Eufy RoboVac 15C Max review: Fantastic performance, outstanding price

The Eufy RoboVac 15C Max is the zippier sibling of our favourite budget robot vacuum cleaner, the RoboVac 30C. When we reviewed the latter last year, it was the first time we were 100% happy to recommend a robot vacuum this cheap so, perhaps unsurprisingly, I was keen to give the newest addition to the Eufy collection a whirl.

Eufy RoboVac 15C Max review: What you need to know

On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly special about the Eufy RoboVac 15C Max; it looks like most other robot vacuums. Some things do stand out on closer inspection, though. It’s impressively slimline and will happily roam around your floors with up to 100 minutes of clean time per charge.

That’s enough time to clean even the biggest of rooms or open-plan apartments and, when the 15C Max is low on juice, it will make its way back to the charging station and dock itself. Its low profile also means it easily fits under and into small spaces, making it ideal for hard-to-reach areas like the bed and the sofa.

Features-wise, the Eufy 15C Max is compatible with Alexa and Google, meaning you can set it going using your voice. You can also control it with its own dedicated app or, if you prefer a more hands-on approach, there’s a slim remote control in the box. Other bits in the box include a spare filter, two extra spinning brushes and a set of cable ties.

Eufy RoboVac 15C Max review: Price and competition

At £270, the Eufy 15C Max is a competitively priced vacuum, similar to Eufy’s older 30C model, which will set you back around £250. For the extra £20, you do get more suction power although there’s little else different between the two. The Ecovacs Deebot N79S is a similarly priced alternative at around £250 but, in our testing, we found it wasn’t as good as the Eufy. It is often heavily discounted, though, and if you can find it for less than £200 it’s a worthy alternative.

If your budget can stretch further, the Neato Botvac D7 is probably the best robot vacuum money can buy and you can pick one up for around £500 to £600 on Amazon. This is obviously a lot more expensive but you do get far more for your money when you start hitting this price bracket, with the inclusion of laser-based guidance, room mapping and virtual no-go zones to name just a few additions.

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Eufy RoboVac 15C Max review: Features and design

As with those similarly priced rivals, the Eufy RoboVac 15C Max looks very much how you’d expect. It’s circular in shape and, like the RoboVac 30C, it measures 325mm in diameter and 72mm tall, meaning it’ll fit into plenty of hard to reach areas, particularly low-slung furniture.

Underneath, there’s a large 0.6l dust bin at the back, which is situated just behind the main cleaning brush. Either side of this, you’ll find two motorised rubber wheels and these are aided by a small, pivoting wheel at the front of the machine to provide stability. Two spinning brushes near the front help the machine clean into the corners and edges and there are also drop sensors on the bottom to stop the 15C Max throwing itself down the stairs.

It’s a classic design but, with the brush width limited to the area between the wheels, it isn’t the most practical of designs. That’s why we prefer Neato’s D shaped vacuums, where the roller brush is positioned in front of the wheels and spans almost the entire length of the body. The Eufy 15C Max’s design means you’ll still occasionally need to take a handheld vacuum to trickier corners of your room.

Another thing missing from Eufy’s 15C Max is infrared scanning and room mapping. This means its approach to cleaning is less methodical and involves considerably more guesswork and repetition, which is, perhaps, unsurprising given its price. Instead, the 15C Max employs a mix of infrared sensors and physical bumpers and combines this with a set cleaning pattern, which it repeats for a specific amount of time.

This means that not only is it slower than vacuums like the Neato BotVac D7 but also that you can’t set virtual boundaries to stop your RoboVac from entering the more unruly corners of your home. Instead, you’ll have to make use of the cable ties provided in the box to tidy your room or buy your own boundary tape, as this isn’t included in the box.

Eufy RoboVac 15C Max review: Performance and ease of use

Despite its inability to map out rooms prior to cleaning, the Eufy 15C Max does an excellent job. Its automated cleaning functions are impressively thorough, covering most of the surface areas. Even when you set it going without choosing a specific mode, the RoboVac will happily bumble around your floors, eventually making its way to every part of the room. It coped well on both my hard floor and medium-pile carpet and didn’t struggle to make its way over the threshold strips between rooms.

I noticed, however, that it struggled to cope with my thin floor mat, which wasn’t secured to the laminate floor in my hall. Instead it simply pushed the mat out of the way, then continued on with its routine. And, as with all robot vacuums, the 15C Max does not cope well with stray cables. You’ll need to make sure these are tidied away with the ties provided or, if you prefer, move them out of the way completely until the vacuuming is done.

If you have any glossy black furnishings or objects on your floor, such as a TV stand, bin or a table, you might find the RoboVac’s sensors have a hard time picking these up but that’s not an issue exclusive to Eufy.

With 2,000Pa of suction, the 15C Max is powerful considering its price and is a nice little upgrade to the Eufy 30C, which has 1,500Pa. Despite the extra power, it’s still impressively quiet regardless of which of the three settings you use. (It has three cleaning settings: Standard, Boost IQ and Max.)

I found the standard setting was more than good enough to clean my hard floors but my carpet area benefited from the using the two more powerful settings from time to time. With Boost IQ, the suction speed is automatically adjusted so you can clean different types of flooring in one go, without having to manually change the suction power as the cleaner transitions from one to the other.

There are also functions for edge, spot and quick cleans in both on the app and on the remote provided. These can be helpful if you need a more precise clean in a specific area. You can also set cleaning schedules via the app and, if you don’t have either your phone or the remote handy, you can also start a clean using voice controls via Alexa or Google Assistant, although note you’ll need to own a smart speaker to act as go-between – the vacuum doesn’t have its own microphones.

Eufy RoboVac 15C Max review: Verdict

At less than £300, it’s hard to say anything negative about the Eufy RoboVac 15C Max. It’s powerful, quiet, doesn’t need charging every five minutes and, most importantly, it does a decent job of picking up dirt and dust without too much babysitting.

If you’ve never used a robot vacuum cleaner before and don’t want to shell out upwards of £500 on a pricier model like the Neato, this is certainly the one to go for. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles you’ll get with a pricier model but you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything as good as this at this price.