Its key selling points are an ultra-slim design that means it should be able to get under most furniture, plus the ability to charge over USB rather than a base charging station – and that means you can charge it from a power bank too. Of course there are some compromises, too.
Where to buy the Iiutec R-Cruiser in the UK
Our review model was sent to us by Geekbuying, which offers free shipping to the UK but you’ll want to check out our advice on buying Chinese tech before going ahead with your purchase. Prices can fluctuate, but at the time of writing the vacuum cleaner was available for £107.33 ($129.99 or 121.89 Euros).
Iiutec R-Cruiser – what it is, what it does
Countless robotic hoovers are popping up on online retail sites at attractive prices, all offering to take the hassle out of your household chores by doing the hoovering on your behalf. No robotic vacuum cleaner will entirely replace your standard vacuum cleaner, but they can take out much of the hard work by automating the process for you. Set them off and they’ll get to work scurrying around the house and picking up much of the surface dust and dirt lining your floors. As with all robotic cleaners some preparation is required before you start vacuuming. You’ll need to move off the floor any cables or other items that could get sucked into the cleaner, and ensure there is no wet or squidgy mess lying around that may be spread round the house. Unlike some robotic cleaners, the Iiutec deals only with dry mess – there’s no mop function here. So don’t try to vacuum any recently mopped floors or anywhere you might find a puddle. The R-Cruiser has a very low profile, which on the one hand makes it excellent for getting under low furniture, while its square corners allow it to reach right into the edges. However, this also means it has very small wheels, and will struggle to get over obstacles such as door thresholds. Also see: Best smart lights
This vacuum cleaner is suited only to hard floors – wooden or tiled – rather than carpets. As such there is no rolling brush, but two front-facing brushes and a suction inlet that can work at up to 460Pa. It does a good job in such areas, though if you do have carpets in your home you will find alternatives that can better accommodate this. In fact, when compared to other smart vacuum cleaners, Iiutec’s R-Cruiser is really rather basic. But that is all part of its charm. Whereas other vacuum cleaners might work with an app on your phone or come bundled with a remote control, the R-Cruiser has just the one button on its top. You press it to begin cleaning, or to turn it off, and press it a second time shortly after power-on to enter a 15-minute spot-cleaning mode. It’s all very simple. This does mean you have absolutely no control over where the R-Cruiser cleans – you can’t change the direction or block off rooms with a virtual wall, so make sure the area is free of anything you don’t want to be sucked up first. The LED on this button can flash in various colours and patterns to alert you to various notifications, such as battery low or a malfunction, but all you really need to know is it’s red when charging, green when fully charged, blue in operation, and it beeps when the battery is running low. We really like the fact this vacuum cleaner charges over a standard USB charger – or a power bank, if you like – because it makes it so much easier to take anywhere and recharge from whichever room it ends up. Charging bases can be ugly docks that are always on show in your home, so this neatly gets around this problem. A down side of this, though, is that when the battery does run out the Iiutec won’t automatically return home and recharge itself for the next time you want to use it – you’ll need to remember to do that. Also see: Best smart heating systems The battery lasts a good while, though, and we found around 1 hour 45 mins use from a full charge. You could potentially clean up several times before needing to refill the battery. Not bad for what sounds like a meagre 2,000mAh lithium-polymer cell – my phone doubles that capacity. In use the Iiutec is reasonably quiet (lower than 60dB) and gets about its work without bothering you too much. It has various sensors – ground, wall and height – to ensure it doesn’t collide with and damage anything fragile, and to enable it to get itself back on track when it does get stuck. We found the R-Cruiser often stranded itself on top of the matt by our front door. The one major drawback with the R-Cruiser’s compact design is the capacity of its dust box. At 35ml it is significantly smaller than that of rival smart vacuum cleaners, and you’ll need to empty it every time – potentially also during a cleaning cycle, depending on how much mess it has to clean up. The R-Cruiser is available in white, black, gold or red. We’d advise a darker colour, since our white review model had a tendency to pick up a lot of dust on its top surface. Read next: How to make your home a smart home Marie is Editor in Chief of Tech Advisor and Macworld. A Journalism graduate from the London College of Printing, she’s worked in tech media for more than 17 years, managing our English language, French and Spanish consumer editorial teams and leading on content strategy through Foundry’s transition from print, to digital, to online - and beyond.
