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Hobot Legee Q10: two-minute review
The Legee Q10 is a well-priced robotic vacuum cleaner and mop that excels in some areas but disappoints in others. The good news is that the vacuum is strong and not overly loud. It’s thorough with its cleaning routine when asked to vacuum the same area twice, and its performance on hard floors in an uncluttered room is excellent.
So too is its ability to clear raised door thresholds. Climbing up from exposed floorboards to a carpet proved no match for the Q10’s tank tracks – something that can’t be said for some much pricier rivals. Setup is fairly straightforward and the app works well enough, but isn’t much to write home about. In that respect, this bot compares well to the best budget robot vacuums on the market.
In other areas, it’s not quite as strong, though. The Q10’s mopping function is good at dusting and buffing hard floors, but can’t lift dried-on stains. Worst of all is its obstacle avoidance tech, which ate stocks, nibbled at cables and crashed into door stops with such vigor that it managed to close a door and lock itself in a room more than once. Although perhaps not a robovac to be left unsupervised, and lacking the performance to rival the best robot vacuums around, the Q10 is still decent value for money considering the low price.
Hobot Legee Q10 review: price & availability
- List price: £299
- Launched: October 2024
- Available: UK (US and Australia TBC)
Legee (pronounced ‘leggy’) is a robotic vacuum cleaner sub-brand of Hobot, a Taiwanese technology company that was founded in 2010 and also specializes in robotic window cleaners.
The Legee Q10 reviewed here is a budget vacuum that includes features like LiDAR-powered navigation, multiple cleaning modes and a water tank for hard floor mopping, but it lacks the self-emptying docking stations now commonplace among (slightly) pricier robotic vacuums.
At time of writing, it’s only available in the UK. There are plans for it to launch in the US and Australia, but when and at what price are TBC. In the UK, it’s sold on Amazon and comes with a list price of £299, but I’ve seen it go for as little as £249. That’s solidly in the budget price bracket for robot vacs.
At its regular price point, the Q10 undercuts some of iRobot’s cheaper Roomba models, like the Roomba 205 DustCompactor Combo and the Roomba 105 Combo+AutoEmpty Dock, although the latter comes with a self-emptying charging dock for a more hands-off cleaning experience.
The best cheap robot vacuum ranked by TechRadar is currently the Xiaomi X20+, which comes in at the same price as the Legee Q10, but delivers more reliable navigation than the Q10 and has the trump card of a self-empty base, too.
As for Legee’s own range, the Q10 sits above the less powerful D7 but below the D8. The latter also only comes with a simple charging dock, but Legee sells a compatible self-emptying charge station called the LuLu, which works exclusively with the D8.
Back to the Q10, and I think this robot feels like decent value. It is easy to become distracted by high-flying robotic vacuums from Eufy and Roborock, and assume these products always command four-figure price tags. The Legee Q10 is a reminder that simpler robovacs without bulky self-emptying stations cost significantly less.
- Value for money score: 4 out of 5
Hobot Legee Q10 specs
|
Max suction: |
5,000Pa |
|
Robot width: |
13.6″ / 34.5cm |
|
Robot height: |
3.5″ / 9cm |
|
Dust bin volume: |
500 ml |
|
Water tank volume: |
320 ml |
|
Base type: |
Charge only |
|
Max threshold clearance: |
0.8″ / 2cm |
Hobot Legee Q10 review: design
- Familiar robovac aesthetic, with compact, charge-only dock
- D-shaped mop pad that can automatically raise over carpeted areas
- Water tank can’t be removed for filling or cleaning
The Q10 looks like most other robotic vacuum cleaners, complete with its LiDAR module on top and a spinning brush attached to a side-mounted arm. The circular robot measures 34.5cm wide and is 9cm tall. That includes the LiDAR module, but the Q10 can actually drive beneath furniture slightly lower than that, at least as far as the module, which sits about 25cm from the front. So in reality it can reach part-way under furniture just 7cm off the ground.
As with most robovacs, the Q10’s power switch is found beneath its hinged top cover. This is also how you access the removable dust bin for emptying, top up the mopping water tank, and access an included brush for clearing hair out of the robot’s rotating brushroll. The top of the robot also features a status light and a set of buttons for controlling basic functions if you don’t want to go via the Hobot Legee app.
The design of the Q10 and its small charging dock is mostly good. However, the water tank cannot be removed, so you’ll need to find a vessel for pouring water into it, rather than the usual process of detaching the tank and filling it from a tap. I found a small watering can worked well. This also means you can’t clean the water tank, which I’m concerned will get dirty over time and potentially start to smell, especially if you live in an area with hard water and don’t filter it first.
Despite claiming to pack ‘Tangless Suction’ the Q10’s roller brush doesn’t have the sort of comb usually fitted to prevent robotic vacuums from getting tangled up with long hair.
