I’ve been following Ecovacs Robotics’ progress within the robotic vacuum market since 2018, having examined the Deebot Ozmo 930 and the Deebot 900 for TechSwitch again then. I’ve seen virtually each technology launched since that point in motion – and examined 4 different fashions – and have been impressed with how far the corporate’s technological evolution has taken it.
Case in level is my Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni review: It’s a flagship mannequin that I used to be so impressed by that, regardless of its increased asking worth in comparison with one thing just like the Deebot T30 Omni, I’d be comfy recommending it to anybody eager on an all-in-one autonomous cleaner. The latter, nevertheless, if you will discover inventory, is arguably the best-value robovac I’ve examined so far.
Sadly it’s one of the successors to the T30 Omni to be the first Deebot to let me down. I was sent the Ecovacs Deebot T50 Max Pro Omni for review immediately after the aforementioned X8 – it would have been my seventh Deebot, if you’re keeping track – and, while things began well enough, it quickly went downhill from there.
Quietly misbehaving
Initial setup, as with every Deebot I’ve tested previously, was a breeze – pairing took seconds and mapping my one-bedroom apartment took five minutes. I then sent the T50 Max Pro Omni off (I called it Meryl Sweep – my sincerest apologies to the great actress) to clean the fully carpeted bedroom first, set at the highest suction setting.
Holy moly, it was the quietest bot I’d ever tested! It registered 61dB on DecibelX (a free iOS app I’ve been using for review purposes for a while), and I remember my visiting parents oohing and aahing over how silently it did its thing. Auto-empty was remarkably quick, which I was surprised by – I put that down to there not being too much dirt in the onboard bin.
It was on its second cleaning session that I began to question its first run.
Set to mop-after-vacuum the hard floors in my living room and dining room only – at its highest suction and a high waterflow rate – the T50 Max Pro Omni now sounded much louder than any recent robot vacuum I’d tested, registering 77dB.
While it seemingly vacuumed the living room area in a proper manner, Meryl Sweep constantly kept cleaning one half of the dining room until its battery began to run low. No mopping took place.
Annoyed, I stopped the ‘job’ and sent it back to its dock and the auto-emptying process now sounded, well, ‘normal’ – louder and longer, as I’d come to expect after the more recent Deebot reviews.
I set it to repeat the same living-and-dining clean at the same settings the next day, but it kept saying it was “unable to find the designated area”. I tried a different room; same response.
A complete factory reset and re-pairing did the trick – it vacuumed then mopped the living and dining rooms… only to fail again the next day when it couldn’t “find the designated area” for another custom clean.
Second time wasn’t the charm
Ecovacs Robotics was kind enough to replace my review unit and, again, setup was impressively quick. Sadly, the new unit’s inability to find its “designated area” began on its first run, which was a custom job similar to what I’d set the previous bot to do.
Turns out, it was these room or zone custom cleans that the T50 Pro Max Omni has a problem with. I set the second unit to do an auto cleaning session – now called Intelligent Hosting in the Ecovacs Home app – and it was fine moving away from its dock. However, here too there were issues.
Not only did it start in the wrong room (the map sequence I had it set to was starting in the bedroom, but it began in the living room instead), but it failed at one of the basic functions too.
Ecovacs’ automatic mode is a vacuum-and-mop setting, so you’d expect the mop pads to be washed before the bot leaves the base station. That didn’t happen, and I found the T50 Max Pro Omni dry mopping with the pads extended, despite me making sure the clean-water tank was full. It did, however, wash the mops after it returned to the base station.
A bug in the bonnet
This isn’t the first time a Deebot model has suffered from what is possibly a navigation (mapping?) issue. An old Reddit thread from earlier than the T50 household was introduced has a couple of customers saying they’ve skilled related issues and have provided varied options, however they don’t specify if this impacts only one mannequin or totally different Deebots.
I am unable to confirm whether or not your complete T50 household is affected, however it’s clear there’s a bug affecting some fashions or, on the very least, some particular models, and Ecovacs must look into fixing this. Thankfully, neither the T30 Omni nor the X8 Pro Omni gave me such bother, which is why I used to be so stunned shocked that the T50 wasn’t behaving as anticipated.
Ecovacs now has a big catalog of robotic vacuums, each at a special worth level (from finances to flagship) and providing totally different options. I can’t think about that the corporate would ship merchandise to market with out totally testing them first, however maybe the T50 Pro Max Omni fell by the wayside and testing wasn’t full – I imply, I can perceive one unit being defective, however two?
I so wished to fall in love with the T50 Max Pro Omni: it has a bit extra suction than the X8 (18,500Pa vs 18,000Pa respectively) at a a lot lower cost than the flagship – $799 / AU$1,799 within the US and Australia in comparison with $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$2,499 (the UK doesn’t get the T50 Max mannequin, however the T50 Pro Omni is £799 at full worth). It doesn’t skimp on different options both, together with Ecovacs’ Yiko voice assistant and Matter integration. On paper, it truly is a implausible machine – flagship options with out the premium worth. The major distinction is that it makes use of the round mop pads whereas the X8 Pro Omni’s curler is implausible.
From a worth perspective alone, it might be extremely recommendable… if it labored. It’s a disgrace that this Deebot turned out to be a dudbot and I believe it needs to be taken off cabinets instantly.
