Yeedi Vac 2 Pro review: This robot vac/mop won’t collide with clutter

Price When Reviewed

$449.99

Best Prices Today: Yeedi Vac 2 Pro

Yeedi’s robot vacuums have continually hit the sweet spot between advanced features and affordability. Its latest product, the Vac 2 Pro ($449.99), looks nearly identical to the Yeedi Vac Station robot I reviewed last year, but there have been some big improvements under the hood.

What are the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro’s best features?

The Vac 2 Pro sports a new oscillating mopping system that actually scrubs your floors and an intelligent carpet detection feature that prevents it from soaking rugs. Even better, newly added sensors enable a 3D obstacle avoidance feature that should prevent the vacuum from getting tangled up with shoes, pet food dishes, and other items in its path.

Like previous Yeedi robot vacuums, the Vac 2 Pro has a topside camera that allows the camera to map the room and locate itself within it. This facilitates more efficient cleaning paths and enables you to customize jobs. Like the Vac Station, the Vac 2 Pro can vacuum and mop simultaneously; its dustbin is inset under the vacuum’s lid and its water tank slots into the rear. Also like the Vac Station, the Vac 2 Pro offers 3000pa of suction.

This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best robot vacuum cleaners, where you’ll find reviews of the competition’s offerings, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.

How do you set up the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro?

To set up the vacuum, you need to download the Yeedi app and follow the prompts to pair it with your phone and connect to your network. You can also control the robot vacuum with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant voice commands by adding the skill to the assistant of your choice and linking the account.

The last step is to run an auto-cleaning job so that the vacuum can map the room. The app warns that only Basic obstacle avoidance is supported during this initial mapping, so you need to declutter the floor to prevent the robot vacuum from getting stuck. Previous Yeedi vacuums required three to five cleanings to build a map, but the Vac 2 Pro does it in one pass. The caveat is that the first go-round takes a bit longer, so Yeedi recommends you set the vacuum to the lowest suction power to preserve battery life. Once the map is finished, the robot automatically divides it into areas based on its understanding of the space. Then it prompts you to label the areas and set up no-mop zones.

How well does the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro map floors?

The Vac 2 Pro’s initial map of my downstairs level got the layout correct but the coverage was spotty. It also read the space—which includes the living room, kitchen, and entryway—as one big room, which I suppose is technically correct as there are no doors dividing these areas. However, I’d need to divide these into discreet areas to customize cleaning jobs. The map’s coverage improved with two or three additional cleanings and some more tidying up until I got one I felt was complete and accurate. At that point, I was able to use the map editing feature to divide the map into distinct areas and label them.

The Yeedi app offers three cleaning types. Auto cleans the entire mapped space, Area allows you to target one labeled area, and Custom lets you narrow the focus to a particular spot within an area—a spill, for example. You can also clean areas in a particular sequence by selecting them in the desired order from the map.

For cleaning jobs, you can tell the robot vacuum to make one or two cleaning passes and select from four suction levels and three water flow levels. It did a great job removing dust, pet hair, and food crumbs on even the lower power settings in my testing. Mopping was even more impressive. The new scrubbing feature, which mimics the back-and-forth scrubbing of a human using a stick mop, was able to lift some stains that would have been left behind by most other mopping vacuums that simply drag a dampened cloth over the floor.

Can the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro avoid carpets and obstacles?

The Vac 2 Pro can automatically boost suction when it detects carpet, and it’s worth enabling this feature in the settings if you have a mix of carpeted and hard floors. The carpet avoidance feature works well, too, though it’s important to note that it is true to its name. Some mopping vacuums will lift their mopping apparatus when they roll over carpet, but the Vac 2 Pro avoids carpet altogether. That worked well in my living room where I have hard floors with a throw rug in the center. The Vac 2 Pro simply cleaned around the rug. But it may present a problem if the vacuum has to pass through a fully carpeted area to the other side. In these cases, you’ll need to remove the mopping module to get the vac to pass over the carpet.

Obstacle avoidance didn’t work as well here as similar AI-avoidance tech on competitors’ vacuums. It’s supposed to detect items taller than an inch, which automatically leaves common floor obstacles like cables and my kids’ trading cards out of its scope. In practice though, the bigger the item, the more likely it is to be avoided. For example, the Vac 2 Pro skirted around my kids’ backpacks and its own box but tried to run right over a pair of headphones and a rolled-up sock. The only effect of toggling from Basic to Advanced obstacle avoidance was to cause the vacuum to miss areas it would otherwise clean.

The Yeedi app makes controlling the Vac 2 Pro exceedingly easy. The main screen displays the current map at the top with widgets containing the various controls stacked beneath it. A gear icon in the top right opens the Settings menu where you can monitor the usage of the vacuum’s brushes, filter, and mopping pad; view your cleaning record; and use a “find my robot” feature if you lose track of its whereabouts.

Is the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro worth the cash?

On balance, the Vac 2 Pro is an impressive cleaner that’s hampered by its finicky avoidance tech. If your home is showroom-ready, you likely won’t have a problem getting complete room coverage. But if like most of us it looks like you actually live in your living spaces, the vacuum may struggle to clean everywhere you want it to. Improvements will likely be made in future updates, but if you can’t wait, check out the Roborock S7, another mapping vacuum/mop hybrid that avoids mopping carpets by lifting its mop assembly 5mm off the floor.

Best Prices Today: Yeedi Vac 2 Pro