Eufy Marswalker: Robot vacuum climbs stairs
At IFA 2025, the Anker sub-brand Eufy will be showcasing a vacuum and mopping robot that uses a kind of ferry to negotiate steps to clean several floors.
When the Marswalker encounters a landing, the robot vacuum climbs into a housing with four paddles that lift it over the steps.
(Image: Anker)
Until now, if you wanted a robot vacuum and mop to clean another floor, you had to drag it from one floor to the next. If Eufy has its way, this human transportation aid will soon be a thing of the past. At IFA in Berlin, the Anker brand will be showcasing the Eufy Marswalker model at stand 130 in hall 1.2, which is designed to climb stairs under its own power.
With its square, silver-black housing, the Marswalker may look very spacey, as its name suggests, but in standard operation it is a vacuuming and mopping cleaning flounder, as there are now many. It only differs radically from competitor models when it comes across a landing during the cleaning tour.
The cleaning robot then rolls into a separate frame with a kind of paddle at all four corners, which practically serves as a ferry. Specifically, the quartet of paddles balances the robot over the steps to the next level. In a press video shown before the IFA, this was possible in both directions, i.e. up and down the stairs. Once on solid ground, the robot leaves the ferry again and continues the cleaning job.
According to Eufy, the Marswalker's navigation sensors recognize the shape and nature of a wide variety of stairs. The ferry should be able to operate reliably on both straight and U-shaped steps.
Videos by heise
Space-saving design
By separating the cleaning robot and ferry operation, Eufy is taking a different approach to the failed start-up Migo Robotics, whose Ascender model was also planned as a stair climber. There, however, the lever mechanism was integrated into the cleaning robot. A crowdfunding campaign that had already been launched had to be stopped and canceled in the summer of 2024. The company did not give a reason at the time, but behind closed doors it was said that the integrated climbing mechanism had left too little space for the actual cleaning and drive technology for floor cleaning.
This conclusion is supported by the fact that, according to information from heise online, at least one other manufacturer wants to present a vacuum robot with stair-climbing talent, in which a separate ferry is also responsible for transportation. After the Klettermaxen at IFA 2024, which were able to overcome thresholds with liftable housings, climbing stairs is the next logical step.
However, there will probably not be much more than prototypes on show in Berlin; Eufy is not planning a market launch before 2026. A sales price has not yet been set either.
(nij)
