My Viomi S9 Vacuum Fails to Clean, Navigate, or Even Find Its Own Charging Dock

I bought the Viomi S9 robot vacuum about four years ago, and I honestly regret every bit of it. The experience has been a complete disappointment. The app barely functions, especially on iPhone, and the vacuum itself is practically useless.

It can’t locate the charging dock, it won’t start cleaning when instructed, and it fails at something as simple as cleaning a single room. I try to start a job—it moves a couple of steps, then throws an error and returns to the dock without doing anything. Sometimes it won’t even detect a room or respond to manual commands.

After two hours of trying today, it’s still just wandering around aimlessly, completely ignoring the dock—even when it’s right in front of it. I’m on the verge of throwing it in the trash.

To make matters worse, this isn’t my only disappointment with Xiaomi/Viomi. I also had a Xiaomi phone whose motherboard died right after the warranty expired, a known issue I later learned was common. Still, I trusted the brand and bought other products like an air fryer and an air purifier, just to keep everything consistent in my home. But now I see that was a huge mistake.