Deebot X1 Omni review: the do-everything robot vacuum

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There are both home and robot vacuums. The Deebot X1 Omni Robot Vacuum and Mop is the latter. The bot can sweep and mop your floors, empty its own dustbin, refill its mop, and clean and dry its mop. It can respond to your voice commands directly with its onboard voice assistant, and it can also be used as a home security camera. We've gone way beyondvacuum.

When I spilled a few drops of yogurt on the floor at my fridge on a busy morning, it was clear that this brave new world was here. I had to say "Okay, Yiko" instead of pausing my pre-school routine to grab a mop.

The bot said, "Come clean here!" I continued to make breakfast and pack lunches while the X1 Omni rumbled over to where I was standing. I told it to go home and empty its bin and wash and dry its mops.

The X1 Omni is the first robot vacuum to have a dedicated voice interface. I am convinced that this is the future of smart home voice control after a month of living with Yiko.

Yiko is not going to give you any updates on the weather or play your favorite music on your phone, but the benefit is context. Yiko knows how to respond more accurately and reliably. When I tested the S7 MaxV Ultra, I asked Apple's voice assistant to tell Bobby to clean the kitchen, but she thought I was trying to.

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Home voice assistants are more prone to misunderstanding commands because they can do so many things. Yiko never tried to call anyone. When I asked the X1 Omni to clean up the yogurt, it knew I was in front of the fridge, thanks to its onboard camera and microphones.

I think we will see more of this in the smart home. I don't think it will replace voice assistants. There are better ways to add context to smart lighting, such as Ultra-Wideband or radar technology, and no one wants a microphone and speaker in all their lightbulbs. A dedicated voice assistant makes sense on a complicated device like a robot vacuum.

Yiko is still a work in progress, as excited as I am about this innovation. Voice control is hard to crack. I had to repeat the wake-up phrase several times to get the robot's attention. It was difficult to hear me when it was vacuuming, and it sometimes got distracted, going off to clean the whole house rather than carrying out the command I gave it. You have to be close by for the speaker to hear you, it has an array of microphones on its silver turret.

When the robot's camera could see you, it couldn't find me, but it could still hear. Some people don't want a camera in their house. Many high-end vacuums have cameras that enable them to detect obstacles, so they don't roll over dog poop or eat your charging cables. Some vacuum cleaners will turn this into a home security / pet watching feature, which may be more than most people need or want out of their vacuum cleaner. Privacy concerns are raised by the X1's ability to store photos and videos on Ecovacs' server. You can chat with your family through the vacuum with two-way audio.

Concerns about how the data they collect is protected are brought about by bringing connected devices into your home. The company whose smart home products we review has safeguards in place for your data.

Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni manages maps, video and image data from its onboard camera and is the primary home data. The Yiko voice assistant has onboard speakers and microphones. Ecovacs says that Yiko voice recordings will be moved to server later this year with user opt-in.

Passwords, secure storage, secure communication, and software updates are some of the requirements that the X1 hardware and apps have obtained.

Map data can be cleared with a factory reset. Photos and videos generated by the user while using the security camera feature are stored on Ecovacs' server, where they are not accessible to Ecovacs, third parties, or others. They can be seen and deleted by the user. You can save photos and videos onto your mobile device. When the device is recording or flashing a light, it announces in the app.

In terms of a robot vacuum, the X1 Omni has all the high-end features you would expect, such as an obstacle avoidance system, lidar navigation, and 5,000 Pa of suction power. It never ran out of juice on standard mode when I cleaned my 400 square foot main floor, but it had to go back to charging after 70 minutes.

You can control the robot with the Ecovacs Home app, which has digital keep-out zones to keep the bot away from tricky or sensitive areas, room-specific and customized cleaning, and just lightly clean the hallway.

The built-in voice assistant and security camera feature are included. It's a lot. I don't think we need to throw the kitchen sink at the challenge of cleaning our floors. The phrase "too many cooks" is appropriate because the X1 Omni software is not always up to the job.

This is a good vacuum and excellent mop, but it is not as smart as its cheaper competitors. It was tripped up by my fake dog turds but 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 It avoided cables and shoes and other large objects, but decided a bit of Cocoa Krispies cereal and a gum wrapper should be avoided. The X1 was able to navigate around furniture, getting in between my kitchen stools and dining table chair legs without knocking anything over, but it only found one piece of furniture in my house.

