I’ve gotten a chance to review several robotic vacuums over the past few years and I can honestly say they are one of my favorite smart home gadgets. Having a vacuum roam across my house every day, without having to pay it (aside from the initial purchase cost) and without having to worry about having another person in my house just makes my life easier which is really the whole point of technology right?
Eufy, from Anker Innovations who makes some of the best tech accessories around, has been making solid robotic vacuums for a few years now and recently sent me its newest one to look at, the G30.
Overview
If you’ve ever used a robot vacuum before, there’s nothing too revolutionary about the G30 series. It’s pretty standard as far as they go. It’s a big black circle that scoots across the floor and sucks up dust and debris.
This one offers a lot of the pretty standard features in robotic vacuums. There’s ledge detection so it won’t fall down the stairs, WiFi connectivity so it can do robot stuff, and 2000 Pa of suction which was plenty powerful for the pet hair and random things left behind from a 7 month old so I wouldn’t worry about power.
Eufy claims just under 2 hours of runtime on a single charge but my house isn’t really big enough where mine needed more than about 45 minutes to clean so I can’t honestly say how much battery life you can reasonably expect. Most of the previous models I’ve had got around an hour and a half to take that for what you will.
Smart, as it Should be
For me, the best part about these vacuums is their smart capabilities. I mean what’s the point of having a robot vacuum if it doesn’t do a lot of things automatically? You can set a cleaning schedule for different times of the day, different days of the week and things like that. You can change the suction power, start and stop cleaning, initiate Spot cleaning (which will have it spend a little extra time on a particularly dirty spot of the floor), and send it back to the charging dock all from within the app which is super helpful.
There’s a whole plethora of settings available as well. You can “share” it with other people so they can have access to the controls, you can change the voice settings, and you can even drive the thing manually if you want to which is super fun if you’re bored and want to annoy your dog (trust me, it’s a blast).
One of my favorite features is what they call “Auto-return cleaning” which means that if the vacuum (we named ours Reggie cuz, why not?) gets low on battery, it will return to the dock, charge to 80%, and immediately return to the place where it stopped and finish cleaning, all without you having to lift a finger. It’s quite impressive.
My second favorite feature is the ability to connect Reggie either Amazon Alexa or Google Home (or both if you’re just that techie). There’s nothing quite like being able to sit on your couch and ask Google to vacuum up the chips you dropped while bingeing Tiger King.
The biggest update to the G30 series is the navigation system. Eufy calls it Smart Dynamic Navigation and it is basically a better version of the laser navigation that they’ve used before. This system allows Reggie to map out our floors so he can figure out the most efficient route to clean our floors. Whereas previous vacuums without this system would just randomly scoot across the floor in all different directions, Reggie is smart enough to figure out the most efficient path to take across the floor to preserve battery life and cut down on cleaning time.
We live in a townhome and our main living floor has hardwood floors, and with a 70 pound German Shepherd running around, there is pet hair everywhere. Combine that with dust and other dirt that fills up a home with a 7-month old living in it and you’ve got a lot of cleaning on your hands. This new, upgraded navigation system was noticeably quicker at cleaning our house than previous models I’ve tested.
One last thing to note is the inclusion of eufy’s BoostIQ technology which allows Reggie to detect areas of the floor that might need some extra help and automatically boost his suction power temporarily to clean that one particular spot. To be honest, I couldn’t really tell if it worked for me or not but I also never ran into a situation that called for that feature during my testing so your mileage may vary.
It’s not Perfect
As with every piece of gadgetry (and just in life in general, let’s be honest), there are some things about Reggie that I wish were a bit different.
First, while he does have Spot mode and the BoostIQ, other eufy models I’ve tested had multiple dedicated cleaning modes which are strangely absent on the G30. I assume eufy needed to cut out a few things to keep the cost down so this may have been an unfortunate necessity.
My second issue with Reggie is more of a limitation on the laser navigation system. While it is a pretty cool feature and does make cleaning more efficient, there’s really no way to edit the map. I’ve used other vacuums with similar laser navigation systems that allow you to block off entire areas of your house so the vacuum won’t enter there, but Reggie has no such functionality.
There is a second model of the G30 called the G30 Edge which includes boundary strips you can put down to keep your vacuum out of certain areas, but having the ability to block it off in the digital map is a much more efficient method.
The last thing about Reggie that is a bit annoying is the dust bin that collects all the stuff off the floor. It’s a pretty decent size, but for some reason mine would never fill all the way. Of course, having a 70 pound dog that sheds enough in one day to mold an entire second dog out it may be part of the problem, but I’ve used other vacuums that have been able to fill their dust bins entirely even with the pet hair so I’m not quite sure what’s going on there.
One other thing I want to mention about Reggie really has nothing to do with the vacuum itself per se, but basically he is just small enough that he gets stuck under my couch. Granted, our couch is quite old so it’s probably fine on most newer couches but it’s annoying enough to be a bother.
Worth it?
So, as always, the ultimate question: should I buy it?
Well, this time that’s a little tougher to answer than it has been in the past. At $350, there are cheaper robotic vacuums you can get that offer many of the same features, but what sets the G30 apart is the variety of smart features you have access to and the upgraded navigation system.
