Once the domain of IT departments and corporate purchase orders, laptop docks have become an indispensable tool of the home office. Thanks to interfaces like USB-C, a capable dock can turn your humble ultralight laptop into a full-fledged desktop system, complete with an external display and plenty of peripherals. And it takes just one cable to switch from portable laptop mode to desktop destroyer.

CalDigit’s latest dock, the $379.99 Thunderbolt 4-powered TS4, provides nearly any port you could desire, plus it can keep your laptop charged up while you use it. The TS4 is the most well-equipped dock you can buy right now — it has the most ports, the widest compatibility, and one of the smallest footprints on your desk. It’s nearly perfect, provided you can stomach its sky-high price.

First, a primer on laptop docks. Years ago, docks were limited to business laptops, which relied on proprietary interfaces to connect worker drone laptops to an external display, mouse, and keyboard when they were seated at their desk. That’s how the name “dock” came about — you literally docked the base of your laptop in a clunky contraption, and the connection was made through pins on the bottom of the computer. Some devices, like Microsoft Surface devices, streamlined this down to a single proprietary port that connected the computer to a variety of other peripherals.

Then USB-C upended all of it. Now that virtually all laptops have a small port that can handle data, power, and video through one connection, all you need to do is plug a dock into the side of your computer, and you’re off to the races. You don’t need a proprietary dock from Lenovo or HP or whoever makes your computer — USB-C works with any computer with a USB-C port.

Once Apple released the 2016 MacBook Pro, which eliminated all ports save for USB-C, the market of simple USB-C docks exploded. These devices generally hang off the side of a computer and provide a couple of USB-A ports, an HDMI video out, and perhaps an SD card reader or Ethernet jack. They are ideal for travel — since your new computer didn’t come with the ports you’ve been used to for years, this little adapter provided most everything you need in a little dongle.

But while USB-C docks are useful for traveling, they are less than ideal for more permanent desk setups. They have a small number of ports, limited bandwidth, and often connect with short cables, which makes for a messy desk when everything is plugged in.

Thunderbolt docks address all of those problems. They have way more ports (the TS4 boasts a total of 18), four times the bandwidth for high-resolution / high-refresh display connections and speedy external drives, and are meant to stay in one place. They come with cables that are long enough to reach your laptop, whether it’s right next to the dock or a couple feet away. A good Thunderbolt dock is right up there with an external monitor and an ergonomic chair when it comes to home office upgrades.

There are two main downsides to Thunderbolt docks. The first, obvious one, is cost. While basic, portable USB-C docks can be found for as little as $50, you’re going to spend at least $200, and often much more, on a Thunderbolt dock. The other is power. They require big power supplies to be able to charge your computer and run all of the peripherals you might plug into the dock. The TS4 comes with a massive brick of a 230W power supply that you have to find room for and makes it about as portable as a chonky gaming laptop.

Now that you’re up to speed on the difference between various laptop docks, know this: the TS4 is the most capable dock on the market right now. Across its 18 ports are three Thunderbolt 4 ports, three 10Gb/s USB-C ports, five 10Gb/s USB-A ports, DisplayPort 1.4, 2.5Gbps Ethernet, full-size and microSD UHS-II card slots, 3.5mm audio in, 3.5mm audio out, and a 3.5mm combo audio in and out on the front. It can output up to 98W to a laptop through the host Thunderbolt 4 port, while a 20W USB-C port on the front charges another device. The other Thunderbolt ports can charge devices at up to 15W, while the other USB-C ports and the USB-A ports output 7.5W each. A neat trick allows the TS4 to charge devices through most of its ports even when your laptop isn’t plugged into it, letting it double as a charging station.

The TS4 is compatible with Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3, and USB 4 computers, and unlike many other Thunderbolt docks (and its predecessor, CalDigit’s TS3 Plus), it’s also compatible with more basic USB-C laptops or tablets, like Chromebooks or iPads. But if you want to get the most out of it, you’ll want to use it with a Thunderbolt laptop — those non-Thunderbolt USB-C devices will be limited with how many displays and how much bandwidth is available to peripherals.

The only thing missing here is a dedicated HDMI port. You’ll need to use a USB-C to HDMI cable plugged into one of the Thunderbolt ports if your display doesn’t have DisplayPort. The TS4 can support up to two 6K 60Hz displays or a 1440p 240Hz display, depending on the laptop you’re plugging it into.

