While it might not be the worst thing a human can do, vacuuming certainly isn’t on anybody’s top ten list. Eufy‘s Omni C20 aims to take away this regular chore and through automation, keep our carpets nice and clean and even mop our hard floors.
tl;dr
The Eufy Omni C20 is a strong contender in the mid-tier robot vacuum market, featuring powerful 7000Pa suction and a convenient all-in-one base station that auto-empties dust and washes/dries the mop pads. Vacuuming and mopping performance is generally very good on both carpets and hard floors. Its low 8.5cm height is great for cleaning under furniture. The main drawbacks are inconsistent obstacle avoidance and a lack of included accessories (like spare pads or cleaning solution). At its current available at a low price of $799 AUD, it offers excellent value for an automated cleaner, despite minor navigation limitations.
Unboxing the Eufy Omni C20: Design and All-in-One Station
The Eufy Omni C20 comes pretty much assembled and ready to get to work straight out of the box. The C20 is made up of two major components, the base station and the almost universal circle shaped robot vacuum. Along with the hardware, a short safety information booklet and warranty card are also included. Rounding out the package is a quick start guide with easy to follow pictorial instructions, including a QR code leading to a detailed online manual. While cleaning pads and a single dust bag are fitted to the C20, no spare pads or detergent is included.
The base station is quite svelte with a height of 46mm, a width of 334mm and a depth of 289mm (including robot ramp). The all-in-one basestation is largely fashioned from matte black plastic with a few glossy accents adding to the neat look.
The top of the base station is dominated by two large cleaning tanks which hold 2.5L of clean and 2.4L of dirty water respectively. Both tanks lift out of the base station effortlessly and are opened via a tab on the side of each tank. Underneath the two cleaning tanks is a large panel that when removed provides access to the dust bag.
Eufy suggests the bag is good for between 30 and 60 days, depending on the size of your household… and how hairy your pets are. At the bottom of the basestation is cavity for the robot to park with a ramp extending out approximately 100mm, containing a small removable insert. The sides of the unit are largely unremarkable while the rear features a small recessed handle, a small vent and a mains charging cable.
The circular shape of the robot is in line with most robot vacuums on the market today, having a diameter of 334mm but the C20 robot has a height of just 85mm. A large round panel dominates the top of the robot, which when removed reveals a dustbin and filter assembly. A small rocker button is located near the front of the unit which functions as a home and power button. Design-wise, the robot is largely wrapped in the same matt black/grey plastic as the base station, although the front and sides have a large glossy black bumper. Right at the very front of the unit is a small window housing the unit’s point laser. The rear of the unit has two silver charge contact pins, dock sensors and a rubber sealed dust collection port – this allows for the robot’s dustbin to be automatically emptied into the basestation’s dust bag. Protruding out from underneath the rear of the robot are the two mop heads, while the side brush extends out from the left front.
The underside of the robot was also a fairly standard affair. Beyond the swivel wheel and two driving wheels, the two large mopping pads lie behind a centrally located detangling vacuum brush. The three pronged edge brush is located off to one side and three drop/carpet sensors are located at its extremities.
Performance Test: 7000Pa Suction and Mop Master Technology in Action
After unwrapping all the plastic/foam protection from the base station and robot, we placed the robot on its dock; downloaded the app via QR code and plugged the base station into mains power.
We should mention that while the instructions clearly stated we shouldn’t place the base station on carpet, for some of our testing we did just that. Now, we aren’t going to make recommendations that go against eufy’s specific instructions, but locating the base station on carpet posed no noticeable issues in our particular environment.
Once turned on, a large status ring located beneath the clean water tank illuminated red indicating the Omni C20 required water, before a short tune announced its readiness. A few seconds later a female voice announced that the unit was charging. Both the language and gender of the voice can be changed in the app, just as an aside.
After creating an account it took just a few taps and button presses to begin the pairing process. After a beat, the same female voice announced the Omni C20 was good to go. A firmware update later and the C20 robot was finally ready to roll out. The whole process took around five minutes and other than remembering our wifi password, was easy as pie.
