In recent years, I’ve played and toyed with tech so that it automates the tasks I loathe to free up time for those I love. There’s a palpable glee when it works. The relief that a mundane task is no longer recurring on my to-do list.

When it comes to having a ‘smart’ home though, I’m behind the times. I’ve read Reddit threads aplenty about all manner of things being automated and I’ve done so in awe and, I’m not afraid to admit, envy. You see some of the tech and gadgets, don’t come cheap. There’s also this shame-spiralling thing surrounding being lazy which always comes as a kneejerk inner narrative when I even dip my toes into it all.

The rational side of me? That side of me understands that we only get one life and spending it doing things we loathe is a complete waste of it. Bolstered by that train of thought and by a very generous sale one Saturday afternoon, I decided to buy a Robot Vacuum Cleaner which is also a Robot Mop Cleaner too. My only regret is that I didn’t take the plunge sooner. You see, I’m in love. Completely and utterly bowled over.

We have these hardwood floors which show up every speck of dust. Keeping on top of it all is a futile task. One I’ve always begrudged because I’m just not a fan of hoovering or mopping, even more so when you don’t get to reap the benefits of all that effort for very long. Now though… Now I get to wake up every morning to spick and span floors.

We bought Eufy in the sale on Amazon and we got it for a steal. The set-up was mega-easy. Surprisingly, so. It took minutes. There’s a really handy app that helps you control all aspects of the robot and guides you through set-up.

The first time we set Eufy to go, it mapped out the floor plan and I was mesmerised watching it do its thing. Our model allows us to map out three floors which is super handy as we have two and wanted to be able to make use of Eufy (yes, it’s the brand name, but yes, we do refer to our robot vacuum cleaner as a living thing called Eufy) upstairs too – the last thing we wanted to do was fork out for two robots.

There was a bit of an ‘oh no, ah god, eek, ah’ when it was mapping upstairs near the stairs but it’s a right ol’ clever clog and realised they were a no-go zone. It was magic to watch it navigate all of the nooks and crannies, even managing to fit under our kitchen cupboards and beds. Our house is a mix of hardwood and carpet and Eufy allows us to set no-mop zones and no-go zones. The settings allow you to choose for the vacuum and/or mop to focus on a zone (in case of a spillage, for example), a room or a floor plan.

We’ve set a schedule for Eufy to hoover and mop our downstairs floors every morning at 6 am. So quiet is Eufy that we don’t hear him go and by the time we’ve risen, Eufy has made his way back to his charging dock. When we want Eufy upstairs, we simply wait for it to recharge fully and then take it up, choosing whether we want Eufy to hoover everywhere or just set rooms. You can also adjust the power of the suction and the amount of water the mop uses. I’m always a bit icked out when I choose the turbo suction and see just how much dust and dirt the vacuum cleaner has sucked up. Impressive, though.

Eufy doesn’t bother our dog either. Henry the Hoover scares and unsettles our dog, Winnie, causing him to stress eat and bark. Eufy? Winnie couldn’t care less about Eufy, even when we have it on the higher suction levels.

Every evening, I simply empty the hoover and top-up the water tank. It takes less than two minutes each time. The first time, it was difficult to see what buttons I needed to press but now I’m an old hat at it. There is just one teeny downside to Eufy and that’s that this model we have is one where you can’t use floor cleaner in the water tank so we still need to disinfect our floors each week. In the past though, it felt more annoying to do so because we’d always have to hoover first. I don’t need to do that anymore which makes mopping feel like a breeze.

An unexpected and somewhat contradictory side effect of having the floors taken care of is that I have finally hit my cleaning era because of it. Now that the job I hated is off my plate, there’s more mental energy to focus on other tasks.