Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 Review

Introduction

There have been other robot vacuum cleaners that also have cordless vacuum cleaners, but the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 is the first to integrate cordless vacuums fully with the robot.

So, rather than having a cordless stick that attaches to the docking station, the handheld unit on the E20 is an integral part of the robot, lifting out when you want to tackle a handheld spill.

That makes it a lot more versatile than the competition and means you need less overall storage space. Does that make it a winner? It depends on what you want and the type of house you live in.

Design and Features

• Self-empty docking station
• Handheld lifts out of the robot
• No storage for the wand

As soon as I lifted the robot out of the box, it looked different to all of the other vacuum cleaners that I’ve reviewed before. In the middle of the round cleaner is a traditional handheld vacuum cleaner that lifts out.

When in the robot, the handheld unit provides the suction power and bin; when lifted out, it converts into a regular handheld vacuum cleaner.

There are some clear advantages (and some disadvantages) of such a system. Starting with the good, the clever integration means less storage space is needed for the robot, its self-empty station, and the cordless unit.

It also makes the dock less complicated. With other robots that ship with a stick vacuum cleaner, there’s a need to have a dock that has self-empty options for the cordless stick and the robot.

Here, all dust is sucked out of the robot and into the large 3-litre dust bag, which Eufy says is big enough to hold dust for up to 75 days. When full, the bin bag can be removed and thrown away.

While you don’t need to empty the robot/vacuum cleaner’s bin manually, you can do it in an emergency by removing the bottom. It’s a little fiddly to empty manually, with some dust getting stuck in the cap and some in the main bin.

More likely, you’ll want to get access to the bin to clean the big filter inside, which you’ll need to do regularly.

The robot’s design incorporates a crevice tool, which fits into a slot at the front of the robot. That most common of tools is always in reach of the robot, so you can grab the handheld unit whenever you want and do spot jobs easily.

There’s also a 2-in-1 tool in the box, and a wand with a traditional motorised floor head, so you can use the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 as a stick vacuum cleaner.

I like the height-adjustable wand, which slides open to get to a size that’s right for you.

It’s nice to have these tools, but it’s a shame that there’s no storage for them. A simple clip on the side of the dock for the wand and floor head would have been nice, as would a storage compartment for the 2-in-1 tool

It’s also a little strange that the handheld vacuum has a square connector for the tools and wand, but the end of the wand has a round connector for the floor head. It means that the handheld tools can only be used in handheld mode, and can’t be clipped to the end of the wand for extra reach or just for cleaning around skirting boards and the like without having to bend down.

Both the handheld unit and the cordless cleaner share the same battery. That’s good for simplicity, but it does mean that if the robot has been out on a whole-home clean, you’re unlikely to have much juice left for handheld cleaning.

Battery life is shown via a green LED strip on the side of the handheld unit, that slowly extinguishes as the battery runs out. This is visible in both handheld mode and robot mode.

In handheld mode, the side strip is also used to indicate which of the four power modes the cleaner is in. Four power modes is probably one too many: three normally does the trick.

Using the handheld is easy, with a single power button to turn the cleaner on and off, and a mode button to switch between power modes.

Underneath the robot, a standard floor roller is joined by a single side sweeper brush, which helps tease dirt out from the edges of rooms. There’s no mopping option for this robot, which seems fair, as there’s no space left on the robot to fit one and the necessary water tank.

There’s a sensor at the front, which uses lasers to detect objects bigger than 15mm, and avoid them. That means it will skirt around common objects, such as shoes, but it can easily miss smaller objects, such as cables.

To use the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 in robot mode, you need the Eufy Clean app, which is the same app used for all of the company’s robots, such as the Eufy Omni S1 Pro.

Once connected to the app, you can set the robot off on a mapping run. This is quick to do, thanks to the laser-guided navigation system. Once completed, the app suggests rooms automatically, but you can easily correct mistakes by splitting or merging areas.

