This Budget Flagship Robot Vacuum Mop Is Worth It (If Your Timing Is Right)

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YEEDI is a relatively new entrant in the industry, but it has quickly established itself as a major player in the robot vacuum market. While YEEDI may have only entered the fray in 2019, its parent company, ECOVACS, provides a solid foundation to build upon. With the release of the M14 Plus, YEEDI looks to push the market forward with strong performance and a feature set designed to make your life easier.

While researching your next vacuum, you have likely discovered that the pricing can vary greatly. There are vacuums like the relatively simple Roborock Q7 M5+, which cost a few hundred dollars, or options like the Roborock Saros Z70 that cost thousands and come with a robotic arm to move items around.

The YEEDI M14 Plus robot vacuum and mop (provided by YEEDI for this review) sits firmly in the middle of this pricing structure, giving it a solid price-to-performance ratio. It carries a retail price of $1,200, but if you happen to be looking at it during one of the brand's extreme sales, it can be found for a lot less. At the time of writing, and likely temporarily, the M14 Plus can be found on Amazon for approximately $600.

Unboxing the M14 Plus is exceedingly simple, as it's largely put together and ready to go right away. The docking station is mostly assembled, with items such as its water containers and dust bag already in place. All that's needed to get the physical part of the vacuum going is to snap the ramp and side brush in place and remove some protective wrapping.

After downloading the YEEDI app and creating an account, it walks you through the steps to set up the software. It clearly instructs you to remove the top cover of the vacuum to turn on the robot, scan a QR code, and press another button to pair the device via Bluetooth.

In theory, this process should have been exceedingly simple, and it is if everything goes according to plan. Unfortunately, I ran into an error immediately after connecting it to my wireless network. It would fail at the binding step, and this issue led me down an hour-long rabbit hole of looking for answers. Nothing seemed to work. I messed around with my network settings, powered off the robot vacuum and base station, deleted the app, and even tried installing the app on another phone.

At the end of it all, resetting the vacuum to its default settings did the trick. It's a simple fix of pressing the same button you're asked to use to pair the vacuum, except you need to hold it for more than five seconds. After resetting the robot, it paired instantly, the binding issue disappeared, and I was ready to move forward. It was a frustrating experience, but luckily, that was the only significant software issue that popped up during my testing.

The YEEDI M14 Plus has a pleasant, albeit slightly boring, hardware design. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as I personally want nothing to do with a vacuum that looks for attention. A robot vacuum should blend into its surroundings, waiting in the wings until it's called upon.

Vacuums like the Switchbot K10 Plus Combo, with its combination of stick vacuum and robot vacuum, are nice in theory, but obtrusive in reality. I wouldn't want to leave the Roborock F25 RT/GT in the middle of my dining room because it would detract from the look and feel. Yet that's exactly where the M14 Plus resides in my 1,100 square foot apartment.

When living in a smaller apartment, space is at a premium, so having a vacuum that's too large is an immediate dealbreaker. At 13.31 x 18.07 x 19.69 inches, the M14 Plus OMNI Smart Station is a tad large for the space, but it fits snuggly against the wall and out of mind until it's needed. The base station is made from plastic, but feels sturdy overall and has curved edges for a clean look. The vacuum itself measures 13.9 x 13.84 x 3.86 inches.

There are two bins located at the top of the OMNI Station. One is for clean water, and the other holds the dirty water. These bins blend into the base station so well that they are almost indetectable at first glance.

The robot and base station are the same color and come in either white or black. This color-matched design allows the entire setup to look like a seamless, well-thought-out package when it's docked.

With 18,000Pa of suction power, the M14 Plus is plenty strong enough and did a great job of picking up dirt and debris. You can choose between four different levels of suction power: quiet, standard, strong, and max. I found the strong setting to be a good balance of cleaning ability and battery life while remaining relatively quiet. Cranking the suction power to the max setting causes the battery to drain much quicker and makes the vacuum much louder.

The M14 Plus comes with what YEEDI calls "ZeroTangle 3.0 technology." Essentially, the vacuum arranges the bristles in a V-shape pattern at a 45-degree angle, along with a V-shaped spiral rubber strip and comb teeth. It also has a wind-blade side brush, which was designed to prevent hair from tangling. Now, I don't have a cat or dog, so I can't speak about the M14 Plus' ability to clean up pet hair, but I have a wife and a daughter who shed hair — and a lot of it. The M14 Plus does an excellent job of not trapping hair in the roller and has stayed hair-free during the duration of my testing.

YEEDI recommends that you have ample light for the M14 Plus to detect obstacles, but in the event the vacuum enters a low-light area, such as under furniture or a dark hallway, it has a headlight to help it see what's going on.

My dining room carpet is very light, to the point of being ridiculous. The carpet practically moves just by looking at it and is only anchored down by the dining room table and four chairs. I was curious to see how the M14 Plus handled this particular carpet, and to my surprise, it handled it quite well. It flipped the carpet at the corners a few times, trying to get over it, but it never got stuck. In fact, it appeared to sense that it had done something and would back up or move out of the way to let the corner fall back down. I did enable the "AI Intelligent Hosting" feature, which is designed to help in these situations, and I was pleasantly surprised by the results.

