Imagine a busy individual, juggling a demanding job and a hectic personal life. Every morning, they rush to get ready, making sure to catch the early bus to work. By the time they return home, exhaustion sets in, and the thought of cleaning feels overwhelming. Here, a robot vacuum cleaner becomes indispensable.
After a long day, when you unlock the front door and step inside, you’ll find the floors spotless. The robot vacuum, pre-programmed to clean while you’re at work, has navigated every corner of the home. It diligently removed dirt, dust, and pet hair and saved hours of manual labor, allowing the person to relax and unwind.
While regular robot vacuums might require emptying their dustbins after each cleaning session, fully automatic models boast self-emptying capabilities. This means the robot seamlessly transfers collected dirt and debris from its internal bin to a larger, external dustbin housed within a docking station.
This is fine for normal vacuuming. But what about mopping the floor? We do have robot vacuum cleaners that can mop the floor as well. The simplest way to implement this is to have two tanks, one for storing clean water and the other for collecting dirty water. We have to empty or fill these tanks manually though.
What we have in for review is a completely automatic robot vacuum cleaner from SwitchBot. It is the SwitchBot Floor Cleaning Robot S10. We have reviewed a couple of interesting products from SwitchBot earlier including their tiny and compact K10+ robot vacuum. What’s special about the S10 is it is a fully automatic vacuum cleaner that can vacuum, mop, dispose dust (to a bin), add water, discard waste water and many other tasks on its own. Instead of integrating the water handling section into the main base station, SwitchBot decided to have separate units; one is the main base station that charges the robot and also houses the dust collection unit and the other is water station that adds clean water, washes the mop, and drains dirty water. Interesting!
We have been using the SwitchBot S10 for almost 10 days now and through this review we would like to share our experiences of using it daily for vacuuming and mopping a colleague’s house. We will discuss the important features, installation and initial setup process, performance of S10, the SwitchBot App, and even the maintenance tasks that you need to perform on a regular basis. So, continue reading to find out if the SwitchBot S10 Floor Cleaning Robot is as fancy in real-world usage as the specs sound.
Let us start with the unboxing of the SwitchBot S10. And boy there are a lot of things to unpack. Opening the main box, we have a couple of individual boxes, a cardboard holder for paperwork, and the base station (which SwitchBot calls the Auto-empty Station) is neatly tucked in a corner. Inside the main docking station, there is one dust collection bag already installed and we also get a couple of spare ones. There is also a water leak detector module as well.
The first of those boxes contains the main vacuum robot. We will look at the design of the main unit and even the stations in the next section. Continuing, we have a couple of floor cleaning solution pouches, couple of side brushes (the robot takes only one though), and a cleaning brush (looks similar to a bottle cleaning brush).
Next, we have the second box that contains the water station. Interestingly, the water station came with a top attachment in the form of an external water tank system. Using this setup, you can manually fill the clean water tank and empty the dirty water tank if direct plumbing is not a viable choice.
Inside the tanks, we have a bunch of accessories that are essential for plumbing the water station to the mains water supply and drainage system. These accessories include inlet valves, extension pipes, gaskets, hose manager, and even a wrench. The quick start guide in the paperwork has a very-detailed and pictorial data on how to use all these accessories. So, we highly recommend reading the user manual as well as the quick start guide before using the S10.
If you remember the SwitchBot K10+ Mini Robot Vacuum Cleaner, it was a tiny robot that is suitable for cleaning small homes and apartments. On the contrary, the S10 is more of a regular-sized robot with a diameter of 365mm (≈14”). Some of the design elements of the S10 are also pretty standard. These include an LDS Radar Sensor on the top for mapping and navigation, front bumper, and sensors in the front for docking. You will also find a bunch of switches near the LiDAR Sensor (Start, Home, and Switch Mode). There is a detachable plate (lid) on the top and underneath this we have the dustbin and the main power switch (we have to toggle this before using the robovac).
