TheSwitchBot S10offers a premium upgrade from the brand’s smaller K-series. It has a paired set of stations to manage vacuuming and mopping with minimal user intervention. The hands-free experience hinges on the S10’s automation, including its self-draining and refilling, automated washing and drying of its mop, and self-emptying station whose dust bag can store waste for up to 90 days.
For those looking to expand their SwitchBot smart home system, the SwitchBot S10 integrates smoothly with installation flexibility and a simple-to-use app to customize its automated cleaning experience. While aimed at offering a hands-free experience, a few usability restrictions, like a lower battery capacity or its large frame, may hinder its usefulness in certain home environments.
Switchbot S10
SwitchBot’s S10 robot vacuum tackles many of the concerns of compatibility and upkeep by offering a selection of features to support automatic vacuuming and mopping in your home. With the option to place and connect the S10’s water station near any water supply or utilize an external water tank that’s powered by the vacuum, the space-saving and placement options make it easy to place non-obtrusively in most homes. Beyond mopping, the S10 rounds its cleaning experience with AI obstacle avoidance, automatic LED lights, 360° LiDAR navigation, auto-retract tech, auto-drying, and automatic emptying to round out the rest of its cleaning abilities.
Price and Availability
The SwitchBot S10 is available in different bundles with the option to purchase accessories separately for both upkeep and modification of its system.
When purchasing from the SwitchBot store, the S10 with both of its stations is available for $1,199.99. Add-ons like a bulk cleaning solution, an external water tank, or a one-year replacement kit for all the interchangeable parts can also be purchased. SwitchBot’s current S10 and K10+ vacuums are also available in a bundle for $1,599.98.
On Amazon, the S10 can also be bought for $1,199.99 or in a bundle form with either its accessory replacement kit or bulk cleaning solution at variable pricing.
Specifications
A Bigger Design to Tackle Your Home
For those that haven’t recently upgraded their robot vacuum, the S10 includes many of the recent trending changes. Both of the in-box stations are comparatively smaller than a stand-alone self-emptying station to allow for more flexible placement. Similarly, the S10 has opted for the single side brush while focusing more on rollers to allow for more efficient cleaning and less time spent cleaning tangled side brushes or adjusting bristles that have become split or bent.
Compared to SwitchBot’s K-series, the S10 is considerably bigger and heavier. As you get an idea of all the removable component parts, the larger body makes sense and why they’ve been separated for easier identification and upkeep.
Optional DIY Plumbing and Alternatives
With SwitchBot products, retrofitting and modifying your current home system is almost a given.
When consideringcompatibility for the S10, this is additionally important since the mopping features require a nearby water supply. To this end, the S10 comes with a variety of plumbing accessory pieces to allow you to tap into your existing water sources, such as those in your kitchen or bathroom. However, you’ll need to pay mind to the exact space needs of the water station and ensure the area is conductive to its placement.
Additionally, you’ll want to avoid placing it anywhere near a carpet or mat that might interfere with a clean return path for the robot. The water station also needs to be placed flush with the wall or cabinet toe kick, since the robot could otherwise push it out of place when docking.
Once you’re sure about compatibility, there are installation examples and YouTube instructions if you’re willing to do a simple degree of DIY plumber work to your home. If there are concerns about a potential water leak after set-up, SwitchBot offers a separatewater leak detectorto monitor your new installation.
If your water source isn’t compatible or your closet water supply area doesn’t work, SwitchBot offers anexternal water tank for the S10as an alternative. Similarly, this works as a welcome test option if you’re unsure where to place your water station within your home and want to monitor its pathing. As with the water station itself, you’ll also want to place it against a wall to prevent the nudging caused by the vacuum’s docking process.
For the external water tank, the set-up process involves mounting the tank over the included water station and installing the two connectors on the tank to the water inlet pipe and drainage pipe on the water station. Using outside tools can help ensure a proper fit, which can be done in a few minutes. From there, you just need to add some non-hot water to the clean water tank to get the S10 ready for mopping and briefly charge the water station if the activation light won’t come on.
Using the SwitchBot App
For those already familiar with the SwitchBot app (available forAndroidandiPhone), adding the S10 requires you to charge the vacuum within its auto-empty station for at least thirty minutes before beginning the in-app set-up. After initially mapping your home and doing a vacuum-only cleaning, the app will guide you towards more function exploration and setting tweaks. For those eager to mop, this begins with marking the water station on your mapped home.
When getting the vacuum to recognize the location initially, you should zoom in on the map before adding its location to ensure an accurate and doable path. Otherwise, your vacuum can fail to locate it correctly and end up returning home to its auto-empty station. If this occurs, you may modify the in-app placement or manually dock your robot before sending it home to establish the identification.
Beyond exploring and customizing for your needs, interacting with your live map and making modifications is one of the first tasks to establish more reliable autonomy with your vacuum. Different AI recognitions will populate the map as the robot is cleaning live, along with a listed behavioral modification of the robot. These are a helpful lens into what your robot is working around, and they can help you figure out where to set no-go areas or future virtual walls.
As you’re able to have up to three maps, you can easily tailor them to specific needs and if access areas change within your home. Similarly, you can set the robot to clean either your full house, a room, or a specific area to tailor upkeep and maximize your battery life.
