SwitchBot K20+ Pro Patrol Kit review: A fun but flawed robot guard

Best prices today: SwitchBot K20+ Pro Patrol Kit

Retailer

Price

Check

Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide

Product

Price

Backmarket Price Comparison

SwitchBot is known for making original smart home products, and its SwitchBot K20+ Pro Patrol Kit is certainly no exception. Part mini robot vacuum and mop, part automated security guard, it promises to clean your floors while patrolling your home with an indoor security camera mounted atop a stacked mobile base, like a triple-decker bus.

Yes, it’s a strange combo, but it works, even if it’s not the case in every household (I’ll get to that in a moment). The bundle reviewed here includes the small SwitchBot K20+ Pro robot vacuum/mop, its self-emptying base station, a mobile dock that can accommodate various accessories, and a SwitchBot Pan/Tilt Cam Plus 3K security camera. You’ll also need the $120 SwitchBot Hub 3 Matter certified smart home hub to make everything work.

Features and design

The small SwitchBot K20+ Pro robot vacuum/mop is the heart of the system. It attaches to a rolling platform that can support other SwitchBot modules for a variety of tasks, ranging from the camera included in this bundle to your choice of a battery-powered cooling fan, one of two battery-powered air purifier models (both with tabletop surfaces), or a telescopic smartphone/tablet stand.

The rolling platform can accommodate the camera with any of these other accessories, and they all have secure mounts. There is of course also a self-emptying base for the vacuum cleaner itself. SwitchBot also sells a cordless stick vacuum, but it mounts to the mobile vacuum’s base station – taking advantage of its auto-empty feature – but the stick vacuum is not self-contained.

Each product features a clean design with no sharp edges in sight for those who like rounded corners. Everything felt solid and polished with excellent build quality.

The security camera is also well designed. It twist-locks onto a specially designed peg that dips into the top of the mobile base, and it comes with a short USB-C cable to draw power from the vacuum’s battery (an AC adapter and longer cable are provided if you prefer to mount the camera somewhere other than the mobile base). The camera can pan 360 degrees and tilt 115 degrees, which is ideal for tracking a moving subject.

The camera can accommodate up to a 256GB microSD card (not included) to store video recordings, or you can sign up for SwitchBot’s cloud storage service, which also gives you access to some AI features, such as animal detection. SwitchBot’s cheapest plan costs $3.99/month or $34.99 per year for a single device. A family plan supporting up to 10 devices costs $20.99/month or $209.99/year.

Configuration and performance

Installing this thing is an experience – and not necessarily pleasant given the number of components involved. Additionally, you must Also have–or acquire and put in place Before you set up the K20+ – the SwitchBot Hub 3 (a Matter-certified multi-function smart home hub). The SwitchBot K20+ Pro Patrol kit cannot work without it. Fortunately, the Hub 3 itself is fairly easy to set up; simply plug it in and connect it to the SwitchBot app. This is the simplest step of the process.

Next, you need to decide where to place the robot vacuum charging station, which should be near an electrical outlet. The mobile base connects to the charging station and the robot vacuum goes underneath and docks with the station. It’s quite a matryoshka situation, and you need to make sure the pins are aligned correctly for everything to charge.

At this point in the process, you can only connect the dock to the SwitchBot app, as that will be the only powered component. To save yourself unnecessary frustration, step away and focus on other tasks for a few hours. Devices will not function properly (nor can they be added to the app) until they are almost fully charged.

Gabriela Vatu

I know we’re here to review the home safety element of this product, but I have to tell you that the K20+ Pro vacuum cleaner does a pretty decent job. It’s super small and fits into places most other larger models wouldn’t, but it definitely does. not a product that you would use as your primary cleaning device. There’s also a “mop” plate you can install, but the mops in question are just glorified wet wipes that get dragged across your floor.