Interesting things appear when we look at the back and bottom of the S10. We will begin with the bottom first. There are a bunch of sensors (carpet sensors and cliff sensors) along the perimeter that will help the robot while navigating. Speaking of navigation, the robot propels using its three wheel, one is the omni-directional wheel and the other two are spring-loaded drive wheels.
For vacuuming, the S10 has a rotating side brush and a rolling rubber brush. Near the back, we have the roller mop that helps in mopping the floor. The SwitchBot S10 has an impressive technique known as RinseSync that cleans the mop as it cleans the floor. There is a detachable waste water collection unit at the back of the S10 along with some sensors and the charging contacts. There is a dust inlet at the back and also a provision to slide the roller mop out of its position for manual cleaning.
Coming to the charging station or rather the auto-empty station, it is a tall unit with a docking section at the bottom that contains the charging contacts and the dust evacuation port. There are a bunch of vents at the bottom that will blow hot air to dry the roller mop. On the top, we have the lid for a compartment that houses the 4L dust collection bag and a fan filter. You can also find the Bluetooth reset button when you open the lid. There is nothing interesting at the back except for an exhaust vent and the power cord. You can wrap the power using the cord wrap part.
Last but not least we have the water station. It is a tiny unit with water ports, charging contacts, and some sensors in the front. On the top, it has slots for adding cleaning solution and waste filter. Two pipes come from the back of the station; one is the water inlet pipe and the other is the drain hose. On the left, we have a USB-C Port and a Bluetooth reset button.
What if you don’t have the provision to directly plumb the water station to your home’s main water supply? Don’t worry. SwitchBot S10 has a neat little external water tank unit that sits on top of the water station. It has two water tanks; one for clean water and the other for waste water.
If you look at all the individual components and accessories, it might look cumbersome. But after proper installation and assembly, all the systems work in perfect harmony, and that too automatically.
While setting up the main robovac and the docking/charging station is pretty straightforward, you may have to get your hands dirty if you want to setup the water station. It is a simple job and with the help of the user guide, manual, and videos from SwitchBot, you can finish the job in less than 30-minutes. That said, we have to begin the setup process with the auto-empty station. Choose a location that is flat, has access to power supply, and with enough room on all the three sides (about 0.5m on the sides and 1m in the front). You can plug the station and switch it on.
Next, we can move on to the robot. There are a bunch of stickers/films and foam pads protecting the robot (its sensors and bumper mechanism) during transit. Carefully remove all those. Flip the robot on its back and install the side brush. Flip it back, remove the top lid, and slide the main power switch to on position (‘I’ is on and ‘O’ is off). We have to manually dock the robot to the charging station so that it begins charging. Let the robot charge fully. This may take a while depending on the state of the charge and in the meantime, we can start working on the water station.
You have multiple ways to set the water station depending on your plumbing situation. You can install it in the kitchen, near wash area, bathroom, or anywhere that has proper access to the main water supply. Again, the quick start guide and the video from SwitchBot are your best bet for a pictorial demonstration. Alternatively, you can go with a standalone installation that doesn’t involve any plumbing at all. This of course makes use of the external water tank system. In any case, make use of the plumbing accessories that came in the package and have a leak-proof install. Note that you might need some additional tools such as pliers, pipe wrenches (although one came in the box), and other things for a proper installation.
In our case, we went with a handwash/sink setup i.e., we connected the water inlet from the sink’s supply and fixed the drain pipe directly to the sink. Is it a DIY process or do we need a professional? We would say it is a DIY process and most users with basic knowledge of plumbing and tools can finish the task very easily.
Next, we can start pairing the SwitchBot S10 with the SwitchBot App. The process is again very simple and direct. The app guides you step-by-step for the entire installation. After registering your email id with SwitchBot, it is time to add the S10. To put the robot in pairing mode, you have to press and hold the Home and Switch Mode buttons simultaneously for at least 3 seconds. Then, you have to connect the robot to Wi-Fi and note that it only supports the 2.4GHz band. If everything goes well, the robot can now start mapping your house.
