Xiaomi Robot Vacuum X10+ review

The X10+ shouldn’t be but that can be purchased within the US or the UK – until you’re capable of finding a retailer that has imported it. It’s going to change into extra broadly obtainable within the coming months.

Xiaomi might have known as the X10+ a robotic vacuum, however, in actuality, it’s extra of an automated, hands-free flooring cleansing system.

What does this really imply?

You get a robotic vacuum, with mopping performance, which auto-empties the robotic’s mud compartment right into a disposable bag within the base station, auto-fills the tank with clear water from the bottom station tank, auto-empties the soiled water from the robotic again into the bottom station, and in addition washes and dries the mop pads, all to suit round a schedule and a cleansing circuit that you simply select.    

When you arrange the X10+, all you must do is periodically refill the clear water tank, empty the soiled water tank, and alter the disposable bag. The X10+ does every thing else.

There are caveats to this. As with all robotic vacuums, significantly people who mop, you want a good quantity of clear flooring area to make it worthwhile. If your private home is cluttered, it’s not going to work. Likewise, in case your floor flooring is a carve-up with totally different flooring heights and a step or two between rooms, you’ll get much less from it.

However you probably have a neat, orderly, and pretty open-plan house, with a good quantity of exhausting flooring, the X10+ will take a variety of common flooring upkeep duties off your fingers.     

Let’s see what you get.

What’s within the field?

• Giant self-emptying station (59cm x 42cm x 34cm)
• Robotic with twin spinning mop pads
• Comes with a spare 2.5 litre mud bag

The very first thing you discover is that the field is heavy: over 11kg, or 28lbs, so be ready for that. Most of this weight, an excellent 8.3kg of it, is the white plastic Omni station, which is the charging base and holds the 2 2.5l water tanks, the two.5l disposable mud bag, and the cleansing tray.  

The Omni station is substantial, standing at 59cm excessive, 42cm huge and 34cm deep. The robotic docks into the tray on the backside, and there’s a flip-up lid on the highest to permit you entry to the 2 water tanks. It additionally has an influence indicator mild on the entrance and three buttons on the highest: one to make the robotic depart the station, one other to start out a clear of all areas, and one to start out or cease drying the mop pads.

The white plastic robotic vacuum itself is 3.9kg, 35cm in diameter and stands about 9.7cm excessive. It’s obtained a few chunky wheels beneath, alongside the revolving brush, with two revolving mop pads on the again and one other aspect brush to the left on the entrance, subsequent to the omnidirectional wheel.

There are two buttons on the entrance: one for energy and to start out a clear, and one other to dock and set the kid lock, and an indicator to point out charging standing, errors, or the Wi-Fi standing. Beneath the duvet of the robotic, there’s a reset button, mud compartment and Wi-Fi indicator.  

You additionally get a helpful cleansing software, a spare 2.5l mud bag, the mop pads holders and aspect brush that you simply match into the robotic, the ability twine, a guide, a fast begin information and the guarantee.    

Set-up

• Select a location earlier than setup
• QR code for fast begin
• 3D mapping

First, you unpack the X10+, take away the protecting coverings, set up the comb and the mop pads, and place your Omni station in a viable place: 0.5m to both aspect and with 1.5m spare on the entrance. The ability twine is 144 cm lengthy, so you will have some leeway with an influence level location.

Nevertheless, when you place the Omni station, put the robotic in to cost and fill the clear water tank, you may’t transfer it from this level, and because the mopping facility depends on the robotic drawing water from the station tank, you may’t actually take the robotic to a different flooring to mop.

So, in case you are in search of a mopping robotic which you can transfer between flooring of your private home, you may need to take into consideration a robotic with a clip-in tank. 

Then it’s time to hook up with Wi-Fi. Obtain the Xiaomi app (the QR code is in each the guide and the short begin information) and arrange your profile. Then you definitely add the system and observe the directions in your cellphone. We discovered this course of easy and easy, though in case you are not that tech-savvy, you may want further assist. 

You then get a immediate to create the short map. That is the place the robotic vacuum makes use of its LDS and line laser sensors to generate a map of your flooring, which varieties the premise for its cleansing manoeuvring. The mapping function is spectacular; it additionally generates 3D mapping, however our expertise was that it didn’t put in obstacles, so it appeared a bit of pointless. At this level, you may alter the map, relabel rooms, set digital partitions and restricted areas.      

Alex Greenwood / Foundry

Then it’s time to start out cleansing.

