Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni Review: Reaching Your Cleaning Needs

The promise of a truly autonomous cleaning machine is always tempting, and Ecovacs has been approaching it from a variety of angles over the years. The Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni is one of their latest attempts. It amps up the suction power and ditches the traditional mopping pads for a roller. There’s a lot to like about the improvements.

Ecovacs Deebot X8 PRO OMNI

The Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni is a premium robot vacuum and mop that aims to take the hassle out of cleaning. It boasts powerful 18,000 Pa suction, an innovative extendable mopping roller for superior edge cleaning, and an auto-emptying station with automatic detergent dispensing. With advanced LiDAR mapping and a dedicated voice assistant, the X8 Pro Omni offers a comprehensive and convenient cleaning experience, though some long-term reliability concerns exist.

Pros & Cons

• Unique extendable mop does a great job at reaching corners
• Great suction power and extensive vacuum options
• Docking station looks nice and isn’t too bulky
• Ecovacs app has tons of customization to fit your needs

• Ecovacs app can be hard to navigate
• Concerns about long-term performance

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Price and Availability

The Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni is available now and can generally be found in the price range between $1,169.99 and $1,299.99. It’s being sold through Amazon and directly through the Ecovacs website. The X8 Pro Omni is only available in black.

Premium Design That Doesn’t Look Out of Place

Let’s be honest: robot vacuums aren’t the most attractive tech gadgets around. Ecovacs has some nice-looking models but some clunkers as well. Thankfully, the Deebot X8 Pro Omni is one of the most attractive in the bunch.

The last time I used an Ecovacs robot vacuum was the square Deebot X2 Omni.

While I liked how the square design allowed for better corner reaching, it definitely looked a bit odd. The X8 Pro sports a more typical round design, but it compensates for the lack of corners with a very cool feature I’ll touch on later.

The round robot is pretty compact. It’s not super wide, but it does seem a bit taller than other vacuums. Unlike some other Ecovacs robots, this one is only available in black with gold accents. The fit and finish on the X8 Pro feel more premium than the X2 Omni, despite being $200 cheaper at launch.

The biggest area of improvement is the docking station. Many of Ecovac’s robots that have water tanks come with bulky, monolithic docking stations. The X8 Pro, however, strips it back a bit so you can visibly see the water tanks. Not only does this make it easier to keep an eye on the levels, it looks a lot nicer, too.

Overall, I like the design of the X8 Pro much more than my previous Ecovac vacuum. I was reminded of my feelings while reviewing the Pixel 9. Pixel designs were fine, but once I held the Pixel 9, I realized how much room for improvement there was.

A Robot That Can Reach Everything

Okay, let’s get to the good stuff. What can this vacuum do? Well, frankly, it can do it all. The X8 Pro Omni has the ability to vacuum and mop, and there have been some nice improvements to how that works.

Mapping

Before the vacuum can start cleaning, it needs to map your home. The X8 Pro Omni uses LiDAR for mapping, and it does it pretty quickly and accurately. I had to do some room name-changing and room barrier editing, but not more than expected. The robot isn’t great at detecting floor types during the mapping run, but that’s not super important as the sensors will auto-adjust when cleaning. In other words, you don’t have to worry about it trying to mop your carpets.

Vacuuming

The X8 Pro Omni has four vacuum power modes to choose from with a max of 18,000 Pa. That’s near the very top of all robot vacuums and a whopping 10,000 more than the X2 Omni I previously tested.

Clearly, running at max suction will dramatically kill the battery quicker, but there’s a “Suction Boost” feature that enables you to get some extra power, specifically on the carpet. I found this to be a nice way to take advantage of the maximum suction without depleting the battery as fast.

I used the X8 Pro Omni in the third-strongest suction mode with the “Deep Cleaning” speed, and I was happy with the performance over my month and a half of testing. The number of little things that didn’t get picked up was lower than my other robot vacuum, and despite copious amounts of dog hair, the brush didn’t get tangled as much, either.

The vacuum performance was consistent across carpet and hard flooring. There’s one spot in my house where robot vacuums don’t handle well–a raised transition between different flooring types. The X8 Pro Omni is great at lifting itself over the threshold, but it struggles to pick up stuff while sauntering over, just like my other vacuums, sadly.

All that being said, this is an excellent robot vacuum. It’s on the lower end of the price spectrum when it comes to “premium” robot vacuums, yet it performs just as well, if not better, than more expensive models.

Mopping

Let’s get to one of the stars of the show: the X8 Pro Omni’s mopping features. Many robot vacuums with mopping abilities feature twin circular mopping pads that spin. Indeed, this is how my previous Ecovacs Deebot worked. However, the X8 Pro Omni has a single mopping roller.

There’s plenty to talk about with this roller, but the coolest feature is the ability to extend out of the body to reach room edges and corners. This dramatically improves the reachability of a round robot, and it even got closer than the square X2 Omni. It’s really cool to watch the mop slide in and out during mopping to reach the nooks and crannies. But that’s not all.

The X8 Pro Omni also features an onboard water tank. Typically, robots with mops must go to their stations to clean the mopping pads and get new water. However, on the X8 Pro Omni, while the mop spins, a squeegee removes dirty water and nozzles apply fresh, clean water. This dramatically decreases the spreading of dirty substances around the floor while “cleaning.”

