Tech Overload Versus Dirty Floors

With window cleaning, lawnmowing, pool cleaning, and other types of useful household robots now saturating the marketplace, robotic vacuums seem a bit mundane. ECOVACS hopes to change that perception with the DEEBOT T10 OMNI, its newest, techno-centric combination of a vacuum and mop.

The YIKO AI voice assistant-powered ECOVACS DEEBOT T10 OMNI is the most premium release from the company so far in 2023, which also includes the $650 N10+ and $800 T9+. For $1,200, the T10 OMNI offers a more robust and complete feature set than its lower-priced siblings, including larger capacity mop buckets and self-cleaning mop pads.

If you can handle the space and maintenance requirements, the ECOVACS DEEBOT T10 OMNI is a showpiece for what a high-end robotic vacuum and mop can really do. With easy daily and spot cleanings, your floors can stay cleaner than ever.

Setting Up

Upon opening the box, you’re greeted with a one-sided Quick Start guide. You’re assumed to have already removed everything from the packaging and then, as the first step, instructed to remove the protectors from the OMNI Floor Cleaning Robot (Model: DBX53). The next step is to assemble and place the OMNI Station, which charges the Robot from empty in about six and a half hours and acts as the water tanks and dust bin storage.

Since the OMNI Station is roughly the size of a medium-sized kitchen garbage can, you’ll need a decent amount of room to place it. The recommended clearance for the OMNI Station, which should be positioned on a hard, flat surface, is at least 1.64 ft (0.5 m) on each side and 4.92 ft (1.5m) from the front of the base. For my setup, I had no issues with having far less clearance space to the left of the OMNI Station.

Once the OMNI Station is placed, add water to the clean water tank, then install the dual side brushes on the robot. You can then use the printed QR code to download the ECOVACS Home App, which works on any modern iPhone, iPad, or Android smartphone or tablet from either the App Store or Google Play, respectively. After registering, the ECOVACS Home App is used to scan the QR code under the cover of the robovac to pair it with the app and connect to your Wi-Fi network.

When the T10 OMNI is powered on for the first time, a monotone female voice from YIKO AI, the built-in smart assistant, prompts you to do the same app pairing and continues to guide you through each major step in the process, as well as many other cleaning- and maintenance-related events.

After charging, the bot is ready for its first cleaning, but it’s recommended to let it do an initial map of your floorplan by saying, “OK YIKO,” and then “Quick Mapping.” Similar to Amazon Alexa-based devices, the light on the robot turns blue when YIKO is listening with the “OK YIKO” voice prompt, which can be used to issue all kinds of commands like “Clean under the dining room table” and “Return to your station.”

Getting to Know the Hardware

There’s a lot of technology packed into both the DEEBOT T10 OMNI and OMNI Station. On the top of the robot is a raised cylinder that includes a three-microphone array and the TrueMapping Distance Sensor. The microphone array is used for the YIKO voice assistant and voice calls and has a listening range of up to 26 feet (8 meters). The TrueMapping Distance Sensor uses laser ranging-measuring (LiDAR) of up to 32 feet (10 meters) to judge the distance between the bot and surrounding objects, including automatically identifying up to 30 household items commonly found on the floor, like slippers and cables, while it’s moving. Also on the top of the robovac are the dust bin, power switch and reset button, and Wi-Fi status indicator.

To the front of the robot is the AIVI Camera and camera indicator light. The AIVI Camera allows for video recording and assists in other functions, like drawing a 3D map of your home’s floor plan. The camera’s field of view is 148.3 degrees. On the sides of the robot are an anti-collision bumper and sensors.

Underneath the DEEBOT T10 OMNI are its two driving wheels, as well as a rotating universal wheel. There’s also a carpet detection sensor and mounting slots for the dual side brushes and mopping pad plates. Anti-drop sensors use infrared ranging detection to determine the distance between the bottom of the robot and the floor. These sensors stop the bot from moving forward when there are stairs going down in front of it, although it’s always a good practice to block access to any potential drops anyway.

Vacuum Mode, rather than mopping or the typical combination, is recommended for the initial quick mapping of your home. Although this quick mapping was relatively imprecise for our home, it did not affect T10 OMNI’s navigation or cleaning performance even without manual intervention via the ECOVACS HOME App.

