3i G10+: debris compactor, 18,000 Pa, retractable side brush and cloth

Hello to all readers of this project! This review will focus on the 3i G10+ robot vacuum cleaner. Priced at around $300, it boasts suction power of up to 18,000 Pa, a precise object recognition system with backlighting, remote home monitoring, a retractable side brush for sweeping debris into corners, and a retractable cleaning cloth for wiping floors close to baseboards and furniture. The robot also features a large dust bin with a dust compactor, and a turbo brush protection system to prevent hair and pet hair from tangling. Overall, it offers an impressive range of features for the price. Below, I'll thoroughly test the 3i G10+, highlight its pros and cons based on my test results, and then share my personal opinion. Let's get started!

Equipment

The robot vacuum cleaner arrived in a branded box like this:

The package includes the robot vacuum cleaner itself, a charging base, a cleaning tool, and an operating manual in Russian.

Appearance

Now let's take a look at the 3i G10+'s design. The robot vacuum cleaner is round, with gray flowers. The body is almost 11 cm tall.

A wall sensor is mounted on the right bumper. In the center is a system of sensors and cameras for recognizing and accurately avoiding objects on the floor. A backlight is mounted next to the cameras, preventing the robot from becoming blind in the dark.

Three mechanical control buttons are mounted on the top of the housing. The lidar is located below. The dust container is mounted on top and features a convenient carrying handle. The housing contains a compacting mechanism for lightweight debris. The container is emptied with the press of a button. Inside, you can see the compacting blade. Incidentally, the dust container holds 1 liter, so you won't have to empty it very often. The filtration system uses a HEPA filter and a mesh screen. What's more, the container is equipped with an ultraviolet lamp for disinfecting the collected debris.

The 245 ml water tank is removable from the back. A holder with a cleaning cloth is installed underneath. The design is unusual. On one side, both the holder and the cleaning cloth are extended, allowing the robot to clean the floor closer to the baseboards. The cleaning cloth is held in place by Velcro and a groove.

I'll note that the holder itself extends to the side, allowing the cleaning cloth to extend even closer to the edge of the housing. The cleaning cloth even lifts up 10 mm when placed on carpets.

There are four anti-fall sensors. A separate carpet detection sensor is also installed. There's a single, three-beam side brush, secured with a screw. It extends for thorough sweeping of debris in corners, which is very helpful.

The central brush unit is floating, unlike the older 3i P10 Ultra, which is also reviewed on the channel. The turbo brush has bristles and petals. Both sides can be removed to remove tangled hair and pet hair.

Behind the brush in the robot body there are combs for untangling the brush.

The pros and cons of this design will be discussed during the final review. Let's move on!

Technical specifications

The main characteristics of the 3i G10+, as declared by the manufacturer:

• Li-Ion battery 5200 mAh.
• Suction power up to 18000 Pa.
• Operating time up to 240 min.
• Dust collector 1000 ml.
• Water tank 245 ml.
• Obstacle clearance up to 20 mm.
• Dimensions: 356*109 mm.

Of course, the increased claimed suction power stands out here, which will be verified in tests. The robot also has a capacious dust collector, but its body is taller than many lidar-based counterparts.

Functional capabilities

Speaking of features, the 3i G10+ robot vacuum cleaner is controlled via the proprietary 3i mobile app. It's in Russian and easy to use. Incidentally, the robot also speaks Russian.

Main functions:

• Compacting waste in a dust collector.
• UV disinfection of waste in a container.
• Recognizing objects on the floor.
• Recognition of dirt and puddles.
• Remote home monitoring via camera.
• Napkin exit along the walls.
• Automatic lifting of the cloth on carpets (10 mm).
• Carpet cleaning in wet cleaning mode.
• Saving multiple cleaning maps in memory.
• Automatic zoning of premises into rooms.
• Selecting areas and rooms for cleaning.
• Virtual walls and no-go zones (and for wet cleaning mode).
• Suction power adjustment.
• Adjusting the water supply to the napkins.
• Setting the frequency of washing napkins.
• Cleaning log.
• Setting up cleaning according to a schedule.
• Intelligent cleaning mode (AI).
• Avoiding pets when cleaning.
• Photos of pets during cleaning.

Overall, there are a lot of features for flexible cleaning settings. The only thing I personally miss is the ability to control the robot via Yandex.Alice. At the time of writing, the robot doesn't support this assistant. But at least it supports Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

Testing

A detailed video review of the 3i G10+, including all tests, has already been prepared and published on the channel:

Navigation

And finally, let's move on to the tests. First, we'll test the 3i G10+'s navigation in a room with obstacles. First, the robot navigates the perimeter of the room, then cleans the entire accessible area in a serpentine pattern. It didn't get stuck on the dryer's legs, but instead ran over them. It also swept around the box and table legs. Overall, the robot performed as well as its peers in the test, with no major issues.

Speaking of navigation within the home, the robot vacuum cleans room by room, following the perimeter, then in a serpentine pattern. There are no uncleaned areas; this model has excellent navigation!

Passing under low furniture

The minimum height at which the robot can pass was also tested. Considering the robot itself is almost 11 cm tall, it cannot fit into a standard 10 cm clearance under furniture. However, it can pass under 11 cm.

Autonomy

I also tested the battery life when running the robot at maximum power with wet cleaning enabled. It lasted 143 minutes, cleaning 122 square meters of usable space. In reality, that's nearly three full cleanings of a two-bedroom apartment. However, I should note that there's a resume cleaning mode after charging at the base, so this model can clean twice as much. In my opinion, the robot's battery life is very good.

