We tried the Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum - it lets you skip vacuuming AND mopping

The Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum promises a total hands-free cleaning experience, simultaneously mopping and vacuuming floors while emptying itself into a dustbin that doubles up as a charging port. Having recently tested the Proscenic 850T robot vacuum cleaner, which doesn’t feature the advanced navigation system of the M8 Pro or the self-emptying function, I was excited to try out this model at home.

During a rainy November week, there was plenty of mud, dirt, debris, pawprints and footprints to contend with in our busy family home. With a mix of carpeted floors and vinyl tile surfaces, it has a long narrow hallway, a galley kitchen, and a living room that doubles as a dining room. So we were interested to see how the advanced navigation would cope with chairs, a table, and a curious dog.

Read on to discover if the Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum cleaned up in our review, from how well it coped with obstacles to how thorough it was with cleaning. Plus, check out more great ‘bots in our guide to the best robot vacuum cleaner.  

Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum product specs 

Who tested the Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum?

Joanne Lewsley

I regularly test cleaning products for UK and US websites, including robot vacuums. I’m experienced with trying out vacuums, air purifiers, and cleaning devices, which means I evaluate the quality of home gadgets in these areas, putting them through their paces in a natural home environment for reviews, updating buying guides, and speaking to industry experts on the latest product advances.

Unboxing the product

The M8 Pro comes with a multi-language manual and a quick start guide for downloading the accompanying Proscenic app, connecting your robot to the wifi and getting your robot charged up and ready for use.

The Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum is packaged in a deep cardboard box, measuring 43cm by 43cm by 38cm. Inside, the robot and the charging port/emptying station are well-protected in a moulded cardboard frame.  This is recyclable, though some of the plastic bags within may not be recyclable, depending on where you live.

The M8 Pro also has a remote control (batteries supplied), a charging port/emptying station, and a cleaning and cutting tool for the roller.

It also provides a few spare parts, including a filter, one extra rotating brush, two extra dust bags and a spare microfibre mop pad for fitting to the onboard dustbin/water tank. 

The Proscenic M8 Pro measure 35cm in diameter and is 9.8cm tall at its highest point, which is the LiDAR (light detection and ranging) tower in the unit's centre. It’s sleek and glossy, with black sides and a smoky grey overlay on top. Sensors that connect the vacuum to the charging port are picked out in silver, while light-up icons on the surface of the vacuum glow green, blue, yellow or red, depending on your robot’s status. 

The onboard dustbin/water tank is already fitted, along with the HEPA filter and the single rotating brush. There was also a dustbag already included inside the emptying station.

The emptying station is also glossy and black, measuring 28.2cm in width and  36.1 cm in height. At 20.2cm deep, you’ll also need to ensure you leave 6cm between it and any wall you place it against. 

It takes around 5.5 hours for the vacuum to charge from empty. However, ours came with approximately 60% charge, so it wasn’t long until we were up and running. 

Who will it suit?  

The Proscenic M8 Pro is ideally suited to a home with plenty of non-carpeted flooring. That way, you’ll enjoy all the benefits of the excellent mopping functionality and the powerful vacuuming. 

As with many robot vacuums, multi-level homes can be a pain, as you have to lift the robot to another level and back again to reach the charging station. It’s much easier to let the M8 Pro roam freely in a one-level home or keep it for downstairs use only. 

It will also suit people who’ve tried entry-level robot vacuums and want to move up a step with the techology.

What is it like to use? 

Having already tested two other Proscenic vacuum cleaners, including the Proscenic 850T robot vacuum cleaner, I had the app installed and could simply add the M8 Pro as a new device. However, downloading the app and connecting the robot to your home’s wireless is quick and painless. Make sure you have your wifi password to hand.

Once the M8 Pro starts its first journey around the living room, it’s clear that the advanced navigation system using LiDAR is worth having. No bumping into furniture and no getting trapped in awkward corners. Plus, the M8 Pro scans its surroundings to build a map of the room in the app, which you can see coming to life as the robot builds up its data. 

Once the outline is there, you can see the route the M8 Pro takes around the space, which seems to be short circular motions for areas with lots of obstacles and long parallel lines for empty spaces. 

In our at-home tests, the M8 Pro covered 49 square metres in 64 minutes which was pretty impressive. 

Vacuuming 

I was impressed with M8 Pro’s first pass around the living room. It managed to skirt obstacles and get into narrow spots very well. The suction powers up and down, depending on how much dust or debris there is on the floor. For example, I could hear it increasing power as it passed over areas where our dog likes to sleep. 

I noticed that the robot tended to scatter debris, such as oats or rice, on its first pass over it, especially on hard floors. It eventually managed to vacuum around 90% of it with subsequent passes, but it took a while. This is not the vacuum to whip out if you’ve dropped a bag of lentils. 

Once the robot finishes vacuuming, it returns to the emptying station for a recharge. Factory settings mean your robot will empty itself via powerful suction into the emptying station after every vacuum, but you can change this to be less frequent via the app. It sounds a little like a plane taking off (over 80 decibels), but it only lasts around 8-10 seconds. Otherwise, the vacuum is relatively quiet during operation - averaging between 59 and 64 decibels, similar to a dishwasher. 

You can set no-go zones on the app by simply drawing in areas on the map the robot has scanned, or select high traffic zones to clean more than once. You can also schedule vacuuming or mopping (or both) by choosing the app's mode, time, suction power, water volume, and frequency.

