Yeedi Vac 2 Pro With Self-Empty Station Robot Vacuum Will Save Some Money

Automated vacuuming or mopping is amazing when it works as advertised. A robot attendant handling those basic cleaning tasks on a schedule can be really helpful. The problem is that, in my experience, the lower-cost products can create as much work as they are attempting to help offload. To combat that, the Yeedi Vac Pro 2 with Self-Empty Station wants to offer high-priced functionality and cleaning without the high cost. Even after a few months with the Yeedi robot I'm mixed on whether it's a good value or not. Your mileage will likely be determined by how much you're asking from it and how strict your budget is. It performs better than basic vacuums that bounce off walls, but it still doesn't perform to the level of the more expensive autonomous vacuums and it's not exactly cheap.

TL;DR

Pros:

• Decent feature set for the price, including a self-emptying station
• Includes floor mapping technology to track the robot's progress

Cons:

• Less efficient, with longer cleaning times, than more expensive options
• Limited in-app features for virtual walls compared to other products

Buy at Walmart.

Automated Cleaning With Yeedi

When I set up the Yeedi Vac Pro 2 it wanted to map my home, or the area it would be cleaning. Once it finished checking out the rooms it had access to, I used its mobile app to block off a few areas that it never needed to go. I had recently reviewed the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra and the Deebot so I expected this process. I was expecting the Yeedi to do a little better job, however. Its first mapping run took longer than expected and it did have trouble navigating around its own self-emptying station. Luckily, it did fine managing not to fall down the stairs. Its first actual vacuuming run covered about 380 square feet and took about 85 minutes before the battery got too low and it needed to return to the station to charge. During its cleaning time, it needed to be unstuck three times because it ran over a book, the legs of a swivel chair, and a toy under a bed. It tangled with a few cables along the way, but those didn't stop it. I also needed to clean the anti-drop sensors three times as it cleaned along the edge of the stairs. That cleaning time of only vacuuming carpet, no mopping, felt long to me. I was curious about a direct comparison so I deleted any prior upstairs maps from the S7 MaxV vacuum and had it run a quick mapping and then cleaning. Its mapping provided a much more detailed view of rooms and hallways. It also noted obstacles on the map as it went along. It did get stuck on the legs of the same swivel chair as the Yeedi so I'll chalk that up to a difficult piece of furniture.

Part of the automated cleaning experience with these robots that can visually map out rooms is a mobile app with those details. Inside the Yeedi app you get a basic layout of the floor gathered from the robot's sensing technology. Compared to other vacuums in this space, Yeedi's app presentation felt a little barebones, both in features and visualization. Yeedi states the vacuum has 3000 Pa [pascal] of suction power which is a lot compared to other similar vacuums. There are three suction levels inside the app and the middle one had a decent balance between volume and performance. On the highest setting, the vacuum still wasn't overly loud, but it did burn through its battery faster. Yeedi also advertises "3D obstacle avoidance" which it says "senses and dodges obstacles in its way." I saw it bump into plenty of common objects that were taller than its height. I'm skeptical about that feature's claims. While not technically part of the vacuum itself, I've come to the opinion that a self-emptying station, of some sort, is a necessity of these automated robot cleaners. This one only handles dirt from the vacuum and not water for the mopping. That's one reason I spent minimal time with the mopping function. The Yeedi Vac Pro 2 mopped adequately, but not well enough to continually deal with adding and removing water. Once I did discover that the vacuum bin and tubes in the station were clogged with debris. After the first week of careful inspection, I let the vacuum run without much concern to casually observe it as most people will. That's when the clog must have occurred. After it was cleared, the station appeared to function normally without being clogged again in the months since that happened.

Cleaning Over Time

Even after months of use, my biggest hangup on this particular vacuum is that it would perform unevenly. A lot of days it would handle scheduled cleaning tasks like a champ, but some days it would mess up on basic obstacles. Occasionally it would get lost and not know how to get back to its charging station. It sucked up cords and ran into small objects with little regard for attempting to void them. Mostly it was the inconsistency that became frustrating over time. Once, the vacuum even went into a bathroom that had been marked as off limits in its app from the beginning. At the time of writing, I cleaned 12,000 plus square feet of area over 42 hours of runtime. On the whole, it performed fine and cleaned well enough to keep our upstairs rid of daily dirt. It just didn't clean exceptionally well and needed to be monitored more than I would have liked. It's not a big deal to free the vacuum from a tangle once a week—if you're home. If you're out and get the notification that it's stuck, then it won't be able to clean until you get home.

Limitations

Is it worth complaining about the tiniest of details? One of those things is the omission of the Pacific timezone in its app settings. While it's easy to excuse a minor detail, the lack of a major timezone area did cause a problem the first time I scheduled a cleaning for way earlier than I meant to. Minor software exclusions are not about keeping costs down for this device, it's just an oversight. Yeedi Vac 2 Pro does lack some of the bigger features such as not having a remote camera view like the Roborock S7 MaxV does. It's superfluous, but it can be handy to peek and see where the vacuum got stuck if need be. The carpet lines from the vacuum are mostly straight. You can see a bit of a wobble to them if you have a keen eye. And the vacuum seemed to be vocal about wanting its sensors to be cleaned more often than any other vacuum I've tested.

Should You Buy Yeedi Vac 2 Pro with Self-Emptying Station?

The Yeedi Vac 2 Pro certainly does an adequate job vacuuming and mopping to keep daily dust and crumbs off the floor. Seeing it in the context of a more expensive vacuum, however, really helped clarify the money versus time debate for me with this category of products. If you're really set on having an automated cleaning assistant take care of the day's grime, then it might be worth investing a few extra hundred dollars for a more advanced option than this one. If you're reluctant about spending a small fortune on a vacuum that still won't clean as strongly as a stick vac—or if you have a maximum budget of around $500—then this Yeedi Vac 2 Pro is worth considering. It's a middle-of-the-road product, with a price to match. Buy at Walmart for $499.99. Newsweek may earn a commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. We participate in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.