Do You Want a Combined Robot and Stick Vac? Brands Hope You Do

You wait an entire lifetime for a combined robot and stick vacuum cleaner – and then two come along at once.

Hot on the heels of the release of Eufy’s 3-in-1 E20, a combined robot vacuum, stick vac and handheld, Switchbot has launched a model with similar advantages.

The K10+ Pro Combo combines the world’s smallest robot vacuum (Switchbot’s K10+, which we’ve reviewed) with a lightweight cordless vacuum. Both dock and charge together in an auto-emptying base station, which means there’s no need for manual emptying.

But there are some big differences between the Switchbot and the Eufy model.

Eufy’s E20 is a transformer that uses a single filter for all three modes. Pop it out of the robot vacuum and the filter becomes the vacuum body when it’s in stick and handheld mode.

Eufy

Meanwhile, the Switchbot K10+ Pro Combo simply uses a shared dock to charge and empty both the robot and the stick vacuum.

The K10+ Pro combo has an advantage over the Eufy E20. There’s no transforming needed to use it in one mode or another. The Eufy E20 has a related limitation: you can’t use the robot and the vacuum at the same time.

With the Switchbot model, you can just lift the cordless vacuum straight from the stand and use it – even when the robot vacuum is at work.

There’s a space issue as well. As the Eufy E20’s floor head and wand aren’t stored in the charging base, the dock will take up less vertical space. But you’ll still need to find space to store the wand and floor head separately.

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Eufy

And there’s one thing it seems that neither appliance can do – and that’s mop, which means you’ll still need to keep mopping equipment to hand.

There’s another compromise if you buy one of these. That’s on the quality of both robot and stick vacuum; neither are flagship-level, and these combined devices are pretty pricey.

Is this two-in-one technology something that people really want, or is it just a way to create a point of difference in a crowded marketplace? As Dr Ian Malcolm says in Jurassic Park: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Well, it’s something like that, but with people in marketing departments instead of scientists, and vacuums instead of dinosaurs.

You can read our review of the Eufy E20 to find out more. But if your heart is set on a combined model, we think that, on paper at least, the Switchbot K10+ Pro combo features have it beat. We’ll be reviewing it shortly to tell you what it’s like in day-to-day use, but here are its specifications:

• 20,000 Pa suction (that’s the vacuum – the robot has just 2,500 Pa suction)
• Lightweight: the vacuum is 1.17kg and the robot 2.3kg
• The dock can hold up to 70 days worth of dust
• 5-level filtration system
• V-shaped anti-tangle brush on the vacuum and rubber brush on the robot
• SilenTech for noise minimisation
• App controls
• Alexa- and Matter-compatible
• Headlights on the stick vacuum

Price and availability

The Switchbot K10+ Pro Combo is priced at £799.99, which we think is fairly steep but if you buy it from Amazon right now, you can claim £160 off that price to bring it down to £639.99. This is much more reasonable, but with Amazon currently selling the K10+ robot vacuum for just £219.99, you might be better off waiting for the price to drop further post-launch.

In the US, it’s priced at $799.99 but there’s a similar voucher deal on Amazon. You can tick a box on the page to claim $200 off, bringing the price down to $599.99.

Meanwhile, the Eufy E20 is available online from Amazon and Eufy itself in the UK. It’s priced at £549. US buyers can also find it on Amazon and Eufy in the US, where it costs $549.99.

If you’d prefer the traditional approach of a separate robot vacuum and vacuum cleaner, see our top recommendations in our round-ups of the best vacuum cleaners, the best wet and dry vacuums, the best robot vacuums and the best cheap robot vacuums. Everything we recommend has been tested and reviewed by one of the team.