A boy turns into a man (or an old man) when he gets excited about his first home appliance. So I did when I got my 1st hoover capable of cleaning pet’s hair. I didn’t have any pets at that time, but I had lightly coloured carpets and a brunette to go with it. Carpets are darker now, the brunette is my wife, and I have fewer reasons to be excited about vacuuming. Banggood hooked me up with Xiaomi STYJ02YM and my excitement is through the roof again as I get to move Xiaomi 1S vacuum (review) upstairs and make Xiaomi STYJ02YM vac and mop robot to relieve me of the cleaning duty entirely. What can I say, I’m a grumpy old man who gets excited about not having as many chores!
Coffee, tea, wine and more vs Xiaomi STYJ02YM
Xiaomi STYJ02YM is a clear step up to from the other model thanks to integrated mopping function. A perfect cleaning combination for anyone who has mixed floors in their household. I have wooden panels in the hall and kitchen, so an occasional mopping was needed from time to time to keep the environment spotless and the wife happy.
Soft carpets, hard floors a couple of difficult mats to get on top of to clean – that’s the battlefield the new toy has to face. In addition to this, I prepared a unique challenge 6 typical stains that one could find in my kitchen. To make it even harder, I decided to leave these out overnight so see how well Xiaomi STYJ02YM can mop. The stains are:
- espresso coffee (you can top up my coffee jar here)
- earl grey tea (yum!)
- orange juice – gets sticky
- soya sauce dark premium – the king of stains, makes premium stains)
- fortified wine (I had 2014 malbec as well, but I can’t just open it for spillage!)
- milk (full fat)
I don’t expect these to be cleaned entirely especially that stains were left overnight, but I would hope that Xiaomi STYJ02YM can handle freshly made stains without much hassle. The internet disagrees with the manufacturers in terms of adding the detergent to the water tank, so I will be running my mop with clean water only and watch the carnage unfold!
| coffee | tea | orange | milk | wine | soya | |
| FRESH | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | 🆗 |
| OVERNIGHT | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | 🆗 | ❌ | ❌ |
| 2ND PASS* | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | 🆗 |
With the exception of soya, which I knew it would be an issue, all fresh spills cleaned up nicely on the 1st pass without Y mode. Overnights (dried up stains) were harder to tackle with soya, wine and coffee visible. I suspect that coffee and wine would be removed completely with Y mode. Milk had invisible residue left on the surface. All dried up stains were moist enough to be wiped with a towel after 1st pass.
Before the second pass, I have enabled Y mode and added a drop of washing up liquid onto the area of each stain. Everything but the soya stain was removed nicely. One more pass with the mop and overnight soya stain would be gone as well.
My biggest worry was the soy stain being smeared across the panels, but Xiaomi STYJ02YM did a pretty good job keeping the stain contained.
Moving ahead
With the torture test out of the way, it’s time to take a closer look at the new functions and improvements that Xiaomi STYJ02YM brings to the… floor.
Integrated with MiHome (I run mine on a Chinese server) the robotic hover comes with really impressive options. It carries through my favourite options from the Xiaomi 1S – LIDAR based obstacle system reinforced by a bumper and proximity sensors. These will keep the Xiaomi STYJ02YM from falling from stairs, correctly detecting obstacles and create beautifully crafted maps of the environment with automatic room allocation.
At first, the hoover communicated with me in Chinese, but as soon as the device connected to my server it picked the language option correct for my region. Unfortunately unlike Xiaomi 1S it does not come with voice settings. There are no language packs to pick from.
Navigation issues
Unfortunately, the hoover is still defeated by the mirrors and railings. LIDAR’s optical sensor gets deflected by mirrors and tricks the robot into thinking there is another room behind the mirror. Xiaomi STYJ02YM will spend a couple of moments trying to get inside that “Narnia”, but once it bumps into the mirror sufficient number of times, it gives up and carries on.
Fortunately, this issue can be mitigated after the first clean by manually editing the cleaning map. Virtual walls, exclusion zones and room edit tools are available to keep Xiaomi STYJ02YM focused on the task at hand. I’m pleased to report that the robot handles the rails with vertical bars better and no longer attempts to circle each one of them which was something 1S tried each time.
Improvements
Thanks to improved drive, the hoover can claim and traverse higher carpets. Both pads that were causing issues to Xiaomi 1S are now traversed correctly. Xiaomi STYJ02YM can reach further than a previous hoover. It extends each wheel significantly trying to ride over the obstacles and unless you have some pretty insane carpets, this small robot will traverse the house without issues.
In addition to that, there are 2 more options for spot cleaning. You can select a rectangular area to clean or a spot with a predefined range for instant clean up – perfect for dealing with spills. I’m not sure why these features are not retrospectively added to 1S since it’s clearly a software implementation.
Mop vs Vac
The unique feature of Xiaomi STYJ02YM is the 2in1 mode. By default, it comes fitted with a bigger 550ml vacuum dustbin, but inside the box, there is a new dustbin cage that stores water and a mop add-on with 2 pads (one for the wet mop, one for half wet).
To get started simply run the vac mode to create the first map, edit the areas to your preference and install the mopping attachment and the water tank cage. MiHome will let you clean the areas with Vacuum, Mop of Vac&Mop settings. The vacuum comes with 4 modes defined by the suction strength and noise while Mopping is split to 3 modes based on water use.
Each room (or selected area) can be cleaned in vac, mop or both settings, however, I really wish there was an option to define the floor type and let the vacuum do its own thing. Instead of that, you will have to schedule a clean up for the whole house and then add the mop schedule on top of it for selected rooms/areas.
Hovering performance is on par with the previous iterations. I run mine 1-2 a week and the only things that need a do-over are hard to reach corners – something to be expected considering Xiaomi STYJ02YM round shape.
Lastly, I should notice that I run my robot on Chinese servers. While you can add it to other servers too some users report various issues (map not loading or modes are stuck) Personally I run my clean up on a schedule so lack of voice integration with Alexa and Google Home doesn’t bother me, but your needs might be different.
Final thoughts
I’m genuinely impressed with Xiaomi STYJ02YM. It’s more than capable of keeping carpets cleaned and hard floors stain free. This review drops perfectly for 9/9 VIP promotion on Banggood, therefore expect a great deal and snatch the robot if you are sick and tired of doing it yourself. It’s incredible how quickly I got used to my floors being moped and cleaned automatically. It would be hard going back when I can just sit and write an article while Xiaomi STYJ02YM is running downstairs and keeping everything tidy. Got questions? Leave it in this Reddit thread.
