Robot vacuums have become commonplace, but innovation has stagnated. The Ecovacs Deebot T20 Omni is a breath of fresh air, setting the new bar for premium robot vacuums and moppers.
This cutting-edge device blends powerful performance with advanced technology, including hot water washing, 6000 Pa suction, intelligent navigation, and obstacle avoidance.
The Deebot T20 Omni propels robot vacuums into the future, delivering superior cleaning results and a plethora of features, albeit with some trade-offs.
Ecovacs Deebot T20 Omni: Design
The Deebot T20 Omni’s design doesn’t break new ground for robot vacuums. It features the usual circular shape, with a top-mounted LiDAR sensor, some sensors around the sides, and a couple of spinning side brushes on the bottom.
The T20 also has two large round spinning mop heads that you leave on it full-time. It looks nice and clean in white and silver with aluminum details, but of course, this is a personal preference. The wheels are larger and more rugged than average.
Ecovacs topped the robot with a plastic cover attached to a lightweight magnet. The cover reveals access to the smaller-than-average waste bin. In theory, you only need to access the dustbin during regular maintenance and cleaning every couple of weeks.
The Omni station has a much more substantial look, measuring nearly 2 feet tall. It makes a statement in your home, so having a good spot for it is key. The Omni station charges the Deebot, empties the waste bin, and handles the mop prep and cleaning.
The Omni has three main components:
- The bottom port for the Deebot vacuum
- The large dust bin that’s hidden in the middle
- The clean and dirty water canisters at the top
Despite being so large and doing so much, it’s pretty simple. The bottom port isn’t removable, so cleaning dirt and gunk off is the biggest frustration. The two water canisters are easy to load and unload. It doesn’t take long for both canisters to smell bad, but this happens only when emptying them.
Both the Deebot and Omni stations have just one button, which can be confusing.
The Deebot T20 absolutely performs. It’s notably more powerful than most RoboVacs, with 6000 Pa of suction. Its motors are powerful, and if you trap it with your feet, you’ll feel how hard it pushes to get free. Surprisingly, Deebot can struggle with small lifts like exercise mats or certain carpets.
Occasionally, it will lose a spinning brush or declare itself stuck trying to clear a mat. Outside of that, Deebot takes a very gentle approach to edges and obstacles. It doesn’t slam into walls or objects; instead, it slows down and navigates around them, prioritizing careful cleaning. You can even configure if you want Deebot to prioritize cleaning or obstacle avoidance. The navigation system also allows the device to articulate around obstacles and ultimately cover every nook.
Deebot T20’s vacuuming is as good as you could expect from a robotic vacuum. It’s on par with our Eufy RoboVac X8 and gets stuck less often. The robot adjusts nicely to cleaning carpets and rugs, even intelligently lifting the mop heads and forgoing mopping. Depending on the pile, it’s a small lift and may still brush your carpet.
The hot water mopping helps tackle most residue with ease, making it one of the better mopping robots on the market. The only thing Deebot can’t clean is stickier debris, which requires much pressure.
The LiDAR technology significantly enhances efficiency and floor mapping capabilities, allowing users to configure specific rooms and set no-go zones with ease. Unfortunately, you can’t set custom names for your room, and sometimes the Ecovacs app will overwrite your room changes.
Compared to similar models like the Eufy RoboVac X8, the Deebot T20 Omni excels in avoiding small obstacles like cables and toys. Still, it might struggle with certain floor types, as evidenced by difficulties with our 3/4″ exercise mats. The T20 has no issues with rugs, but it will struggle for sometimes minutes trying to get over exercise mats. It’s not uncommon for the spinning brush to pop off in the process.
All Robot Vacuums are loud, and Deebot is no exception. There’s a quiet mode, but it’s loud enough that you won’t want to be in the same room. Quiet mode is nice if you want to run Deebot while sleeping at night (with the door closed!). Its gentle approach to obstacles helps keep noise to a minimum.
Ecovacs T20 Omni: Mopping performance
Deebot has two large rotating mopping pads. Unlike other robots, these lift up so you can keep them on while vacuuming. There’s no water reservoir inside Deebot, so the vacuum returns to the station every 6, 10, or 15 minutes. You set this. It isn’t the most efficient option, especially if you have a large floor plan, but this is also how Deebot is able to use hot water up to 131 degrees Fahrenheit to clean.
