, so I tried even though I thought it would not work, and it worked perfectly right away!

The map generation and use within the mobile application is perfectly usable, responsive, and has the customization options you want. Once you have a map saved, you can split it into rooms and name them. You can draw lines to creat no-go areas. You can set areas to be no mopping areas. I use no-go areas at stairs even though the bot is smart enough to know how to avoid stairs on its own. I also use this in places like our gym room. There are large mirrors in the gym which leads the bot to believe there is more space in that area than there really is (At least this is my guess about what is happening; I think the sensors are reflecting off the mirror reporting additional distance). So I made that reflected additional non-existent space a no-go area. Problem solved.

I’m very impressed with the mobility of the bot. It’s not perfect, of course, but it can navigate MUCH better than I had expected. It navigates under dining room tables working its way around chair legs, and finding its way out of difficult positions very well. A difficult room for it is the gym, as you can see in the video. We have equipment all around the room, and a raised pad on the floor with a lot of the edges starting and stopping making for somewhat rough terrain for it to manage. It does a bit of struggling in that room, but so far it has always won the fight without any intervention from us. I have intentionally left that room with the uneven flooring and random obstacles about just to test. I will likely even out the floor and kind of optimize it a bit to help the little bot out a bit even though it still manages fine in the current state. The great mobility has highlighted some mistakes I made in thinking I had the minimal setup of the areas taken care of; there has been a couple times that the bot has managed to find cables under and behind shelves that I didn’t know about, and became tangled in them. This is my fault, as I should have not had loose cables on the floor where they would be vacuumed up. It’s also good to note that no damage was done in anyway, but I had a few moments of confusion as I heard banging from somewhere in the house.

Something I wish was better is the way multiple floors are currently handled. The bot can have options adjusted for things like emptying the dust bin at the base-station, and cleaning the mop and water at the base-station. So periodically it may NEED to go back to the base-station before continuing where it left off cleaning. Although, you can set this in the settings depending of your preference. My experience with cleaning rooms/floors on other floors from where the base-station is, is me carrying the bot to floor, and telling it to clean the floor or room(s) on the floor. When the bot is finished, it will notify audibly, and through the app, and then roam around the floor sadly trying to find the base-station. I pause the cleaning at that point, carry the bot to the base-station floor, end the cleaning, and then tell it to go home to the base-station. I wish it would just stop the cleaning when it is finished, and then wait to be taken back to base-station floor. It’s not terrible, but I feel like I need to make sure I catch/stop it when it is done, and I don’t like that it just roams around if not. I also found creating new maps to be a bit of a pain. When I first tried, I carried the bot to the new floor, set it down, and told it to map the new map. It did, but when it was finished making the map, it tried to find the base-station. Since it couldn’t find the base-station, it wandered around looking for it, and I was unable to actually save the map. In the end, I needed to carry the base-station to the new floor, then make the map, and then move the base-station back to the original floor. This is not a deal breaker or anything, but it does feel kind of like an oversight. It also feels like something that can be optimized via software updates.

The iOS/iPadOS application is very functional. I can’t think of anything I wish it did that it doesn’t do now. I do think the interface could get a visual update, but I don’t think that is worth complaining much about since everything is functioning so well. It’s also quick. I like opening the app, and in a second or two I see right where the bot is, what it is doing, what it has done during it’s current cleaning session, what it is doing at the base-station etc. It’s also a HUGE positive, that I never feel lost in the app, and I can quickly accomplish anything I want to with the bot. The other day I interrupted the base-station from drying the mop because I wanted the bot to do something else. Well, later I decided to try to tell it to dry the mop to see if I could. Opened the app, clicked the base-station icon, and the option was right there where I was expecting. This is the kind of functional design that matters to me much more than how beautiful the app could be. There are other areas of the app that I like as well. The system monitors different maintenance things to help keep track. It will let you know when you should clean the tray, replace this or replace that. It also has links to purchase items such as the floor cleaner and base-station dust bags. I have browsed through these items, and am happy to say that as of this time I am not disappointed by the pricing of any of the items either. I was expecting to see something similar to printer toner kinds of markups, but all seem reasonably priced. Another example of this good functional design is when setting cleaning schedules. This is as easy as setting an alarm on your phone.

