I have been testing the Xiaomi Robot Vacuum 5 in my home for several days, and I am impressed with its ability to keep my floors clean without getting in my way.
I no longer need to sweep and mop my floors several times a month, and I'm never stressed if a guest comes over at the last minute.
The Xiaomi Robot Vacuum 5 gives me the confidence that my home will always be clean and ready.
What I like most about it is that it doesn't require regular attention or a hands-on approach - I can set it and leave it for extended periods.
For example, it comes with a docking station that charges the vacuum, automatically empties the dirt, and even cleans the mop pads.
The dustbin of the docking station then only needs to be emptied every 75 days, which is the kind of long-term convenience that quickly becomes part of your daily routine.
While the Xiaomi Robot Vacuum 5 is packed with cool features that make it fun to use, what matters most is its raw cleaning performance - and it knocks it out of the park.
Xiaomi equipped it with a powerful 20,000Pa vacuum and anti-tangle main and side brushes, ensuring it had no trouble lifting dirt from hard floors and rugs, or reaching into corners.
This meant it gathered dust, crumbs, sand, and pet hair on everything from plush carpets to hard surfaces such as tiles without any hassle.
On non-carpet surfaces, the Xiaomi Robot Vacuum 5 would also deploy its mop function, ensuring each surface remained clean whether I messed a few crumbs or spilt an entire drink.
Once it had vacuumed and mopped a section of the floor, things started to get even more interesting - and this is where the value of the robot vacuum really shone through.
It returned to the docking station to "refuel."
This is what really takes the Xiaomi Robot Vacuum 5 to the next level, as it offers features I haven't seen before - it washes the mop pads with 80-degree Celsius hot water and dries them with hot air.
This means the robot vacuum will dock itself, and the station will vacuum out the dirt into its own dirt bag, refill the water tank, and charge the vacuum.
A 4-litre tank in the station then means you don't need to refill it frequently, while the 2.5-litre dustbag only needs to be emptied every 75 days.
The Xiaomi Robot Vacuum 5's navigation capabilities were impressive thanks to its reliance on D-ToF LiDAR.
It confidently moves around the house without aggressively knocking into every obstacle, staying within the previously defined area it mapped using these sensors.
It glides around table legs, avoids me when I walk into its path, and slows down when approaching furniture, rather than playing a game of 'bump-and-guess' with every object.
The D-ToF sensor projects out the top of the robot vacuum, but also retracts to allow it to slip under low furniture like beds or couches as low as 9.5mm.
This ensured it reached all the places I would definitely have neglected in my usual cleaning routine.
The Xiaomi Robot Vacuum 5 didn't only duck under objects - it could climb them, too.
It was able to ramp onto mats, or move room-to-room by jumping from tile to carpet.
Furthermore, when its ultrasonic floor sensor detected a carpet, it automatically lifted its mop pads by 15mm to keep my carpets dry.
The Xiaomi Home app was where the Robot Vacuum 5 truly became convenient, because it gave me full control without feeling complicated.
Once the vacuum mapped my home, I could divide rooms, rename them, and create no-go zones.
The scheduling options were extensive, too. I set fixed cleaning times on specific days, chose vacuum-only or vacuum-plus-mop modes per room, adjusted the suction strength, and even chose water flow levels for mopping.
If you want the bedroom vacuumed every morning at 9, the living room mopped every second day, and the kitchen cleaned after dinner - the app lets you do exactly that.
Together, the app and smart scheduling turn the Xiaomi Robot Vacuum 5 into a cleaning system you barely need to think about.
It runs when you want, avoids the areas you block, cleans the surfaces you specify, and maintains itself quietly in the background.