Tackles spills like no other robot vacuum

I first tried the J15 Max Ultra at CES, and I’m happy to report that the bot is now available in North America. This model is an upgrade on the Eureka J15 Pro Ultra that I already loved, and I’ve had it in-house for a month now. It’s impressed me with its prowess in vacuuming any surface and, thanks to some neat navigation tricks, especially with its performance at mopping my hard floors.

Eureka went all-in with navigation sensors on the J15 Max Ultra, including LiDAR, a Line Laser, and RGB and infrared sensors. The result is fantastic mapping and navigation, as this bot has consistently and expertly traversed my space. The “IntelliView AI 2.0” system combines all of these sensors to detect wet spills that need dealing with, and spots that may need multiple mopping runs if there is a stain or extra mess to be cleaned. This is the bot’s biggest claim to fame, as it can more effectively spot transparent liquids compared to other vacuums.

Some days it ran the mopping routines for about half hour in my tests, and other days it went for well over an hour to get everything. Thankfully, there’s always been more than enough battery (6,400mAh) to do it all. The IntelliView AI 2.0 system, paired with an LED headlight so the RGB cameras can perform better, means the J15 Max Ultra also results in a consistent, reliable clean even past midnight.

With dual mops and all of these navigation smarts, my hard floors have been spotless ever since. I also really like the effectiveness of the ScrubExtend mop arm. It picks the mop heads up so they don’t wet my carpets, and it kicks the right mop head out to the side to reach the edge of the cleaning area. This works to get to the wall, into corners, and around furniture legs.

The 22,000Pa of suction power is also no joke for vacuuming performance. The bot successfully pulls the deepest dirt from my carpets, getting those pesky pine needles out of the entryway rugs. I’ve not had to clear any hair tangles, either; the FlexiRazor cutting system works great. The SweepExtend arm also has a V-shaped bristle for grabbing dirt and flicking it into the vacuum.

The J15 Max Ultra can also lift itself over thresholds, which is important for getting up on tall carpets, hopping from hallway to bathroom, and more. Thanks to this feature, this bot is able to get to and from any place in my home and get up on top of all the carpets and the pad in front of my kitchen sink.

Dropping mops

There’s just one problem with the threshold traversal system: the mop pads are magnetically removable, and they keep falling off. The removable pads are a fantastic approach to carpet-only operations, and to leave them in the base station for cleaning. It’s also great that the pads pop off for cleaning and to avoid tangles with cords and similar. Normally, the pads stick perfectly, but a pad can sometimes pop off when the bot jumps a particularly extreme transition in my house.

The bot also gets up on top of the deep bath mat in my bathroom, but, sadly, it then bunches up the carpet. When the bunched carpet hits those same removable mop pads, they pop off. When the pads pop off, the bot halts operation and calls for help. There was one cleaning day that I had to pop those pads back on four times. In each of the bathrooms, over the crawl-space trap door, and when the bot pulled the power cord out from behind a lamp.

The bot also managed to snarl a sock around the wheel’s axle during one run, so it’s a good job that the bot has many checks and sensors to halt operation before any damage can be done. Of course, many robot vacuums encounter random issues like this, and while the mops popping off is something I hope can be fixed with a firmware update, these occurrences are still pretty rare. Indeed, the Eureka J15 Max Ultra was pretty easy to set up, and ongoing maintenance has been limited to simply swapping the water tanks (after around 1,000 sqft of mopping — about 2.5 times around my mopped floor space). Detergent is also added manually to the clean water tank, which is one less thing to have to do for every refill.

The vacuum bag inside the base station is also large enough to clean my home for many weeks. Speaking of the base station, it has a heated self-clean with cleaning for the bot. I have detected no smells from the bot or the station, though, as with any robot vacuum, you’ll want to keep up with some maintenance over time to avoid any issues.

Eureka has a long history of making top-tier floor cleaning tools, and the J15 Max Ultra continues that tradition. With higher threshold clearance, a bigger battery, and higher suction power than the J15 Pro Ultra, it easily takes the crown of the best bot from Eureka. Not only that but the specs and features compare very favorably to the top bots on the market, and the $1,199 price (down from the initially announced launch price of $1,299) is reasonable compared to rivals — even more so at the time of writing as it’s on sale for $1,049.

As for those other options, the Narwal Freo Z Ultra ($1499.99 at Amazon) launched around the same time as the J15 Max Ultra, and it offers up a very similar feature set. The Freo Z Ultra does a better job at navigating obstacles and carpets, but the overall clean, convenience, and maintenance requirements are very similar.

The Roborock Saros 10R ($1599.99 at Amazon) also offers nearly identical specs and features to the J15 Max Ultra, and is better at navigation generally, but is a bit more expensive. At the price, you might want to look at really going next-level with the Narwal Flow ($1099.99 at Narwal), which is still my current top pick as best bot on the market — just be prepared to have to pay for it.