If you have read my robot vacuum reviews before, you'll know I am constantly griping about the inefficient mop head design you find on a lot of robot vacuum/mop hybrids. Often, this is a plate that just sits on the floor, gliding along the surface with absolutely no elbow grease at all. The result? Streaky floors and a poor clean.

Step in the $449.99 Yeedi Vac 2 Pro, the latest in the Yeedi brand's line of affordable cyborg cleaners. Not only does this device vacuum your carpets and other floor surfaces, but it has a newly designed mop head that will revolutionise the autonomous cleaning landscape, leaving hard floors looking spic-and-span, too. You can buy the Vac 2 Pro now from Amazon, Walmart, and the Yeedi store. Note that if you buy from Amazon during the introductory period, you’ll have access to a special coupon code.

Let's look at what the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro is all about...

Unboxing the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro

So, what do you get in the box when you open your Yeedi Vac 2 Pro? This little lot:

• Yeedi Vac 2 Pro robot vacuum and mop
• Charging dock
• Power cables
• Cleaning and maintenance tool
• Oscillating mop head and reservoir, with washable mopping pad
• Side brush
• Device literature

If you want, you can use the Vac 2 Pro with the recently released Yeedi Vac Station instead of the provided charger. This device self-empties the vacuum so you don't even have to touch it for 30 days! We tested it with the included basestation though, as this is what you get when you buy the device.

Have We Met Before?

Looking at the Vac 2 Pro out of the box, we've got a fairly familiar form factor that most people will recognize if they own or have been shopping for robot vacuums. Yeedi's new flagship vacuum has a lustrous white chassis and comes in a circular shape, much like a lot of the robot vacuums currently on the market.

Up top, we have the mapping sensor, the Auto clean button, and a hinged lid that lifts up to reveal the removable dustbin, power switch, reset button, and a Wi-Fi indicator. You'll also find the cleaning tool is under this little lid.

The front of the robot has bumpers in case the Yeedi forgets itself and knocks into a table leg, which should never happen as the 3D-Detect sensor is also on the front, which allows the Vac 2 Pro to spot obstacles in the way and avoid them, as long as the obstacles are over 1.2 inches (3cm).

Flip the device on its head, and you can see where a lot of the magic happens. Underneath you've got the charging contacts, the wheels, the main and side brushes, anti-drop sensors (so the vacuum doesn't launch itself to impending doom down the stairs), the water outlets, and the removable mop reservoir.

In terms of footprint, the Vac 2 Pro is 13.75 inches in diameter and stands a mere 3 inches tall, so it should have no issue cleaning underneath furniture, as long as you have that 3-inch clearance underneath.

How Does the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro Work?

The Yeedi Vac 2 Pro works like a lot of other robot vacuum/mop combos, albeit with one innovative change convincing this writer that other robot vacuum manufacturers will need to step up their game in the face of innovation.

I'll briefly run through some of the standard functions that make the Yeedi a very capable robot vacuum before I move on to what really makes this device stand out above similarly priced competitors.

As a vacuum, the Vac 2 Pro can reach up to 3,000 Pa, which is in line with most high-end robot vacuums on the market today. This is suitable for cleaning carpets and hard flooring alike. The vacuum uses the carpet sensor in order to increase or decrease suction based on the surface it is vacuuming, so it'll pick pet hair up from your carpet just as easily as crumbs from your tiled kitchen floor.

The battery provides 220 minutes of clean time with the Vac 2 Pro, which is likely to be more than enough to do the entire house. The device takes six hours to charge its 5,200 mAh battery, but as you're unlikely to run out of juice with that extended clean time, the Vac 2 Pro won't miss any spots before it heads back to the Vac Station or charging station once you've charged it up for the first time. Once it has finished cleaning, it will announce the fact, and tell you it's heading back to the charging station.

In terms of actual operation, you can use the auto clean button to set the device on its travels. However, most of the power lies in the dedicated Yeedi app, which is available from the Google Play and Apple stores.

From here, you can complete several operations. You can start a clean simply and easily, or you can schedule cleans to happen at a certain time of day. This is great; if you are on your way home from work, for example, and you want the Yeedi to spruce the place up a bit before you get home, just open the app and set it off to clean. It will then do its job before you even step in through the front door.

Likewise, you can simply schedule a clean for 5pm every day. So, as soon as you leave your desk for the day, the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro will be cleaning your home for you. Want a different time on weekends? Of course, just program the schedule however you like. The app will also display the maps of your home, so you can set things like "no mop zones" or "no-go zones", the former ensuring the mop doesn't operate in certain areas, while the latter sees the robot doesn't go in that area at all.

