I have been looking forward to the release of SwitchBot S10. The vacuum/mop arrived much later in the UK than in other regions, so my experiences with SwitchBot cleaners were limited to SwitchBot K10+ (see review for details). It was a capable cleaner, but the mopping add-on was an underpowered afterthought. SwitchBot decided to go all in and turn SwitchBot S10 into a cleaning combain for your household. Have they succeeded? I’m about to find out.
SwitchBot S10
Home automation has been hard lately. I’m in a rented apartment so my smart home options are mostly limited to non-invasive automation. It’s where SwitchBot excels. My front door uses their SwitchBot Lock Pro, and SwitchBot Curtain V3 drags the curtains. I even integrated SwitchBot API and their Temperature and Humidity sensors into my 3D printing – check out this awesome Smart Filament Project. I can rest assured, that when it’s time to move out, my flat will have no signs of past automation.
From the beginning, SwitchBot S10 has got me excited, as it promised inattentive vacuuming and mopping thanks to permanent hook supply/drain hook-up. Other than maintenance tasks performed once every couple of months, SwitchBot S10 offers truly independent clean-up. No more running with water tanks (thanks to the water station) and no more emptying dust containers thanks to the charging station with dust extractor.
The only thing that was holding me back was the installation! Or at least I thought this would be a challenge… SwitchBot has proven me otherwise.
Not what I thought
Watching the promotional material for SwitchBot S10 on the release date, I was under the impression that the water base needs a proper plumbing job. Was SwitchBot keen on losing its “rental-friendly” identity? Expecting a difficult installation, I accepted the unit for review. When the parcel arrived, I was positively surprised as between the release date and my review, SwitchBot found a perfect solution that meets anyone’s needs! Check out the TechDrop below to see my surprised face!
The water station comes with a tank “HAT”. A clever add-on that supplies water and stores wastewater in external tanks – perfect for anyone who can’t make the permanent installation just yet! If you were concerned about this, don’t be – SwitchBot once again is 100% rental-friendly!
It’s all about that base!
To enable non-attentive cleaning and mopping SwitchBot S10 comes with the following accessories: SwitchBot S10 vacuum cleaner, water station with external tanks (purchased as an add-on), dust extraction station, that doubles as a charger and some accessories to keep the robot going for a couple of months.
I was slightly intimidated at first, as all this felt like a lot, and I didn’t really have a plan. After checking things out and having a look at the instruction manual, I quickly discovered that all I needed to do was to find a place for my charging station, plug my vacuum in and decide where I’d put the water station (bathroom!).
SwitchBot S10
The first thing that got my attention was the size of the SwitchBot S10. This thing is huge. It’s the largest cleaner out of all 10 cleaners I have! It dwarfs the compact SwitchBot K10+.
The vacuum is equipped with all the usual sensors available on high-end models. It uses Lidar to build a map of your household in real time. Sports a front-facing AI-capable camera that uses 2 LED lights to seek and destroy… whatever is on its way! An active bumper and floor sensors (6 of them!) prevent the vacuum from running down the stairs, avoiding obstacles and detecting various carpets.
SwitchBot K10 uses WiFi (2,4GHz) and Bluetooth to talk to your network and other devices connected to your ecosystem.
On the cleaning front, the S10 is equipped with a rotating mop that has support for adding and extracting water as it cleans around. A biffy vacuum that will suck up all the dirt supported by a roller and rotating brush). It has all the tools to tackle the dirt.
SwitchBot Water Station
Let’s cover the Water Station first as I’m already familiar with SwitchBot dust extractors. I’m pleased to inform you that the station requires no power hookup. It draws power from the robot and uses Bluetooth to speak to it. That makes the installation so much easier as you don’t have to worry about the power hookup.
The Water Station has 3 functions. It will fill up S10’s water tank, extract dirty water from the vacuum and mix up cleaning liquid to boost the mopping performance. There was a small pack of plumbing accessories that you could use to connect the station to water and the waste pipe under the sink. I’d strongly recommend asking a professional to do it for you. If this isn’t for you, you can take a look at the optional water tank system.
Optional External water tank
This add-on sits on top of the water station. It comes with 2 removable tanks that store clean and dirty water. The system communicates with the Water Station via a USB-C cable and has 2 plumbing connectors to hook it up.
If you are going to use external tanks only, I strongly suggest trimming the tubing to size, otherwise, it’s really easy to kink it and cause leaks when the vacuum is docked. The add-on has a convenient access hatch to the cleaning solution compartment and filter.
SwitchBot Charge/Extraction Station
This is a more familiar station – a strong vacuum cleaner hidden inside the charging station that will automatically empty the content of the S10 when the vacuum is full. It serves as a charging dock and can dry the mop after the clean-up.
The inclusion of the bin bags with a plastic collar annoyed me a little. These bags are not re-usable and you are advised to use SwitchBot bags. I’ll experiment at some point with bin bags without plastic and see if I can find a better replacement. I’d love to have a nice re-usable bag that I can simply open up, empty the dust and re-install.
