Nine years ago we bought a robot vacuum, and I loved it. Neato did his thing bopping around the house, sucking up dog hair and saving me time. Until he didn’t. A few years ago, Neato gave up. Figuring out what was wrong and fixing him was beyond my capacity at the time. Plus, I hadn’t been using him a lot because our house was full of a small person’s toys, which were perfect prey for a robot vacuum.

Then I renovated the playroom. Throughout that project, one of the goals sitting silently deep in my brain was to restart the robot vacuum. All of the Lego and Barbies would be moving out of the living room. I could safely run a vacuum again.

I looked into fixing Neato, but it turned out the company had gone out of business and parts were no longer available. So I decided to buy a new vacuum. Influenced by Young House Love and the many positive reviews for their vacuum, I went with Eufy. Specifically the Eufy Clean 11S MAX.

She arrived a month ago, and she is wonderous.

Every day, she heads out on her journey around the house. She vacuums bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, living room, dining room. She handles tile, wood, rugs, carpet. She goes under beds, the coffee table and the couch (with a few adjustments, which I talk about below). My floors have never been so clean.

I went with a fairly simple model (no wifi, no special powers) and spent $203.39 Canadian. This price is way less than Neato or our canister vac and completely worth it for me.

While she may not be super flashy, the big upgrade with Eufy is she can tell time. Neato had to be manually activated whenever we wanted to clean. Eufy has a schedule. Automatically every morning she leaves her docking station and cleans the floors. When she’s done, she goes back and recharges for the next day.

Vacuuming every day might seem excessive, but the amount of dust and dirt she picks up each cleaning is surprising. It’s definitely worth running her daily.

So far, we’re mostly running Eufy upstairs. It’s where we spend most of our time, and where we generate the most dirt.

However, the basement also needs to be vacuumed. Yesterday, I carried Eufy downstairs and let her do her scheduled cleaning down there. She handled the carpet and laminate just as well as she’s handled the hardwood and tile.

Each night I empty her little dustbin, so she’s ready to go again. Once a week I clean her filters and her brush. She came with a little cleaning tool that is perfect for sweeping dust out of the filter and untangling hair from the brush. It’s very low effort compared to sweeping or dragging our vacuum around and cleaning myself.

As simple as it is now, we have had to make a few adjustments.

Eufy is very persistent and will squeeze herself into areas that turn out to be too tight for her. The first few vacuuming sessions, she got stuck under Ellie’s bed and under the couch.

For Ellie’s bed, I was able to adjust the headboard to give Eufy enough space to get under and back. You can also see from the top picture that Ellie tucks her fringed bedspread out of Eufy’s way.

For the couch, I took two steps. We have an outlet under the couch where a couple of lamps and a powerbar are plugged in. To keep the cords out of Eufy’s way, I screwed some small cup hooks into the underside of the couch and tucked the cords up into the hooks. To ensure the couch is high enough so that Eufy doesn’t wedge herself, I added some risers under each leg.

They were easy adjustments, and I’m happy to no longer have dust bunny farms under the furniture.

The other adjustment we’ve made is closing the playroom door. Lego, Barbies, crafts in progress and other bits and bobs frequently cover the floor. It’s not a good environment for Eufy, so she doesn’t clean in there. Yes, the playroom definitely needs to be cleaned. But we can turn Eufy loose in there after a careful tidy.

For the playroom (or my white tile bathroom after I washed a very muddy dog on Saturday), I use Eufy’s single room setting. The vacuum comes with a remote that allows you to choose different cleaning modes.

I have not used the modes or remote a lot. Once I set the clock and scheduled the daily cleanings, Eufy went into auto mode and my direction is not needed. But for spot cleaning (for example, I used to send Neato under Ellie’s high chair after meals), a single room or other situations, Eufy has them covered.

Dirt and dust are part of life. I have a pretty high tolerance for them, especially thanks to living on a farm and having animals. But Eufy has really increased my enjoyment of my home. Feeling and seeing my clean floors every day feels like a load off my mind. Vacuuming is one thing I don’t have to think about anymore.

If you want a full breakdown of Eufy, all her features, and more tips about using a robot vacuum, Young House Love wrote a very detailed, helpful post.