The X1 refused to use the carefully crafted map on which I added keep-out zones and furniture, and instead created a new one on each run. I deleted all the maps and sent them out on a quick mapping run, which took under two minutes and was faster than most lidar mapping robots. This time the map stuck, but it hasn't identified any more furniture, so I'm hesitant to put all that work in, in case it deleted it again.

This is a good-looking robot vacuum, a rarity in this space, and the X1's hardware is impressive. Jacob Jensen Design was tasked by Ecovacs to create a sleek, modern-looking robot and base. The whole package is two feet high and over a foot deep, and it looks better than iRobot's elegant auto-empty base.

The home cleaning robot is hidden inside a polished silver and black case. It has a pop-out drawer for the dust bag, a small cubby for the robot to hide in, and two water tanks. It looks good enough that you won't feel the need to hide it since it is so large.

The robot mop is called the X1 Omni. It has two thick mopping pads that spin at 180 revolutions per minute, instead of the thin scrap of cloth you find on most mopping vacuums. If you want to vacuum rugs or carpets, you have to remove them as the robot has rug-avoidance tech that stops it from dragging wet cloths over your carpet. You need to flip the entire robot over to install or uninstall them, and there is no place to store them in the giant Omni base. The two pads are doing their spinning thing.

It mops better than most hybrid mop/vacs, but it wasn't any more effective at mopping than the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra. Both do a good job of cleaning up spills and debris, but neither can do the harder jobs like dried-up milk. Adding a cleaning solution to the X1 can help with the hard scrubbing.

If you want to vacuum, the feature that lifts the mop up when it goes over carpet makes the Roborock model a better option. The X1 Omni does a better job of cleaning its mop, filling a little sink in the dock with water and swirling them around every 15 minutes during a clean. You can change this timing in the app. When it is done, it will blow hot air for two to four hours to get them dry. After every four or five cleans, I needed to refill the larger tanks of the Omni. I think it's because its plush pads use more water.

The X1 omni is good at vacuuming, cleaning each room and avoiding obstacles. It heads back to empty its bin at the end of the run. I had no problems with the small bin being emptied.

The X1 Omni is not the best sucker out there, as it is not effective at getting up the dirt. The competition has larger rubber-only brushes and the Omni uses just one small bristle / rubber hybrid brush. The hybrid brushes get more easily tangled by hair and carpet fluff than rubber ones, making them less effective. I had to clean this one out every few days, which took away from the promised hands-free experience.

There are a lot of innovative and useful features on the X1 Omni, and I am very impressed by the design and function of the base station as well as Yiko. The robot's cleaning prowess isn't as good as the ones that cost more.

Ecovacs has two cheaper models in its new flagship X1 series that have a few features to cut costs. Both offer Yiko voice control and 5,000 Pa power.

The Deebot X1 is the same as the X1 Omni, except the base only cleans and refill the mops. It doesn't auto-empty the bin, which is the best feature of recentrobo vac innovation. The Deebot X1 Plus has an auto-empty station that doesn't clean or refill the mopping tank. It uses an upgraded version of Deebots, which is a flat cloth on a water tank.

Image: Ecovacs

I have used Deebot's OZMO Pro mopping system before, and it is very effective, using vibration and downward pressure to remove dirt. The Ecovacs X1 Omni is the best model to buy if you want a robot vacuum and mop.

The Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is the only robot that can match the X1 Omni's abilities. If you want something that looks nicer in your home, consider the X1 Omni. If you don't want to have other voice assistants, the Yiko voice assistant is a good choice because it is better at controlling the vacuum.

The X1 Omni is very impressive. Even though it is a pioneer in this new category of home robot, it is very expensive and still has a few bugs to work out. The future of hands-free home cleaning is very good.

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it. It is impossible for us to read and analyze all of these agreements. We started counting how many times you have to agree to use devices when we review them.

You need to register for an Ecovacs account using an email address to use the Ecovacs Home app.

• Ecovacs’ User Agreement
• Ecovacs’ Privacy Policy

Ecovacs User Experience Improvement Plan allows the app to collect and analyze data from the robot, which the company says is to improve the user experience.

You get two mandatory and one optional agreements.

The photos were taken by Tuohy.