If those things are important to you, $350 is a lot of money these days but I would say it’s worth it. I’ve enjoyed my time with it and it should last you a while. You can head on over to Amazon to grab yours today.
Eufy, from Anker Innovations who makes some of the best tech accessories around, has been making solid robotic vacuums for a few years now and recently sent me its newest one to look at, the G30.
Overview
If you’ve ever used a robot vacuum before, there’s nothing too revolutionary about the G30 series. It’s pretty standard as far as they go. It’s a big black circle that scoots across the floor and sucks up dust and debris.
This one offers a lot of the pretty standard features in robotic vacuums. There’s ledge detection so it won’t fall down the stairs, WiFi connectivity so it can do robot stuff, and 2000 Pa of suction which was plenty powerful for the pet hair and random things left behind from a 7 month old so I wouldn’t worry about power.
Eufy claims just under 2 hours of runtime on a single charge but my house isn’t really big enough where mine needed more than about 45 minutes to clean so I can’t honestly say how much battery life you can reasonably expect. Most of the previous models I’ve had got around an hour and a half to take that for what you will.
Smart, as it Should be
For me, the best part about these vacuums is their smart capabilities. I mean what’s the point of having a robot vacuum if it doesn’t do a lot of things automatically? You can set a cleaning schedule for different times of the day, different days of the week and things like that. You can change the suction power, start and stop cleaning, initiate Spot cleaning (which will have it spend a little extra time on a particularly dirty spot of the floor), and send it back to the charging dock all from within the app which is super helpful.
There’s a whole plethora of settings available as well. You can “share” it with other people so they can have access to the controls, you can change the voice settings, and you can even drive the thing manually if you want to which is super fun if you’re bored and want to annoy your dog (trust me, it’s a blast).
One of my favorite features is what they call “Auto-return cleaning” which means that if the vacuum (we named ours Reggie cuz, why not?) gets low on battery, it will return to the dock, charge to 80%, and immediately return to the place where it stopped and finish cleaning, all without you having to lift a finger. It’s quite impressive.
My second favorite feature is the ability to connect Reggie either Amazon Alexa or Google Home (or both if you’re just that techie). There’s nothing quite like being able to sit on your couch and ask Google to vacuum up the chips you dropped while bingeing Tiger King.
The biggest update to the G30 series is the navigation system. Eufy calls it Smart Dynamic Navigation and it is basically a better version of the laser navigation that they’ve used before. This system allows Reggie to map out our floors so he can figure out the most efficient route to clean our floors. Whereas previous vacuums without this system would just randomly scoot across the floor in all different directions, Reggie is smart enough to figure out the most efficient path to take across the floor to preserve battery life and cut down on cleaning time.
We live in a townhome and our main living floor has hardwood floors, and with a 70 pound German Shepherd running around, there is pet hair everywhere. Combine that with dust and other dirt that fills up a home with a 7-month old living in it and you’ve got a lot of cleaning on your hands. This new, upgraded navigation system was noticeably quicker at cleaning our house than previous models I’ve tested.
One last thing to note is the inclusion of eufy’s BoostIQ technology which allows Reggie to detect areas of the floor that might need some extra help and automatically boost his suction power temporarily to clean that one particular spot. To be honest, I couldn’t really tell if it worked for me or not but I also never ran into a situation that called for that feature during my testing so your mileage may vary.
It’s not Perfect
As with every piece of gadgetry (and just in life in general, let’s be honest), there are some things about Reggie that I wish were a bit different.
First, while he does have Spot mode and the BoostIQ, other eufy models I’ve tested had multiple dedicated cleaning modes which are strangely absent on the G30. I assume eufy needed to cut out a few things to keep the cost down so this may have been an unfortunate necessity.
My second issue with Reggie is more of a limitation on the laser navigation system. While it is a pretty cool feature and does make cleaning more efficient, there’s really no way to edit the map. I’ve used other vacuums with similar laser navigation systems that allow you to block off entire areas of your house so the vacuum won’t enter there, but Reggie has no such functionality.
There is a second model of the G30 called the G30 Edge which includes boundary strips you can put down to keep your vacuum out of certain areas, but having the ability to block it off in the digital map is a much more efficient method.
The last thing about Reggie that is a bit annoying is the dust bin that collects all the stuff off the floor. It’s a pretty decent size, but for some reason mine would never fill all the way. Of course, having a 70 pound dog that sheds enough in one day to mold an entire second dog out it may be part of the problem, but I’ve used other vacuums that have been able to fill their dust bins entirely even with the pet hair so I’m not quite sure what’s going on there.
One other thing I want to mention about Reggie really has nothing to do with the vacuum itself per se, but basically he is just small enough that he gets stuck under my couch. Granted, our couch is quite old so it’s probably fine on most newer couches but it’s annoying enough to be a bother.
Worth it?
So, as always, the ultimate question: should I buy it?
Well, this time that’s a little tougher to answer than it has been in the past. At $350, there are cheaper robotic vacuums you can get that offer many of the same features, but what sets the G30 apart is the variety of smart features you have access to and the upgraded navigation system.
If those things are important to you, $350 is a lot of money these days but I would say it’s worth it. I’ve enjoyed my time with it and it should last you a while. You can head on over to Amazon to grab yours today.
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