Roborock E35 vs. eufy BoostIQ RoboVac 30C: Which should you buy?

Roborock E35

Roborock launched the E-series of more affordable robot vacuums in 2019, but did so without cutting the core component of what makes Roborock special: the navigation. This smart robot vacuum can 1plan routes around the house and cover every corner with an intelligent, logical pattern.

eufy RoboVac 30C

The Eufy brand has been around for a few years now and has established itself as an easy, budget-friendly recommendation. Powerful suction, long battery life, and connections to Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant combine to create an experience that feels less like a "budget pick" than ever before.

Similar cost, different audiences

The Eufy RoboVac 30C and the Roborock E35 both launched in 2019, but there are some pretty large differences between the two despite the nearly identical cost. Both are priced under $350 and offer plenty of suction for the money, but the Roborock E35 offers mopping functionality as well as significantly more advanced navigation.

Inexpensive robot vacuums often don't do a great job. Most use the old bump-and-go style of random navigation that simply can't cover every square inch of your home and have no way of resuming the cleaning job when the battery runs down. Roborock began changing that paradigm in 2019 with the launch of the E-series, and the Roborock E35 is here to challenge eufy's RoboVac 30C as the $300 robot vacuum to get.

Getting around the house

The biggest difference between these two vacuums is the style of navigation used. The eufy RoboVac 30C still utilizes the bump-and-go that gave robot vacuums a bad name for many people, as it moves in a random pattern around the house and doesn't have any rhyme or reason to its movement. The Roborock E35 utilizes a combination of gyros and an "electronic eye" to help it map out your home and plan a logical path.

This logical path means the vacuum will get every nook and cranny in your home, not only in a way that makes sense (a grid-like pattern), but one that's efficient and will actually get the job done. The eufy RoboVac 30C, meanwhile, will simply turn left any time it hits an object and keep going in that direction until it runs out of battery. This is the same behavior that Roombas of old (and other inexpensive robot vacuums) have used for years, and it's simply not an effective way to clean a house.

The way of getting around this, at least to a degree, is the offer of manual control via the remote control that ships with the eufy RoboVac 30C. This remote has commonly used buttons for changing modes or scheduling cleanings, and it also has a directional pad on it for driving the vacuum around to specific spots. There is no manual control for the Roborock E35.

When taking this planned route into account, it becomes clear that the already superior 150-minute battery life of the Roborock E35 means even more than you might have initially thought. That's 150 minutes of specifically planned out routes and, if your house is still too large to clean in a single run, the Roborock E35 has a smart recharge feature that'll charge only as much as it needs to in order to finish cleaning your house. Meanwhile, the eufy RoboVac 30C can return to the dock to recharge but has no way of returning to the spot it left off at since it doesn't map your home while it's cleaning.

Barrier of entry

Despite having vastly superior navigation, the Roborock E35 does have one big downside: size. The Roborock E35 is one full inch larger in diameter and nearly an inch taller than the eufy RoboVac 30C. Since the RoboVac 30C is so much smaller, it should be able to fit under furniture and into tighter spaces than the Roborock E35. However, given the random navigation pattern, it's likely that these spaces won't see much regular cleaning since the vacuum randomly roams around.

Both vacuums utilize magnetic strips to create a physical border. The problem with the Roborock E35 is that it doesn't ship with these borders; you'll have to order them separately. The eufy RoboVac 30C, on the other hand, ships with 26 feet of magnetic boundary strips that you can cut and customize to meet the needs of your home.

What's surprising about the Roborock E35 is that, while it maps the house during a cleaning cycle and displays the real-time location on the created floorplan within the app, it doesn't save this map. That means, unlike the Roborock S-series, you cannot create virtual boundaries or no-go zones as you can with those robot vacuums.

The power to clean

While the Roborock E35 doesn't ship with magnetic stripping, it does ship with a mopping attachment. That attachment is going to be paramount to keeping your hardwood or tile floors as clean as they could possibly be, especially if there's some nasty spill that needs to be cleaned up. Featuring the exact same design as the more expensive Roborock S-series, this mopping attachment utilizes a washable pad that is attached to a water tank.

The Roborock E35 also offers 50% greater maximum suction power than the eufy RoboVac 30C. At 2000Pa, that's enough power to suck up AA batteries and grab even the most stubborn particles in carpets. It features a full four suction modes that allow you to prioritize noise or suction power. The eufy RoboVac 30C only offers two main modes (standard or max), while both vacuums offer a carpet boost mode that'll boost the vacuum's suction level while it's on carpets.

And the winner is…

The Roborock E35's MSRP is $50 more expensive than the eufy RoboVac 30C, but the advancements in navigation paired with the mopping functionality make this a functionally superior robot vacuum. It's also got significantly better battery life and 50% greater overall suction. This one is worth the $50 splurge.