Lydsto R1 robot vacuum review: An affordable sweeping and mopping workhorse for your home or office Review | ZDNet

The Lydsto R1 multi-purpose robot vacuum is an affordable sweeping and mopping robot with a decent app and good cleaning ability. Its maximum suction power is an impressive 2700Pa.

I had challenges initially charging the Lydsto R1. The robot vacuum would approach its docking station and then back away rapidly several times before giving up. Every time I manually pushed it towards the docking station the Lydsto backed off and would not charge.

It seemed as though the robot vacuum was reluctant to go near its charging dock. Even when I pushed the vacuum directly onto its charging points, it would not charge. I was very puzzled.

I eventually realised that one of the metal bumpers – which are situated at the back of the small 200ml dustbin – was pushed into the dustbin housing. I unscrewed the six retaining screws in the dustbin and re-seated the metal bumper.

Only then did the Lydsto R1 go back to the charging dock perfectly. This issue was an error in assembling the vacuum – so if it happens to you – you’ll know what to do.

When I was taking the dustbin apart, I noticed that the design of the dustbin is exactly the same as the dustbin design on the Neabot NoMo Q11 robot vacuum I looked at last week.

Although the top of the robot vacuums look different there must be a few generic components across different robot vacuum manufacturers. The auto-empty stations are very different however.

Although the on-board dustbin seems small, the auto-empty station has a capacity of 3 litres which will store several weeks of dirt.

When you change the bags, simply pull up the cardboard tab from the bag, the handle slides upwards and will close the dust bag so that you do not get any spillages from the full bag. You will get an alert when the bag is full.

Connection to the Lydsto R1 app is easy, and the app has features such as no-go, no-sweep, and no-mop zones. You can set schedules for cleaning and specify the order of the rooms to be cleaned.

However, the first sweep of the R1 marked my entire area as one room, not six so I had to split the area into different cleaning zones so I could set the no mop and the no sweep zones correctly.

There is one side brush on the Lydsto R1 and a combined brush/rubber roller in the main body of the robot. The robot sweeps well, although long hairs and cotton does get tangled around the roller. There is a cleaning tool to slice through the hairs and clean the roller efficiently.

However, this cleaning tool must be stored somewhere – there is nowhere for it to be stored on the body of the robot or auto-empty station. I used Blu Tack to stick it to the side of the auto-empty station so it did not get lost.

The Lydsto R1 has LDS (Laser Distance Sensor) radar sensors which collects a set of data around the robot to use for SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping). 

This sensing is also known as LIDAR. The map the R1 produces is really good. You can set areas for the R1 to clean in a specific order, and set schedules, power mode and control the amount of water delivery when in mop mode.

The mop module clips onto the bottom of the combined dustbin/250ml water tank and there is a washable mop cloth for the mopping module. As soon as the mopping module is clipped onto the bottom of the water tank, you will get a voice confirmation that the robot is now in mopping mode.

Lydsto also provides 30 disposable mops for use too – as well as seven spare auto-empty station bags.

If the Lydsto R1 encounters carpet it will stop delivering water to its mopping module and increase its suction as it vacuums the carpet. I was alarmed that the robot vacuum was zooming quickly across a carpeted room – but the carpet remained dry.

When the 5,200mAh battery gets low, the Lydsto R1 will return to its docking station for a charge top-up – it will then go back to the area it last was, and resume its cleaning path. You can get over two hours on a single clean before the battery gets low enough that the Lydsto R1 needs to return to the dock.

I found the Lydsto R1 to be quiet in use – apart from when the auto-empty station was emptying the on-board dustbin. In fact the Lydsto R1 is an impressive machine, sweeping floors quickly and efficiently.

There are some niggles of course. The Lydsto R1 robot vacuum has no voice assistant integration – which could be a pain if you use this functionality often.

You can set the schedule in the app and the Lydsto will do its stuff automatically. Its obstacle avoidance does not seem to work with small objects. I had to rescue my phone charging cable from the robot’s roller brush a couple of times. 

I like the Lydsto R1 a lot. Its mapping is good, it always returns to the charging dock, voice instructions are clear, and connection to the app is seamless.

There are lots of features to configure on the app and connection is a breeze. The Lydsto R1 is an affordable multi-function sweeping and mopping robot vacuum with an easy to connect to fully featured app and a range of cleaning options. It is certainly worth a look.