Efficiency

• 4 suction ranges (as much as 4000Pa)
• 2.5cm climbing capacity however will be hit or miss
• Noisy auto-emptying

You get 4 suction ranges with the X10+: silent, commonplace, robust and turbo, which makes the many of the 4000Pa suction. We did our first check on commonplace, and felt we would have liked one thing stronger for our mud and crumbs. Robust appeared to work for our flooring with the bulk being exhausting flooring, each tile and engineered wooden, with an extra small, carpeted room. For pet dander on carpet, you’d most likely have to depend on turbo, though this nonetheless received’t pull out years of vacuuming neglect out of your carpet.

You’ll be able to set the robotic to hoover the entire flooring, a specific room or set of rooms or a sure zone inside a room. We had been puzzled at first because the in-app “pause” button has been mislabelled “paused”, which makes you suppose the cleansing has stopped when it hasn’t. Cue: repetitive urgent of the pause button, attempting to un-pause a non-paused cleansing programme, which confused the robotic no finish.

The robotic seems to hoover the perimeters of the room, so far as it’s ready, after which ladders up and down the centre of the ground. From time to time, it struggled to cross a boundary peak change of two.5cm, however then later managed it with no downside. However, the robotic persistently lined 47m2 in 59mins, and you may watch the progress on the map in real-time.    

Be warned although: the auto-emptying is loud and sounds a bit like a jet engine. Fortunately, it doesn’t final lengthy.

Mopping 

• 3 water settings
• Revolving mop pads
• Designed for mild, common upkeep

We had a number of hiccups with our preliminary mop assessments as no water filtered by means of from the bottom. Upon investigation, we found that we hadn’t fitted the clear water tank correctly into the bottom, and we needed to fiddle for a while till the bottom lastly fed water although to the mop pads. Nevertheless, we didn’t expertise this situation once more, so it might simply be a number of teething issues straight out of the field.

There are three water settings: low, medium, and excessive. Excessive could be very a lot a lightweight mop, with medium being extra of a humid mud. We couldn’t discern a lot from the low water stage in any respect, and the medium stage didn’t carry vital filth scuffs from tiles, though the excessive stage did.

We had been impressed by the spinning 180rpm mop pads, feeling that they not solely mopped but in addition buffed the flooring on the similar time. Lustre and sheen appeared increased than different robotic mops.

Alex Greenwood / Foundry

Like most mopping robotic vacuums, the mopping operate is admittedly designed for every day upkeep of flooring, quite than a weekly deep clear. You have to to make use of a standard mop with sizzling water and cleaning soap to shift vital filth or grime.

When the robotic returns to base after a mopping session, the Omni station washes the pads within the cleansing tray and dries them. That is fairly a loud course of, so be warned. We’d reckon it at across the similar sound stage as a standard vacuum cleaner, but it surely retains issues recent. Certainly, there have been no mouldy or damp smells from the X10+ over the month of testing.   

You can too set the robotic to hoover and mop on the similar time. We discovered that this setting provoked the robotic to return to base for an change of water and took roughly one minute per m2.  

Different options

• Roughly 2 hours of vacuuming time
• Good navigation and impediment avoidance
• Customized cleansing obtainable

Xiaomi states that the X10+ has about two hours of life in its 520mAh battery, and we discovered this to be correct. The X10+ additionally appeared to navigate momentary obstructions fairly nicely, similar to a toy left on the ground or the change of the place of a chair. 

You can too set a customized mode in your cleansing periods, deciding on a selected suction, water stage, motion, and cleansing sample for every room, and the order wherein the robotic ought to sort out every room. There’s additionally a deep cleansing setting for dirtier flooring, the place the robotic will return to scrub the mop pad extra steadily to stop cross-contamination. Once more, you too can schedule clean-ups, set Do No Disturb parameters, and join the robotic to Alexa or Google Assistant. 

The app can even let you know the standing of the filter, aspect brush, predominant brush and whether or not you must substitute the mop pads.

Verdict

The X10+ robotic vacuum takes automated flooring cleansing to the following stage, and you probably have the proper of house, it can maintain your flooring dust- and crumb-free with out you having to consider it. That type of freedom from chores is kind of a exceptional liberation. With the X10+, you don’t even must fill, load and empty a clip-in tank or wash the pad after a mopping session. You merely open the app and press begin.

That mentioned, to benefit from the X10+, you’re going to want a reasonably minimalist inside set-up. The X10+ provides you with a wonderfully vacuumed expanse of carpet, virtually zen in its smoothness, however you’re going to want that clear expanse of carpet within the first place, regardless of how intelligent this robotic could also be in figuring out momentary obstacles. 

We, nevertheless, preferred it. Loads.

For extra robotic vacuum cleaner choices, take a look at our round-up of the very best robotic vacuums we’ve examined.