Recognizing objects on the floor

Regarding the object avoidance system, the robot performed excellently, just like the older 3i P10 Ultra! In good lighting, the robot was able to accurately avoid 6 out of 6 objects on the floor, correctly identifying 4 of them, except for a toy and a scale. It was also able to correctly identify and accurately avoid 3 out of 3 socks and all 4 out of 4 wires. Regarding avoidance of imitations of pet surprises, the robot vacuum correctly identified all 6 traps, but caught one of them with its brush and cloth, so we're giving it a score of 5 out of 6.

The object recognition system can also function in complete darkness thanks to the backlight. The 3i P10 Ultra was able to accurately navigate around all six household objects, correctly identifying five of them. It also correctly identified and accurately navigated around all three socks, four wires, and six fake pet surprises.

I'd like to point out that this is one of the best results for object recognition accuracy. Bravo, 3i engineers! The implemented system requires minimal refinement, and that's encouraging!

Suction power

Regarding suction power, in Quiet mode, the 3i G10+ was only able to clean a 2 mm gap, and only partially. In Medium mode, it cleaned a 2 mm gap better. In Strong mode, the result remained unchanged, and in Max mode, the 2 mm gap was completely cleaned. So, in the end, the robot only achieved a 2 mm cleaning result. This is likely due to aerodynamic losses, which are also observed in most robots from other brands, despite the fact that they also list 15,000 and 20,000 Pascals.

Dry cleaning

The collection performance of various types of debris on laminate floors was good. Various types of debris were collected from the rack, including cat litter pellets, which often clog the turbo brush. Even the corners were completely swept thanks to the retractable side brush, which is a plus. The robot also cleaned both inner and outer corners well. The turbo brush picked up some fur and hair, but the side brush was clean. I'll test the anti-hair-winding system separately later.

Anti-tangle Hair Protection

I also tested how the built-in combs handled the turbo brush's self-cleaning of hair and pet hair. I laid hair of varying lengths on the floor. The robot picked it up, and we saw that the turbo brush had become heavily tangled in the hair.

While the brush isn't perfectly self-cleaning, it looks noticeably better in everyday use than robots without anti-tangle protection. So, the technology is effective and a plus for this model!

Carpet cleaning

Additionally, debris was scattered on the low-pile carpet. I can say the 3i G10+ thoroughly cleaned the carpet. It can also clean medium-pile carpet, but not as well. A minimal amount of debris remained in the pile. It's likely the robot simply wasn't powerful enough.

Wet cleaning and carpets

When it comes to wet cleaning on carpeted floors, the robot offers several different modes of interaction. It can either carefully navigate around the carpet during wet cleaning, or it can enter and touch the carpet with the cleaning cloth if you want to clean it with the robot. It can also clean carpets during wet cleaning, automatically lifting the cleaning cloth when entering the carpet. The latter option is the most efficient.

Wet cleaning

Speaking of wet cleaning, for some reason the robot didn't supply water to the cleaning cloth out of the box. I tried pumping the pump inside the robot with a syringe filled with water, and everything worked. If you experience the same problem, try troubleshooting it using this method.

The robot is capable of cleaning light stains from the floor, absorbing the dirt without leaving streaks. However, the blind spot is still quite large, about 7 cm. This is likely because the cloth doesn't apply as much pressure near the edges and isn't able to remove the stains effectively.

But in a domestic environment, thanks to the cloth's extension and its unique design, dust and small debris will be captured both by the side brush and by the cloth right up against baseboards and furniture.

Obstacle clearance

The robot has good maneuverability. It can cross 2 cm thresholds!

Driving on black surfaces

Driving over black carpets is no problem. The robot glides over the black carpet as if nothing had happened.

Noise level

As for the noise level, it ranges from 60 to 66 dB depending on the selected operating mode. The robot's noise level is actually very low.

Personal opinion

The 3i G10+ robot vacuum cleaner has been thoroughly reviewed and tested. According to our rating system, it achieved a score of 161 points and that's for now the best robot vacuum cleaner without a station, if we talk about those that passed the test on the robovac.washerhouse.com project.

I liked the following:

1. Very precise object avoidance system with backlight.
2. Remote home monitoring function via robot camera.
3. High-quality dry cleaning on various surfaces.
4. Retractable side brush for sweeping debris into corners.
5. Pull-out cloth for washing floors close to baseboards and furniture.
6. A capacious dust collector with a function of compacting and disinfecting waste.
7. A system for detangling turbo brushes from hair and fur has been implemented.
8. Lifting napkins when driving onto carpets.
9. A large number of functions for flexible adjustment of cleaning parameters.
10. Low noise level.
11. Good cross-country ability.
12. The robot vacuum cleaner is not afraid of black surfaces.
13. Availability of warranty and service.

As for the shortcomings, the following were found:

1. The body height is 11 cm, which is why the robot is not able to clean in the standard 10 cm gaps under furniture.
2. The claimed superior suction power was not confirmed in tests.
3. Control via Yandex.Alice is not supported.
4. There are problems with the water supply right out of the box. At least that's what happened in my case.
5. The cloth is pressed lightly against the floor at the edge, which allows the robot to effectively clean dirt with a blind spot of approximately 7 cm at the edge.

Overall, for the price, this is a compelling option if you don't need a self-cleaning station. The robot is efficient, neat, and functional. It will definitely make the updated list of the best robots without a full-fledged self-cleaning station.