Testing Ground: RoboVac G30 an average vacuum
Apr. 10—How much would you pay to not have to worry about vacuuming the place where you live?
For decades, robot vacuum companies like eufy, Roomba and iRobot have found the answer is at least a couple hundred dollars, with wildly varying success and failure.
The eufy RoboVac G30 ($319, eufylife.com) lands somewhere in the middle of the pack, at least in terms of budget. But its aim is high for the price point.
With features like Smart Navigation 2.0 (which includes Path Tracking Sensors to allow for a less random vacuum path), app controls, 2000Pa of suction and BoostIQ, it's certainly an ambitious piece of cleaning machinery. That also is its downfall.
Meant for hard floors and medium-pile carpets, the RoboVac G30 is a decent vacuum. But at more than $300, I imagine people want more than an average vacuum.
Using this vacuum on both recommended surfaces, it cleans very well on tile floors and moderately well on carpet, often picking up bigger pieces of debris while leaving you to manually clean up whatever is left.
Getting to the bells and whistles of the vacuum: While its path-tracking sensors are meant to streamline the vacuum's path, it often would repeat areas of the house while ignoring others for a long time. While it creates a very basic map of your house on its app, which thankfully was easy to use, you can't manually set the path or set up boundary strips to guide it (though it does have a spot cleaning feature to allow it to clean in a spiral pattern in certain areas for two minutes). You're often left at the mercy of the vacuum, which is OK if you're out of the house and want it to run, but less so if you're at home.
Because of its strong suction and small dustbin, the G30 fills up fast and if you're not careful, it will leave debris when it's full. When it's finished, it's supposed to automatically go back to its charging cradle. But if it's too far away, it wanders around like a confused stranger.
The good: Setting up the vacuum is pretty easy. You plug in its cradle, place the vacuum on it, press its play button and let it find its way (You can also set it up on the app if you're away). As I said, it will do a fine enough job at a little more than surface-level cleaning. But if you're demanding spotless carpets, you're still going to be breaking out the regular vacuum.
In terms of noise, it can get loud when it switches into its heavy suction mode but is otherwise fairly quiet. When something goes wrong with the vacuum, like a pet tipping it over or it getting stuck in a small space, it lets you know with a friendly voice so you can correct it.
The Robovac G30 is perfect for people who want to vacuum in a pinch but don't have time to do it or who don't mind having carpets that are passably clean. For more serious cleaners, it's probably better to stick to the old tried-and-true method.
Andrew Gaug can be reached at andrew.gaug@newspressnow.com.
Follow him on Twitter: @NPNOWGaug