In terms of a cleaning path, the Yeedi uses a nice efficient linear pattern, so will go in a straight line across the floor, then arc around 180 degrees and clean the next line of floor, until the entire area is clean as a whistle. Cheaper vacuums use a randomized "bounce" mode, so they will just move round in a random pattern and resultantly not clean the whole floor. Linear mode is a significantly more economical method of cleaning for a robot vacuum.

For mopping, the Vac 2 Pro has the aforementioned water reservoir at the back of the device, which holds the mopping pad underneath and presses it onto a hard floor surface.

Now for the magic. The Vac 2 Pro doesn't just glide the mopping plate along the floor like most other robot vacuums (my major gripe since I started reviewing robovacs). Instead, it oscillates the cleaning pad backward and forwards, which emulates the cleaning motion you make with a manual handheld mop and bucket. Quite the innovation in terms of hybrid vacuum/mop robots.

This oscillating motion is different to sonic mopping features you may have seen on newer robot vacuums. Sonic moping vibrates the center of the mopping pad. The oscillating function actually moves the pad back and forth, 480 times per minute, which is five times faster than a human, and offers more elbow grease in the process.

For navigation, the device will map your home using the V-SLAM sensor on top. However, it also uses a sensor up front, which provides 3D obstacle avoidance using—according to Yeedi—the same technology that Apple uses for Face ID.

So, that is how the Vac 2 Pro works, but does it do a good job?

Yeedi has informed us that currently, the room merge/split feature is not available on the virtual map, and this feature will arrive in the June software update. Multi-floor mapping storage is also currently unavailable and will arrive in the fall update.

The Yeedi Vac 2 Pro: A Superb Clean

I can safely say that the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro is excellent for cleaning the home. It does a fantastic job of vacuuming the floor and, as someone who has four cats, I know all about the pain of a floor covered in bits of the garden and most of the cats' fur. Add litter trail into the equation and you've got a recipe for a fairly disgusting carpet. However, with the Yeedi zooming across my carpet, the floor is clean and tidy every day, and I don't have to flex my vacuuming bicep one iota.

Thanks to the max 3,000 Pa suction, the Yeedi can deal with larger debris just as well as it deals with small particles of dust and dirt. So, if the kids run through the house with dried mud on the bottom of their shoes, the Vac 2 Pro will eat that up with ease. Knowing that your floor is receiving a thorough clean will give you peace of mind; you just need to pour a glass of your favorite tipple and put your feet up.

It is in mopping where the device really excels, though. Thanks to the oscillating plate, it impressed me to see that the mop actually cleaned my floor, rather than simply tickling it with the cleaning pad. Robot vacuum mopping capabilities have always left me feeling underwhelmed, but the Yeedi vac 2 Pro has changed all that with its fantastic new mopping system. I tested it with a few different, dried stains, from sticky fruit cordial to dried coffee granules, and it worked a charm, bringing the floor up to a nice shine.

The vacuum uses its 3D-scanning obstacle avoidance tech very efficiently. Even if I threw a shoe or similar obstacle in front of it unexpectedly, the Yeedi vac could avoid it and continue cleaning without getting confused or simply attempting to vacuum my shoe up into its dustbin. This means any toys that accidentally drop into the path of the vacuum won't block it up or lift the robot off the ground, requiring your input. Instead, the Vac 2 Pro will deftly dodge any obstacles in its way. Note, though, that it cannot avoid objects under 3cm tall, so small toys like LEGO bricks will still end up inside the Vac 2 Pro (or blocking its inlet).

The obstacle avoidance will even remember when it has encountered obstacles in the past and will avoid them again if they are still on the floor. So, if you leave your shoes next to the sofa, it isn’t going to swallow your shoelaces.

Basically, the 3D object detection means you don’t have to go round tidying up before the vacuum starts its journey around your floor. Less interaction here means more convenience for you.

The app is easy to use, with the convenience of remote cleaning at your fingertips. And, with the carpet sensor, you know the Vac 2 Pro isn't about to mop your carpets while you're on your way home and you’ve launched a remote clean.

In all, I find the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro is an excellent robot vacuum, particularly so thanks to its mopping abilities, which improve a hundredfold on any vacuum/mop hybrid I have ever used before.

Should You Buy the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro?

In a word, yes. At this price point, you won't find a vacuum/mop hybrid that does as good a job of mopping the floor, and the vacuum function is excellent, too. You might find a dedicated robot mop that does, but then you'd need a separate vacuum as well, which could run you just about into the thousands in terms of cash. Throw in the convenience of customizable cleaning, and optional automatic dustbin emptying, and you've got a serious contender for one of the best robot vacuums on the market.

Don't feel you need the oscillating mop function? The Yeedi Vac 2 is also available now for $349. This model has no oscillating mop plate and comes without automatic carpet detection. It has a run time of 110 minutes, given that it has a smaller 2600 mAh battery. The rest of the features remain the same.