SwitchBot was one of the first brands to offer a robot vacuum with a separate station connected to your water supply to automatically refill and empty the water tank. This allows users to mop their floors without the need to refill and empty a water station themselves. With the new SwitchBot S20 Robot Vacuum, SwitchBot offers a similar version, but als a model with a regular water station with clean and dirty water tanks. While the robot vacuum itself looks almost identical to the S10, there are some new or updated features with a higher suction power and Matter 1.4 support.
Features SwitchBot S20
The SwitchBot S20 is a robot vacuum with mopping capabilities. It features 10.000 Pa suction power, compared to 6.000 Pa with the SwitchBot S10. Mopping is performed with a roller mop with 1kg downward pressure, which is able to clean itself continuously. At the base station, the mop is dried with 50°C hot air, dirty water is disposed and clean water is used to refill the robot vacuum. A LIDAR sensor and AI camera allows mapping and navigation, with a head light to support in the dark. The base station allows for 90 days of dust collection. The S20 is able to cross obstacles up to 2 cm.
When looking into the smart capabilities of the vacuum, there are several ways to control the S20. Installation and mapping happens in the SwitchBot app, as well as creating rooms, naming them, adding virtual walls and no-go zones and selecting the cleaning program. Next to the SwitchBot App, you can control the S10 in various Smart Home platforms, especially with Matter 1.4 support. This allows the S20 to connect to platforms like Apple Home and Home Assistant, with the possibility to select the rooms to clean. Matter is supported over WiFi, which means a separate SwitchBot hub is not required to set-up the S20 in Apple HomeKit.
SwitchBot S10 vs S20
There are a lot of similarities between the SwitchBot S10 and the S20. It looks identical and most features are similar. As mentioned, the suction power is increased to 10.000 Pa from 6.000. It also features two different base stations, depending on whether you like to connect it to your water supply or refill the water tank yourself. The version with a regular clean and dirty water tank should also work with the water station of the SwitchBot S10, however I was not able to find this setting yet to connect the S20 to the S10 water station. Given the recent introduction, this feature will probably arrive in a later software version. A difference is also noticeable if we look at the price. While the S10 was originally priced around €1099,99/$1099,99, the S20 is available for €799,99/$799,99. The S10 is currently available for less than €500/$500, while the S20 is regularly discounted to €639,99/$639,99.
What is unclear to me, is whether the S20 is the model that was announced at CES 2025, which was called the S20 Pro. As the S20 is not called the S20 Pro, but also does not have an extendable brush and roller mop and a suction power of 15.000 Pa, as announced at CES 2025 for the S20 Pro, we might see a Pro version of the S20 later this year or next year with these features. In that sense, the S20 is a slightly better version of the S10, but mostly with the same capabilities. The 10.000 Pa suction power is significant improvement, as well as the Matter 1.4 support and the option to directly choose a base station with build-in water tanks. An xtendable brush and roller mop would definitely be a significant step forward, to make it easier to clean corners and edges.
Daily use of the SwitchBot S20
In our testing, we’ve used the SwitchBot S20 with the regular water tanks, so without the option to connect it directly to your water supply. In our use over the last 6 weeks, the performance of the S20 was very stable. Where we did have some connectivity issues with the S10 in the past, the S20 was always connected and ready to go. As we don’t use the S20 daily, we only needed to fill and empty the water tanks once a week or less, while the dust bag is still far from full after 6 weeks of use. This makes the S20 low maintenance. Do note that it is recommended to clean several parts regularly to make sure everything is kept clean.
Given Matter 1.4 support became available to the S20 just a day or two before writing this review, we’ve mainly controlled the S20 with the SwitchBot app. This also allows for more specific settings, like controlling specific rooms or areas, opt for cleaning everything twice and set the water level to use. For deep cleaning, we liked to option to clean everything twice. This means it will clean everything horizontally, but also again, but vertically. Something to consider is battery live in this case, as larger areas might cause the S20 to pauze cleaning to charge. The S20 will continue after charging, but this significantly increases the time before the cleaning is completed.
When looking at the performance, there are several things to note. In general, the cleaning is very effective, both vacuuming and mopping. The higher suction power is a nice upgrade. We usually activate the highest suction power mode when leaving home, given the noise. When you’re at home, one of the lower suction power settings is also sufficient. After a cleaning session with the S20, we didn’t feel like we needed to do additional cleaning. This is however also depended on your level of preparation. As the S20 is quite big, it usually doesn’t fit between the legs of your chairs. Putting these on top of the table is usually our go to method, as you otherwise need to do a bit of manual cleaning afterwards. The new SwitchBot K11+ robot vacuum, which we will review later this moth, is convenient for these cases, as this robot vacuum does fit almost anywhere.
In short, we’re happy with the level of cleaning the S20 performs. It’s able to cross all barriers and didn’t get stuck anywhere over the last weeks. Of course, this will also depend on how tidy your floors are with respect to wires and other small items. For a single cleaning session, battery life is fine, if you like to do set it to clean twice for more deep cleaning, it’s advised to turn on the S20 when leaving for work or another longer activity, given it will take a while to finish a complete cleaning session. It’s also nice to be able to select all kind of specific options, the order of the rooms to clean and whether you only want to vacuum, vacuum and mop or vacuum first and mop afterwards.
Matter 1.4 support: SwitchBot S20 in Apple Home
Around mid September, the SwitchBot S20 got the update to Matter 1.4. This means you can directly connect the S20 to platforms like Apple HomeKit over WiFi. While the first day we weren’t able to create a Matter code due to a connectivity issue in the Matter settings, this was solved a day later. Via the settings in the SwitchBot app, a Matter code is created which you can use to add the device in Apple HomeKit. This allows for the following settings:
- Either vacuum or vacuum and mop
- Choose the rooms to clean: all rooms, or select specific rooms you like to clean
- In vacuum mode: only the quick cleaning mode is available
- In vacuum and mop mode: Silent, Max., Deep Cleaning or Automatic is available.
It’s currently not exactly clear to me what the modes represent with respect to the settings in the SwitchBot app, but based on the names, silent will probably lower the suction power, while max maximizes the suction power. The nice part about Apple HomeKit integration is the option to automate your cleaning sessions. This means you can start a cleaning session as soon as all your family members left home between a specific time window, while still being able to select a mode and which rooms to clean. It also means in most cases, you can control all your Smart Home devices within a single app, instead of using one for each brand. However, for more specific control, you will still need the SwitchBot app.
The SwitchBot S10 also recently got Matter 1.4 certified, so an update for the S10 to also be able to select the rooms to clean in Apple Home is expected later this year. The new SwitchBot K11+ currently already works with Matter 1.4. For more information about Matter support for robot vacuums, check our overview of all robot vacuums with Matter support.
SwitchBot S20 availability and price
The SwitchBot S20 Robot Vacuum is now available on Amazon and the SwitchBot Official Website. Currently, a 20% discount is available on the SwitchBot website, bringing the price down from €799,99/$799,99 to €639,99/$639,99. Depending on your country, discounts up to 30% are also available on Amazon. The version with Auto-Fill & Drain system is currently only available on the SwitchBot website, but is expected to appear on Amazon soon as well.
