Eufy S1 Pro review: Lets get loud

Singing sensation, and two-time Ben Affleck ex-wife Jennifer Lopez had no way of knowing her 1999 track, “Let’s Get Loud” would be the theme song to the Eufy S1 Pro. Well not officially, but it is in my house. From the moment it whirs into action until its explosive auto-empty, the S1 Pro makes sure you can hear that sound. Outside of the booming soundtrack, the robot vacuum has excellent cleaning performance, and the smarts to match. Unlike turning up the music which J-Lo reminds us isn’t hurting anyone, the consistently high noise levels could be a significant deterrent for potential S1 Pro buyers.

Both mopping and vacuuming performance are excellent on the S1 Pro, although neither are flawless. The 8,000pa suction handles medium debris well, but can struggle to pick up smaller particles.

In our testing we used dry oats, and hundreds and thousands as representative dander - around 98% of the oats were sucked up on both carpet and hard floors, while the sprinkles sat closer to 80%. Despite the square design, which is meant to tackle hard to reach places, leftovers were mostly along the edge of the wall, and particularly built up in corners. In practice (unless you find yourself vacuuming sprinkles a lot) this means the S1 should handle most household dust and debris with ease. Although you’ll likely need to pull out the stick vacuum to finish up the edges of the walls.

Mopping is a similar situation. The majority of messes like some spilled water, sauce on the floor, or dirt tracked in through the door is easily picked up by Eufy’s Always Clean Mop. The rotating, roller mop cleans itself as it goes meaning a dirty mop head never touches your floor. This ends up cutting back on cleaning time substantially when compared to robovacs that need to go back to the base station mid-clean to clean up the mop head. On average, a vacuum and mop took 50 minutes with the S1 Pro, as opposed to over an hour with similar Ecovacs and Roborock models.

It isn’t a perfect system however. Although the mop uses 1kg of pressure to dislodge dirt, it doesn’t do a great job on sticky substances or residue. Maple syrup for example wouldn’t budge with the S1 Pro, instead it was simply spread out thinly across a 30cm space. Again, if you’ve got more stubborn wet messes, it might be better to pull out a hard floor cleaner instead.

While most of the cleaning process is hands off, you’ll be all ears. The second the S1 Pro starts its scheduled clean, everyone in the house knows. It's not just because the sound scares my dog, but because I can hear it prepping from two rooms away. Once it begins operation, it just continues to get louder. Vacuuming on carpet, with the suction set to ‘Quiet” mode, the noise levels hit over 65 dB. If me and my partner are sitting in the same room, we both have to raise our voices over the sound of the robovac.

This is nothing compared to the sound of the auto-empty station sucking out the onboard dustbin. When it first returned to the station, the sheer volume scared me. My fight or flight was triggered, and I legitimately jumped off the couch and pushed my dog behind me. At its peak, the auto-empty gets up to a banging 82 dB, which is about the same as a lawn mower or a particularly noisy restaurant. For reference, anything over 85 dB is considered harmful to hearing, so the S1 Pro is sitting close to the danger zone.

How loud this device gets ultimately undermines the excellent performance. Despite how well it cleans, I found myself delaying the vacuum on multiple occasions, simply because I needed to get some work done, or because I didn’t want my dog to get scared. And I only have a pet, I can’t imagine how this would feel for parents looking to outsource some cleaning while their little ones take a nap. Although J-Lo would have you believe that when you turn up the sound, no one loses, I have to disagree. Either you lose out on comfort, or you lose out on cleanliness.

While empty vessels usually make the loudest sounds, the S1 Pro backs up its voice with powerful intelligence. Mapping, object detection, and object avoidance are absolutely top tier on this device.

Throughout the whole testing period, I didn’t need to save a single cable, or sock, or the robot vacuum itself. The direct time-of-flight sensor, coupled with LiDAR and 3D MatrixEye obstacle avoidance was able to identify and avoid a range of obstacles like shoes, plates, toys, and clothing. Its quick response times even had the vacuum weaving between my legs in a thin hallway to avoid bumping into my feet. It could do a slightly better job tucking itself into small spaces however. The low 96mm height means it can fit underneath a range of furniture, but in some cases this was to its detriment. While it technically fits, going underneath my entertainment unit scratched up the top of the robovac. I did end up putting up a virtual barrier for the space, but by the time I noticed the damage was already done. It would be great to see a slightly larger margin of error in height judgements, even if just for aesthetics sake.

All these movements and avoidances can be seen in great detail on the Eufy Home app. You can go so far as to track the exact path the S1 Pro made, and see which obstacles it has come across (and left alone) by the use of small icons. While it won’t snap a photo for you to help train the AI like Dreame devices, it is a good snapshot of what the vacuum runs into.

On the other hand, if you’re less app inclined and want more tactile controls, the S1 Pro also comes equipped with an LCD display on the base station. This has a few quick commands such as start and pause, return to station, and the current robot status. These are coupled with cute, high quality animations depicting actions like “mopping”, “drying mop”, and “returning home”. While most robot vacuums have these actions on the robot itself (and indeed the S1 does too), this is slightly more ergonomic, and gives you a more detailed summary directly on the device.

At the time of writing, the Eufy S1 Pro retails for $2,699.95. This puts it on par with a range of comparable robot vacuum cleaners from Ecovacs, Roborock, Dreame, and Narwal. Still you may be able to find the device at a slight discount from some retailers.

From a performance perspective the S1 Pro is the rightful jewel in Eufy’s crown. Although its edge cleaning still needs work, the device is quick, autonomous, thorough, and intelligent. It's the whole package. But the operational volume lets it down. No matter how well a vacuum performs, you need to be comfortable letting it do its job. The sound levels give me pause in the same way that poor object avoidance does. I don’t want a robovac to interfere with my household, I want it to contribute. In saying that, it is a technically impressive device. For those less bothered by noise, or who won’t be home while the S1 Pro does its thing, it's a premium robot vacuum that won’t make no excuses, because ain’t nobody gotta tell it what it's gotta do.