There’s also an option to add the type of carpet you have to each room, which helps the robot pick the right cleaning mode.

No-go and virtual boundaries are also available, which can come in handy if you find that the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 gets stuck in a place, such as under a sofa.

When cleaning, you can choose to clean the entire home, one room or a zone that you draw on the map. There’s then a choice between four suction modes (Quiet, Standard, Turbo or Max), and a choice to make one or two passes.

Dive into the advanced settings, and there’s an option to turn on BoostIQ, which increases suction power when carpet is detected. There are also options to adjust the auto empty mode, including whether to use standard emptying or deep emptying for more thorough dust extraction.

For cordless mode, the default option is to automatically empty the cordless cleaner when it has been used for 10 minutes or longer. However, you can hold the Recharge button on the robot for three seconds to start dust collection.

Performance

• Powerful robot cleaning
• Good edge cleaning in robot mode
• Average cordless cleaner performance

I had to test the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 as both a cordless vacuum cleaner and a robot. Let’s start with the cordless cleaning results. First, I started by measuring the raw power at the vacuum cleaner’s handle, measuring suction in air watts (AW).

I found that the vacuum cleaner put out a fairly gentle 21AW on its lowest power setting. The 70AW figure on the middle, regular, power mode, is about what I’d expect for a cordless cleaner and should be enough power for most jobs. On the highest setting the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 topped out at 153AW, which isn’t bad but a way behind other mid-range cleaners, such as the Henry Quick Pet, and a long way behind the high-end Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty IP3251UKT.

To demonstrate what the AW figure means, I lined up a row of rice, put the vacuum cleaner in its highest power mode and then measured how far from the crevice tool it could collect dust.

With the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1, I  found that it could collect rice granules from 1.3cm away. That’s a mid-range performance. If you want to quickly suck up DIY mess or pull dirt out of crevices, such as in a car, you may want a more powerful vacuum cleaner.

Next, I moved on to the carpet test, where I added 20g of flour to the test carpet. I then ran the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 backwards and forwards through the mess on its middle power setting. It left a clean-looking strip through the middle, although there were parts towards the edge of the floor head where dust wasn’t collected.

I finished off by cleaning the carpet until it looked clean. This meant using the standard power setting, but upping to the boost setting to really get it clean. At the end of the test, I measured that 79.85% of the dust had been removed, which is a little behind the competition.

I then moved to the edge test. Here, I added 10g of flour right up the skirting board. I found that the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 struggled to agitate the dirt, smearing quite a bit of it. At the end of cleaning, I found that using the floor head only, the vacuum managed 64.6% of the mess.

I then moved to the hard floor test, adding 20g of rice to the hard floor. I’m pleased to say that all of the dust was collected here, with 100% of the rice making it into the bin.

Pet hair was collected easily, but human hair proved more tricky. While the long strands were collected, I found them wrapped around the floor head.

I measured sound between 61.7dB and 69.2dB in handheld mode, which makes it relatively quiet.

In robot mode, I ran my normal tests. I found that navigation was good, with the robot able to avoid a lot of larger obstacles, although it did run over a cable that I’d left out.

Putting the cleaner on its maximum power setting, I let it have two passes of the lab. Starting with the carpet test, the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 did a good job of collecting my teaspoon of flour: the majority of it was gone, leaving a few bits behind that I could tackle with the cordless.

I was pleased with the hard floor test, and all of my flour in the middle of the room was collected with ease.

Edge performance on the hard floor was very good, too. Although this robot doesn’t have an arm that can swing out, it did manage to collect most of the mess, just leaving a small amount of dirt that required the crevice tool to collect.

In robot mode, the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 measured 61.1dB on my sound meter, which shows that it’s quite quiet.

A full charge was enough for the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 to manage two sweeps of the test lab, which is good going, as this space is at least as large as a floor in a standard home.

It didn’t leave much power for handheld jobs, although the 2.5 charge time does mean I didn’t have to wait too long until the cleaner was ready to go again.

Should you buy it?