Eureka E20 Plus review: Great at vacuuming, so-so at mopping

Best Prices Today: Eureka E20 Plus

The Eureka E20 Plus is a stylish and sleek robovac with a bagless auto-emptying station, great spatial orientation, and solid cleaning chops–up to a point.

When it comes to vacuuming, the E20 Plus takes a methodical approach to cleaning the floors, making sure to reach all areas, going from room to room, circling forgotten items on the floor, and avoiding (most) obstacles. On the other hand, it offers a mediocre mopping experience.

The Eureka E20 Plus performs well when it comes to vacuuming. Mopping, however, is a different story.

Design

The Eureka S20 Plus is a sleek robovac that comes with a mopping pad, so it won’t just vacuum the floors but also mop them. Well, sort of. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

The robot vacuum looks sleek and elegant. On one side, you’ll find the removable dust container, which incorporates the water tank. That’s also where you can check, clean, and replace the filter when needed.

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best robot vacuums.

Measuring 9.9 x 7.1 x 17.4 inches (WxDxH), the gorgeous base station has a refreshingly compact footprint compared to many other models. It comes with a large transparent bagless container where all the dust and debris will be collected once the vacuuming job is complete. It’s large enough that you won’t have to worry about emptying it for up to 45 days, which is pretty awesome.

The container can be locked in place, and by using the built-in handle, you can easily move the entire base around. On the back, you can loop the cable for a cleaner look.  

Features

The Eureka E20 Plus vacuum delivers a solid 8,000 Pa of suction, which should be enough to clean regular dirt, hair, crumbs, and whatever else you drop on the floor on any given day.

The robot comes equipped with two side brushes and an anti-hair-tangling brush that actually seems to work. Since there are three pets in this house that tend to horseplay quite a bit, there’s a lot of floof flying around, which I did not have to remove off the robot’s brush after any of the tests.

The robot also features a mop that it will raise once it encounters carpets, offering a clearance of 10mm. Unfortunately, the mop is completely static; it is basically being dragged around by the robovac as it cleans.

Setup

The robovac is easy to set up once you open the box. First, you pull out some instruction books and the brushes and mops, then you take out the robot vacuum and the base station at the bottom. The whole process is pretty straightforward since practically everything is already assembled, aside from those side brushes (which you simply pop onto the robot).

Next, you install the Eureka app on your device, and then scan a QR code to add the device to the app. Once the robot is connected to your Wi-Fi network, the app can check for available updates.

Unlike the Yeedi C12 Pro Plus (for example), the Eureka E20 Plus didn’t just do a quick run around the house to scan the place and get the lay of the land. Nope–it went into a full-out cleaning spree that took about 50 minutes before producing a map.

The map is editable, but I found the process unnecessarily difficult. For instance, it wrongly believed my front hallway, bedroom, and half my bathroom were one big room. I had to merge the rest of the bathroom to the rest first, then exit the map, return, create the bathroom on its proper border, exit the map, and then separate the bedroom from the hallway. I also had to redo some of the steps because it didn’t save. While I love the way the app looks and the features it makes readily available, it didn’t work as seamlessly as those from other brands I’ve tested.

On the bright side, the Eureka app can be integrated with smart home systems, including Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri, which means you can issue voice commands to handle cleanups.

Performance

I ran the robot with multiple suction modes, but none were really silent. From the app, you can determine the suction power and the water levels and decide whether to use it in mop mode, where it does both jobs. You can also enable the “Carpet mode,” where the robot detects the carpets and adjusts suction power.

The robot performed quite well in picking up dust and hair off the floors. I ran some tests to see how well it would do to pick up some spilled rice. The E20 Plus fared well on this task, although the two side brushes did send some of the grains flying in all directions (some of those bits of rice were eventually picked up).

The Eureka E20 Plus did a lot better in the coffee grounds test. I spread some coffee on the floor and waited to see how the robot would do with the fine particles. The results were impressive because the robot slid right over and picked everything up with ease, all without dispersing the grounds all over the room,

The vacuum arrives with Eureka’s DuoDetect AI 3D technology, which deploys dual-line lasers that help the robot navigate. To test the bot’s navigation skills, I made an obstacle course in my entry hallway, complete with shoes, socks, plushies, and one of my kid’s Moon Balls, and I was impressed by how well the E20 Plus maneuvered the course. It approached the shoe, carefully went around it, slowed down a bit to see if it could be moved, and cleaned around it. It did the same for most every other obstacle I placed, including the sock–although it did move that obstacle around a bit.

I think the AI was sick of my tests, however, because on the second test, I just threw some socks on the ground, and the vacuum did not perform as well. In trying to avoid one sock, it got caught up in another and asked for help because the sock was stuck near one of its wheels.

Still, in a regular day-to-day environment where I assume (and hope) you don’t have ten socks lying on the floor, the Eureka should do just fine.

All in all, the E20 Plus performs well when it comes to vacuuming. Mopping, however, is a completely different story. Since the mop plate is perfectly stationary, it gets dragged around by the vacuum. There’s no “elbow grease” put into cleaning the floors, meaning no significant amount of dirt gets lifted. For a daily cleaning job, this may do just fine, but it does depend on your home’s needs.

Once the job is complete, the robot returns to the station and empties the dust bin into the large container. I love this container–I really do. It has a stylish design, is easy to take out and put back in, and its handle makes it easy to move around. Inside, there’s a five-stage filtration system that captures and contains dust particles. Everything passes through the filter screen, a multi-cone cyclone, MIF filter cotton, high-density filter cloth, and a HEPA filter. Basically, even though you’ll leave the dust sitting there for weeks, you won’t have to worry about allergies.

Specifications

• Robot dimensions: 13.8 x 3.8 inches (WxH)
• Base station dimensions: 9.9 x 7.1 x 17.4 inches (WxDxH)
• Max suction power: 8,000 Pa
• Navigation: DuoDetect AI 3D Obstacle Avoidance
• Mopping: Yes, but static
• Mop lift: 10mm/0.4 inches
• Dustbin volume: 2L
• Battery capacity: 5,200mAh
• Maximum runtime: 180 minutes
• Voice control: Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri

Should you buy the Eureka E20 Plus

The Eureka E20 Plus is a $500 robot vacuum ($450 at the time of review), which is about the same price as the Yeedi C12 Pro Plus. The two vacuums are similar in suction power, have anti-tangle brushes, and boast bagless containers, and among other shared features. The mop on the Yeedi is far better, but the navigation is worse.

I really like the minimalistic approach of the E20 Plus’s design, which includes the smallest docking station we’ve seen in quite a while. The robot performs great when it vacuums and can get around like a pro, especially after you’ve cleaned up the map in the app.

All in all, at this price, this is a good vacuum that has lots of positives, but don’t buy it if you need more diligent mopping.

Best Prices Today: Eureka E20 Plus