All of that capability is packed into a five-and-a-half-inch tall, four-and-a-half-inch deep, and under-two-inch wide box. It’s small enough to sit vertically or horizontally on my desk or be integrated into an under desk mount if you want to hide it completely.

To test the TS4, I hooked it up to a 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro processor and plugged in every peripheral I could think of. Here’s everything I hooked up at once:

• 1Gbps Ethernet line
• A 5120 x 1440 120Hz display
• A USB-A keyboard
• External speakers
• A USB-C SSD
• A Thunderbolt 3 SSD
• An external camera via an Elgato CamLink 4K
• A USB-A microphone
• A UHS-II SD card

With all of those devices connected, I was able to access the full bandwidth of my 1Gbps FiOS internet, the full read and write speed of the USB-C SSD, and the full read and write speed of the SD card. I was able to run my 49-inch display at the full 120Hz that macOS supports through the DisplayPort connection and fast charge my MacBook’s battery at the same rate as the MagSafe charger that comes with the computer.

The only device that was slower than when connected directly to my Mac was the Thunderbolt 3 SSD, which lost about 20 percent of its write speed and 30 percent of its read speeds through the dock. I also had some issues with the Thunderbolt drive not mounting after waking the Mac from sleep, but that may be due to the beta version of macOS I’ve been using during my test period.

I also had to disable the automatic energy-efficient mode in the Mac’s network preferences for the Ethernet adapter in order to get the Mac to recognize the Ethernet connection.

Getting the CamLink 4K to work with the TS4 was a bit more of a challenge. Initially, the video feed from my external camera would just freeze after a few seconds, regardless of which video capture or calling app I was using. To fix this problem, I had to plug the CamLink 4K into a Windows computer and use Elgato’s 4K Capture Utility, which isn’t available for Mac, and change the USB Transfer Mode from Automatic to Isochronous, which maintains a constant rate of transmission. Once that was changed, the CamLink 4K worked reliably through the TS4 dock.

When it’s time to take my laptop away from my desk, I simply unplug one cable and go. And when I get back to my desk, it’s just one cable to reconnect all of my external devices and charge my laptop. If I want to switch from my Mac to my gaming laptop, it’s just one cable to move every peripheral over at once. It’s really hard to overstate the convenience factor here.

The TS4, like the TS3 Plus before it, is also more reliable than other Thunderbolt docks I’ve used. With the exception of my temperamental Thunderbolt SSD and the configuration steps for the Ethernet connection and CamLink, everything just worked as I expected it to every time I plugged my laptop into the dock.

The TS4 is undeniably expensive, and if you have an older dock like the TS3 Plus, it probably isn’t worth the cost to upgrade. But if you’re chasing the ultimate work-from-home desk setup or just want the best Thunderbolt dock you can get, the TS4 is the way to go.

Photography by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Update, 10:00AM ET, August 12th, 2022: The price of the TS4 has gone up to $379.99 from $359.99. This article has been updated to reflect that change.

There’s a lot to be said for an app with one singular function, and that’s what makes the Tab app so magical. Unlike other bill splitting apps like Splitwise, which lets you split and track any type of expense, the Tab app exists to only split meal bills among a group of people. That’s it — that’s all it does.

I was first introduced to the app by my friends when I lived in New York City. After many dinners and debates over who ordered an extra side of fries, who got three beers instead of two, and who just had an hors d’oeuvre in place of an entree, we were fed up with doing basic math so the five or six people at the table could each pay their fair share. Thus, we transitioned to the Tab app. Its appeal came from the ease of signing up new guests, selecting the items we ordered, and calculating the 20 percent tip for us.

Once the app is downloaded, one person volunteers to pay in either cash or credit. They then snap a picture of the bill to receive an in-app itemized version of that same bill. At the top of this itemized list, there is a code that the person in charge of the bill gives out to the group. Anyone joining the bill simply has to tap “Join Bill” from the main screen, regardless of whether they have an account, and then input the code given to them. From this point, everyone chooses a nickname, and they go down the itemized bill and select what they ordered. If there’s a dish that needs to be split among multiple people, like an appetizer, the Tab app allows more than one person to select the same item. When everyone has finished selecting their items, the app will calculate what each person owes after tax and tip. The person in charge of the bill can change the tip as they please.

