Vactidy Nimble T8 review: Good price, bad performance

Best Prices Today: Vactidy Nimble T8

Despite brands pushing luxe, high-tech robot vacuums, there is still a need for basic offerings that fit within more down-to-earth budgets. That’s clearly what Vactidy had in mind for its Nimble T8, a 2-in-1 combo cleaner that can vacuum and mop your home without fancy interactive maps or a space-hogging, self-cleaning base station.

But even with its affordable price tag (the T8 has a $279 list price, but you can pick it up from Amazon for $119 with a $40-off coupon), users will likely feel cheated if they encounter the same issues I did.

A robot vacuum that spends more time charging than cleaning isn’t worth anyone’s investment.

Design

The Nimble T8 has a slim design, measuring just 12 inches across and about 2.9 inches high. That’s not as svelte as the Switchbot Mini Robot Vacuum K10+, but it’s still notably smaller than most robot vacuums, whose dimensions are typically around 13×3 inches or so. My first thought when unboxing the T8 was that it would be perfect for small, confined spaces, like college dorm rooms and studio apartments.

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

The vacuum has a max suction of 3,000 Pa, which seems about right for vacuum its size and price, and uses a simple bristle-and-rubber roller brush and two spinning side brushes to sweep debris from the floor into its 250ml dust bin. A separate 230ml water tank and mop pad can be attached to the dustbin to wet clean hard floors.

A remote control, two extra side brushes, a spare mop pad and HEPA filter, and a cleaning tool are also included. 

Navigation

The robot uses gyroscopic navigation—or GyroNav, as Vactidy calls it—for obstacle avoidance.

The technology employs rotating light sensors to determine where obstacles in your home are relative to the robot. When the light is blocked, the robot knows to change direction. Gyroscopic navigation isn’t as accurate or efficient as camera- or laser-based mapping, but a good gyroscopic system will–or should, anyway–prevent a robot vacuum from crashing into things and enable it to move in a methodical pattern. 

You can operate the vacuum with the remote control or the Vactidy app. Both let you control the various cleaning and suction modes, but the app enables additional useful functionality such as the ability to monitor cleaning details and the vacuum’s battery level. It’s also required to run mopping jobs. 

To use the app, you need to connect the vacuum to your Wi-Fi. During the setup process, the app uses your phone’s Bluetooth to scan for the vacuum, then has you enter your network login credentials. I was able to get the vacuum connected in a couple of minutes.

To begin cleaning, you power the vacuum on and select Auto mode. The vacuum will run in Standard suction mode on hard floors and automatically boost to Max mode on carpet. In Spot, Deep, and Room cleaning modes, the vacuum will clean in a designated pattern until the task is finished. 

For mopping jobs, you fill the water tank from your tap and snap it to the bottom of the dustbin. You can select from four levels of water to control the dampness of the mop pad.

Performance

I wouldn’t expect a gyro-mapping robot to be as precise as one navigating by camera or laser, but the Nimble T8 was downright clumsy in my two weeks of testing.

It tended to bump into obstacles–including furniture legs, a guitar stand, and even my patio door–rather than avoid them. Once it rammed a side table hard enough to knock a glass off of it. The T8 also had a penchant for finding and getting tangled in cords no matter how tidily I tucked them out of the way. 

I might have been able to live with the vacuum’s graceless movements had I been able to keep it moving at all. Vactidy says the Nimble T8’s 2500mAh battery is rated for up to 100 minutes runtime. It never came close in my tests. 

The first time I ran the vacuum, it started with a 54-percent charge. After just 13 minutes, the battery level dropped to 15 precent and the vacuum had to return to its base to recharge. With its battery charged to 70 percent, I ran a second job. This time it stopped cleaning after only 7 minutes and returned to recharge, even though its battery level was still at 54 percent. This pattern repeated itself throughout my testing; even with a fully charged battery, the vacuum rarely cleaned for more than 10 minutes before having to return to its base.

The Nimble T8’s poor battery performance is a shame, because it did a very good job vacuuming my floors. Dust, food crumbs, clumps of cat hair—it removed all of them with ease.

The T8 fared less well as a mop, but no worse than similar 2-in-1 vacuums. Dragging a damp mop pad over the floor will remove most grime that is sitting on the surface, but it doesn’t supply the necessary scrubbing to remove embedded dirt and stains the way robots with rotating pads do. 

Being the budget-priced bot that it is, the Nimble T8 requires more frequent maintenance than a higher-end robot vacuum does. That means you’ll need to dump the contents of the T8’s dustbin after—and sometimes during—each cleaning, as well as remove waste from the filter. You should also wash the mop pad and dry the water tank after each mopping to avoid odor and bacteria from building up.

Should you buy the Vactidy Nimble T8?

It should be obvious that a robot vacuum that spends more time charging than cleaning isn’t worth anyone’s investment.

I’m hoping the Nimble T8’s thirsty battery issues can be resolved with an update at some point, because it otherwise seems like a competent floor cleaner with a great price. I just can’t recommend it right now.

Best Prices Today: Vactidy Nimble T8