Before having the Omni C20 map a test room, we left it on charge for about an hour, which took the robot from 65% charge to full. Using the app, mapping a room was as easy as a tap and after a few minutes of the C20 roaming around, an accurate map of our small room appeared on the Eufy app.
The Eufy app has a neat user interface and is relatively simple to use while providing access to all the functions one would expect, including cleaning scheduling and the configuring of cleaning modes and other general settings.
While the maps created by the low slung laser system were quite accurate, during cleaning, the robot navigated somewhat haphazardly often gently bumping into furniture and driving over minor obstacles as a matter of course. We found the Omni C20 much preferred an uncluttered working space with relatively static furniture.
Having said this, the c20 was quite effective in cleaning. On our cut pile twist carpet, it vacuumed up dust and regular debris without much fuss, leaving carpets visibly cleaner. While our feline overlord isn’t particularly prone to leaving hair about the house, cat hair was suitably vacuumed up by the c20. Also, with a height of just 8.5cm, the C20 robot was able to get under low clearance furniture adding to its utility.
As there is no water tank built into the robot, the c20 employs a douse and scrub method of cleaning. The robot washes its mop pads on the basestation and then essentially drenches them with water. Once this process is complete, the robot goes off on its mopping task, capturing whatever muck is on your floors before returning to the base station and restarting the process. As the robot mops, the mop heads will dry out and become dirty, so it returns to the base station at regular intervals to remain effective. Rather than use a sensor to determine how dirty the pads are, these cleaning intervals can be set via the app: Setting lower intervals results in a deeper clean but it also increases the time to completion.
While our floors weren’t overly messy, the mopping function did a good job on our tiles with an aftermarket detergent mix. While we kept things pretty uniform, it’s worth noting that via the app you can set different mopping/vacuuming settings per room, so thoroughfares and mudrooms can be given more attention, for example.
Edge cleaning was reasonable, with the vacuum function picking up most debris at the rooms edge, while mopping worked well overall, corners proved challenging for the Omni C20 to tackle completely.
Overall, we found the vacuuming performance to be very good on both carpets and hard floors. While our mix of carpets and tiles weren’t overly dirty to begin with, they were noticeably cleaner after the C20 had given them a once over. While corner cleaning wasn’t perfect, it was still pretty good. Where the c20 does get a bit of a zonk is its ability to avoid collisions and obstacles: The robot didn’t seem to have the ability to scoot past small objects that hadn’t been previously mapped. We’re not sure if this is something that can be improved upon with firmware or just an artefact of its low mounted laser but if you have an overly messy floor, it’s a good reminder to keep things tidy before letting the C20 loose!
SELECTED SPECS
Suction: 7,000 Pa
Mop Speed: 180RPM
Mop Pressure: 6N
Mapping: Up to 3 Levels
Dust Bag: 3.1L
Dimensions – Robot: 328 x 334 x 85mm
Dimensions – Base station: 330 x 289 x 460mm
Runtime: 2.7h (≈165sqm)
For a full list of technical specifications, please visit eufy’s C20 product page.
Specs, Value, and Conclusion: Is the Omni C20 the Best Value Robot Vacuum?
Eufy’s Omni C20 robot vacuum is priced in the popular mid tier and provides all the functionality one would expect at the price. Both the vacuuming and mopping performance was good, although getting the right cleaning intervals for effective mopping may take some experimentation due to a lack of sensors. Vacuuming met our expectations and on our cut pile the c20 proved to be an effective cleaner.
Its low height allowed it to clear many objects other robots couldn’t, although its performance at avoiding objects left us somewhat wanting. Despite this, the only other real *zonk* we had was that its inclusions were quite sparse – Including a small sample of cleaning solution and perhaps even a spare set of mop pads would be most welcome.
Overall the eufy Omni c20 makes a suitable case at its price point, offering a good automated clean, albeit with some limitations.
The eufy Robot Vacuum Omni C20 is available at major retailers and online directly from eufy for $1299AUD but at the time of writing, the Omni c20 is actually on sale at JB Hi-Fi and The Good Guys for a bargain price of $799!