Mopping 

I was also pleased with the mopping functionality. This kicks into play on non-carpeted surfaces as long as you use the mop pad attachment and add water to the 300 ml water tank. You can fill the tank from the tap - simply unpeel the rubber seal.

From one fill of the water tank, the M8 Pro could mop the kitchen, hallway and bathroom using its highest water colume and still have water left in the tank.

As well as autocleaning, which uses mopping, vacuuming or mopping/vacuuming simultaneously, you can set the M8 Pro to spot-clean specific areas or zones either via the app or the remote control provided. You can also specifically direct the robot to locations using the arrows on the remote control.

Just be aware that it doesn’t distinguish between floors and rugs, so you’ll need to remove yours or set them as no-go areas while mopping.

Is the app easy to use? 

Although it takes a little while to explore the app and discover everything it can do, it’s pretty easy to navigate. For example, you can set no-go zones by simply drawing in areas on the map the robot has scanned or selecting high-traffic zones to clean more than once. You can also schedule vacuuming or mopping (or both) by choosing the mode, time, suction power, water volume and frequency in the app. It’s also worth mentioning that the M8 Pro works with voice-activated assistants such as Alexa and Hey Google.

One thing the app doesn’t do, however, is save more than one map at a time. This might bother you if you want to set no-go areas for multiple rooms or if you have multiple levels to clean. If you create a new map, you wipe the no-go zones from your previous map and have to set them up again. It would be ideal if the app provided this level of granularity so that you can set no-go zones across more than one map. 

Cleaning the Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum 

The Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum empties itself, but you can also empty the dustbin cartridge manually by flicking it open to empty it into your bin. You can also use the cleaning tool provided to clean the filter of any dust and debris. 

As we found with the Proscenic 850T, the M8 Pro’s roller brush also has a tendency to get tangled up with pet hair. As a result, we had to regularly remove the roller brush and cut off any hair or thread wrapped around it during vacuuming. 

Proscenic recommends cleaning the dustbin/water tank, roller brush and side brush weekly, and the universal wheel underneath, main unit, sensors and infra-red lens monthly, to keep your M8 Pro working at its best. It shows you how to do all of this in the manual provided. 

The mop head is also easy to clean - simply peel it off the cartridge and throw it in the laundry.

Storing and maintaining the Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum 

The emptying station doesn’t have a large footprint, but you need to place it 6cm away from a wall to allow the fans to work correctly. Proscenic advises leaving 50cm on either side of the emptying station and 1.2m of space in front too so your robot can dock successfully. Some users may struggle with leaving this much space free, but we did find the robot worked fine with just under a metre of space in front of it.

There is no onboard storage for the cleaning and cutting tool, spare brush, filter and mop pad, so you’ll need to find storage for these items.

Within the app, there is a handy setting called ‘Consumables record’ which details how many estimated hours each of the replaceable components has left. For example, on my consumables record, I can see that I have 148 hours remaining until I need to replace my filter, and 298 hours until I need to replace my roller brushes. It also tells me when I'll need to clean my sensors. 

How does the Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum rate online? 

The Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vaccum has a very respectable rating of 4.4 stars out of 5 on Amazon, with two thirds of happy customers giving it the full 5 stars. Buyers love how affordable it is, despite the advanced technology and extra features, with one user saying, “This model of robot vacuum rivals other well known and similar specced models that are double the price or more.” Many also praise the self-emptying function, navigation and mopping capacity.

Less positive reviews mention the fact that the M8 Pro doesn’t distinguish between floors and rugs, so rugs can occasionally get a  bit soggy. Others have some trouble pairing their robot to the emptying machine, or connecting to the wifi, but these seem like individual device issues. 

How does the Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum compare to similar models and its predecessors? 

Compared to the Proscenic 850T robot vacuum, which doesn’t incljude the LiDAR navigation and mapping, and doesn’t self-empty, the M8 Pro is a different beast altogether. The advance in technology between the two is immediately obvious, and will satisfy anyone moving up from the 850T to a more advanced model.

However, whereas the Proscenic 850T features a dust cartridge and a mop cartridge, the M8 Pro has one cartridge that combines both. This means that if you use it for mopping, you’ll need to let it dry out completely before using it for vaccuming, which puts your M8 Pro out of action for a bit. 

Considering what you get with the M8 Pro, the price is incredibly competitive. Compared to the Samsung Jet Bot AI+ Robot (retailing for around £1,300), which also features self-emptying and LiDAR navigation, the M8 Pro is a just a fraction of the price.

Should you buy the Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum? 

If you’ve got a large, open-plan living area or one level with a mix of carpets and hard floors, the M8 Pro could be ideal for you. In the right circumstances, this robot vacuum cleaner can leave your floors clean and sparkling without you having to lift a finger. 

The combination of affordability (the M8 Pro is available for under £380) and top-end features make this robot vacuum outstanding value. It’s hard to beat on price, considering that it self-empties, navigates well, and has excellent performance in mopping and vacuuming. Plus, it can all be controlled via a reliable, intuitive app. 

About this review, and this reviewer

Joanne tested the Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum in my home over several days, assessing how well it coped with pet hair, food debris, and the everyday flotsam and jetsam of a family home. She also evaluated the connected app that comes with the Proscenic M8 Pro Robot Vacuum and compared it with other robot vacuum cleaners available.