Completing Your First Clean and Navigating AI
During your initial use of the S10, you may run into some of the usual hurdles of mapping. On the first go, the AI didn’t recognize one floor lamp, and it proceeded to climb it until the detachable side brush popped off. On a second go, it corrected the behavior with only some awkward mapping beneath a table leg based on its size and desire to complete cleaning in an area that’s only accessible from one end.
As it got past that, I was impressed with the general navigation of the LiDAR navigation system and the up to 20mm threshold climbing. Typical spots that would normally make a robot vacuum request help didn’t occur, and I saw it easily able to cross room thresholds that would normally stop my much older robot vacuum and require a manual relocation.
When just vacuuming, you can choose between four suction power levels between, starting from a quiet setting to a max that capitalizes on the 6500Pa suction power. If your lighting dims, the robot will also automatically turn on its LED lights to continue cleaning more efficiently. So, if you’re hoping to schedule a quiet clean in the early or late hours, you don’t have to worry about the robot missing spots because you didn’t coordinate your lighting for it.
Can It Handle Carpets Intelligently?
If your home has carpet, the SwitchBot app provides a few customizable settings to help simplify these areas.
The SwitchBot app allows for the labeling of both light and dark carpets to ensure better recognition during operation. Additionally, there’s the option to specify whether the vacuum will go into carpet mode and increase its suction power when a carpet is detected. Even if you haven’t labeled these, the robot does seem to have good detection here with the AI picking them up as a fabric object, but it never hurts to give the robot advance notice to reduce any initial learning that’s required.
In addition to the added suction power on carpets, the auto-retract tech pulls the roller mop inside the robot’s body when detecting carpet and scrapes off the water on the mop to keep it dry. Even in a smaller kitchen space with multiple rugs, this worked well with raising the mop before cleaning rug-to-rug and keeping both dry. However, I still needed to verify to tuck away the tassels on one of the rugs to prevent any accidental suck-ups while opting for the increased suction power.
Solid Mopping Performance With No Clean-Up
When it comes time to mop, the S10 has several design features to minimize mess and provide a cleaner end result. Foremost, the mop self-cleans in real-time, with waste water and dirt being sent to a separate dirty water tank, while a clean water tank keeps the roller mop clean. In addition, you won’t see any dragging as you tackle the common mess culprits in your home. Once the job is completed, you’ll also get an automatic deep cleaning and the exchange of dirty water.
Depending on the level of mopping required, you may choose between two water levels: moist and wet. In addition, the amount of water and wastewater corresponds with the size of the area being cleaned. But in my smaller test home, an 18-square-meter area being cleaned twice over for twenty minutes only consumed a minimal amount of water from the external clean water and tank and left plenty for future cleaning.
When everything was completed, the roller mop auto-dried at the auto-empty station at a constant approximate 122°F for around four hours in a humid environment, keeping it dry with no sign of odor over repeated trials. For those who don’t need to mop frequently or have a smaller home, this process can easily help you get down to the estimated monthly care and maintenance routine for most of the vacuum parts.
Maintaining Your Home Cleaner
When the S10 passes its time window of autonomy, the majority of the unit’s maintenance is quite easy to access.
Two brushes are included with the vacuum, one of which is stored under the faceplate of the S10. The major parts can generally be removed by hand, but a few will require access to a screwdriver. At the back of the manual, you’ll find a step-by-step description of the maintenance procedures, which involve minimal clean-up from buildup that the automated systems can’t handle over time.
As an additional note, if you do use the included cleaning solutions included with the S10, it’s advised that you don’t use any non-official soups in the water tank since the design hinges around the official formula being used in the 150ml tank for an estimated 90 days that mirrors the time frame of the dust bag. Similarly, if you intend to use the S10 with SwitchBot’s coming humidifier or dehumidifier, it’s advised to avoid sampling this in the event of any cleaning solution remaining during the water exchange process.
Should You Buy the SwitchBot S10?
TheSwitchBot S10offers a largely hands-free vacuuming and mopping experience for automated cleaning enthusiasts. With its many tailored features that tackle the typical rug and mop mess issues, it makes large strides in doing exactly that. If you want to ditch cleaning up after every intensive cleaning, the S10 is a welcoming option, especially for those willing to tackle the small amount of DIY plumbing modification for a constantly accessible water supply.
As a trade-off, the S10 does have some usage hiccups that make it non-ideal in some homes. The bigger body of the vacuum does allow it to tackle a faster cleaning in an ideal environment, but it can be slowed down when working in multiple tighter spaces compared to the K10+ vacuum. Similarly, if you’re going for extended vacuuming and mopping in a larger home, you may find yourself wishing the battery capacity was a bit higher for the vacuum, especially when it comes time for a full six-hour recharge. And if you are in a quiet space, both stations can be noisy when they initiate their cleaning and emptying if they happen to be near.
Overall, the S10 delivers a highly hands-free approach to cleaning, and the OTA updates to its AI obstacle avoidance should make it excellent at cleaning your home with a bit of time investment. If you’re willing to invest in it and have big enough space for it, the S10 is an excellent option for keeping your home tidy.