From there, after seeing their total, each person is given a choice to pay the one in charge of the bill either in cash or over Venmo. In theory, if you select Venmo and enable permission for Tab, then Tab will pay the person in charge of the bill automatically. All that’s left is the person in charge of the bill actually paying and then collecting their Venmo transfers. Finished! This whittled down our time spent hashing out who owed what from a solid 10 minutes each meal to easily under a minute between the bill being handed to our table and everyone having Venmoed the person putting their card down. Not to mention that the app’s math was more trustworthy than our tipsy back-of-the-napkin equations. This not only eased tensions and saved us time but also became a mini-celebration each time we got to pull out the Tab app because we all loved it so much.

However, as much as we sing the app’s praises, my friends and I recently discovered that Tab could no longer connect to Venmo. The app still behaves as though it can; however, when I select the Venmo option at the end of a bill, Venmo will open and then freeze on the permission page. It’s a real bummer because we now have to manually Venmo the amount to the person paying.

I reached out to Tab for a timeline on when or if this will be fixed. A spokesperson who has yet to respond when asked for their name explained that “the Venmo authentication service we use for Tab unexpectedly stopped working several months ago” and that attempts to get in touch with someone at Venmo have gone unanswered. The spokesperson said, “Venmo seems to have fully deprioritized any third-party developer support.” In the meantime, we can work around this glitch by simply making note of our totals in-app and then manually switching over to Venmo to pay the bill holder. The extra step is far from a deal-breaker, but it does dampen our excitement.

The best part about this app — aside from saving me from math — is that you don’t need a registered account to participate. In fact, neither myself nor any of my friends have ever made an account. As long as the people with you have the app on their phone or can download it, it’s very simple and efficient to join the bill. The benefit to having an account, though, is the ability to save your bill and revisit it should there be a discrepancy or a mistake. But, if your friend group is anything like mine, we’re okay with blindly trusting this app to sort it all out for us.

The DeathStalker V2 Pro is a redesign of Razer’s original DeathStalker gaming keyboard, which used membrane switches and chiclet keycaps. While the V2 Pro may share a name with the 10-year-old keyboard, little else has remained the same. The V2 Pro is a full-size, low-profile keyboard that incorporates a shorter version of Razer’s optical switches that are available in linear or clicky varieties. It also features 2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth connectivity for anyone who prefers a wireless setup or wants to quickly swap inputs between devices.

The suite of features on the DeathStalker V2 Pro is certainly impressive but can be something of a tough sell when you consider the $249.99 price tag. The low-profile nature of the DeathStalker V2 Pro gives its chassis a slimmer design that’s roughly two-thirds the height of what you might expect. Its switches and keycaps are also shorter than typical mechanical keyboards, which can be faster to press when gaming simply because your fingers don’t have to travel as far.

The design and overall aesthetics of the DeathStalker V2 Pro are extremely clean when stacked against some of Razer’s previous designs, and honestly, if it weren’t for the RGB lighting, you might even have trouble telling that this is a gaming keyboard. The aluminum top plate and plastic body feel sturdy with no noticeable flex in the chassis. The DeathStalker V2 Pro feels deceptively heavy for a keyboard this slim. You aren’t going to throw your back out, but at 1.6 pounds, the DeathStalker V2 Pro feels like a strangely dense piece of kit given its rather diminutive profile.

Razer’s optical switches have a mixed reputation in the gaming community, especially among mechanical keyboard enthusiasts. Optical switches use an interrupted beam of light to register individual keystrokes — as opposed to mechanical switches, which register using a completed electrical circuit called a crosspoint contact. This results in a faster response time and more consistent keypresses that don’t rely on as many moving parts. Some say that optical switches feel mushy and don’t offer a noticeable performance difference from conventional mechanical switches. Tastes differ, but I personally don’t have a problem with how they feel so much as how they sound.

Razer has incorporated sound dampening foam to some of its newer keyboards, but it’s unclear if attempts to improve the acoustics were overlooked as part of the DeathStalker V2 Pro. This isn’t the worst-sounding keyboard I’ve ever used. (That distinction belongs to the Corsair K68.) But if you’re particular about how your keyboard sounds when you’re using it, I’d recommend looking elsewhere. The regular keys sound all right, but the stabilizers, which are used with larger keys like enter, shift, and the spacebar, exhibit a distinct rattle when pressed. It may be possible to rectify this somewhat through liberal application of some dielectric grease and the popular “band-aid mod,” but you’re unfortunately stuck with plate-mounted stabilizers unless you’re willing to perform some destructive disassembly.