The Indispensable App

Without the use of the ECOVACS HOME App, you won’t have access to remote startup, voice interaction, 2D/3D map display and control settings, and personalized cleaning. Using the Video Manager function, you can also use the app for remote control, video and photo monitoring and recording, and two-way voice calls. One-way video calls are also possible, as is sending the robovac to a specific destination on the floor map it created and going on a Home Patrol. It’s no substitute as a security device versus something like the Amazon Astro, but it’s nice that this extra functionality is there, especially since the video and audio quality is good for a product of this type.

Arguably, the most important function of the app is Smart Cleaning, where you can fine-tune object detection and tell the robot to clean under detected furniture. You can also specify the type of flooring material in each detected room and perform all kinds of other tweaks to the generated map. It’s not the most intuitive, but considering the extensive feature set, the app works well, allowing you to customize just about everything, including your cleaning preferences and schedules.

Of course, you don’t need the app to perform basic functions. From the robot, you can Start to vacuum or mop, Pause, Wake Up, and send it back to the OMNI Station. Similarly, from the three top OMNI Station buttons, you can Start, Pause, Recall the robot, tell the Robot to Exit the station, do a Self-Cleaning, and turn the Child Lock On or Off. These buttons are touch-sensitive, so are very easy to press and trigger a function accidentally. As such, the best alternative to the app is generally to use the “OK YIKO” voice commands, like “Is your battery charged?” or “Mop the floors.”

Vacuuming: It Really Sucks

Activating AUTO Cleaning from the ECOVACS HOME App sends the DEEBOT T10 OMNI on its way. It begins cleaning the area near its charger before moving on its way to other rooms, often making multiple passes. The maximum 5,000pa of suction power, which is pretty standard for most vacuums, has no problems picking up regular household dust and hair.

Overall, the robot did a good job of identifying and avoiding obstacles on the main floor of our cluttered five-person, two-dog household consisting of an office, family room, kitchen, dining room, hallways, and a half bathroom with a mix of hardwood and vinyl flooring. It did have trouble with the puppy pads we have down in key locations of our home to accommodate accidents from our senior dogs, so instead of having the robovac get tangled up, we made sure to remove the pads before it proceeded to clean.

Although we don’t have any, it’s recommended that area rugs with tassels have them tucked under before unleashing the T10 OMNI, and, like other robot vacuums and vacuums in general, it might also have trouble with certain high-pile carpets. Of course, as previously stated, the floor plan and its objects, including setting boundaries and other off-limits areas, can easily be done within the app.

Considering it was the fifth day after a thorough manual vacuuming and quick mopping, the robovac did a good job of picking up the normally accumulated dust, dirt, and debris of everyday family life. Even though the ECOVACS bot does a great job cleaning right up to the wall line, no vacuum gets absolutely everything. The DEEBOT T10 OMNI is certainly no exception, even when spending 93 minutes cleaning 731.9 square feet (68 square meters).

Thanks to the device’s design and that of the OMNI Station, spot and even daily cleanings are practical once you establish a good baseline. We generally try to stick to every few days of mixed vacuuming and mopping to keep our floors clean. Because of our need to pick up the puppy pads and make sure no unusual obstacles are on the floor in our home, we just tell it to clean when we’re ready rather than setting a schedule, which is ideal for homes with more predictable living conditions.

The bot has its own removable dust bin, which consists of a high-efficiency filter, sponge filter, and filter net. When the robot docks, it automatically empties its dust bin into the OMNI Station’s dust collection cabin found at the front of the unit. The dust collection cabin can be opened with a pop-up button found underneath, just above the docking area. A removable 0.8 gallon (3 liter) dust bag stores the debris collected in the cabin and is estimated to hold up to 60 days’ worth of dirt.

The included multi-function cleaning tool—really just a small brush and razer combination—helps remove excess dust and any hairs wrapped around the dual side brushes or floating main (intake) brush, which itself is removable for cleaning. There’s also a larger cleaning brush in the small accessory tray between the two water tanks.

Mopping: It’s Wet and Then Dry

To mop, you need to have the mopping pad plates installed, which can be used at the same time as the dual side brushes for concurrent vacuuming. The mopping pads attached to the mopping pad plates are reusable and machine washable, although, like many of the parts, will need to be replaced once worn.

The separate clean and dirty water tanks remain in the OMNI Station and clean both the mopping pads and collect wastewater without cross-contamination. The clean water tank can hold up to 1 gallon (4 L) of clean water, letting you clean up to  4,306 square feet (400 square meters) of space. The recommended ECOVACS DEEBOT Cleaning Solution is not included and starts at $24.99 for a single bottle on the ECOVACS website. For testing purposes and to save on shipping, I purchased the cleaning kit bundle for $76.49, which included two 1 Liter (33.8 FL OZ) bottles of the 1.2-Benzisothiazolin-3-one-based solution and two sets of mopping pads.

