In my video last week, shown again below, I gave an overview of this new Xiaomi-backed vacuum cleaner. This, the lightweight and easy-to-use ROIDMI F8, is on Indiegogo right now.
A close-up of the attachment / release mechanism
In my previous video above I gave you a quick tour and there was a look at some of the attachments you get with the device too. They’re easy enough to click on – just push on and you’re done. To release, push the catch down and pull.
The attachments received in the box are shown above
However, on the video above I was a little far away from the microphone towards the end, so I’ve filmed a second video showing how the additional gadgets fit onto the vacuum and how easy it is to do so…
Operating the vacuum is easy enough, there’s just two buttons on the handle. One turns it on and switches the power, whilst the other just does the power switch part. They’ve done that so that you can adjust the suction level without moving your hand too much as you tend to hold the vacuum in a slightly different way in the upright setting rather than the “I’m doing the stairs” mode.
The pipe-work is easily detachable and you can easily switch this from a vacuum for around the house to one for cleaning out the car. The lack of cable is definitely a bonus and we just about manage to get the house done on the “high speed” setting. In daily use we tend to use it to clean the main carpet into the house and the lounge too. The stairs, I’ll confess, are so much easier with this thing.
Swapping rollers from the “wood floor” to “carpet” could prove to be irritating, so we just left it on the carpet one and that seemed to work OK, although slightly less effective on wood floors than.. the wood floor roller. That all said, it was really easy to switch – it’s just that you don’t tend to want to do that when you’re cleaning.
Our regular vacuum is a Dyson DC07. It’s powered from the wall directly and, in all honesty, it’s not really a fair comparison. The Dyson is heavy at 8.7KG and a nightmare on stairs. The F8 is 2.5KG. The Dyson is 1,400 watts. The F8 is 115 watts. So, how do the two compare? Well, here’s me pitching the two against each other.
The Dyson won in part because it’s quite heavy, so it pressed down into the pile and pushed it along. I should really compare the ROIDMI F8 with the similar-looking Dyson V8, so here’s the official comparison sheet with that …
Charging, as I touched on in part one of this review, is done via a small charging plug at the top of the handle. This is covered by a small rubber flap and the whole thing should sit, cleverly magnetised, into a cradle on the wall. In theory the vacuum should hold itself against this strong magnet so that you can store this neatly on the wall.
The only problem is that this just doesn’t work. The vacuum is too heavy, even with everything removed. I only found this out after I’d placed the small disk onto the wall, so in the end I created my own hook which worked rather well.
My makeshift hook because the magnet wouldn’t hold it.
I placed the charger – which in this review unit is a US-style plug on – right next to it so the cable was nearby. It takes about 2.5 hours to fully charge the battery. You get 10 minutes of use on “high power” mode and 55 minutes on “normal” power. The vacuum uses an 8-cell LG 2500mAh battery.
Of course, after all that cleaning you’re going to have a full dust collector. This, like many vacuums now, doesn’t use bags or anything like that. Instead there’s a filter at the top which you can clean with a brush (provided in the packaging) and a clear dust “bin” which is easy to remove and empty. Like Dyson machines, you can clean this and sort out the odd blockage easily. You’ll notice the “gap” on the roller on this one. I accidentally vacuumed up a USB cable and it caused the gap, but it was easy enough to remove the roller, detangle the cable and sort the problem.
The Roidmi F8 uses a four-layer filtration system on the filter up top. I got an extra one in the box but, with a quick brush and a bash over the bin, you can clean it up easily. It’ll stop hair, dust, allergens and dirt. They tell me that it’ll last up to 90 days – I found that a wash would get rid of the more stubborn bits. After drying it, I could go again.
Here’s how you empty it out. This is me standing over my wheelie bin, so don’t expect bells and whistles 🙂
The vacuum moved around easily. I liked the very flexible but strong “head” and the LED lighting which illuminated in our shoe cupboard, under the sofa and so on. I also liked how easily I could add the additional attachments. If I was to offer any criticism, it would be that I wished the attachments could somehow be connected or carried around on the vacuum so that they were to hand, but overall – the power, the price and the design… it was all premium and very well thought out.
The LED brightness alters depending on the surrounding light
Each LED shows 25% battery
I liked the geeky but cool app (this was very well done). To know how many calories you’ve used is, well, I thought that was fun. The Bluetooth connection lets you view battery usage, filter capacity and it’ll tell you when you need to empty the thing. I liked how quickly it recharged – half the time of the Dyson V8. It’s quieter than our big old Dyson DC07. It’s lighter than the portable Dyson V8 competitor too.
Right now you can get this thing via Indiegogo but it’s also appearing on eBay and it’ll be available more widely very soon. What interests me, especially coming via a smartphone manufacturer, is how well this is done. Dyson should be worried. This is a very good bit of kit. High spec, high quality, lightweight, powerful, strong, clever and intelligent. It’s very well designed, very well thought-out and … well, our regular Dyson DC07 hasn’t been turned on since we started reviewing this. That’s all you need to know.
— Missed part one? Read it here