After successful mapping, it is time to mark the position of the water station on the map so that robot can get an idea of its location. When we first attempted to pair the water station, it failed. But after looking at the user manual, we found out that the water station has a built-in battery that needs some initial charging. So, after connecting a USB-C Charger and waiting for 10-minutes, we were able to successfully pair the water station.
Overall, the entire installation process was really simple. It took just over 30-minutes for the complete setup including plumbing, mapping, and marking the water station.
So, how did the SwitchBot Floor Cleaning Robot S10 perform in real-world usage? You have to choose between the options for cleaning the entire house, a room, or a particular area on the map. Additionally, you can also choose between only vacuuming or vacuum plus mopping. We started with vacuuming option and instead of the entire house, we opted for cleaning a room. The 6,500Pa suction power of the S10 is very strong and can clean almost all kinds of dust and debris in a home. Food crumbs, hair, and pet hair are not at all an issue for S10. In the app, you can adjust the suction power depending on the level of dust the surface has.
We mentioned the roller brush at the bottom. Instead of a hair brush, SwitchBot went with a rubber brush this time. So, the chance of hair (human or pet) tangling in the brush is very less. The side brush does help in pushing the dust/debris towards the roller brush but we felt that instead of only one brush, SwitchBot must have somehow added a second brush on the other side as well so that it doesn’t leave a single piece of dust.
The vacuuming on hard surfaces such as tiles and hardwood is very good. Even if your floor has deeper gaps between tiles, the S10 can suck most of the dirt without any issue. The roller brush has a slight bouncing mechanism so that it can adjust as per the surface it is moving on. Carpets are a major source of dust in a house. If we don’t vacuum them regularly, the dust and debris start accumulating on the carpet over time and make it dirty.
Thankfully, the SwitchBot S10 Robot Vacuum Cleaner can work on most carpets without any issue. The carpet sensors come into play here and upon detection, the robot automatically increases the suction power. Although we noted that it sometimes struggles to climb slightly dark-colored carpets. Nonetheless, the overall vacuuming performance is very good.
As the robovac starts vacuuming, the tiny 150ml dustbin in the robovac will start collecting dust. After finishing the vacuum job, the S10 returns to the docking station and the first magic happens i.e., the dust in the small dustbin gets sucked into the dust collection bag. It makes a really loud noise while emptying the bin and this is definitely a reason to not install the docking station in bedroom. The capacity of this bag is 4L and with a regular usage, it can store up to 70 days of waste. You have to replace the dust bag after this.
We are coming to interesting process now. After vacuuming, we started the vacuum plus mopping operation. During the first time, it went to the water station to fill some water into its tank. Then it started vacuuming and mopping at the same time. The robot first wets the roller mop. As its starts cleaning, the robot cleans the mop with fresh water using a technology known as RinseSync. Here, the robot cleans the mop at a rate of 300 times per minute where it squeezes the dirty mop and collects the dirty water into the waste water bin at the back of the robot. This way only the clean side of the mop ever touches the floor while cleaning. In our testing, we tried cleaning all sorts of liquids on the floor from milk, coffee, ketchup, and yogurt. The SwitchBot S10 did an excellent job of cleaning the floor. The roller mop applies a decent amount force on the floor (SwitchBot says it is about 10N) to properly clean it.
Similar to the vacuuming mode, you can customize the mopping mode as well by adjusting the suction power, water level of the mop, and also the number of times you want to clean. If you opt for ‘×1’ clean, then the robot will mop only one time and that too in vertical direction. But if you select the ‘×2’ option, it does a deep cleaning, vertical cleaning (top to bottom in a room/area) followed by horizontal (left to right). We always used the ‘×2’ cleaning exclusively as we thought it cleaned much than the ‘×1’ cleaning. While mopping, if the S10 detects a carpet, the carpet sensors come into play once again. This time, it retracts the mop inside the robot so that only vacuuming works and it doesn’t mop/wet the carpet. It worked as expected on regular carpets and mats but S10 struggled sometimes to go on slightly dark-colored carpets.