That’s ultimately the problem with robots that can’t clean their mops while using them. They’re essentially getting the mops dirty and then using those dirty mops to “clean” the floors. The mops are only ever truly clean for a short period of time after leaving the docking station.

I found that the mopping roller is quite a bit more effective than the spinning mopping pads in my home. With 4,000 Pa of pressure being applied, the roller was able to loosen up more hard and sticky stuff. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but I was most impressed with this upgrade.

Docking Station

As I mentioned, the docking station has received a nice facelift, but what about functionality? Like other Ecovacs mop and vac combos, the X8 Pro Omni station features clean and dirty water tanks for the mopping roller. It automatically cleans the roller, takes the dirty water away, and replenishes the on-device tank with clean water.

One new feature for me was the detergent compartment. My other Ecovac robot vacuum requires you to add the soap manually to the clean water tank. However, with the X8 Pro Omni, there’s a separate compartment that automatically adds detergent to the water as it refills the tank on the vacuum. I found this to be a nice quality-of-life improvement. I mostly only need to worry about refilling the water tank.

Next to the detergent compartment is where the dust bag is stored. Both are hidden behind a featureless cover plate. I was a bit disappointed that I had to completely remove the cover by pulling it off from the bottom. Previous models hinged open with a press.

Other than that, there’s not much going on with the docking station. The button for controlling the robot that was found on other docking stations has been moved to the vacuum itself. There’s only an indicator light that shows if there’s a malfunction or Wi-Fi is disconnected.

Overall, I think the station does what it needs to do. It mostly takes care of everything for you while looking good doing it.

Voice Assistant

The idea of having yet another voice assistant in my home never excited me, but the features of “Yiko” (pronounced “eco”) are sometimes useful—more useful than the barebones Google Assistant integration.

Yiko can take care of pretty much anything you might initiate from the app. It’s a lot easier to say, “Okay, Yiko, clean the living room,” than pull out your phone and tap the screen a dozen times. You can even say, “Okay, Yiko, come clean here,” and it will come to you and clean your area. Yiko can also understand custom cleaning routines.

An assistant that’s dedicated to your robot vacuum makes a lot of sense. That’s all it knows, so that’s all it tries to do. My main gripe is just that it’s not great at detecting the “Okay, Yiko” wake command. I pretty much always have to say it more than once to get the robot’s attention, but once it’s awake, it understands me.

An App Loaded With Features, for Better or Worse

Let’s talk about the Ecovacs app, which is where you’ll find a plethora of features and settings to play around with. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with it.

First of all, the app provides comprehensive control over the robot vacuum. You can define no-go zones, personalize room names, edit your home’s map, schedule cleaning routines, review performance reports, track the robot’s location in real time, and access a wide array of customization options.

The great thing about it is you have a huge degree of control over the cleaning experience. There are multiple vacuuming and mopping modes to play around with, including a deep cleaning zig-zag vacuum pattern for increased thoroughness. You decide the sequence of vacuuming and mopping, which rooms it should do first, how much water is used, suction strength, number of passes, and much more.

On the flipside, the app isn’t the most well-designed piece of software I’ve used, to say the least. It’s clunky at times, there are random connection issues, and I find it hard to remember where certain settings and features can be found. Ecovacs is also now using an AI assistant to help with device malfunctions and it’s not very, well, helpful.

One of my favorite features is still the camera view. It’s very fun to see the world from your robot’s perspective. More importantly, I find it very useful for troubleshooting. There have been countless times when I’ve been able to remotely navigate my robot out of a jam by using the camera to steer.

All in all, I think Ecovacs gets a passing grade for its app. There’s only so much you can do when there are this many options for users to play with.

Should You Buy the Deebot X8 Pro Omni?

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably expecting me to say the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni is an easy buy. Everything I’ve said has been mostly positive, and I’ve been generally happy with the performance in my home over the last month and a half. However, there’s one thing that gives me pause when considering recommending it to others.

As I mentioned, I also have the Deebot X2 Omni. It’s been in my home for well over a year at this point. When I reviewed it in October 2023, I gave it a pretty glowing 8/10. But here’s the thing: it hasn’t aged well.

Over time, I’ve become more and more disappointed with the X2 Omni. The vacuum brush gets phantom “tangles” numerous times during cleanings, it randomly creates brand-new maps of my home, rooms are occasionally skipped, and the dust bin is always full because it doesn’t empty itself enough. None of these things were issues in the first few months, but they slowly popped up over time.

I’m happy with the X8 Pro Omni now, but will the performance deteriorate over time like my other Ecovacs product? My gut says there are enough improvements here to feel good about its future, but I won’t truly know for a while.

All that aside, the Deebot X8 Pro Omni is an excellent robot vacuum and mop. It seems to be on par with other high-end hybrids, such as the Dreame X30 Ultra and Roborock Qrevo Curv. The X8 Pro Omni is also a bit cheaper than most robots in its class. It’s another solid entry from Ecovacs, and I hope it continues to work well over time.

Ecovacs Deebot X8 PRO OMNI

The Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni is a premium robot vacuum and mop that aims to take the hassle out of cleaning. It boasts powerful 18,000 Pa suction, an innovative extendable mopping roller for superior edge cleaning, and an auto-emptying station with automatic detergent dispensing. With advanced LiDAR mapping and a dedicated voice assistant, the X8 Pro Omni offers a comprehensive and convenient cleaning experience, though some long-term reliability concerns exist.