The cleaning performance is also much better than expected. Compatible carpeting and open floors are taken care of easily as you’d expect. I’m still somewhat in awe of how well it handles tough areas like under tables and shelving as it moves around small obstacles like chair legs doing its best to clean all areas. It’s great to hear the suction increase automatically as it moves from hard floor to carpet. It’s is not able to reach completely into corners, and it is unable to pick up an average size piece of popcorn; it’s just a bit too big and doesn’t fit under the bot enough to make it to the vacuum opening. These are expected and reasonable limitations, so I don’t feel bad about them.

Now that we have a high confidence in the machine and how it works, we’ve been using scheduled cleanings, and it’s just an amazing feeling. I also always get a good feeling when I notice a room could use a cleaning, so I open the app real quick and tell it to clean that room only. The bot comes out to help, does the job in just a few minutes, and then goes home. I know the end result is only vacuuming and light mopping, but it still has a freeing/lightening effect on me; my schedule is usually overwhelming, so this actually makes a big positive difference.

I was so excited to have this opportunity to get the new Omni S1. This is my first robotic cleaner so I can't compare to others on the market at this initial price range. But I can speak to my experience setting up and doing the first cleaning.

The Omni S1 comes with everything you need to get started plus replacement items so you don't have to immediately order replacement bags/mops/etc.. There is a wonderfully large and thick sheet of getting started instructions which my old eyes appreciated and directions were simple and for the most part, clear. Downloading the app was easy but pairing to my wi-fi took a few attempts (when they say get close they MEAN get close to your router when pairing). Once that was done and all the attachments clipped on to the unit, it was time to test it out.

I placed the base unit in my den (a decision that will need to be re-thought), pressed the play button on the app and the head rolled off the base and started mapping my house. That took some time as it poked and prodded into every place it could find. As I watched on the app, I could see my rooms start to appear and with them the position of the cleaning head. This is where I ran into my first issue. It did not fully map my main bedroom, the furthest from the base unit. I always suspected that there is some shielding in that bedroom as even phones don't want to work as well there, so perhaps this was also interfering with communication with the base unit. To get the bedroom cleaned, I played with the app and added a "zone", interrupted the cleaning in progress and told the unit to clean that zone. That worked. As did the manual control where the unit did not wish to clean under the ottoman (not yet sure why as it certainly had head room to do so).

What id did well:
- 64% charged out of the box so eager owners can have some fun!
- Clean design, looks good and sleek
- cleaning head is so cute when trying to orient itself to return to base
- great cleaning around table legs, chair legs, etc..gets debris close to walls and did a decent job in corners.
- easy to operate and set scheduling
- decent job on low carpet pile on first try, but has option to turbo setting to pull out more dust and cat hair in options.
- mopping is fine if you do a deep clean of the floors first then use this robot to keep up with the floor cleaning.
- ability to push firmware updates as we go through this journey with the Omni S1

Nice to haves:
- The manual control needs to have an integrated map so the user can see where the head is and direct it when out of sight.
- Voice prompts when signal is weak between base unit and cleaning unit (so I don't have to guess why somethings not working as expected)
- Dust bin unloading to the unit is very loud and quite messy if there's a lot of cat hair caught in the bin. I ended up sweeping around the base unit after the 2nd upload. Perhaps add a prompt to clean the dust bin if full before shooting it out into my room? Some sort of sensing needed there (I will clean that dust bin more often now).
- less sensitivity for overhead objects. I noticed that even something as light weight as a sheet hanging down off a bed would keep the head from cleaning there. Same goes for cleaning under objects that are only slightly higher than the head, it avoids these areas too much.

What I don't like:
- app needs more work, it's not descriptive enough on what certain things do and the built in guide glosses over certain features that I wanted to learn more about. This is an easy fix for future app updates and I hope they continue to improve that part of the user experience.
- cost of replacement parts like bags, mops, etc...are pricey and may add up over time. Add that to the initial cost of this unit and it's considerable. Then again, anyone paying full price for this robotic cleaner evidently has money to spare so this may not be a concern. With time, I'm sure third parties will begin making less expensive replacement kits.
- mapping app doesn't update when things are changed (i.e. mats moved, etc.) I would think this would be a simple ai fix and hopefully will be done in future. One of my biggest annoyances of all as I constantly move things around the house and the poor robot just keeps trying to clean mats that are moved elsewhere unless I have it completely remap the whole house.

In the end, I am over the top excited to have the opportunity to have this amazing product and I'm sure my experience will only continue to get better as I learn its' capabilities and as the developers upgrade features on the app.