Now let’s move on to the important point. The camera (and any other K20+ accessories you add) will appear in the mobile base menu. So you need to go to SwitchBot – Mobile Base – camera icon in the upper right corner. This takes you to a full-screen view of the camera’s live feed, with an overlay of the map of your home and quick access to two-way talk or Privacy mode. There is also the possibility of going through the Cameras menu which appears on the main page of the application, but this takes you to all SwitchBot cameras you have before loading the desired stream.

But you don’t get this whole set just for static camera footage, do you? If that’s all you want, you can simply plug the SwitchBot camera anywhere in your home. No, you are purchasing this system to have a camera patrol your home. And will patrol, it will.

From the mobile base interface, you can configure three Waypoints. Once the robot vacuum has mapped your home, you can add these locations wherever you like, such as next to the doors and windows of your home. Then you can just send the whole set out on patrol. It will go around your house, check all surroundings and send push notifications when humans are detected.

Gabriela Vatu

The camera settings are quite extensive, allowing you to enable motion detection, adjust sensitivity, configure the types of notifications you want to receive, and much more. If you want to use the patrol feature while you’re sleeping, for example, or while you’re at work, you can set schedules. You can also configure various other automations.

The camera itself does a pretty good job, providing excellent video resolution and clear video. Pair it with the Mobile Base and you have a really cool way to keep an eye on your house while you’re on vacation or check on your pets while you’re at work. With two-way audio, you can chat with your pets or alert an intruder that they’ve been spotted. When you’re at home and want privacy, you can ask the camera to bring its lens back into its body for instant privacy.

The inevitable caveats

So far, so good. Now let’s talk about the caveats, and the first is an important one: SwitchBot’s application is somewhat of a nightmare. It’s sometimes difficult to understand how to access features and change settings, and while you can set up scenes and activate them with a single click, the app’s UI is hopelessly cluttered.

Gabriela Vatu/Foundry

And then there is the fact that the mobile base cannot cross a threshold; that is, any type of raised transition between two ground surfaces. I had to move the vacuum base unit to another location and remap the entire house because of it. The Robovac itself crosses thresholds just fine, but the mobile base just can’t.

And don’t imagine that I have this giant step to take: it’s a simple plastic baguette-type object between the parquet floor of my living room and the tiles of my corridors and my kitchen. The transition is even rounded so as not to present a tripping hazard, but the mobile base just can’t roll over it. And you can forget about expecting the mobile base to pass through plush carpets or thick rugs: anything more than 3mm (0.12 inches) in height will be insurmountable.

That said, one of the other use cases SwitchBot offers for this kit is placing one of its tabletop-equipped air purifiers on the mobile base, so you can transport items like drinking glasses from one room to another. So you wouldn’t want the table to move a lot in this scenario, especially with long-stemmed wine glasses.

On my first few tries, I tried to get him over the threshold for several minutes before whispering “I’m done” and sending him back to his station. If your home has transitions between flooring, this SwitchBot K20+ set is not for you.

Should you buy the SwitchBot K20+ Pro Patrol Kit?

Well, the answer really depends on whether or not there are transitions between floors in any of the rooms in your house. If you do, don’t count on the robot patrolling your entire house: you’ll end up with blind spots everywhere there’s a transition, let alone stairs. The SwitchBot K20+ Pro Patrol Kit isn’t a cheap security system either. The complete installation costs $750, although you’ll find it on sale relatively often.

And don’t forget to factor in the cost of the required SwitchBot Hub 3, which will cost you an additional $120 (if you don’t already have one). That’s a lot of money for a small robot vacuum and mobile base that will carry a security camera around your house without being able to cross thresholds.

To be honest, I’m a little upset because I really wanted to like this thing. It’s a really cool idea: a gadget that can both clean your floors and patrol your house with a security camera to show you what’s going on inside and alert you if it detects someone who shouldn’t be there. Genius! But its inability to navigate the lowest transitions between floor coverings defeats its purpose.

Perhaps a more powerful motor in the suction element or larger wheels on the mobile base would do the trick. But it would be a totally different product from the one offered today.