Eufy Clean LR30 Hybrid+ review: A decent mid-range robot vacuum with disappointing mopping

The Eufy Clean LR30 Hybrid+ follows a well-trodden path for mid-range robot vacuum cleaners, with an impressive list of features. However, for each success, there’s a compromise; something that takes the edge off the robot’s triumphs and helps you realise why some similar-looking models from other manufacturers cost significantly more.

However, not everyone has the budget or inclination to spend a King’s ransom on a robotic domestic servant that’s brilliant at everything. If you’re in this group, there’s plenty that the LR30 Hybrid+ is capable of that should keep you happy, as long as your expectations are aligned with its strengths.

Note that there are two versions of this robot: the LR30 Hybrid and the LR30 Hybrid+. The robots in these two variants are identical. However, the Plus version comes with a self-emptying charging station, which empties the robot’s collection bin into a larger bag housed inside the base station.

The other version doesn’t have this, but comes with a smaller base station that only charges the robot between cleans, leaving you to empty its collection bin after every outing.

READ NEXT: The best robot vacuums to buy

Eufy Clean LR30 Hybrid+ review: What do you get for the money?

The Eufy Clean LR30 Hybrid+ is a familiar-looking shape and size. It’s puck-shaped, like most robot vacuums, measures 350mm in diameter and stands 100mm high, including the LIDAR turret that sits on the top. That turret is one of its key features, providing the robot with the bulk of its navigation prowess, and it lifts it well above the basic bump-and-turn navigation of Eufy’s most affordable robots.

Flip the robot over and it’s all fairly standard underneath. There are two sweeper brushes on each side and a brush bar with alternating rows of bristles and fins. This sits in the suction inlet, with two larger wheels at each side to drive the robot.

The suction of the LR30 is rated at 3,000Pa, which is at the lower end of what we’d expect for a robot of this price; the Ecovacs Deebot N10, for example, is 4,300Pa.

The collection bin loads onto the back and has a relatively small volume of 330ml. That’s because it also holds the water for the mopping function, with a tank of 200ml built into the same unit. Again, this falls a little behind the Ecovacs Deebot N10, which has a 420ml bin and a 240ml water reservoir.

Speaking of mopping, the part that makes contact with the floor is a base plate that clips easily to the rear of the robot. A removable cloth is attached to this using Velcro, and water is dribbled onto it through small holes in the water tank. The mopping system simply drags this damp cloth around behind the vacuum as it goes.

If you’ve opted for the Hybrid+ model, there will also be a self-emptying base station in the box. This is a relatively compact tower measuring 220 x 245 x 394mm (WDH) with a parking cavity at the bottom. This has an internal dust bag that can take up to three litres of dust and dirt, and it uses a motor with a 25,000Pa suction rating to extract dust and dirt out of the robot’s internal bin. There’s also a plastic parking plate that you can slot underneath to ensure the mop pad doesn’t rest on the floor. This is fairly flimsy, though, and looks like a bit of an afterthought.

Eufy Clean LR30 Hybrid+ review: What is it like to use?

There are two sides to using the Eufy Clean LR30 Hybrid+ robot vacuum cleaner: the physical side and the app control side. The app is the same one that’s used across all Eufy’s vacuum cleaners, from the cheapest to the most expensive, and that’s no bad thing. It’s a mature, classy product that provides the user with a clean, easy-to-manage interface that makes the most of the robot’s spread of features.

You need to use the app to set up the robot and this a simple process. All you really need to do is enter your Wi-Fi password so the LR30 can connect the vacuum to your home network.

From here you need to perform a full automatic clean in order for the robot to create its first map. There’s no option for a fast mapping run, but at least you get your floors vacuumed as it goes. It is possible, however, to set up no-go areas as the map is being created, with the LiDAR scanning the room ahead. This means you have plenty of time to cordon-off any cable nests and other problem areas.

Once the map is completed, the app does the work of splitting the floor plan into rooms. If it doesn’t get it right automatically – if you have open-plan areas, for example – it’s a trivial job to create further splits or join rooms together. You can rename rooms as you like and, when vacuuming, set the order in which these rooms are cleaned.

There’s also a multi-map option that lets you store and manage up to three floor plan maps. Carry the robot to a new, previously unmapped area – such as another storey of your house – and it will recognise that it’s in a new location, creating a new map as before. If you move the robot back into that space at a later date, it will recognise its surroundings and automatically invoke the correct map.

While the app is superb, the robot itself is more indicative of its position in the hierarchy of robot vacuum cleaners. The relatively small collection bin, for example, shouldn’t really matter when a vacuum has a self-emptying option. However, I suspect it hampered the collection of pet hair in my tests.

You also need to manually maintain the mop’s water levels, wet the cloth before use, and physically attach the mopping plate to the base of the robot each time you want to use it. If you have the self-emptying version, you’ll also find it can’t empty itself with the mop unit attached, so you need to take that off on its way back to the emptying station.

This is all quite labour-intensive for something that’s supposed to be automatic, especially as the effectiveness of the mopping function leaves a fair bit to be desired. As with most budget robot moppers, the cloth on the base of the robot is simply dragged along behind, with no further agitation.