If you live in a house with varied carpet types, you'll be happy to know that you can choose how you want the M14 Plus to handle them. You can set specific areas as pass-through only, vacuum and mop, vacuum only, or no entry if you don't want it anywhere near a particular carpet.

Battery life is always a concern with robot vacuums, and is one of the few benefits to living in a smaller place. At strong suction, the M14 Plus cleaned about 400 square feet of living space in about an hour and finished with a little over 50% of its battery left. This is with a full vacuum and mop cycle, so it should be good to go for over 800 square feet at the strong suction setting. If you live in a larger home, you may want to turn down the suction power to extend the battery life. I personally never had to do that, but your mileage will vary.

The mopping aspect of the M14 Plus was also quite good, but not perfect. YEEDI outfitted the vacuum with an OZMO roller that can apply 4000Pa of pressure and spin at 200RPM. It gets the job done, especially in areas where heavy stains aren't present. I enabled the Intelligent Deep Mopping setting, which allows the M14 Plus to remop dirty areas, but I never saw it remop any particular area. This includes one area where there's a tough-to-remove stain, which the M14 Plus wasn't able to get up.

Outside of that one hard-to-remove stain, this vacuum left my floor nice and shiny. You also get a couple of washing methods to choose from. You can choose from eco, standard, or deep cleaning. Each level adjusts both the water temperature and how much water is used during mopping. I left it on intelligent temperature control, which allows the M14 Plus to decide how much water and at what temperature the area calls for. After it's done mopping, I found that it dried rather quickly.

The OZMO roller slides out of the base of the M14 Plus while it's moving around, allowing it to mop right up to the edge of walls. It's a simple yet impressive system. When mopping areas such as the kitchen, you will frequently see the roller pop out of the side and mop right up to the kick plate when against a wall or under a cabinet door.

An all-in-one base station like the OMNI Station is critical to a mop like the M14 Plus. It's responsible for doing so much as it loads the M14 Plus with water from the clean water reservoir and dumps dirty water into the dirty water bucket. It has to keep the OZMO roller clean after use, and get rid of all the dirt vacuumed up, and thankfully, it's all done without any user intervention.

At times, the M14 Plus will stop vacuuming and drive itself back to the OMNI Station. Once there, it will announce that it's emptying its bin, which is followed by a louder sound of air rushing up inside the station. The OMNI Station is equipped with a dust bag and filter located behind a door on the front of the housing.

Steve Smith/SlashGear

It's also responsible for keeping the OZMO roller clean. After the job is completely done and the vacuum is docked, it begins a cleaning cycle that can be set to 2, 3, or 4 hours long. The OMNI Station then uses hot air, set to 113 degrees Fahrenheit, to dry both the mop and the bottom plate. This keeps the roller clean and prevents bacteria or mold from forming.

The OMNI Station is also where the M14 gets recharged. By default, it will charge as soon as it's docked, but you can set it to charge during off-peak cycles, which could help with your energy bills.

When you first turn on the M14 Plus, it will drive around investigating your home, creating a map of everything it sees. This includes marking where carpets are, furniture, and where rooms begin and end. Once it has completed its mapping cycle, it will have you review it for accuracy.

The craziest part about the mapping process was that it was able to correctly identify my living room, dining room, kitchen, and bathroom, and labeled them as such on the map. It will then ask how you want to handle each carpet that it found. I had the M14 Plus vacuum all the carpets in the designated cleaning area, but it'll depend on your preference.

In the settings, I set it to vacuum all areas first and then go back and mop. I did this largely to keep the roller as clean as possible, but the default setting is to mop and vacuum at the same time. Based on your preferences, the M14 Plus will determine how to best handle cleaning your home.

As it went around doing what it needed to do, the M14 Plus never got stuck and handled all areas very well. It handled large transitions between rooms, tight corners, and chairs with ease. It also does a good job of detecting the presence of objects and people. If you walk into its path, the M14 Plus will pause for a moment to see if you leave. If you don't, it will adjust its route and go around you. It also gets right up to various objects, but does a great job of getting around them while remaining as close as possible.

If you are in the market for a robot vacuum, then the YEEDI M14 Plus deserves to be on your short list of potential vacuums. It does a great job at just about every facet that you could need from a robot vacuum. The vacuum has plenty of power thanks to its 18,000Pa of suction power, and it comes with solid mopping capabilities.

It's a well-designed package overall, and I liked how the vacuum and base station worked so well together. In addition to the robot, the OMNI Smart Station is well designed and plays an integral role in the performance of this vacuum. It handles much of the dirty work, like emptying the dust bin, filling the vacuum with water, and cleaning the mop when everything has been completed.

Sure, it may not have the advanced AI capabilities of far more expensive robots, but it does have some AI capabilities built in. Namely, in its ability to detect obstacles, figure out how to better deal with areas where it gets stuck, and how much water to use when mopping.

At $1,200, the M14 Plus is a touch expensive, but this vacuum has been on sale for practically the entire time that I have tested it. At the time of writing, it's selling for $600 on Amazon. At that price, it's an absolute steal, and you shouldn't hesitate to get one.