Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Self-cleaning and drying mop
- Automatic emptying
- Anti-hair wrap
- Switches between floor types
Cons
- Base takes up floor space
- Poor pick-up on thick carpet
- Emptying is noisy
Our Verdict
Yeedi’s M12 Pro+ vacuum mop is a great fit for homes with multiple hard floors. It’ll mop the edges and even the corners, before using hot water to hygienically clean the pads and dry them, so there’s minimal maintenance. However, while it’ll tackle a low-pile rug, those with thicker carpets will still have to reach for a separate vac: its single spinning brush and brush roll aren’t sufficient to leave soft floors debris-free.
The first mopping vacuums were basic, often using plain water onboard and with no way to clean the pads other than detaching and popping them in the washing machine. Stacked up against Yeedi’s M12 Pro+ vacuum mop, the difference is palpable. Not only does its base come with large tanks for fresh and dirty water, it’ll clean its twin pads with 160°F/70°C water and even dry them into the bargain. Even better, they swing out to reach edges and corners before lifting up when a soft floor is encountered. That, plus automatic dust emptying means you may never need to reach for a mop and bucket again.
Design & Build
- Station holds 3 months of dust
- Cleans and dries mop pads
- Robot vac has 11,000Pa of suction
While the robot itself is an average size (H4 x W13.8x D13.8in), there’s no getting away from the fact that Yeedi’s M12 Pro+ vacuum mop’s station is somewhat imposing in anything other than a large room. Finished in black plastic with a section at the bottom that juts out, it takes up a significant amount of floor space (H18.9 x W16 x D19in) and needs 20in clearance at each side. Add in two water tanks on top (4 litres for clean and 3.5 litres for dirty), and you’ll need to leave access space above it as well. There’s also a 3.4L dust bag inside that promises to hold up to 90 days’ worth of dirt.
The robot vac is well built to handle most floors: it’s equipped with a pair of chunky wheels with a deep tread for climbing onto softer floors, plus a single small wheel to help it manoeuvre around. In the centre, there’s a single brush roll with a V pattern and anti-static bristles, which help prevent hair wrap.
Rachel Ogden / Foundry
These combine with up to 11,000 Pa of suction to vacuum up dust. Inside, as well as a 300ml dust box, there’s a 55ml water tank for mopping. On top, you’ll find a trio of buttons that enable some functions, so you don’t have to reach for your phone, such as spot cleaning, start and go home.
Performance & Features
- LiDAR navigation and mapping
- App functions hidden in sub-menus
- Strong on hard flooring, less effective on carpet
While you can use some of the M12 Pro+ vacuum mop’s functionality manually, the majority of settings and preferences are within its app. It’s here that you’ll find its 2D and 3D mapping, which is quick thanks to LiDAR sensors. It mapped out our floor initially in a few minutes before filling in details.
The vac is also loaded with tech to prevent it falling downstairs or bumping into objects, although we still noticed some collisions: these were mostly with objects that had been moved from one location to another or sometimes our feet. Smaller objects, such as a cat toy, weren’t avoided, as one wrapped around the brush roll. If we moved or rotated the base, the robot vac struggled to find it again until manually placed back in for charging.
The M12 Pro+ mapped out our floor initially in a few minutes
Its app itself is mostly straightforward to use, although you may have to go into multiple menus to find what you want, or wait until the robot has finished a task before you change some settings, such as map divisions or schedules. Scheduling proved especially tricky as our app was set to China’s timezone and couldn’t be amended, so hopefully updates will correct this.
Rachel Ogden / Foundry
The basics are simple to alter though, allowing you to choose suction power, level of mopping, mopping, vacuuming or a mixture of both and so on. Its more powerful levels of cleaning use up its battery life rapidly but if it’s kept on the lower ones, its makers estimate that the M12 Pro+ can provide almost five hours on one charge.
The M12 Pro+’s most attractive feature is its automatic emptying and self-cleaning
After a whole floor clean, we used the spot cleaning function to see how the M12 Pro+ handled dust (flour) and debris (porridge oats) on both hard and soft flooring. Spot cleaning can be activated by a single button push on the robot vac, which then triggers a 1m sq area clean. We set it to do this twice.
The hard floor clean (using the vac and mopping) was the more impressive: all traces of the flour were picked up and only a few porridge oats had been flicked around by the spinning brush. We especially liked that the mop pads extended and retracted for reasonable edge-to-edge and corner cleaning – something some robot vacuums promise but don’t deliver. However, while most of the flour was removed from the carpet, around a quarter of the oats remained and were spread around.
Rachel Ogden / Foundry
What could be the most attractive feature though is the automatic emptying and self-cleaning. Once back in the base, the robot vac empties into its bigger bin. It’s loud – 80dBA – around the level of a lawnmower. From there, the base uses hot water to clean the mop pads, and then hot air to dry them, which is a more hygienic and convenient solution than most.
Price & Availability
The Yeedi M12 Pro+ is available from Yeedi for $899. You can also buy it from Amazon. Its list price on the site is $1,099 but it’s generally available for $899 and at the time of writing, there’s an on-page voucher for $100 off.
Self-cleaning and self-emptying robot vacuums are always expensive and the Yeedi M12 Pro+ is no exception, but if you take a look at our round-up of the best robot vacuums we’ve tested, you’ll see that it’s the best priced for its feature set. The question is whether it’s worth paying more to get a robot vacuum with more powerful carpet cleaning.
Should you buy the Yeedi M12 Pro+ vacuum mop?
If you’re time-poor, have large areas of hard flooring, or smaller areas that are high traffic with pets or kids, Yeedi’s M12 Pro+ vacuum mop could be a smart addition to your home. It allows you to swap little-and-often cleaning and a weekly deep clean for occasionally emptying a dust bag and some dirty water, plus refilling a fresh tank.
There’s still some way to go before it performs equally well on a mid-pile carpet, but if you never want to mop a floor again – with the M12 Pro+, you probably won’t have to.