Another complaint I have is that, although the robot can detect carpet to boost suction – a feature Eufy calls BoostIQ – it doesn’t transfer this intelligence to mopping to help it avoid carpet while wet. Instead, you have to set no-mop zones on the app.

The final part of the puzzle is the self-emptying station, if you’ve opted for the Hybrid+ version, that is. Apart from a few foibles such as its inability to empty the robot with the mop attached, this works well. It’s a bit of a palaver, though, as the robot has to reverses in to empty itself, then drive out and turn around so it can charge.

Eufy Clean LR30 Hybrid+ review: Is it good at finding its way around?

When it comes to navigation, the Eufy Clean LR30 Hybrid+ employs its LiDAR well. The map is created reasonably quickly on the robot’s first outing and it can be adjusted on the fly to add no-go areas as it scans ahead of itself. Once the map is created, the robot proved capable of moving around a complicated floor plan without struggling.

It didn’t get stuck in the legs of my occasional tables and it’s a bit too wide to get under my dining room chairs, so didn’t fall foul of those, either. It happily mounted my doormats and didn’t get stuck on any room thresholds, either.

In fact, the robot is rather nippy, covering a square metre in just over one minute. That’s faster than average but not as quick as the Ecovacs Deebot N10, which zips around a square metre in an average of 49 seconds.

I also found the LR30 Hybrid+ to be reasonably gentle around furniture, but here it uses a bump-and-turn technique, so isn’t as delicate as robots with front-mounted cameras that can deliberately avoid oncoming obstacles.

Eufy Clean LR30 Hybrid+ review: How well does it clean?

During my time with the Eufy Clean LR30 Hybrid+ it did a reasonable job of general cleaning, picking up visible dirt on both carpet and hard floor. If anything, it seems like the sweeper brushes might be a little too stiff, often batting larger crumbs off to the side, rather than into the path of the vacuum.

As usual, I tested the vacuum with our trio of test materials (rice, flour and pet hair) on both carpet and hard floor. On hard floor, there wasn’t as much rice scatter as I was expecting from those sweepers and it only scattered around 7% of the test spillage, picking up the remaining 93%. Interestingly, it didn’t fare quite so well on carpet, collecting only 88% of the grains in total. Both scores are a little below average across all robot vacuums we’ve tested.

Flour is harder work for robots and the percentage picked up on hard floor dropped to 76%. Again, this is a smidgen below average. On carpet, the comparatively low suction took its toll, with the LR30 collecting only 28%, which is a fair bit below what I would expect to see from a robot in this class. It left a significant smear of flour behind.

As you can see from our chart, below, it doesn’t fare brilliantly in these tests when compared to similarly-priced rivals, but it is worth noting that only the Ecovacs Deebot N10 is a true rival. Neither the Proscenic Floobot X1 nor the Lefant M210P offer LIDAR navigation, which is a must for larger homes.

I also tested the robot with pet hair. For this test, I use a measured quantity of hair, collected from a dog groomer’s floor. This is spread onto carpet and hard floor, just like the rice and flour. It’s a relatively new test, though, so of our similarly priced comparison models, only the Floobot X1 has been through the same assessment.

Here, the Eufy fared better than its rival, collecting 56% of hair from hard floor and 40% from carpet. The Floobot X1 managed 38% and 40% respectively. As with most tests, however, more powerful (and expensive) vacuums perform better. The Ezviz RS2 and the Dyson VisNav 360 are much better at collecting pet hair, but they’re at least twice the price of this model, and the Dyson can’t even empty itself.

I didn’t have high hopes about the mopping function, as it uses a cloth on a plate that’s dragged behind the robot, with minimal pressure and no additional agitation. I tested it with a dried muddy footprint, dried blackcurrant squash and dried ketchup. The footprint was wiped away, but the squash took a couple of passes to remove. The ketchup was significantly more stubborn and, while most of it was cleared, the LR30 failed to shift the dry edges of the stain, even after numerous passes.

I’d rate the vacuum function as significantly better than the mop. The latter may be useful if you want to give your floor regular watery wipes but it’s no match for the rotating mop pads of the Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni or the Ezviz RS2.

READ NEXT: The best handheld vacuums to buy

Eufy Clean LR30 Hybrid+ review: Should I buy it?

The Eufy Clean LR30 Hybrid+ is a reasonably capable robot vacuum but a disappointing robot mop. That’s not particularly unusual for a combi-robot at around this price, as they mostly use the same ethod of mopping.

Although the vacuuming is better, its 3,000Pa suction is a little underpowered for the price, with rivals doing better at picking up our test spillages. However, some of these rivals don’t have all of the features of the LR30 Hybrid, particularly its LIDAR navigation. If your living space is small, that’s not such a deal breaker but larger spaces will definitely benefit from a robot with LiDAR.

The one robot around this price that pipped the LR30 in most of our tests is the Ecovacs Deebot N10. Eufy’s app is perhaps a little friendlier, but with more powerful suction the N10 is a slightly better cleaner. It’s no better at mopping, though.

If you want better mopping, I’d recommend you take a look at the Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni. This uses rotary mops for better floor agitation and has a vast water tank in its base station to rinse the pads and keep the robot’s tank filled. It also empties itself, but with all those functions it does have a very large base station and it’s also a lot more expensive.