Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsMy favorite vaccum/mop combo
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2022
This thing is great. (The Deebot Ecovacs X1 omni). First of all, in response to another review, you can absolutely schedule tasks in the app [to an absurdly high degree]. I have my ecobot omni wake up every morning at 745 AM to clean three rooms, and each room has a customizable level of intensity for the mopping and the vacuuming. [Kitchen is on max everything, hallway on standard vacuum but heavy mop, etc]. You choose the order the rooms are cleaned in, and how thoroughly. It's great. The app is not always the easiest to navigate, but the option to schedule tasks is there. Just go to AUTO mode in the app [as opposed to custom and area] and scroll down.
Additionally, in response to another review, this robot is capable of resuming a task if it needs to stop and re-charge. However, you do have to go into settings to enable this feature. It's not on by default.
Third, if you have any issues with this thing -- like it can't find the base station -- be sure to reset both the robot [flip the switch on the top, under the cover] and the base station [by unplugging it and plugging back in]. Fixes it for me.
Anyway, here's my review. Coming from a Roomba j7 and Braava Jet M3, there's many massive positives:
-Incredibly good at avoiding obstacles/wires and understanding its place in the house for routing. It doesn't have to bump into everything like my roomba! It also navigates back to the base station very intelligently.
-Didn't take long to map the whole house fairly accurately with LIDAR. There were some inaccurate rooms but it was easy to fix with the map editor in the app.
-Because it uses LIDAR to avoid obstacles and navigate, it works fine without the lights on. It also does not need a light on the robot.
-App is very functional. Love that I can customize the intensity of mopping/vacuuming by room, select specific areas to clean [not just rooms, but areas within rooms using the app], adjust duration of heat-drying the mop pads, etc. I can also clearly specify keep-out zones, keep-out boundary lines, and set custom areas for cleaning if needed [ie, more specific zones than an individual room]. BUT -- Keep out zones were not really needed. I was worried it would get stuck on the jumble of wires behind my sofa, but every time it just sees them and avoids them.
-It alerts you when the clean water/dirty water is low, using spoken voice.
-You can see the exact path your robot took when cleaning is done, and while it's cleaning, traced in the app. Check out my attached screenshot. It shows a white trace of the robot's exact path in cleaning three rooms. Note the kitchen got extra treatment, and the hallway and living room got one pass, as I instructed.
-Ability to see video feed from robot, and speak through it like a radio, is a neat security feature. Videos can even be saved.
-Aesthetically, the base station and the ecovacs itself look very slick. It's like an apple product.
-Magnetic design makes removing pieces/brushes super easy for replacement when needed.
-It hot air drys the wet mops after cleaning! Can customize this to take 2 to 4 hours.
-Great suction power, especially on the Max+ mode (although it's quite loud)..
-Good drop sensors to prevent falling off a cliff in your house.
-easy to order replacement parts, both official and cheaper unofficial versions. i actually prefer some of the cheaper, unofficial mop pads more..
-Love the voice assist. Don't need to pair it to a phone or anything. Just say, OK YIKO and tell it what to do. You can even say 'clean near me' and it will find you and start cleaning there. It occassionally thinks I said OK YIKO when I did not, but no big deal.
Some downsides, which I view as minor:
-Battery takes a long time to charge. I'd say I can have it running on max power for around 2 hours before it needs around 5-7 hours to charge. Fortunately it can clean most of my house in 2 hours, although it's a small house.
-You have to occasionally clean the base station. Not often, maybe once a month. On the bright side, there is a great maintenance video on YouTube that explains exactly how to do this (as well as how to maintain every other part on the robot) and it's very straightforward and easy. The video is called "06 Deebot X1 OMNI Clean & Maintenance." I'd estimate it takes about 10 minutes to do all the required maintenance every month. You basically just scrub everything down and swap the pads/brushes/bag/filter if needed. The app reminds you of all this and keeps track.
-Although the clean and dirty water tanks are each quite big, like 4L, I still find I have to empty /refill them once every couple of days (If I'm cleaning the house each day).
-Every couple months or so, it bugs out in some way. Maybe it can't find the base station or gets lost etc. Not a big deal. A quick reset fixes it.
-The language translations to English, and the related issues, are a bit confusing. For example, I can label a room a "Tatami" on my map, but not a "foyer." Additionally, emails I receive from Ecovacs, and the instruction manuals, have some obvious grammar errors. This is a pretty minor downside because it never really interferes with the usage of the product, but they should update this for clarity. It's also very out of place on an expensive product like this.
Overall, love this thing. LIDAR robots are the future.
