Yeedi K600 robot vacuum review: Excellent cleaning without complexity

Robot vacuums have become increasingly sophisticated over the last couple of years. Some would say they’ve also become increasingly—and unnecessarily—complicated. The Yeedi K600 is tailor-made for those folks. With a bare-bones feature set and exceedingly simple operation, it’s well suited to first-time robot vacuum users and anyone else who desires a low-maintenance household helper.

Design

The K600 measures 13 x 12.8 x 3.1 inches and weighs slightly more than 6.5 pounds. A single button on top of its scratch-resistant glass top activates Auto cleaning. There’s a pair of spinning side brushes on its underside, along with a V-shaped nylon-and-rubber rolling brush agitate dirt and help lift pet hair. Two drive wheels and an omni-directional support wheel enables the vacuum to maneuver all types of household terrain.

A 0.6-liter dustbin slots in at the back of the vacuum. Accessories include a charging dock and AC power brick, remote control and two AAA batteries, and a multi-function cleaning tool.

This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best robot vacuums, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping.

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Setup and performance

Preparing the K600 is simple and straightforward: You first snap the two side brushes on, and then turn on the power switch on the side of the vacuum. Plug the charging dock into an electrical outlet and set the vacuum on the dock’s charging pins. The K600 takes about four hours to fully charge and gives you about 110 minutes of cleaning time per charge. It will return to the dock whenever its battery is running low or it finishes a cleaning cycle.

You can start a cleaning cycle by pressing the button on top of the vacuum or with the remote control. The K600 has three cleaning modes: Auto cleaning, which can be activated from the vacuum itself or the remote, initiates a random cleaning pattern that’s optimized for carpets. You can double the suction power by clicking the button on the vacuum twice. Edge and Spot modes, both of which can be selected only on the remote, clean around the perimeter of the room or an area of concentrated dirt respectively. You can also direct the vacuum manually using directional buttons on the remote.

I used the K600 for daily maintenance of my downstairs level, which includes hardwood, carpet, and throw rug. It did a decent job of sucking up dust, food crumbs, and other debris from each of those surfaces, but I found the turbo suction setting was necessary to pull pet hair out of the carpet. The vacuum’s random cleaning pattern isn’t the most efficient, though, and I found some areas got more attention than others.

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The vacuum generally had no problem transitioning from one floor type to another, nor did it get hung up on obstacles very often. But without any kind of boundary control—magnetic tape, for example—it was imperative that I declutter the floor completely. The few times the vacuum got stuck, it was on a section of the throw rug that had pulled up from the floor. In these cases, it would stop and beep persistently. All I had to do was reposition the vacuum and press the Auto button to resume cleaning.

The dustbin is big enough that I only had to empty it once per cleaning cycle. It pulls easily from the vacuum with a press of the release button, and opens with little effort, so it doesn’t release a plume of dust when you empty it.

Verdict

If you’re looking for a no-frills vacuum to clean a relatively small space, the Yeedi K600 will serve you well. For the same price, though, you can get the Ecovacs Deebot N79S—our current favorite budget robot vacuum—which includes app control and Amazon Alexa-enabled voice control. Those smart features provide an extra degree of convenience without adding too much complexity.