24 November 2023 , 21:30
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It's the ultimate first-world dream... A robot vacuum cleaner on every floor. OK, so maybe it's just my dream, but I'm lazy and I hate housework, so robot vacuums have been a saviour for me.
And I'm lucky enough to have tested dozens of them over the years, from sub-£100 cheap tat to premium £1,500 flagship appliances.
But the one that's currently whirring around my kitchen is the Eufy X9 Pro. It's been up and running for months now, and it never lets me down. I'll come back to why I love it in just a second.
Because, quite importantly, Eufy has succumbed to the Black Friday madness and knocked the price of the X9 Pro down by £200.
It's a pricey piece of kit, admittedly, at £899, but the Black Friday deal brings it down to £699 - if you use the coupon code WS24BFT2320 on the Eufy website.
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If you don't want to muck about with a coupon, it's also available at Amazon for the same Black Friday price of £699.
And at that money, I'd really like a second one to run around my upstairs rooms. The big snag with robot vacuums is they can't climb stairs. So it would save me the job of carrying it up and down the wooden hill.
But don't worry, I'm not buying a second one. I'm lazy, but not that lazy. So why do I like the X9 Pro so much?
Well, over the years of using them, I've established that the robot vacuum I need most in my life is always going to be a combo vacuum and mop.
They're not as pricey as you might think, it's possible to find one for a few hundred pounds, but the joy of having your floor vacuumed and mopped at the same time makes it worth every penny.
It appears to be the ultimate new trend in robot vacuum development these days and it often feels like some combos are good at vacuuming, while others are good at mopping.
The Eufy Clean X9 Pro is the only one I've tested that performs both functions brilliantly.
Part of its secret is its huge base station, which contains two tanks. One of them is filled with clean water, which is heated up to 40C and gets used to clean the twin spinning mop heads on the robot.
The robot also has 5,500pa of suction, a powerful rotating brush, and it can lift its mop heads out of the way when it tackles carpets.
It uses laser guidance to find its way around, which I personally prefer, and the app is the simplest and most reliable I've used.
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More than anything though, while the vacuum function is very good, the mopping function is quite simply the best I've tested. And that's why I'd recommend it over anything else.
Here's a tempting alternative: iRobot Roomba Combo j7+
The Roomba series from iRobot is close to becoming iconic. Hugely popular, and for good reason, they really are among the best robot vacuums out there.
There's a few combos in iRobot's current line up, and my pick of the bunch is the Roomba Combo j7+.
Its self-emptying base deals with the detritus picked up by the excellent vacuum cleaner, and a container within the robot supplies liquid to the static mop, which folds out in sci-fi fashion to clean the floor as it vacuums.
The mop isn't as good as the one in the Eufy, largely because it doesn't oscillate, and there's no self-cleaning system. But it's easy to pop the fabric panel off and rinse it under a tap.
The Roomba Combo J7+ comes in at £999, but the good news is, they've knocked the price down for Black Friday, to a remarkable £649. It's honestly a lot of robot vacuum for the money.