Verdict
It’s not for everyone, but the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 is a clever combination of robot vacuum cleaner and handheld cleaner that’s ideal for smaller apartments or spaces. Its handheld vacuum cleaner lifts out for tackling spot jobs. Cleaning is better on hard floors than carpets, but generally, decent robot cleaning mixed with a decent app makes this an interesting choice in the right situations.
Pros
- Compact design
- Quick conversion
- Great robot performance
- Multiple cleaning modes
Cons
- No wand or accessory storage
- Basic cordless performance
- Can’t attach tools to wand
- No mopping
Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1: Introduction
There have been other robot vacuum cleaners that have shipped with a cordless vacuum cleaner, but these have always been separate. A fully integrated part of the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1, the cordless vacuum cleaner lifts out of the robot.
It’s a more straightforward setup, with the robot and the cordless handheld cleaner sharing a bin and battery, making this an interesting choice for smaller properties.
Power is a little under the best that other robots can offer, and there’s no mopping option, but for smaller jobs, this is a neat combination.
Design and components
The Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 appears somewhat unusual when viewed as a robot.
Rather than a smooth, flat top, there’s a cordless handheld vacuum cleaner clipped into the top where the bin would go on a regular cleaner. In fact, the clear plastic bin that you can see is for both the handheld unit and the robot.
When you want to tackle a job manually, you just have to lift the handheld out of the robot, by pressing the big red button, which you can do while the robot is docked or when it’s paused in the middle of an automatic job.
Neatly, the crevice tool is located on top of the robot within easy reach, plugging into the bottom of the cordless handheld when you’re ready to use it.
There’s also a brush in the box, plus a height-adjustable wand and a standard floor head.
None of these components has a storage area on or around the dock, which is a bit of a shame; I found that I didn’t really need the wand or floor head day-to-day, and a combination of the robot and the handheld crevice tool was enough for most jobs. I kept the other components in a cupboard.
As neat as the design is, there is one oddity: the crevice and brush tools can’t be clipped onto the bottom of the wand, and only attach to the handheld unit directly.
That’s a pain if you want to clean on the top of a cupboard, or around a skirting board without having to bend down.
Using the handheld is simple. There’s a button on the top to turn it on and off, and it also acts as a mode selector to pick between the four power modes, with the LED strip on the side indicating which power mode you’re in.
That’s realistically one too many power modes than you’ll need, and three probably would have done the trick.
Once a power mode is selected, the green LED strip shows the rough battery life remaining and is visible in handheld mode and when in robot mode.
Although the handheld’s bin can be removed and emptied manually, you’ll only ever want to take the bin out occasionally for cleaning and to get to the filter.
For day-to-day operation, the docking station takes large 3-litre bags (big enough for 75 days’ worth of dirt), automatically emptying the robot when it docks.
If you’ve used handheld mode only, you can press and hold the Recharge button. This causes the robot to exit the dock, spin around and then redock, so that the dirt can get sucked out.
Once done, the robot reverses this and redocks with its charging pads lined up.
That’s not ideal, but I guess the design of the robot made it impossible to place the charging connectors and empty port in a place where they could both be used at the same time.
Underneath, the robot vacuum cleaner has a pretty standard layout with a single roller brush and a side brush for edge cleaning. There’s no mopping option with this cleaner, and clearly no space to fit in the necessary components.
At the front of Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 is a sensor that can detect objects bigger than 15mm.
That allows the robot to skirt around shoes and larger items, but it can easily miss pet messes and smaller objects, such as cables. For better object avoidance, you need a robot with a camera and AI object recognition.
The app
Eufy Clean is needed to manage the robot part of the combination, and it’s home to the company’s other products, such as the Eufy X10 Pro Omni. It’s quick to get the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 hooked up to your Wi-Fi and to perform the initial mapping run.
At the end of the mapping run, the E20 suggests a room layout for your home, which correctly split my test home. If the map’s not to your satisfaction, it’s simple to split or merge rooms to get the layout you want.
Advanced settings let me add different carpet types to each room, which helps the E20 make the right cleaning decisions.
Although the navigation is generally good, if there are areas you find the E20 gets stuck in, or you just don’t want it to go to a certain place, there are no-go zones and virtual boundaries that you can add to the map.
As a vacuum-only robot, the E20 features straightforward cleaning controls. I could choose to clean anywhere, a specific room (or rooms) of my choice, or a designated zone that I can mark on the map. There’s then a choice of four power modes (Quiet, Standard, Turbo or Max), plus a choice of one or two passes.
There’s not much in the way of advanced settings, but BoostIQ is worth turning on, to boost suction power when on carpet. There’s also control over how the auto-empty works, both in robot and handheld mode.
With the latter, the robot will auto empty if the handheld is used for 10 minutes or longer, although, as noted, you can manually get the robot to do the same job.
Performance
This is more of a mid-range vacuum cleaner. In handheld mode, the power lags behind the best cordless vacuum cleaners, such as the Dyson Gen5detect.
In handheld mode with the wand and floor head, the E20 does a reasonable job, but it struggles a little at the edges of the floor and on carpet and needs the handheld tools to really collect everything. That said, hard floor performance is excellent, and the E20 easily handles all messes.
It is a shame that the primary brush roll isn’t an anti-hair-wrap model, and it can get caught with long hairs.
In robot mode, the E20 does a pretty good test. It will catch most difficult spills on carpet, although for the toughest messes I did have to vacuum by hand to complete the job.
On hard floor, the E20 works well, but expect to have to tidy up at the edges of the room with the crevice tool, and I did find it easier to tackle spot cleans with the handheld tool.
Battery life is good, with the E20 able to handle two passes of my test home. This didn’t leave much battery power
Final thoughts
It’s not for everyone, and the Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1 is better on hard floors than carpets.
But, if you have small apartment or office that you want vacuumed automatically, with the option of tackling spot jobs by hand, it’s a great combination.
How we test
When we publish our reviews, you can rest assured that they are the result of “living with” long term tests.
Robot cleaners usually live within an ecosystem, or a range of products that – supposedly – all work in harmony. And they are designed to offer a range of different cleaning options. Therefore, it’s impossible to use a robo cleaner for a week and deliver a verdict.
Because we’re testing smart home kit all day, everyday, we know what matters and how a particular smart cleaning machine compares to alternatives that you might also be considering.
Our reviews are comprehensive, objective and fair and, of course, we are never paid directly to review a device.
Read our guide on how we test robot vacuum cleaners to learn more.
Eufy Robot Vacuum E20 3-in-1: Specifications
| Model | Eufy 3-in-1 E20 |
| UK price | £549 |
| US price | $649.99 |
| Suction power | Robot Vacuum: 8,000 Pa / Vacuum Cleaner: 30,000 Pa |
| Auto-detangling | Pro-Detangle Comb |
| Roller brush | Rubber and bristle |
| Obstacle avoidance | Triple Laser |
| Obstacle clearance height | 20 mm |
| Clearance required | Height: 11.85 cm / Width: 37 cm |
| Dimensions (robot/station) | Robot: 350 × 350 × 118.5 mm Station: 386.7 × 250.19 × 187 mm |
