SwitchBot earned its chops in the connected smart home space with a solid portfolio of devices, beginning with the unique ‘Bot’ robotic finger and now including smart curtains, locks, cameras and sensors. It’s a relative newcomer in the robot vacuum space, but in a short period, it has stood out with some truly unique offerings like the S10, with its self-refilling and draining tank, and the K10 , carrying the distinction of being the smallest robot vacuum on the market today.

Now, the company has launched an upgraded version of the latter – the Switchbot K10 Pro. The ‘Pro’ moniker might seem out-of-place for a robot vacuum, but the upgrade brings enough improvements that that can be forgiven. The K10 Pro retains exactly the same dimensions as the K10 – 24.8 × 24.8 × 9.2 cm (9.8 × 9.8 × 3.6 inches) – which means it shares the title of world’s smallest robot vacuum, only with some more capabilities.

In addition to laser-based LDS radar, the K10 Pro also adds a PSD (Position-Sensitive Device) distance sensor, which assists in obstacle avoidance. Coupled with its diminutive size, it enables it to manoeuvre more closely between and around furniture legs, and right up to the walls and room corners.

It also has more cleaning power – 3,000 Pa, as against 2,500 Pa in the K10 . The new anti-tangle rubber brush handles pet (or human) hair easily without making cleanup a pain. Despite the more powerful motor, the K10 Pro supposedly doesn’t get very loud. SwitchBot claims its SilenTech technology keeps noise levels as low as 45 dB in the ‘Silent’ mode.

The auto-empty station houses a substantial 4 litre dust bag that is now anti-bacterial, requiring emptying only once in 90 days. Battery capacity is claimed to be enough for 225 m2 at a time. Like most other robot vacuums, the K10 Pro can be scheduled for auto-start and stop, instructed to avoid certain zones and programmed to remember multiple floors of a house.

SwitchBot is, however, ahead of a lot of several competitors in supporting the Matter smart-home protocol, allowing it to connect to popular platforms like Google Home, Amazon Alexa and Apple Home. For full connectivity through Matter, though, it does require the SwitchBot Hub 2 device.

The SwitchBot K10 Pro is now available with a limited introductory price of $420 on Amazon (down from the official price of $599). The only slightly less capable but equally small K10 is also currently discounted to $299, while the larger S10 will set you back $799.