Razer’s low-profile optical switches feel similar to the full-sized versions I’ve used in its Huntsman line of keyboards. Keystrokes are snappy and responsive with a full travel distance of just 2.8mm and an actuation point of 1.2mm. That compares to a 4mm distance and 2mm actuation point on a regular-height keyboard with Cherry MX Red switches. The actuation force is relatively light (45 grams if numbers are important to you) but still requires a deliberate effort to register, and the lower travel distance can make you feel a little quicker on the draw. I usually prefer a higher profile keycap, but I did notice that the lower profile and higher actuation force compared to my usual Kailh Box Silver switches led to a cleaner typing experience overall, with fewer typos and missed inputs.

Speaking of ergonomics, I initially thought that the lack of a wrist rest wouldn’t be an issue, but as someone who’s used to having one around, I can confidently say that I was wrong. While Razer’s prepackaged wrist rests haven’t impressed me in the past, this is something I would’ve liked to see included in a keyboard that costs so much.

The ABS keycaps that are used on the DeathStalker V2 Pro are treated to resist accumulating visible oils, and fortunately, they work as advertised. Even a couple of hundred hours down the road, the keycaps look almost as pristine as when I took the keyboard out of the box. I typically prefer the textured feel of PBT keycaps to smooth ABS plastic, but these keycaps still managed to surprise me with their ability to stay clean, which is important for anyone who doesn’t want their keycaps to show a visible wealth of forensic evidence on it after a few hours of use.

The volume roller and the single media button that made their debut with the BlackWidow V3 are here and still a definite win. The button and roller are made of the same aluminum as the top plate and feel extremely good to use, with a satisfying click when pressed and deliberate, tactile steps when rolled. They’re so fun to fiddle with that I often found myself accidentally messing with my volume controls. They’re a little too out of the way to be useful while gaming, but both can be mapped to different controls using Razer’s Synapse software.

In addition to the optical switches, the other standout feature of the DeathStalker V2 Pro is its wireless connectivity. You can pair the keyboard to devices via Bluetooth or 2.4GHz wireless and switch between connections with up to three Bluetooth devices at once. The 2.4GHz wireless dongle of the DeathStalker V2 has also incorporated Razer’s improvements to its HyperSpeed Wireless receiver, which allows several accessories, like a mouse and keyboard, to share a single dongle instead of occupying one USB port each.

Using the DeathStalker V2 Pro over Bluetooth offers largely the same experience as using it while wired or wireless, with no noticeable difference in latency. The only real exception is that you can’t configure more advanced RGB lighting effects in Razer’s Synapse software over Bluetooth.

A wireless keyboard isn’t much good if you have to charge it every other day. Thankfully, the battery life of the DeathStalker V2 Pro is fairly impressive for a wireless peripheral. Using the keyboard for roughly nine hours a day, the DeathStalker lasted a little over two days before I needed to top it off. When I did, it took a little over an hour to fully charge via the USB-C connection. This rundown test was performed with the backlighting at full tilt and having the keyboard turn off after 15 minutes of inactivity.

You can’t talk about the DeathStalker V2 Pro without drawing comparisons to Logitech’s G915 series of keyboards that sport a similar layout and profile while also incorporating many of the same features, like 2.4Ghz wireless and Bluetooth connectivity and extensive battery life. While the full-size G915 was initially priced at the same $250, both the full-size and tenkeyless versions of the Logitech G915 are now less expensive and include dedicated macro keys as part of their layout — but omit the optical switches. Unless you have a particular attachment to Razer’s optical switches, you might want to consider shopping around for a discounted G915 instead.

Low-profile gaming keyboards are uncommon, but the DeathStalker V2 isn’t the only game in town. In addition to the Logitech G915 series, Corsair and Fnatic (among others) have low-profile gaming boards that cost much less, like the Corsair K60 RGB Pro low-profile for around $110 and the Fnatic Streak65 LP, which is priced around $120. If you’re looking for ways to spend $250 on a keyboard, there are better options available, like the modular Mountain Everest Max or the Corsair K100 with its 4,000Hz polling rate.

In my dozens of hours of typing and gaming with the DeathStalker V2 Pro, I didn’t run into any glaring issues aside from the keycaps and rattling stabilizers, but I can’t think of a reason to keep it on my desk, especially for $250. Even with its wireless connectivity, impressive battery life, and optical switches, I don’t think the DeathStalker V2 Pro brings enough to the table for its steep price.