Another magic happens after the SwitchBot S10 finishes the mopping job. It goes to the water station and start draining the dirty water. After this, it washes the mop (a couple of times we believe), fills the tank with fresh water (for the next job), and returns to the charging station to start charging its battery. What’s interesting here is that the water station doesn’t need any power supply (apart from the initial charge that we had to provide). Every time the robot docks with the water station for exchanging water, it provides power to the water station through the charging contacts. Brilliant! This means, you can install the water station only where plumbing is accessible and not worry about power supply.
We really liked the whole mopping experience. The only issue (though a minor one) we had was the length of the mop doesn’t extend to the edge of the robot. This means the mopping job misses out on cleaning edges that are close to a wall or an obstacle. Other than this we have no issue with the mopping side of things.
After the robot returns to the charging station, the dryer comes into play. It blows hot air on the roller so that the mop becomes dry (and importantly doesn’t become home to mold) for the next use. It makes a whirring sound while the dryer is in action (another reason to not keep the docking station anywhere you sleep or take rest) and you can control the amount of time the drying action takes place. While SwitchBot says the dryer blows hot air at a temperature of 50°C, when we tested, the temperature hovered around 42-43°C.
Even though the SwitchBot S10 can work as a fully-automatic floor cleaning robot, you have to take care of it every now and then. This includes cleaning the brushes, dustbin, and waste water tank in the main robot unit. The dustbin comes with a scraping brush that helps you clean the filter. Additionally, you also get a station cleaning brush (the one that looks like a bottle cleaning brush). Using this, you have to clean the debris evacuation port on the auto-empty station and the debris evacuation tube (at the bottom of the station). While the S10 cleans and washes the roller mop, you can perform a thorough clean/wash of the mop by sliding it out of the robot. The water station has a filter that collects the waste from the dirty water so that it won’t clog the hoses. You have to take this filter out and clean it.
The user manual has all the necessary maintenance instructions that you need to performs and even the duration between consecutive maintenance jobs.
The SwitchBot app (which is available for Android as well as iOS) is an important part of the whole SwitchBot S10 Robot experience. It helps you map the house, create multiple maps (say one for each floor), create no-go zones, and many more. You can control the robot from the app such as choosing the type of operation (vacuum or vacuum plus mopping), set the suction speed, water level of the mop, and the number of times it cleans the area.
You can set schedules (set one so that it mops when no one’s home), check the wear level of the components (brushes, mop, filter, dust bag, etc.), manually control the robot, and update the firmware.
Apart from the app, you can also control the SwitchBot S10 through voice commands using Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant. If you have other SwitchBot products such as their Curtain 3 smart curtain movers, you can pair all these devices to the SwitchBot Hub 2 and control them from there.
The SwitchBot S10 Floor Cleaning Robot Vacuum is available for $1,199.99. At the time of reviewing the product, there is a code for a discount of $200. Note that this doesn’t include the external water tank system. Considering the features and the impressive fully-automatic functionality, the price is totally justified. SwitchBot backs this product with a 1-year warranty.
Overall, we really liked the SwitchBot S10. It is really one of the best fully-automatic robot vacuum cleaners out there. After you set the unit, you can forget about it and it does all the cleaning, mopping and water exchange on its own. You still have to keep an eye on the dust collection bag and wear of the components. There is also a maintenance job that you have to perform once in a while but that is a part of the whole robot vacuum cleaner experience.
SwitchBot S10 performs and excellent job of vacuuming and mopping. Whether you have tiles, hardwood floors, or carpets, S10 can clean it all. The highlight feature is the whole auto water exchange system with the additional tasks of deep cleaning the mop and even drying it.
If you are looking for a fully automatic robot vacuum cleaner for your home or apartment, then the SwitchBot S10 is a perfect choice. At this price point, we think no other robovac manufacturer is providing this level of tech and features.
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