Yeedi Vac Station Review
A powerful mop and vacuum cleaner that self-empties.
Verdict
It costs the same as many mid-range robot vacuum cleaners, but the Yeedi Vac Station has a self-emptying base station and built-in mopping capability. It’s a powerful vacuum cleaner, sucking up dirt well on all floor surfaces. Its app is a little basic, but that can be forgiven at this price and this level of cleaning ability.
Pros
- Excellent cleaning performance
- Self-empties
- Mops well
Cons
- App is a little basic
- Only stores one map
Availability
- UKunavailable
- USARRP: $499.99
- EuropeRRP: €499.99
- Canadaunavailable
- Australiaunavailable
Key Features
- TypeThis is a self-emptying robot vacuum cleaner that can mop, too
- Battery lifeThis cleaner offers 200 minutes of runtime on the lowest power setting
Introduction
Self-emptying robot vacuum cleaners are on the rise, but the Yeedi Vac Station is the cheapest such robot that I’ve come across. Not only that, but this appliance can mop hard floors at the same time as cleaning, too.
Its app is a little clunky in places and there are a few minor issues, but the quality of vacuuming is superb and it’s hard to knock the robot at this price. It’s available directly from Yeedi EU.
Design and features
- Large, self-emptying charge station
- Detects carpets automatically
- App is a little basic
The Yeedi Vac Station follows the basic template for robot vacuum cleaner design. Its charging station is tall (430 x 200 x 420mm), since it has to fit in a vacuum cleaner for emptying the robot, plus the 2.5-litre bags into which dirt is emptied.
As such, you’ll likely need to clear some space for this robot, as you won’t be able to fit the charging station under furniture. You also need a bit of room at the front of the entry ramp to put down the plastic floor protector, which stops water from the mop seeping into the floor.
Given that the main robot has a 450ml dirt tank, you’ll get 5.5 full loads sucked out into a vacuum bag. On average, running the vacuum cleaner a few times a week, a disposable bag will most likely last between one and two months. Once done, bags cost €16.99 for a pack of three to replace, which is slightly cheaper than the replacement bags for the iRobot i7+.
The rival Shark IQ Robot XL Vacuum R101AEW has a bagless self-emptying station, although that product is available in the US only.
The main robot vacuum cleaner is also a standard affair, measuring 77 x 350 x 350mm. That’s small enough to easily fit under a lot of furniture and between most chair legs.
On top, you’ll see that it’s very simple, with a single button that starts and stops a clean manually. There’s also the camera for the Visual SLAM navigation system, which maps your home so that the robot can navigate more easily.
Flip open the top, and you’ll find a standard bin that you can empty – it’s worth clearing this out and washing the filter inside it from time to time.
On the underside, this cleaner is rather standard. There’s a side-sweeper brush that moves dirt into the main suction path and a motorised floor brush to agitate dirt.
You can keep an eye on service life in the app, with Yeedi selling replacements directly. You’ll need to do some manual work, too, cutting hair wrapped around the brush with the provided cleaning tool.
At the back of the robot is the 240ml water tank, plus the mop attachment, which uses the microfibre cloth to clean your hard floors as it vacuums.
Once the vacuum cleaner is on, you can use the Yeedi app to connect the robot to your Wi-Fi network. From the app, you can start a clean, which will also generate a map of your home. It’s quite a basic-looking map, and the colours used mean it’s difficult to determine which parts are the map and which aren’t.
Map management enables you to create rooms and set no-go areas. This is handy, since you can then inform the robot of the areas to clean, either manually or via a schedule.
Sadly, you can only store one map in the vacuum cleaner at a time, so if you have multiple floors that need cleaning, you’ll either need to wipe the map each time, or accept that you can only clean a single floor.
You get a choice of cleaning power, with three settings available. I found that Max was the best option generally, but you may want to experiment a little to find the setting that works best for you. Thanks to the carpet sensor, you can have the robot jump to its maximum setting when it moves over a carpet or a rug.
Mopping doesn’t use a sonic scrubber, as is the case with the Roborock S7, but you can still control the amount of water you want to use: for dirtiern floors, go for higher water usage.
Since the Yeedi Vac Station has a carpet sensor, it won’t let you start a clean on carpet. Instead, the robot will speak and say that you need to carry it to a hard floor area to start, after which it will work out where it is and clean as much hard floor as it can, before heading back to base.
Of course, heading back to base means that the robot will run over carpet with its wet mop, so you may want to shut doors to prevent this from happening – or place the base station on a hard floor. Again, the Roborock S7 is more advanced, since it can lift its mop to traverse soft-pile carpet without getting it wet.
If you don’t want to use the app or manual controls, Yeedi has skills for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, so you can start and stop a clean using your voice.
Performance
- Exceptional hard floor and carpet cleaning
- Excellent edge cleaning
- Basic maintenance mopping
I put the Yeedi Vac Station through my regular set of tests. First and foremost, navigation here is very good. While the robot can become tangled on cables or thin mats (you’ll need to do a bit of tidying up before you turn it on), it ably moved around my test area, transitioning between carpet and hard floor, and moving through tricky chair legs.
As for cleaning performance, this is an excellent robot vacuum cleaner. Starting on carpet, the Vac Station picked up the majority of my spilt flour, with just the odd speck left behind.
Hard floor performance was faultless, with the robot vac picking up every bit of mess on my test hard floor.
Edge performance is often the area that lets vacuum cleaners down, but that wasn’t the case here. Thanks to clever navigation, the Yeedi Vac Station was able to move along the front of the kitchen plinth, picking up the vast majority of the flour on the floor.
Given that the amount of flour I spread onto the floor is more than you’d commonly expect to see, the results show that the Yeedi Vac Station is a great tool for cleaning your home – you won’t have to turn to a manual cleaner too often.
I then moved to mopping the hard floor. After bringing in dirt from outside and leaving it to dry, I set the Vac Station off on its job, with the robot set to maximum water. Results were pretty good, with most of the dirt cleaned away, but the tougher areas were still partly visible. Again, for regular maintenance, the Yeedi Vac Station suffice, keeping your floors looking good. It will lessen the job when you need to use a hard floor cleaner.
Battery life is quoted at 200 minutes, although that’s on the lowest power setting. In my house, I found that I had more than enough battery power to clean twice on the Maximum setting. From flat the battery takes six hours to recharge.
For noise, I measured the robot at 64.1dB, which is about average for a robot cleaner – loud enough to hear, but quiet enough that you can go about your business.
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Should you buy it?
If you want a cheap, reliable and powerful robot vacuum cleaner that offers superb cleaning performance, then this is a great choice.
If you want something with a better app and more control over how and where the robot cleans, you may want to look elsewhere.
Final Thoughts
The app may be a little basic and the map difficult to understand, but the Yeedi Vac Station still delivers in its main purpose: its a powerful cleaner, sucking up dirt without problems, even doing well at the edges of the room. Plus, it’s useful for hard floors, too. If you’re after something different, check out my guide to the best robot vacuum cleaners.
How we test
Unlike other sites, we test every robot vacuum cleaner we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as our main robot vacuum cleaner for the review period
We test for at least a week
Tested with real-world dirt in real-world situations for fair comparisons with other vacuum cleaners
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FAQs
They should last between one and two months, depending on how often you use the robot and how dirty your home is.
Yes, you can, since the cloth doesn’t get too wet. Use a lower water flow setting for wood floors, and higher for sealed floors.
Full specs
Jargon buster
Alexa
Amazon's smart voice assistantGoogle Assistant
A voice assistant which is Google’s take on Amazon’s Alexa.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