The DeathStalker V2 Pro isn’t a bad peripheral by any means, and certain aspects are even well-designed, but I would’ve liked to see a little more innovation and a little less iteration in terms of the features. Aside from being Razer’s first attempt at a low-profile mechanical keyboard, the DeathStalker V2 doesn’t do much to depart from convention for a keyboard that costs so much — if you’re doing something I’ve seen before, I shouldn’t have to pay this much.

Lately, Razer’s keyboards feel like a mix and match of the same handful of features that we’ve seen on their older models, and the DeathStalker V2 Pro exemplifies this. Vendors like Corsair and Asus are busy pushing the envelope with keyboards that have modular profiles and hot-swappable switches, while it feels like Razer is content just phoning it in at this point. If Razer wants to charge $250 for a keyboard, it really needs to show up with something new.

Photography by Alice Newcome-Beill / The Verge

Power adapters have been getting smaller over the years thanks to gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology, but Ugreen’s $179.99 Nexode 200W charger is using the tech for big power. This hefty four-by-four-inch square brick can be placed on your desk and could power three, maybe even four, laptops simultaneously — or power a combination of up to six mobile devices.

If you’re like me, you are a part of the remote workforce and were given a work laptop, but you also like to use your personal laptop at the same time. My desk has two MacBook Airs, a docking station, headphones, a Bluetooth speaker, a game controller, and an iPhone MagSafe stand, each requiring its own power brick and leaving a messy workspace. The Nexode replaced all of those with a single brick and two-meter power cable.

Ugreen’s high-powered charger isn’t cheap. For its $180 price, you can get multiple 100W USB-C chargers. But it could be worth it if you are considering buying extra power adapters that stay at your desk so that you can keep the originals in your travel bag. The Ugreen doesn’t feel cheap, either: its plastic body is very solid and the charger comes with a one-meter braided USB-C cable that supports 100W charging. It doesn’t come with a cute vertical desktop stand like Satechi’s 165W charger, but it does have four grippy rubber feet to keep it in place — not to mention that it has two more ports than the Satechi.

But, for that price, it better actually be capable of charging 200W worth of electronics. After some testing, I found that to be largely true, but charging could slow down or straight up stop if you’re not paying attention to the connections and capabilities of the four USB-C Power Delivery ports and the two USB-A ports. The ports aren’t labeled with their capabilities like Anker’s 120W charger, so you might want to keep a cheat sheet on hand or you might end up playing plug roulette.

There’s an overwhelmingly complicated chart provided by Ugreen explaining all the possible power scenarios, which you can see below. Though the Nexode has a 200W max capacity, the most any single port can output is 100W — this doesn’t support the newer USB-C Release 2.1 spec.

While testing, I was interested in knowing two things: how does this handle six devices at once and how can I max this thing out at 200W? For a six-device configuration, the USB-C ports from port one through four can take 65W / 45W / 45W / 20W, respectively, and the USB-A ports share 20W of power for a total of 195W.

Image: Ugreen

I plugged three MacBooks (two M1 Airs and one 12-inch MacBook from 2016) and an iPad Air 4 into the USB-C ports and two iPhones into the USB-A ports and noted that the three MacBooks reported 65W, 45W, and 45W with macOS’ built-in power reporting. For the iOS devices, I used the free ChargerMaster app, and it reported that the iPad Air 4 in port four was charging at 15.37W while the battery was at 20 percent SoC — close enough to the 20W headroom that the port is capable of. The first USB-A port had an iPhone 13 Mini charging at a slow 4.61W, but it was already 79 percent charged at the time, so I didn’t expect it to operate faster. Finally, the last USB-A port had a first-gen iPhone SE plugged in at 20 percent charge and charged at 5.98W. This brings our total to 181W (rounded), which is not far off from the 195W max the chart claims.

So, how do we get to 200W? The chart claims that Ugreen’s charger can provide 100W from both USB-C ports one and two, and I was able to confirm this. I plugged in a 14-inch MacBook Pro and an MSI GS77 Stealth gaming laptop (which supports PD charging despite the 240W charge brick it comes with) and got a 100W reading from the MacBook. And if you’re more into charging two MacBooks at 100W, I also confirmed 100W charger readings from each of the two plugged-in MacBooks.