Like with the vacuuming, you can set all kinds of options from the ECOVACS HOME App for things like mopping pad wetness, cleaning interval, and hot air drying time.

After adding just two capfuls of the solution to the full clean water tank and giving it a quick mix, the robot filled its onboard tank with the clean water and cleaning solution mix and set to work with concurrent vacuuming and mopping. The ECOVACS DEEBOT Cleaning Solution worked well on our combination floors when mopping for the first time, creating a slight shine for the areas it was able to access. Most importantly, the floors felt really clean.

The Deebot T10 Omni did have to return to the Station regularly to clean the mop pads (saying, “Mopping pads are dirty, I’ll return to clean them”), and, eventually, recharge. In between these successive dual-cleaning sessions, it got stuck once on some cables and then once in-between chairs in the kitchen, both examples of things necessary to tweak on the map or make physical adjustments to before unleashing the robovac. On the plus side, even when stuck or moved, the bot always knew where it was in relation to the map, a trick it could teach some other robots like Amazon Astro that have trouble in this area.

Once finished mopping and docked, the OMNI Station takes about two hours to dry the mopping pads, which reduces the chance of bacteria growth and odor. As with vacuuming, the robot docks and performs its automated maintenance once finished mopping. A typical combined vacuuming and mopping for our home last about 59 minutes to clean 570.4 square feet (53 square meters).

Maintenance: Not Everything Can Be Automated

Compared to other vacuums and mops, robot or otherwise, that require significant manual intervention at every cleaning, the DEEBOT T10 OMNI is mostly hands-off on a day-to-day basis. Nevertheless, there’s no avoiding the need for regular maintenance and parts replacements for a product like this.

After every mopping, you need to clean the dirty water tank so there’s no mold, mildew , or odor. Once every week, you need to clean the floating main brush, sponge filter, high-efficiency filter, bumper, and all of the sensors, wheels, and contact pins. Once every two weeks, you need to clean the dual side brushes and cleaning sink. Once every month, you need to clean the dust collection cabin, OMNI Station, and filter. Finally, once every three months, you need to wash the clean water tank. Overall, the Robot does a good job of letting you know when to service most things, like the buckets.

In terms of replacement parts, the washable mopping pads need to be replaced every one to two months. Every three to six months, replace the dual side brushes, sponge filter, and high-efficiency filter. Every 6 to 12 months, the floating main brush should be replaced. The dust bag gets replaced when prompted by YIKO. Detailed maintenance instructions are provided in the included manual, and the replacement items themselves can be sourced directly from the ECOVACS website.

Should You Buy the ECOVACS DEEBOT T10 OMNI?

Compared to lower-end and cheaper robotic vacuums and mops, and even ECOVACS’s own N10+ and T9+, the DEEBOT T10 OMNI offers a lot of additional automation and capacity that arguably justifies its higher price for those who can afford it. You don’t necessarily get a better clean, but you do get a more convenient and frequent clean thanks to its ability to vacuum and mop at the same time and do most of the short-term maintenance on its own.

In terms of extended functionality, it’s a bonus that you can use the T10 OMNI for basic one-way video calls and home monitoring with its front-facing camera. Even in low light, the camera is good enough that you can easily use the app to check on your home when you’re away. It’s no replacement for something like an Amazon Astro and Ring alarm system, but it’s nice to have that extra functionality as part of its feature set.

Considering the price and how little ECOVACS DEEBOT Cleaning Solution is actually required to mop, it’s odd that not even a sample is included in the box. While you will need to order replacement parts anyway, not including something so essential is an odd choice considering all of the care taken with the rest of the out-of-the-box experience.

Despite this being a premium cleaning robot, it can’t work miracles. Given the Robot’s 4.5in height and 13.5in width, it won’t fit between every chair leg or under every piece of furniture. And with its round shape, even setting it for corner cleaning doesn’t guarantee it will be effective at cleaning every corner of your home.

If you understand what you’re getting and don’t mind the high asking price, the ECOVACS DEEBOT T10 OMNI makes an excellent choice in an increasingly crowded robot cleaning market. All of the key features and then some are there, and, despite being out for just a short time, it’s already seen several firmware updates that enhance its functionality even further. It’s one step closer to the dream of a robot maid.