Eureka’s new robot vac can tackle wet messes

Most robot vacuum mops can tackle mopping your floors and maybe scrub up a dried-on stain, but let them trundle through a puddle of spilled milk or juice, and they’re likely to smear the liquid around. If they do suck any up, it could seriously damage the robot’s internals — robot vacuums are not wet / dry vacs.

Robot vacuum manufacturer Eureka claims to have solved this problem with its new J15 Max Ultra ($1,299). According to the company, this robot vacuum and mop, debuting at CES 2025, can accurately spot liquids and automatically rotate its body to tackle wet spills with its mopping pads.

“The J15 Max Ultra adds an infrared vision system to the robot vac, so it can detect the 3D structure of anything in front of it no matter what the lighting is,” Yuan Ruan, PR manager of Midea Group, which owns Eureka, told The Verge in an interview. This allows it to spot and react to liquid spills, both clear and colored. In addition to mopping first, it also raises its roller brush to avoid sucking any liquid into the bin.

While most people aren’t likely to leave wet puddles on their floors — grabbing some paper towel to soak it up only takes a few seconds — it’s feasible that a pet might leave a wet mess while you’re not home. This type of advancement in the capabilities of a robot vacuum to react to what it’s cleaning and adjust appropriately is encouraging.

Over the past few years, high-end robot vacuums have gotten smarter about identifying and reacting to specific objects — such as cables, solid pet waste, and socks — using cameras and computer vision.

Models from companies like iRobot and Roborock can determine what to do based on the type of object they spot. So, rather than simply avoid an object, they will adapt how they clean if they spot certain items. For example, if it’s a pet bowl or kitty litter tray, get close and increase the suction; if it’s a Christmas tree or potted plant, approach with care.

Image: Eureka

Eureka’s new liquid spotting ability builds on this type of intelligence. Eventually, we’ll get to the point where robot vacuums can accurately identify most items in our homes and clean them similar to how we would.

Eureka’s smarts are powered by its new IntelliView AI 2.0 technology, which adds IR vision to the robot’s lidar navigation system and uses computer vision to help it decide how to clean what it sees or if it should avoid it.

Image: Eureka

The Eureka J15 Max Ultra is an upgrade to the J15 Pro Ultra ($999.99), which can identify colored liquids but not clear or white ones. The Max also features a new extendable side brush that can reach out into corners (a feature first seen in the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra). It also adds increased suction power — up to 22,000Pa from 16,500Pa — increased battery capacity, and a threshold crossing height of up to 40mm.

Both models feature Eureka’s FlexiRazor tech that uses razors inside the robot’s brush system to cut out tangles and dual spinning mop pads that can extend into corners and edges and light up when they detect carpet. The J15 line also has auto-empty base stations that can refill the mopping tank and wash and dry the robot’s mop pads with hot water and air.

The company also introduced the more affordable J15 Ultra to its lineup at CES. The $799 model has most of the same features as the $1,000 J15 Pro Ultra, including the ability to detect colored liquids, but with an increased 19,000Pa of suction power. It will be available in March 2025. The J15 Max Ultra will be available in June 2025.