Yeedi C12 Pro Plus review: Great cleaner, but also a sock eater

Yeedi’s brand-new C12 Pro Plus is a decently priced robot vacuum that sweeps and mops with ease, and it also comes with a self-emptying dust bin.

The C12 Pro Plus takes a methodical approach to cleaning your floors. The app is extremely helpful in directing the robot to clean whatever room or area you want, and you can also integrate the bot into your smart home and control it with voice commands. 

But while the Yeedi had no problem finding its way around the rooms in my home, it tended to wander aimlessly when heading back to the base station, and it also liked to gobble up socks and other obstacles in its path.

Design

The Yeedi C12 Pro Plus comes packed with parts and accessories in its unassuming cardboard box, including:

• The vacuum itself
• Charging base and dust bin
• Mopping pad plate 
• Two mop heads

All items are properly packaged and protected against bumps. There is no instruction booklet, but you can scan a QR code on the robovac to begin the easy-to-follow setup process. More on that later. 

The Yeedi C12 Pro Plus measures 13.4 x 3.9 inches (WxH), which makes for a sleek robot. The stylishly black Yeedi comes with a matching base station, while the bagless dust container is made of transparent plastic with a red rubber filter inside. The downside of the black station is that it makes all the tiny hairs it inevitably attracts all the more visible.

Gabriela Vatu

Gabriela Vatu

Gabriela Vatu

The charging station measures 14 x 17.8 x 15 inches (WxDxH). Unlike other stations, this one is more oval in shape rather than rectangular, which is a nice design touch. When docked, the robot sticks out quite a bit, so you’ll have to make sure there’s a safe space for it where you won’t end up tripping over the whole thing. 

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best robot vacuums.

As mentioned, the C12 Pro Plus one has a bagless design, which I loved. Not only did I not have to worry about buying extra bags, but I could also wash out the bin whenever I wanted. That’s a much more eco-friendly approach than using disposable bags. 

Setup

Setting up the Yeedi C12 Pro Plus is easy. This isn’t the first Yeedi device I’ve owned (the Yeedi Cube is usually in charge of keeping my floors clean), so I was familiar with the process. But even if this is your first Yeedi product, the setup process should be intuitive. 

The base station comes preassembled, so you only have to take it out of the box and place it in its designated space. The only thing you have to attach is the plastic plate the robot will sit on. 

One thing that was a bit annoying is that the plate does not snap onto the base station, so if you need to move the base (which I did when I was initially positioning it in the room) you’ll have to pick up the station, return for the plate, and put them back together. It’s not the end of the world, but it was a bit annoying, especially since the Yeedi Cube’s plate does click into place. 

Then, you must remove the robot’s cover and scan the QR code. This will take you to the app store, where you can download the Yeedi app.

Once the app is set up on your device, you can tap the QR code scanner tool in the corner and scan the robot again. This will kickstart the setting up process, and the app will take you through every step, including connecting the robot to Wi-Fi (2.4GHz only) and downloading any necessary software updates.

The app gives you information about the robot’s battery life, status, location, progress through the cleaning job, and even tell you when the various accessories need maintenance. 

Room mapping

As soon as your new robovac is paired up in your app, it will want to map your house. The whole process took about five minutes for my home, although I did have to close off a room to keep my pets at bay. During this process, the robot won’t be cleaning the floors; instead, it simply moves around to get a sense of the area.

The Yeedi C12 Pro Plus uses LDS laser navigation to measure the relative position of the boundaries. Yeedi calls this TrueMapping, an intelligent path-planning technique that scans the house. The initial scan was pretty accurate, managing to figure out where room borders are despite the presence of various furniture pieces.

You can save and edit up to three maps on the Yeedi app, merging or splitting rooms as you go as well as naming them. You can even choose the order in which rooms should be cleaned.

Features

This new Yeedi has four suction levels, allows you to control the water volume during cleanings, and can even have the robot do two passes every round. You can easily schedule cleaning jobs by picking the times and days when you want the robot to run.

The Yeedi app offers three ways to clean your home. The Auto mode will just have the robot run around your entire home and enter whatever rooms are open to it. Then there’s a mode where you choose which rooms it should clean (just tap the rooms on the map). 

Finally, there’s the “Zone” mode, where you can place a rectangle over whatever area you want to be cleaned. You can adjust a zone’s size however you see fit, which is helpful for getting the robot to clean those specific areas you want. Even better, you can set up five of these areas. 

Now, on to what the Yeedi C12 Pro Plus actually does. As mentioned, this robot can both vacuum and mop. There are two separate buffer heads you can use. The first is pretty much an area filler, while the second is the actual mopping plate. If you want the robot to only vacuum, you’ll have to attach the first accessory. 

Gabriela Vatu

Gabriela Vatu

Gabriela Vatu

The Yeedi C12 Pro can automatically detect carpets and avoid them when the mopping head is on. That same sensor increases the suction power up to 8,000 Pa when running over a carpet.

The mop head has a cloth pad attached with very fine loop-and-hook fasteners and a rail on the side. Once the mopping job is done, all accessories—water, electricity, and so on–should be removed for safety reasons. Plus, you’ll want to wash that cloth pad before the next cleaning job. If you need to run another cleaning job before the first mop is dry, you can always use the second one included in the box. 