It also lacks the rotating mops often seen on pricier robots. Instead, the mopping plate is fitted with a washable and reusable cloth. The plate pushes down with a force of 600 grams (21.2 oz), and can automatically raise to avoid getting carpet wet, then lower onto hard floors, and move back and forth to scrub at dirt and polish the surface with the help of water from the onboard tank.
It’s a fairly primitive approach to floor mopping, but one that is perfectly normal at this price point. In fact, budget rivals like the Eufy Clean L60 lack mopping altogether, so while you shouldn’t expect a deep clean – and you’ll have to wash and dry the mopping pad yourself – the Q10 offers functionality some of its closest competitors lack.
Hobot Legee Q10 review: performance
- Great at traversing tall thresholds, thanks to tank tracks
- Cleans thoroughly and auto-adjusts based on floor type
- Terrible obstacle avoidance
Before completing a series of specific cleaning tasks, I set up the Q10 and used it as my only vacuum cleaner. Initial setup via the smartphone app is quick and easy, with the robot first connecting to my Wi-Fi network then performing a firmware update before its first clean.
You can set the Q10 off on its first cleaning mission right away, but instead I tapped on the Quick Mapping option to create a map of my apartment. This began well, but after a couple of rooms the robot returned to its charger and claimed the job was done, despite failing to even enter the lounge (through an open door).
On the second attempt it cleaned the entire apartment and updated its map to show the full layout of every room. I observed how the Q10 automatically adjusted its suction power when driving from hard flooring to carpet and rugs, and I was especially impressed with its ability to clamber over raised doorway thresholds.
This is a challenge that even the most expensive robotic vacuums, like the Eufy Omni S1 Pro, consistently fail. But the Q10 with its rubber tank tracks drove cleanly and reliably over every threshold. It even managed to successfully wade through a thick rug that usually causes robovacs to get stuck and call for help, and wasn’t flummoxed by the rug’s tassels either. For me, its ability to clear those raised thresholds is reason alone to consider this over much pricier rivals.
If used without water in the tank, the Q10 will still use its mopping pad as a duster, rubbing it against hard flooring to aid with the cleaning process. The pad moves back and forth by 8mm (0.31 in), and does so 900 times per minute.
As with other robotic vacuums, the Q10 uses a spinning side brush to draw dirt away from the edges and corners of each room, flicking debris into its path and collecting it by the centrally-mounted vacuum and roller brush. The vacuum is positioned ahead of the brush, and Hobot claims up to 82 percent of hair and lint is collected by the vacuum itself, so in theory only 18 percent reaches the rotating brush. This means less hair is likely to wrap around the brush and cause it to get tangled up.
There’s also a dedicated ‘Tangless Mode’, which disables the roller brush and uses only the vacuum. I haven’t seen this feature on any other robotic vacuum.
The Q10 navigates pretty well, and is confident to drive through tight spaces or under low furniture. However, I found it frequently nudged into objects like door stops and the foot pedals of a kitchen bin. I doubt this would cause damage, but it demonstrates how the Q10 tends to feel, rather than see, its way around.
Suction tests
Now for the specific tests. As always with TechRadar’s robovac reviews, I began by sprinkling a mixture of flour and crushed digestive biscuits onto my wooden kitchen floor. I then tasked the Q10 with vacuuming up the debris, starting with its least powerful suction setting, then repeatedly ramping up to the next most powerful until the floor was clean.
Image 1 of 2
I began with Eco mode. The vacuum performed well, picking up most of the flour-crumb mix without flicking it all over the kitchen floor with its rotating side brush, as robovacs are often prone to do. Despite being asked to clean the entire kitchen, it completely missed a couple of patches. As with many other robotic vacuums, asking it to perform two full passes of the same room produced much better results, and gave the Q10 a chance to pick up the debris it flicked around with its side brush on the first pass.
I recorded Eco mode at 58 decibels when used on carpet and 65 decibels on a hard floor, which is slightly louder than some other vacuums I have tested recently (the Eufy E20‘s quietest mode is 63 dB).
I then switched up to Standard mode, which is noticeably louder at 71 dB, and just as effective at picking up the flour-crumb mix. Again, asking it to perform two passes per clean produced the best results.
Finally, I enabled Power Suction mode and repeated the test with a fresh scattering of flour and crushed biscuits. This peaked at 76 dB on hard flooring (equal to the Eufy E20’s Turbo mode) and, when asked to make two cleaning passes of the same area, performed exceptionally well. It cleaned up the crumb mix so well, I couldn’t see a single piece of debris anywhere across the entire kitchen floor. In this task, the Q10 performed better than robovacs costing three or even four times the price.
Image 1 of 2
Next, I repeated the same flour-crumb mix tests on carpet, starting with Eco mode and ramping up through Standard and Power, while noting the differences between one-pass and two-pass cleaning routines.
The first attempt at crumb mix on carpet completely failed. I drew a specific area on the map for the Q10 to vacuum. It drove towards that area, but then left and ventured off into two different rooms without vacuuming. I asked it to return home to its dock, then drew another target area in the bedroom and tried again. This aspect of the user interface is poorly designed, making it tricky to accurately draw a target area. You’ll soon give up, as I did, and instead ask the Q10 to clean the whole room.
