I tested Eufy's E28 3-in-1 robot vacuum, and it's a triple threat for quick cleaning

After a promising yet clumsy first generation, some of the best robot vacuums are having a second renaissance, with big-name manufacturers getting in on the action and loading them with ever-impressive features and tech.

These auto janitors promise to love the laborious jobs you hate, including vacuuming floors, self-emptying dustbins, and even mopping.

Offering instant appeal, particularly for messy households, time-poor professionals, and those who might not be as mobile as they once were.

I’ve previously owned the Eufy RoboVac 11S, and while it helped me keep on top of household cleaning, its lack of map function meant it forever needed to be rescued from chair bases and under sofas.

Now, here comes Eufy with the Omni E28, a premium 3-in-1 model that not only vacuums and mops but also spot cleans.

But can it do these jobs well, saving you space, time, and effort?

Eufy E28 review: Price and availability

Prepare your wallets — the Eufy will set you back $999.99, which isn’t cheap for a robot vac and mop, though remember, it comes with a detachable spot cleaner. It also undercuts the pricier $1,499 Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni, which only features a dual vac and mop.

You can also opt for the cheaper Eufy E25, which costs $899.99 and is essentially the same as the E28, minus the spot cleaner.

You also need to replace the 3-liter dustbag once full, which Eufy sells for $18.99 for a pack of three. There’s also the matter of buying detergent, which is available for $20.99 for one bottle, which reportedly lasts 3-6 months.

The E28 is now available to buy on Eufy's website or via Amazon.

Eufy E28 review: Design

The E28 is quite the unit — unlike smaller robot vacs you can discreetly place under a chair, this one, with its boxy base station and deep cleaner hose compartment, takes a fair bit of space. The recommended clearance area is 20 inches on either side, so consider that in your placement.

Even though it comprises an all-plastic design, the cleaner looks the part, with its transparent water tank and illuminated status ring, which glows red if there’s a problem. The detachable deep cleaner sits atop the base and comes with a handle for you to lift, taking the clean and dirty water tanks with you.

Its hose is also hidden from view with a removable cover, so while the base unit isn’t exactly subtle, everything looks neat and tidy, with no unnecessary clutter.

The vacuum and mop robot sticks out from the base unit about halfway, taking up nearly all the ramp space. This roundish device packs a dodgem-styled bumper at the front and various sensors at the front and rear, including a top sensor — so it can literally read the room, a detachable, clear plastic plate for accessing the dustbin, plus two illuminated buttons, one to send the unit home and the other to pause or turn off the device.

Underneath are two spinning brushes, two detangling roller brushes, a wide roller mop, and three wheels, two of which are of the chunky variety on a spring suspension system for navigating uneven surfaces. One of the detangling brushes sits on an extendable arm for tackling those pesky hard-to-reach corners.

Eufy E28 review: Performance and test results

We put robot vacuums through their paces using standardized tests so we can objectively measure their performance against different models. Alongside everyday usage, I placed the Eufy E28 within a 5-by-5 foot space with Cheerios, pet hair, and kitty litter on a laminated hardwood floor and low-pile carpet.

I used 20g of Cheerios, 20g of kitty litter, and 5g of pet hair to determine how much the vacuum sucks up and how much remains as a percentage.

While the E28 performed well with the kitty litter and pet hair tests, only missing a few morsels, it weirdly struggled with the Cheerios. It refused to clean the entire marked-off area, leading me to surmise that it confuses bunched-up groups of the cereal as obstacles to avoid rather than objects to suck up. I even ran the same test a few times to make sure the result wasn't an outlier, with similar results.

Finally, I tried a few handfuls of Cheerios across a wider area, and while it still avoided congregations of the hoop-based cereal, it was more eager to pick up smaller groups and strays. Most probably a case of the object detection working against itself.

As you can see from the table, the Cheerios test score puts the E28 way below its rivals, even though it has fairly comparable scores for the kitty litter and pet hair tests. That’s a little disappointing and hopefully something Eufy can rectify via a future firmware update.

I have to add that this didn’t reflect my experience of the E28 during everyday use, where it had no such issues hoovering up individual bits of dirt and debris, albeit neglecting the odd bit here and there. When in use for the first time, it’ll do a quick tour of the rooms to create a map you can see on the app before getting to work cleaning. It can also avoid things like shoes, wires, bins, and other rogue items.

Its CornerRover feature is pretty neat, extending out the spinning brush for corner coverage, which most vacuums have trouble with, let alone circular robo vacs.

At one point, it clambered over the sloped base of a toilet and got itself wedged between that and the wall, Austin Powers style. Still, besides this, it generally does a decent job of getting around and out of tight spaces like under sofas and horizontal chair legs. Another quirk I’ve noticed is that the sides occasionally bump into things like table legs and other objects, while it has no problem giving bigger obstacles like toys and wires a wider berth.

When done, it’ll happily trundle back to its base station to deposit its findings into the base unit’s dustbag and to wash its mop. Be aware that its self-clean function is loud, particularly when it’s extracting the waste from the vac to the dust bag. The base unit sits in the home office, and it’s proved quite a din for 10 seconds or so after cleaning.

Back to the good stuff. The base station takes a lot of the hassle out of the grimy bits of cleaning, like wringing mops dry or emptying a dusty bin. I hate the double chore of a manual vac and mop job, so by combining these functions automatically, you get a floor that’s spick and span in a fraction of the time.

You still need to do some supplementary hoovering, such as in tighter spaces, on steps, and with the odd bit it’s missed, but the E28 genuinely saves you a lot of time and effort so you can do something else. That’s a big tick in my book, even if certain test results were more middling.

Mopping performance

The E28 does a great job of mopping solid floors with a comprehensive level of coverage, leaving surfaces shiny and not too wet. The mop can also distinguish between hard floors and carpets or rugs before automatically lowering and raising the roller accordingly. You can also adjust the level of water used for a lighter or deeper clean, and the base unit discharges detergent automatically into the robot, so there’s no need for continual top-ups.

The detachable deep cleaner also does well on stains on carpets and fabrics. I tried it on some stains on a rug and delicate soda fabric, and it’s lifted them right out. Be aware that the brush head is just over 3 inches wide, so it’s suited more for spot cleaning rather than whole carpets.

Eufy E28 review: App

The Eufy E28 cleverly integrates into the Eufy’s main app, which I have for its security cameras, so you’re able to control both systems in one. The app allows for an impressive level of customization, including how much suction you want the vac to use, whether you want to mop, vac, or both, and setting no-go areas and auto-cleaning schedules.

The map editor is also fairly intuitive and flexible, letting you save up to five maps, where you can select which rooms to clean and which to avoid.

Eufy E28 review: Verdict

While it won’t replace your standard vacuum anytime soon, the Eufy E28 does an acceptable job of hoovering floors, even if there’s some work to do with object identification, causing it to be overzealous when avoiding certain debris. At nearly a grand in price, I was expecting it to nail all the tests and be a no-brainer purchase, but it fell short with the Cheerios, even though its day-to-day work was generally good.

The star of the show is undoubtedly its mop, which removes most of the inconveniences of manual mopping, leaving floors shiny and clean as if you’re running around with a mop head several times per week. Its deep cleaner is also a worthwhile addition, particularly if you don’t own one.