Roidmi H10 review: A powerful vacuum that’s short on extras

The Roidmi H10 is designed for hard floor homes, without a carpet, rug or mat in sight. It’s a cordless stick vacuum cleaner that only comes with a motorised soft roller. We’ve seen this trend from other vacuum cleaner manufacturers, too, with even Dyson aiming its Micro 1.5kg at consumers who only have hard floors to clean.

For modern, urban apartments, they’re just the ticket, although they’re a less attractive proposition to those with even a few square metres of carpet or rugs. This H10 is particularly under-equipped for dealing with even the upholstery in your car, making it a true hard floor specialist.

Roidmi H10 review: What do you get for the money?

While the Roidmi H10 looks affordable at £229, the box it comes in is sparsely stocked. It includes the main vacuuming unit, which incorporates the handle, the collection bin and the vacuum engine. You also get an extension wand, the soft-roller motorised floor head and a crevice tool. Lastly, there’s a charger and a simple bracket for wall-mounting.

Compared with the £230 Eufy HomeVac S11 Infinity, the H10’s inventory looks less than minimal. The S11 is replete with useful accessories, including two batteries, a dusting brush and a motorised upholstery attachment. Even the £299 Dyson Micro 1.5kg, which is also configured exclusively for hard floors, still comes with a crevice tool that converts into a dusting brush and a Mini Motorised Tool for use on upholstery and small mats.

When fully loaded with the floor head and extension wand, the H10 measures 256 x 222 x 1,093mm (WDH) and weighs 2.8kg. This is relatively light for a cordless stick and its weight is evenly distributed across the device, with the main unit only weighing 1.6kg, making it a decent stand-in for a handheld vacuum. The battery charges in around three hours, but it’s built into the main vacuum device, so can’t be removed for charging.

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Roidmi H10 review: What’s it like to use?

The Roidmi H10 has a gun-like grip with a trigger button to switch it on and off. Unlike the Dyson range, however, you don’t have to keep the trigger pressed to maintain the power: it works more like an on and off switch. The device always starts in its Eco power setting, with a thumb-operated button on the grip used to cycle the power through its Standard and Boost modes.

The extension wand and motorised soft-roller floor head clip in and out of their connections cleanly and smoothly with a satisfying click, and the crevice tool just slides on to either the main unit or the extension wand, depending on how far you want it to reach.

The vacuum glides smoothly across hard floors and is very manoeuvrable, easily taking 90-degree turns with a flick of the wrist. We also tried the vacuum on carpet and, although it performed surprisingly well in our pickup tests, we wouldn’t recommend it for use on carpets because it doesn’t move well on thicker, deeper floor coverings.

There are three wheels on the floor head: two small ones at the front and a wider roller at the back, perfectly positioned to take the weight of the rest of the vacuum when it’s on hard floor. On long-pile carpet, however, I found the rear roller sunk down into the shag and got bogged down, making it very difficult to move around.

The collection bin has a capacity of 650ml, which is about average for a vacuum of this ilk. It’s easily emptied by holding the main vacuuming unit over your dustbin and releasing the catch. This opens a door in the bottom, and gravity should do the rest. You can even do this with the extension wand still attached. However, the space between the initial filter and the collection bin is relatively small, so you may still have to tap the unit or poke your fingers in to get everything out. If it needs a proper clean you can untwist the filter unit and wash it under a running tap.

Roidmi H10 review: How well does it clean?

On hard floor, the results of our cleaning tests neared perfection. The measured spillage of 50g of flour proved no problem for the H10; it collected 100% with a single pass. Close inspection of the floor showed some flour remained in cracks, but another pass on full power lifted that last fraction of a gram out satisfactorily.

Cheerios were harder work for the device. If you looked at the numbers alone, it would seem to have achieved perfection, collecting all 26g on a single pass, except for a very slight scatter of two Cheerios. However, because of the design of the stick, some particles had got stuck at the gate to the collection chamber, so appeared on our scales when weighing the vacuum despite not making it to the collection bin. These caused trouble in subsequent tests, blocking the tube and falling out at inopportune moments.

We also tested the vacuum on short-pile carpet, to see how it fared. The result was surprisingly good. With Cheerios, the vacuum collected all 26g again, although clogging remained a problem and it needed poking and prodding to clear.

The H10 found flour pick-up on carpet trickier. I tried it on Standard mode and it gathered 39g of a 50g spillage, which left a floury smear across the carpet. Cranking up to full power, it reached 45g with a couple of extra passes, but the vacuum cut out on me twice. I didn’t particularly struggle with the movement on my short-pile test carpet, but although it did a fair job of cleaning, the fuss around clearing blockages and pausing for motor cool-down when on full power confirm that this really isn’t a vacuum designed for such tough jobs.

Some of its cleaning success is thanks to its powerful suction. At full power, I measured the suction at 22.5kPa. This isn’t quite as powerful as the more versatile Eufy HomeVac S11 Infinity, which reached 24kPa, but it’s better than the Dyson Micro 1.5kg, which only manages 17.5kPa on full power.

Battery life isn’t quite so impressive. In our tests, the H10 ran for only 9mins 22secs on full power, although it lasted a longer 20mins 33secs in the Standard setting. When run time is more important than suction power, such as when doing a light clean on hard floor, it can run for 49mins 8secs in Eco mode.

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Roidmi H10 review: Should I buy it?

The main barrier to whether the Roidmi H10 is worth buying is whether or not you have any carpet or rugs. If your house has a hard floor throughout, and doesn’t have any stairs or other smaller surfaces that you might want to clean, the answer is a cautious “maybe”. In such specific circumstances, there’s just enough here to cover your needs.

However, there are plenty of caveats, and many alternative models that are almost certainly more appropriate. In a carpetless situation, it’s still worth considering pushing the boat out and spending £299 on a Dyson Micro 1.5kg. This also won’t tackle carpet but it comes with a useful dusting brush, the Mini Motorised Tool you can use on furniture, doormats and other small areas, and a wall dock that integrates the charger, removing the extra step of having to plug it in when you put the vacuum away.

If you don’t want to spend the extra money, the Eufy HomeVac S11 Infinity is just as light and as easily manoeuvrable as the H10 but vastly better equipped with accessories. You can even switch between its soft roller for hard floor and its brush roller for carpet, although it’s a bit of a fiddle.

Those with any carpet or rugs in their homes should avoid the H10 (and other hard floor-only devices) and consider the Eufy or one of many other alternatives. Shark has a vast range of DuoClean devices (such as the Shark Anti Hair Wrap with Flexology IZ201UKC) that have both a soft roller and a brush roller in the same motorised floor head. However, prices change often, as models come on and off promotion, so it’s worth shopping around. Other devices, such as the £250 Dyson V7, is close to the H10 in terms of price and has a more versatile brush-based floor head that operates well on both carpet and hard floor.