Though you can pull up to 100W from each of the first two ports, if you want to plug anything else in, like your smartphone, it’s going to drop the charge rate of both of the laptops. Even if you only needed one 100W laptop, you can only plug one more device in and sustain that speed — any third device, regardless of draw, will drop both 100W devices down to 65W.

The limitations on how the ports distribute power make the Ugreen Nexode not the ideal travel charger. If you’re carrying a high-end laptop, let’s say a 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro, the 18.4-ounce Nexode is about 74 percent heavier than the 10.6-ounce Apple 96W power adapter. Apple’s new GaN-based 140W charger is even lighter at 8.01 ounces. The Ugreen’s power cable is the three-prong grounded kind, which removes some travel charging prospects in case you need to plug in somewhere that is not grounded.

Still, I went on a trip with this charger and was able to plug all my stuff in at the same time when I arrived at my hotel: my MacBook Air, Nintendo Switch, Apple Watch (USB-C), a 10,000mAh power brick, and two iPhones. With the full load, the notoriously fickle Switch started flashing on and off until I reseated it. When I swapped the Switch for an official MagSafe charger, another device stopped charging. This finicky behavior happened enough times for me to take notice, but once I reseated the confused ports, the Ugreen started behaving normally.

I found a way to use my Switch in dock mode, too, but only with an aftermarket HDMI hub and not the official dock. The Nintendo Switch is notorious for weird power draws (the dock wants 15V 2.6A for TV mode), but Ugreen’s USB-C ports have rails for 15V 3.0A. If you wanted to stream your Switch from your computer desk and had hoped that Ugreen would save you an AC port, then you’ll be disappointed.

Ugreen advertises that the Nexode’s GaN and SiC chips improve heat dissipation, and I believe it. I charged two 100W-capable laptops and also charged a full six-device load, and it was never more than just warm to the touch. Apple’s 96W non-GaN charger, in comparison, feels very hot to the touch while charging only a single laptop.

The Ugreen Nexode 200W charger appeal isn’t for replacing your high-end laptop’s power supply; it’s to share lots of power to more devices at the same time without additional bricks. It works best as a central desktop charger (as advertised). It could also be good for a small business that uses floater iPads or other mobile devices and could use a charging station.

The size and heft make it less than ideal for traveling, and its confusing power output chart isn’t very fun to troubleshoot when you are on the road. Perhaps Ugreen could add labels to the ports to help simplify this in the next version.

Despite its price and size, the Ugreen Nexode is one of the first USB-C chargers to hit the 200W mark, and hopefully we’ll see more on the market in the near future.

Photography by Umar Shakir / The Verge

If you like the idea of a robot that can clean and mop your floors but dislike having to clean up before it runs and really dislike those $800 price tags, budget vac maker Yeedi has a bot for you. The new $449.99 Yeedi Vac 2 Pro can vacuum and mop simultaneously using an oscillating mopping system that actually scrubs. It also intelligently avoids mopping your carpets and has 3D obstacle avoidance, so it can get through the job without being derailed by a pair of shoes.

Available starting today, the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro launches alongside the $349 Yeedi Vac 2, which also has obstacle detection but just a standard mopping system with no carpet avoidance, although it does have a larger water tank. Both models have 3,000Pa suction power and can work with Yeedi’s auto-empty bin ($199.99), but the Pro has longer battery life.

I’ve spent a week or so with the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro, and while it does a good job at vacuuming and mopping and avoiding obstacles, it still costs $450. Throw in the auto-empty base, and you’re up to $650. For that amount of money, you can buy a Roomba i3 Plus (iRobot’s $550 midrange auto-empty bot that doesn’t mop) and have some cash left over to buy a decent manual mop. While the Yeedi is a good robot with some high-end features for a lower price, it’s not cheap enough or smart enough to really disrupt the big boys.

I have used and like Yeedi’s very budget robots, such as the $179.99 Yeedi K650. It does a simple job well. There’s no obstacle avoidance or room-specific cleaning, but it has a huge bin, and it really sucks up the dirt as it bumps and rolls around your house. By jumping up into the robot vacuum arena where smart mapping, obstacle avoidance, and oscillating mopping are playing, the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro is punching above its weight, and while it holds its own on the hardware front, the mapping/software experience is lackluster.