The hot water washing combined with the large spinning mop heads makes a notable difference in getting rid of grime and tougher dirt. Deebot even uses hot air drying on the mop heads to prevent smelly mop heads. It lasts 2-4 hours. We appreciate that there’s a setting that will vacuum and mop simultaneously if you need a good clean in a pinch. You can also set it to mop after vacuuming or just mop.
We’ve reviewed other mopping vacuums, which are all much more involved. We love not having to remove or clean the mopping pads every day. The only kicker is that the T20 Omni uses all the water in a single run in our house, so you need to refill and empty the water buckets daily. Once empty, Deebot refuses to clean unless you go into the app and switch cleaning modes. It should just fall back to vacuuming in lieu of water.
The Ecovacs Home app
The Ecovacs Home app is the best and worst part of the Deebot T20. The app is loaded with features and functionality but is complicated, buggy, and unintuitive. The vacuum’s cleaning status is usually stale and requires you to back out to the main screen and re-select the vacuum.
Notifications are buggy. We have trouble getting them to work, and when they do work, we sometimes get irrelevant or strangely timed notifications. The vacuum’s settings and configuration options split across multiple screens in an unintuitive fashion.
Schedules use your last cleaning mode (i.e., mopping), and it’s unclear if you must create “custom scenarios” to change this. Once you figure that out, you can have Deebot clean any room or combination of rooms on a schedule and in any cleaning mode. We now have Deebot mop twice a week and vacuum the other days, which gives us time to change the mop water.
Deebot T20 Omni smart home vacuum: Maintenance
The benefit of the Omni station, or any auto-empty station, is that you don’t have to empty the waste basket after every run. It further reduces the time you need to spend on “cleaning.” One drawback is that the Omni station’s large waste bin relies on one-time-use bags. And Ecovacs only included one.
In addition to the wastefulness and costliness of waste bags, we’d prefer to see the waste before discarding it to rescue any small toys and objects Deebot may have picked up. While these single-use bags aren’t intended for reuse, you can still empty them with some effort. We only have to do this once every few weeks.
We’re big fans of the mopping feature, but it still requires changing the water every day if you want to mop daily. The smelly mop water is this product’s only real unpleasant aspect, especially if you don’t change the water daily and clean the containers weekly.
Like all robot vacuum cleaners, you’ll need to wipe the T20 down and change their parts regularly. Deebot includes no extra accessories, which is surprising for a device of this price. It is one of the worst aspects, in our opinion.
After a few months, the app will start bugging you to order more parts. As we see it, Ecovacs should include a year’s worth of accessories; instead, it’s a few months before you’ll need new filters and brushes. You’re looking at over $100 per year if you want to buy their branded accessories. The Ecovacs app has an odd point system where they gamify using your robot. You can redeem these points for discounts, but not enough to get your replacement parts cheaper than third-party versions from Amazon.
Aside from the mop water, the regular maintenance is monthly for us (or even less often) and doesn’t take much more than 5-10 minutes. It’s fairly typical:
- Clean the filters and the dust tray.
- Remove hair from the rollers.
- Wipe down the unit and sensors.
The Omni station has a base tray that is not removable, so cleaning with the included cleaning wand brush takes a bit of effort.
Ecovacs Deebot T20 Omni review: Final thoughts
Ecovacs deserves credit for pushing the boundaries of robot vacuums with the Deebot T20 Omni. While the category has seen little innovation in recent years, the Deebot T20 Omni impresses with its hot water mopping, 6000 Pa suction power, and wealth of customization and control options. It’s also great that the Deebot can lift its mop heads, so you don’t have to remove them to vacuum.
Despite frustration with the app, we’ve mostly grown accustomed to it. Since we can schedule mopping twice a week and vacuuming the other days, we don’t have to change the water daily. Forgetting to change the water can cause the Deebot to skip a day of work.
The cost of replacement accessories is another downside. But overall, the Deebot T20 Omni is one of the most powerful and best robot vacuums and mops on the market. The price varies, but it’s typically around $1000. At the time of writing, it’s $ 1,083.56 on Amazon. While the price tag is steep, the Deebot T20 Omni offers a real quality-of-life improvement. We recommend it only if mopping is vital to you and you’re willing to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the app.
With its 6000 Pa suction, hot water washing, and intelligent navigation, the Ecovacs Deebot T20 Omni delivers superior cleaning results.