The dust bin inside the robot can be removed easily, but you won’t have to do that unless you want to clean it every so often. Otherwise, the station will take care of sucking out all the debris. When you want to empty the charging station’s dust receptacle, you just take out the bin, press a button, and empty everything into the trash. 

The Yeedi app can be integrated with multiple smart home systems, including Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, and others. 

Performance

Gabriela Vatu

Gabriela Vatu

Gabriela Vatu

I tested the C12 Pro Plus on multiple surfaces, including carpets and hard floors, and it performed well on all of them. When switching between surfaces, you can clearly hear the suction power change accordingly. 

Did the robot reach all areas? Well, not really. The Yeedi could not go under my couch due to the raised laser system, nor did it catch some pet fluff in a corner. However, whatever other cleaning the robot did, it performed well. Not only did it catch all the dust and hair, but it also mopped the floors pretty well. More on that in a second.

When I ran the first cleaning, I set all features to maximum—top suction power, high water flow, and high vibration frequency. I was half-expecting to see some water trails, wheel tracks, and so on. That didn’t happen, however, as the mop cleaned the area and left few or no traces behind. The C12 Pro Plus mopping pad can vibrate up to 480 times per minute, which explains why it did such a good job.  

I ran multiple cleaning jobs with various settings and the vacuum definitely performed best when the settings were maxed out, especially the mopping. Speaking of which, that vibrating plate managed to remove a bunch of coffee splashes I left to dry on purpose and all the water stains left around the water bowl after my puppy drank and dripped all over the place.

I ran a few other tests on the C12 Pro Plus. During the first test, I “dropped” a half cup of rice on the cream-colored hard floors. Frankly, the rice was hard enough to see that the only way I’d find it was with my bare feet. But the Yeedi found all grains without issue.

For the second test, I poured cat kibble on the floor (I wanted to use cereal, but wouldn’t you know it–my kid ate it all). The Yeedi gobbled up all the cat food without issue. 

Finally, I dropped some superfine coffee grounds and was frankly afraid that the little side brush would just spew them all over the place. Instead, it cleaned everything perfectly.  

Obstacle avoidance

While the Yeedi C12 Pro Plus performed well at actually cleaning the floors, it failed the avoidance tests.

It completely ate a stray sock I put in its path, which got stuck in the brush, and it didn’t seem to avoid any of the other objects I left in its path. It also pushed around a stuffed animal I borrowed from my son, as well as the sandals I left lying around. It even pushed my cat away, which is probably a good thing because it was heading for the feline’s tail.

Now, my pets have long stopped having incidents indoors, but I’m not convinced this robovac would have avoided any droppings had they been in its path.

Back on the plus side, the Yeedi C12 Pro Plus did manage to avoid bumping into the furniture, closing in within a few millimeters and then turning. The same thing happened with walls and even our feet. 

One thing I noticed about this particular robot, however, is that it would often get lost while looking for its base station. When finishing a job, I’d watch it enter multiple rooms for no reason before eventually finding its way back to the station, with the whole process taking a few minutes. 

Whether this is because of the LDS system it uses, which creates 2D maps rather than the 3D maps LiDAR systems do, is unclear, but the robot rode a fine line between amusing and annoying by taking so long to find its way home. 

Dust bin

One of the main selling points for the Yeedi C12 Pro Plus is that is bagless design will save you money in the long run.

Of course, you will have to get hands-on with the dust bin, but it’s not as gross as it sounds thanks to a clever design that separates pet hair from actual dirt. 

Specifically, all the dirt, dust, rice, kibble, and whatever else the Yeedi vacuums up sits at the very bottom of the container, while all the hair gets caught up in a red rubber component at the top. After opening the dust bin’s bottom door to dump out the finer debris, you then pull out the entire red rubber section to release any hair clumps. 

While this is certainly not the same “no touch” approach other robovacs have these days, it wasn’t a terrible experience.

Battery life

As far as battery life goes, I’d say the Yeedi estimated the C12 Pro Plus pretty accurately. The company states the robot can run for 300 minutes, although that’s probably with the lowest-power cleaning settings.

During my testing–and with all guns blazing–the vacuum’s battery life went from 100 to 63 percent after cleaning for 95 minutes.

Specifications

• Robot dimensions: 13.4 x 3.9 inches (WxH)
• Base station dimensions: 14 x 17.8 x 15 inches (WxDxH)
• Maximum suction: 8,000 Pa
• Self-emptying dust bin: Yes
• Navigation: LDS
• Dust bin capacity: 0.4l
• Water tank capacity: 220ml
• Smart home integrations: Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home

Should you buy the Yeedi C12 Pro Plus vacuum?

On the pro side, the Yeedi C12 Pro Plus does a thorough job of vacuuming and mopping, complete with a tangle-free brush that actually works and that cool rubber hair collector in the bagless dust bin. 

On the con side, the vacuum sure takes its time getting home, and you will need to prep the floors before you let it loose, or it will go over your socks without a second thought. 

Would I recommend the C12 Pro Plus at its full $500 price? Well, not really, especially since the Yeedi Cube is only slightly more expensive and that model can clean its own mop, and it also has a profile that’s low enough to scoot under sofas. 

If you can snag it for less, however (at this writing, Amazon is selling the vacuum with a $130-off coupon), the C12 Pro Plus becomes a lot more compelling. despite its navigation and obstacle avoidance deficiencies.