Eureka J15 Pro Ultra review: Eureka’s best robot vacuum cleaner

I’ve had one or another Eureka robot vacuum running around my house every day for months now, and there’s no doubt that the J15 Pro Ultra is the best of the bunch. In just a few months, Eureka has undergone rapid improvements, resulting in significantly improved navigation and improved operational reliability.

In one of my favorite updates, Eureka takes a barbershop approach to tangled hair by adding a cutting system to the J15 Pro Ultra that literally cuts hair off the main roller. Let’s see how well it works and what else Eureka’s ultra-premium robot vacuum cleaner can do.

An important and perhaps underappreciated feature of any robot vacuum is the ability to move around your home safely and efficiently. I’m happy to report that the Eureka J15 Pro Ultra handled this with ease during my tests. Eureka’s Smart Clean mode can detect room types, furniture and floor types to optimize the cleaning solution for that space, and their new AI-powered clutter identification system helps determine how best to clean.

Eureka has also increased the suction power, bringing the J15 Pro Ultra’s suction pressure to 16,200 Pa. This is more than double the previous generation flagship bots, such as the 8200Pa of the Narwal Freo X Ultra or the 8000Pa of the Eureka J20 or the more affordable Eureka E20 Plus.

The Eureka J15 Pro Ultra reduces run time between maintenance by adding FlexiRazor hair cutting technology to the main brush. This row of small blades grab onto the captured hair, shredding it into small pieces as it is suctioned. I was curious about this approach when I heard about it, and I admit that it works quite well. Eureka was already good at dealing with tangled hair, and now it’s even better.

Perhaps my favorite feature is that the Eureka J15 Pro Ultra can move its little back leg out to the side, like a happy puppy being scratched. ScrubExtend simply rotates the right mop head to the side. The brush can then be pressed directly against the wall for better coverage.

Plus, I can’t leave out the best bonus feature – Video Patrol mode. I like the idea of ​​taking manual control of a bot and looking through its camera to patrol my home. At least I like this idea. In practice the camera is not very good, especially in the dark.

According to the instructions, the Eureka J15 Pro Ultra will be able to work for several weeks without your intervention. During testing, I had to touch the bot or at least open the application at least once a week.

After vacuuming my house almost every day for almost two weeks, I expect the dust collection system to be able to last three or four months before it fills up or otherwise requires me to maintain it. When it comes to mopping, a full tank of clean water can clean about 1,400 square feet of floors at normal humidity settings.

Overall, I’m pleased with the J15 Pro Ultra’s ability to move around the house. It covered the space as expected and penetrated corners and small objects quite well. With the exception of one incident with the USB cable, I did not have to save the bot. The cable stretched across the floor, the bot began to suck it in, but stopped when the front bumper activated. The cable didn’t get tangled, I just pulled it out and the bot was able to continue cleaning.

Location tracking is accurate, the bot is always where the app shows it to be, and the bot returns home without any problems.

The J15 Pro Ultra performed well at identifying new spaces beyond the initial mapping. You can see new places on the map, including behind my patio door and inside the garage when I left that door open one day. These are places that the bot can’t reach and I don’t want him to be there, but they are accurately placed and mapped. However, I encountered one strange bug when working with maps. For some unknown reason, the map of my space is duplicated and shifted by 90 degrees. The mixture of the two maps confused the bot and I would have to remap my space.

In the image above, the map on the left is mostly accurate, except for “Room 6,” which has a view of my patio through the glass door. It’s strange that he only sees one line and not the entire patio, but, nevertheless, I don’t let the bot outside. (I also kept the door to the second bathroom closed, which is between “Room 1” and “Room 2”.

For the map on the right, let’s look at the map errors:

1. “Room 1” is again the courtyard.
2. The “living room” is actually my kitchen and dining room.
3. “Room 2” and its attached “Bathroom” are actually my garage. There are a couple of steps down there, so the bot won’t be able to go up there.
4. The blue “Bedroom” is just my hallway.
5. The entire purple area labeled “Bedroom” in the top left corner of the map is a copied and distorted copy of my kitchen. You can see that the clearing route thinks it is there, but the base station location indicated by the bot icon is the actual base station location. The bot thinks that the base station is now located where the shoe icon is, but in fact it is located outside the house.

Fortunately, removing the map and remapping the space is easy. Other than this big glitch and some mislabeled rooms, the map is very accurate and the bot had no other problems with navigation or route planning.

From Eureka’s line of robot vacuum cleaners, there’s no doubt that the J15 Pro Ultra is my new favorite. It cleans well, moves well, and is quiet enough that it won’t ruin my work day. Compared to its competitors, the J15 Pro Ultra cleans as well or better than most and handles obstacles better than most. I appreciate that I didn’t have to put much effort into keeping the bot running, but I did have to test the app more than expected.

If you’re not present when you receive the notification, you’ll have to dive into the app to decipher the messages and figure out why your bot isn’t working. Usually it’s just an empty/full water can or something like that, simple fixes.

At the end of the day, I would be happy to have the Eureka J15 Pro Ultra in my home. I’ll admit that the Narwal Freo Z Ultra ($1,499.99 on Amazon) is still my favorite bot for ease of use, but they both leave floors sparkling clean! Not to mention, the J15 Pro Ultra has the benefit of being $500 cheaper, so if you want a premium robot vacuum but don’t want to break the $1,000 barrier, this option is a great choice.