The best feature of the new Yeedi is its oscillating mopping action, meaning it scrubs your floors rather than just wiping them. And this worked well, leaving my floors much cleaner than most standard robot vac mops (not as clean as the Roborock S7, but that’s $200 more). But it has a cheap-feeling, thin scrap of a mopping pad that doesn’t seem like it will stand up to more than a couple of washes and doesn’t come with any extra pads (you can buy replacements for $20 for a three-pack). Also, the water reservoir only holds 180mL, so you need to refill it on every run.

While the Yeedi can now auto-avoid carpeted areas when mopping and increase suction as it goes over rugs in vacuum-only mode, this is a standard feature on a lot of mopping vacs today. You also have to remove the mopping tank if you want to vacuum your carpets as it can’t vacuum them with its mop on. It’s not a big chore but does mean you are less likely to use the mopping feature regularly if you have a lot of rugs or carpets you also want to keep clean. Higher-end options like the Roborock S7 have found a way to address this, by lifting the mop when going over carpet. The Roborock also uses this feature to air dry the mop while charging, with the Yeedi you have to remove it after every mopping run.

The Yeedi vacuum has an impressive 3000Pa of suction power and a big 5,200mAh battery that promises over three hours runtime, easily on par with most top-of-the-line models. But it never ran for more than 85 minutes in testing and often returned with a low battery. The Yeedi did a good job of cleaning my house in neat, methodical rows, carefully navigating around objects without banging into things, and covering most of my floor. Although it did occasionally skip large areas for no obvious reason.

This is probably due to its navigation and mapping tech. Most high-end robot vacuums use lidar-based SLAM mapping, deploying a more precise laser tech to determine where your rooms are. Yeedi uses a camera on top of the robot for navigation, which is a cheaper technology and much less precise. This visual SLAM mapping failed to properly identify the rooms in my house, struggling to see the wider doorways.

The robot could only find two rooms in my five-room, 800-square-foot downstairs area, and that was after two tries. After its first mapping run, it was convinced I lived in one giant room. But even without specific rooms, I could create digital keep-out zones, areas I don’t want the robot to go to, which are another basic necessity on any decent robot vacuum these days. You can only have one map at the moment, but Yeedi says multi-floor mapping is coming.

Yeedi did recently push a software update that added the ability to divide and merge rooms on the map, so I was able to manually create rooms and use the room-specific cleaning features. However, its navigation smarts failed it a few times, with the robot missing an entire room a couple of times and ending the cleaning job before it had reached everywhere.

Obstacle avoidance is also less effective compared to more expensive competitors deploying AI-powered avoidance tech. The robot uses 3D structured light technology to detect items that are over an inch tall, so floor mats, cables, pencils, and your kitty’s little accident won’t be avoided. It does do well at avoiding bigger items, such as a pair of shoes or a school backpack left in the hall, but pencils, headphones, cables, and socks all tripped it up.

The Yeedi is good at navigating around things, maneuvering through chair legs and over thick rug tassels with no trouble. In fact, it’s one of the only bot vacs I’ve tested that figured its way out of my lounge chair trap (skinny flat lounger feet next to an ottoman with skinny flat feet). I could hear its motor getting louder and quieter as it navigated its way around the problem like it was thinking really hard, finally freeing itself after a few minutes. All this means while you don’t have to tidy up as much if you want to make sure the robot finishes its run, you can’t be totally carefree about it all.

The Yeedi Vac 2 Pro works with Yeedi’s self-empty station for emptying the bin, an add-on I highly recommend for anyone considering a robot vacuum. It’s no fun dumping dust out of those tiny bins, and with a self-empty station, the robot can empty its own bin into a bag that Yeedi says will hold about 30 days of dust (replacement bags costs $17 for three). You just pull out the self-sealing bag and dispose of it easily without getting dust everywhere. But for an extra $200, this makes the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro a lot more expensive.

The Yeedi’s auto-empty station worked fine in testing, it didn’t get clogged and effectively emptied the 420mL bin onboard the bot on most attempts (I had to help it out once because the bin was really full). Be warned, it is a very loud process that goes on for about 20 seconds. Unlike a couple of higher-end mop / vac robots, the Yeedi auto-empty station is for dust only; it can’t empty or refill the mop reservoir. You’ll need to do that yourself before and after every mopping session.

Yeedi’s app has seen a lot of improvements since I first tested it a couple of years ago when it was rather flaky. But it still has its moments including slow loading and poor grammar in some areas. But the main features you want are there — room-specific cleaning (if it can find your rooms), clean zones, and the option to set a cleaning sequence (go to the kitchen first, then the living room, then the dining room, and so on), set schedules for the robot, and adjust the cleaning levels.