Pricing
To get all the kit from my TechDrop, you have to open up your wallet. SwitchBot S10 will set you back £1099 and if you want to pre-order tank “HAT” – that’s another £79 on top of the bill. Switchbot also sells a yearly supply of consumables for £99.
In use
SwitchBot S10 is fast, but power hungry. It lasts approx 1h on a single charge when used for mopping and vacuuming at max settings. It’s almost enough to tackle my two-bedroom flat (120m², and 51m² cleaned space). It mapped my place in 8 minutes, and it cleans at the speed of 1m²/min. As SwitchBot S10 comes with options to resume cleaning, you’ll never have to worry about battery levels.
I’m glad I took time with SwitchBot S10 as subsequent updates brought more features. I mentioned that the robot has a front-facing camera and LED lights that activate after dark. This allows S10 to avoid obstacles without touching (very good at it) but you can also see what robot spotted in the app – so far SwitchBot S10 has alerted me about some objects I left on the floor and cables that I should clean up. When these are present, the S10 will drive around to avoid getting its brush tangled.
Another new feature in that app – is the ability to add carpets. These can be now manually placed (so you don’t rely solely on the vacuum detection system) and you can add bright and dark carpets to your map to improve the cleaning performance. The only thing that is missing is the cleaning order. You can re-create this by selecting rooms in a specific order, but it’s annoying.
Cleaning options allow you to vacuum and vacuum and mop at various levels (4 for vacuum and 2 for mopping) – unfortunately, there is no mode for mopping only. Additional options enable you to clean individual rooms and areas and the mapping tools help with establishing no-go zones and managing the layout of your house (rooms can be named and split/merged).
This is not all, new features also include the Floor Edit tools. A selection of options appears where you can add door sills, define floor types, set specific carpet behaviour and add furniture to represent your layout better. The scaling of the furniture is a bit frustrating, I hope they will manage this better. This is one of the best-featured vacuum apps on the market right now!
Cleaning
The biggest advantage of SwitchBot S10 is the Water Station. If you already own a smart vacuum with the mop, you know that with each clean you have to fill up a water tank and clean up the mop. The convenience of automated cleaning and mopping is ruined by the babysitting required to get it done each time. Schedules become redundant.
S10 changes this completely as other than basic cleaner maintenance, the robot will make sure that is ready for vacuuming and mopping each time. No more making sure the water tank is full and mop ready for action. It’s finally automatic!
Vacuuming
SwitchBot K10+ was already performing like a champ despite its tiny footprint, but the S10 takes it to another level. It’s powerful and fast. All this power comes at the disadvantage of the 1h of run time at max settings and a rather bulky footprint that prevents this vacuum from going under most furniture.
At 12cm tall and 33cm in diameter, S10 will struggle to fit in tight spaces or under sofas. this is where combining it with the less expensive K10+ makes total sense to cover even the smallest of the nooks.
Cleaning performance however is stellar. In my flour and sugar tests, it handled both extremely well on hard floors and carpets. It was cheeky enough to grab my test map with the power of suction and move it (covering some of the powder) which made me laugh!
Mopping
Before I dive into the mopping performance, let me state this: I love how the floor looks after the cleaning. Thanks to the rotating brush and the ability to add cleaning solution, with each clean my fake wood panels are clean and streak-free.
However…
I usually run some torture tests and these involve spilling unreasonable substances on my hard floors and letting the stains dry overnight. I was expecting SwitchBot S10 to mop the competition, but the vacuum underperformed a lot.
After running multiple tests and seeing it struggle to remove dried-up spots, I concluded that even when set to a wet setting for mopping – there isn’t enough water dispensed to soften the stain enough to mop it. I provided extensive feedback to SwitchBot about this as I was genuinely shocked at the results of the torture test.
Don’t get me wrong, these stains are unreasonable. No one leaves spilt coffee and hot sauce overnight. Or at least you shouldn’t you filthy animal! Clean it up. But compared with the competition – SwitchBot S10 didn’t impress me. To make it worse, the vacuum will dry sweep everything first.
It’s a really weird situation where I’m 100% happy with the performance of the SwitchBot S10, but I also realise that its spillage mopping is not that great. At this point, I can only hope they can adjust this in firmware to make the robot mop using a bit more water.
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Final thoughts
Once again, SwitchBot made a product that simply stands out. I love my SwitchBot S10 and I can’t imagine moving forward without one. Paired with the less expensive SwitchBot K10+ that can go where the bigger brother can’t – it’s the ultimate solution to keep your place spotless. SwitchBot S10 is expensive, but anyone who values their time and energy will put money aside to deal with hard floors permanently. I can attest it, as I’m finishing this article while SwitchBot S10 is cleaning up the mess I left in the kitchen. What are your thoughts? Let me know in this Reddit thread.
🆓📈💵 – See the transparency note for details.
