Opting for a more affordable robot vacuum can often be like signing yourself up for a babysitting job. The time saved by not having to vacuum is simply replaced with time spent popping your head in the room to ensure that the robot vac isn't playing bumper cars with the wall.
Anker's line of robot vacuums, the Eufy Robovacs, is a rare breed known for being an easy lifestyle boost while being easy on the wallet, too. The Eufy 11S(opens in a new tab) has gotten particularly good praise for its slim design and ability to scoot under low-profile furniture. Now, Eufy has managed to squeeze stronger suction and a whole mopping function into a new model without teetering over three inches tall. Let's take a look at the Eufy RoboVac G30 Hybrid(opens in a new tab).
Design and setup: Nothing fancy — in a good way
The Eufy G30 is a slick little machine. Its modern exterior design — black with shiny brown accents that kind of resemble wood paneling — pairs nicely with the slim 2.85-inch tall build. For anyone upgrading from a clunky mid-2010s robovac, it'll be a nice change.
The Eufy app is wonderfully designed. I'm always partial to a minimalistic white background with a crumb of pastel monochrome accents — it feels clean, easy to navigate, and appeals to my millennial modern aesthetic preference. Once downloaded, the app walks you through WiFi connection and the rest of the setup, supplemented by voice cues.
Six cute cartoon icons in the app represent settings: three suction modes (Standard, Turbo, and Max, with Boost IQ automatically switching depending on the surface), spot cleaning, scheduling, return to dock, et cetera (three of these are also physical buttons on the top of the vacuum). A map of your home can also be viewed to see where the vacuum is, but there's nothing to interact with.
The least obnoxious-sounding vacuum you'll ever meet
The on-screen map that does nothing but show where the G30 is in your home seems pointless until you can't find it because it's that quiet. I was standing right there when the G30 was sweeping my bedroom, and when it went under the bed, I thought it got stuck and stopped because of how silent it was. Most impressively, the noise level stayed low on carpet. Understandably, vacuums require stronger suction to tackle fabric and pull debris like hair or fur out from the tangles of a carpet or rug. The noise typically goes from a subtle hum to an exigent buzz, making it very obvious which room the vacuum is in. The G30 stayed muffled, even on Max suction.
The on-screen map that does nothing but show where the G30 is in your home seems pointless until you can't find it because it's that quiet.
For me, a Dyson owner who is frequently possessed to vacuum at midnight, it was really nice to have an option that felt less annoying neighbor-y. even on Turbo, it's like if someone was vacuuming or drying their hair in a room across the house with the door closed.
Right before moving apartments, I let the G30 bobble around forever to take care of everything that had accumulated under our furniture. It never died in the middle of the floor and I was impressed with this battery life, which is officially 80 to 100 minutes (depending on the suction setting).
For a mop that doesn't scrub, the G30's coverage is pretty juicy
After filling the water tank and clicking the reusable mopping pad on, I set the G30 off to mop my kitchen and living room (hardwood) and bathroom (tile). Expectedly, it only mops with water, as a soapy solution could bubble over and mess with the motor. But the G30 isn't about to exert a crumb of elbow grease. While some pricier hybrids, like the Roborock S7 or dedicated mops from iRobot, can actually scrub enough to lift dried or sticky messes, the G30's version of mopping is dragging a wet cloth and hoping that puddles are absorbed.
To its credit, the G30's methodical paths mostly ensure that every inch is covered. A perfect wet trail is left behind the vac as it cleans in a zigzag pattern, making the difference between clean floor and dry floor very obvious.
I noticed some inconsistency with the level of dampness. Depending on the seemingly random leakiness of the water tank that round, the trail was sometimes faintly gleaming, and sometimes soaked.
Downsides: You'll have to be cool with having next-to-no control
Scheduled cleanings through the app are undoubtedly a convenient touch, but I would be prone to toggle them off if I ran out in a rush without triple checking that a sleeve from the laundry basket wasn't hanging out somewhere.
I wouldn't recommend the G30 Hybrid for homes with floors with lots of stuff: Extension cords or chargers, toys, piles of clothes, and backpack straps are guaranteed to trip it up. No robot vacuum is invincible when it comes to some of these items, but the G30 required too much tidying on my part before I could hit start on its cleaning.
The app provides pretty minimal control over where the vacuum goes. Without room labeling or zone cleaning, spot cleaning is the only real way to get it to go where you want. Manually setting the vacuum in the correct room wouldn't be as annoying if its little robotic voice didn't whine every time it's picked up. Finally, the included boundary strips felt more like a suggestion than a hard no, as I sometimes watch the G30 run right over them.
Eufy didn't arm the G30 Hybrid with the ability to decipher between hard floors and fabric. That's already risky for a tank of water with a mind of its own. And since virtual boundaries or zone cleaning isn't supported, the iffy no-go strips were the only thing standing between me and a damp area rug. I just closed our bedroom doors when mopping, tried to supervise, and dumped the water tank for times when I only wanted to dry sweep.
The spinning brush on the end occasionally kicked large pieces of debris around while performing some edge cleaning. At one point, the brush fell off mid-spin and was sucked to the bottom of the vacuum. More than once, the G30 got stuck under my couch (I guess it's still too low-profile for one of the shortest robot vacs on the market).
Is the Eufy G30 Hybrid worth it?
Whether the G30 is more help or hassle depends a lot on your home layout's simplicity. Lots of no-go areas, like kids' rooms or laundry rooms with heaps of toys and clothes, might mean passing up the G30 for a robot vacuum with more intelligent mapping and virtual boundaries. Homes with a relatively straightforward setup and few crossovers between hard and soft flooring can get away with relying on the iffy boundary strips.
The Eufy G30 Hybrid more of a convenient supplement to less-frequent hardcore cleaning than it is a total replacement for any type of work on the human end. If most decent robot vacuums are at least $200, adding a competent mopping function for less than $200 more is pretty stellar. It doesn't come as close to replacing scrubbing as the Roborock S7 or iRobot Braava Jets, but it's still nice to give the bathroom floors a quick gloss over before guests arrive.
At the end of the day, the Eufy RoboVac G30 Hybrid tackles *two* chores efficiently enough for upkeep and does so almost silently. For many, that's already making life a million times easier than no robot vacuum at all.