There are four vacuum suction levels — and the robot is super quiet on the lowest setting — plus three water-flow levels for the mop (I always use the highest setting for the best clean). You can turn on continuous cleaning so that it will go back to its base and recharge if it needs to finish a job; plus, there’s a handy Do Not Disturb setting.

The Yeedi Vac 2 Pro ticks all the right boxes — but some of its features, such as mapping, just aren’t as well-executed as those on the Roborocks and iRobots of this space. That’s not a big surprise as this is a budget bot, and for $200 less than the nearest comparable competitor, the Roborock S7, it might suit you fine.

If you do step up to the Roborock (which has sonic mopping, lidar mapping, and standard obstacle avoidance), your robot can vacuum and mop your floors and vacuum your carpets, all in one go. If you can dispense with robot mopping, the Roomba i3 is $100 cheaper and delivers a better clean and significantly better app / ecosystem experience, but it doesn’t have obstacle avoidance. Ecovacs has several remarkably similar options at various price points, but, as I noted in my review of its flagship robot vacuum, its mapping also suffers from accuracy issues. However, if you have a budget of $450 for a robot vacuum, really want a mop that can scrub and won’t get stuck, and don’t care about super-accurate mapping, the Yeedi Vac 2 Pro will get the job done.

Photos by Jenifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

One of my missions during the extended work-from-home transition of the past few years has been to find little ways to make the annoying parts of the experience slightly better and less annoying. Like many others, I’ve found a comfortable, ergonomic chair, set up a dedicated standing desk that is only used for work, and explored leveling up my video call quality by repurposing a mirrorless camera as a webcam.

But one of the most annoying things has been using Zoom itself — namely, fumbling around for the mute / unmute and leave call buttons. In two years, I’ve not been able to memorize the keyboard shortcuts for them, and since when I’m on Zoom calls, my hands are usually off my keyboard anyways. I’m always the last one to leave the call because I can’t seem to hit that button in a reasonable amount of time. I’m not handy enough to create elaborate pull-chain systems to hang up the call, either.

Reader, I have found the solution, and it is an $80 (or less if you do the tiniest amount of shopping around) Elgato Stream Deck Mini. The Stream Deck line of products are customizable keyboards with little LED screens for buttons that you can program to do a whole host of activities. Elgato markets them mainly to Twitch streamers and now has a range of small (six-button), medium (15-button), and large (32-button) models.

Since I’m definitely not a Twitch streamer, the six-button Mini is perfect for my needs. Thanks to a whole host of official and community-created plugins, I now have dedicated controls for mute, video, and leave call always in front of me — no awkward keyboard shortcuts to remember or fumbling around with my mouse trying to find the on-screen buttons. I even have a button to bring the Zoom window to the foreground, perfect for when I’ve clicked away from it to scroll through Twitter and then my boss asks me a question in a group call, and I need to quickly jump back to the Zoom call. (Nilay, don’t read this.)

My primary use case for the Stream Deck is those Zoom controls, so they are all on the first four buttons. But the Stream Deck also supports pages, so on a second page, I’ve added folders for some smart lights in my office, system media controls, and toggles for the space heater in my office. On a third page, I’ve got dedicated buttons to launch specific Lightroom catalogs, so I don’t have to go hunting for them on my external drive, plus a folder for Google Meet controls I occasionally need to use when I have briefings with Google. I’ve customized icons on a lot of the buttons so I can easily recognize what they are for at a glance.

Programming the Stream Deck is done through its desktop app, and it’s a very simple, drag and drop system, no coding required. I was up and running with the Zoom plugin and my preferred controls in less than ten minutes.

The Stream Deck Mini may be small, but so long as you don’t need single-button access to more than six things, you can use endless pages to control all sorts of things. You can even run Shortcuts right from the Stream Deck if you’re using macOS 12.3 Monterey. (I’m sure there are similar automation options for Windows that I have not bothered to explore.)

Using a Stream Deck Mini doesn’t make video calls any more bearable — they are what they are — but it does remove one little annoyance that I experienced multiple times per day. You could accomplish something similar with a programmable macro pad, but the Mini is easier to set up, has those LED screens for easy glanceability, and is cheap enough that it doesn’t break the bank to buy one.

Photography by Dan Seifert / The Verge