I found Eco mode wasn’t strong enough to pull the crumb mix out of the carpet. Standard mode fared much better, especially with two passes, and the carpet was thoroughly cleaned, with very little debris left behind. Considering its price, the Q10 performed very well indeed.
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I then repeated the hard floor and carpet tests with oats. This challenges the Q10 with larger debris and aims to demonstrate how well (or otherwise) a robovac can sweep up dry dirt instead of flicking it around.
As expected, targeting a specific area of hard flooring causes the Q10 to scatter the oats with its spinning side brush. Standard mode did a better job than Eco, but once oats were flicked outside of the targeted zone, they were ignored and left behind. Most robovacs struggle like this, but tend to perform far better when tasked with cleaning the entire room twice, and therefore collecting up the oats that were flicked about on the first pass.
Using Standard mode with two passes across the whole room fixed this, and provided excellent results.
Mopping tests
Onto the mopping tests, and the Q10’s Polish mode does a decent job of mopping hard floors. It uses a small amount of water, so the floor isn’t wet when it’s finished, and polishes vigorously with the mopping pad to produce good results. I tested it with some spilt water and, after one pass of the whole kitchen, the floor was clean and dry. There’s a drying mode, but this is best used if the floor is still a bit damp after mopping, or you’ve mopped it yourself and want the robot to help with the drying.
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Strangely, after polishing, the Q10 repeatedly failed to dock back into its charger. It would park up, then drive away, turn around and try again, despite the dock not having moved. I intervened, stopped the robot, then asked it to return home again, which it managed.
This was one of many navigation issues I encountered with the Q10. During a single obstacle avoidance test it managed to partially ingest and drag two USB cables across the floor. Cables remain the nemesis of even the most expensive robot vacuums, so that’s fair enough. However, it went on to get a sock stuck in its roller brush (it didn’t seem to notice) and pushed a door stop out of the way, which closed the door and trapped it in my lounge.
During the same 15-minutes test it also pushed a small table across the floor, instead of stopping and driving between its legs, and pushed a clothes airer into a position that trapped the robot in a corner of the room. In short, it was a disaster. I had seen it nudge into objects during previous tests, but this performance was on another level. You’ll need to clear every room carefully before letting this robovac loose, and unfortunately I wouldn’t trust the Q10 to avoid pet mess.
Finally, I tasked the Q10 with clearing up a very small amount of ketchup dried on a hard floor. The Q10 removed most of the stain on a single pass, but not enough to be considered a success. It also got some ketchup in its rotating side brush, which I had to remove and clean, along with the mopping pad.
Ultimately, the Q10 is good for frequent vacuuming, and is one of the best I’ve seen at navigating over raised thresholds and through thick rugs, but it reminded me of its price when faced with trickier tasks. And, while the option to mop is there, the time it takes to remove, clean and dry the mopping pad after each use offsets much of the time saved versus doing it yourself.
- Performance score: 3.5 out of 5
Hobot Legee Q10 review: app
- Reliable and covers the basics
- English appears to have been poorly translated
- Interface is fairly clunky
The Legee app works fine, but isn’t as good as rivals from the likes of Eufy. While a map can be split into rooms, and those rooms given names, the experience is clunky and not particularly intuitive. The app also uses English that appears to have been rudimentarily translated, and the whole thing generally lacks finesse.
The basics are all here though. You can set a cleaning schedule, edit the floor plan, quickly switch between vacuum and mopping modes while the robot is active, and even use the app as a remote control for driving it manually.
The water tank and dust bin status are shown with a series of icons, so you can see at a glance if they need emptying/refilling, and there’s a child lock to prevent it being activated by mistake.
Should you buy the Hobot Legee Q10?
|
Attribute |
Notes |
Rating |
|---|---|---|
|
Value |
At £299 this robovac is solidly in the budget bracket, and feels like great value for money, with its strong vacuuming and extra mopping function. |
4 / 5 |
|
Design |
Clever vacuum placement allows it to clean under the edges of furniture, and the tank track-style wheels are great at clearing raised door thresholds. Annoying that water tank can’t be removed, though. |
4 / 5 |
|
Performance |
Good suction, even in quietest Eco mode. Solid performance in most of our cleaning tests, but let down by poor obstacle avoidance. |
3.5 / 5 |
|
App |
Basic and with some patchy language translation, but mostly gets the job done. Makes individual room or whole-home cleans easy. |
3 / 5 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
How I tested the Hobot Legee Q10
I set up the Q10 in my home and used it as my primary vacuum cleaner and mop for several weeks. I tested its ability to navigate around my apartment, create a map and navigate raised door thresholds. I then conducted a number of formal tests to analyze its cleaning, mopping and navigation abilities. It was tasked with small and large debris, carpets and hard floors.
Read more about how we test robot vacuum cleaners
- First reviewed April 2025
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