Yeedi Vac Station – 67 day/final review (updated)
This will be our last coverage piece of the Yeedi Vac Station unless something changes. The testing was done at a different location than usual so this has taken a little longer than needed.
Updated: Secondary testing done, TL;DR – skip until they fix issues listed at bottom of article
TL;DR – The Yeedi Vac Station is a reasonably priced mid-range mop or vacuum robot that vacuums exceptionally well, and mops average.
You can find the other two reviews here, and here.
What is the Yeedi Vac Station
A puck robot/drag mop pad robot vacuum that allows you to change modes by removing or inserting the mop.
It docks with a charger/tower vacuum container after vacuuming events and empties the contents of the Yeedi Vac into the bin. It does this pretty well from what I can tell, however as some dirt and debris have remained in the robot’s bin, it ranks as the least self-emptying of what I’ve tried. I should note that it will probably get all the dirt stuck in the robot bin the next time, but the emptying needs to be supplemented occasionally.
I will also note, that the only reason you might notice this is if you’re doing a review of the robot vacuum. I don’t know that a whole lot of people are going to care that their Yeedi vacuum robot still has some dust bunnies on board when it ventures out the next time. If you’re filling a bin completely up every time, you might be running an animal shelter.
When the mop is attached it avoids carpets and mops. It does ok. Think dust mopping and small spill cleanup and you’ve got it. What about a pound and a half of pressure and a wet towel would cover. Great for dust, small spills. It’s what I consider a light dust mopping. It’s good at that.
When it’s in vacuum mode, it shines. It picked up a 4″ nail at one point. This, as a vacuum, is great. It shines. This is what you want in a vacuum. This is what you accept in a mop. Then again, it is called the Yeedi Vac Station, not the Yeedi Mop Station. Come for the vacuum, feel free to leave for the mopping.
Issues encountered
Most of the issues revolve around the software in our testing. It took nearly a month to build a map of my father’s house and, well, it shouldn’t. I’m not going to put this head to head with another couple of vacs I’m testing, but the one I was playing with today got the house mapped in 7 minutes. Different technology but the Yeedi and other vacuum are using the same back end mapping software it looks like, so let’s hope Yeedi gets speed mapping.
The on board robot bin doesn’t always completely empty. The resume feature you’d expect to resume and complete the mapping did not happen in a reasonable time frame. It tended to obsess on certain areas. When it got stuck it was a hunt because it did not have a good map drawn out. Mopping exactly as described above – exactly what dragging a wet pad with light pressure should do, which is ok, but not great.
The “holds 30 days of dust” advertisement may be a little on the under-promising side. We’re at 67 days and that bin’s bag is not full. Perhaps they’re claiming 30 days before you could potentially notice smells, but not sure on that. Maybe pet owners have a ton more debris, don’t know.
Shag carpet needs to be defined as “switch to insane suction here” or “avoid” – when the Yeedi Vac discovered a shag entry carpet on normal power it clogged. Works fine when the carpet was defined as use highest power. Not an ongoing issue, but something they should update in firmware – if you’re jamming, up the power, if that doesn’t work then send an alarm.
Overall
You probably won’t be disappointed on carpet. I’m not a fan of the mopping side of it. The mapping software needs a bit of an update for fast initial mapping (which as noted I just saw on another unit today,) but it’s a good vacuum. I dig it. Even my cheapskate side says it’s decent.
The Yeedi Vac Station is currently available on Amazon for about $350usd, and if you’re not particularly interested in the self-emptying feature you can save about $100 it looks like.
Updated December 2021
I spent a week of Christmas attempting to get the Yeedi to map one room. Admittedly the room is a film production studio, but it’s square, large as a house, and is mappable by other robots in mapping mode in about 20 minutes.
Flat floor, two obstructions, built a floor cage to keep it off the walls (they curve) and the map it’s building tends to get forgotten pretty much every other time it’s out.
The map building is extremely important to get done because I just want it to vacuum/mop one area of the studio. A week in and I’m still unable to define where I want it to go. I started it going before Christmas and received notice that it couldn’t find the dock. Get in today and it’s sitting half on the dock.
From what I can tell of the cleaning it’s managed to do, it’s acceptable. It doesn’t work well in a large house, a commercial studio, or where you’re attempting to control it remotely (because it doesn’t always dock). Throw in that it seems to tilt way back and not be chargable with the mop on it and the use cases I have for the Yeedi are limited.
It can be mostly fixed with a mapping firmware update, however as of December 27 it has not.
