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Ecovacs Deebot T20 Omni review: A smart robot vacuum and mop that should be smarter
A premium machine with a price tag to match, the T20 falls short when it comes to basic navigation and edge cleaning.
There's nothing quite like leaving for work and coming home to freshly cleaned floors. (I mean, a plate of freshly baked cookies would be nice too, but we don't have robots for that yet.) With the right robot vacuum, you can enjoy that feeling every day.
The Ecovacs Deebot T20 Omni sweeps, vacuums and mops, and even cleans up after itself; it's one of the most advanced household robots you can buy today. However, it's also expensive, and in my tests, it didn't always live up to its promise. Read on to see if the Deebot T20 Omni deserves a place in your home.
(Note: This review, originally published in October, 2023, has been updated to reflect changes in pricing.)
VERDICT: It's not the smartest robo-cleaner I've tested, but it's a fairly effective one — and a recent price drop makes it a much more attractive buy.
- High-performance vacuuming and mopping
- Decor-friendly docking station
- Has its own voice assistant
- Automatic mop-raising on carpeted floors
- Not good at edge cleaning or obstacle avoidance
- Buggy app
- Mop cycle requires multiple returns to the dock
- No pet-waste detection
Let me start with a warning about the Amazon product page for the T20: Although it currently shows over 3,600 user ratings, those are spread out across four different Ecovacs products, all of which share that page. This is a common practice among resellers and a somewhat disingenuous one; the at-a-glance score you see up top isn't just for the product you're viewing, but rather an average for all the products. Only around 180 of the five-star ratings are for this model.
Shenanigans like those are just one reason to seek out reviews like the one you're reading. Amazon's user ratings don't always tell the whole story, and sometimes they're actually bought and paid for. (Not saying that's the case here, merely that you can't judge a product by its stars.)
Ecovacs Deebot T20 Omni unboxing and setup
The Deebot T20 is easy enough to unpack and install, requiring just the two sweeper brushes to be snapped onto the robot itself and then a few hours of charging. (The two mop pads get added after the initial floor-mapping process, though I don't fully understand why.)
Ecovacs' docking station boasts clean lines and a silver-accent lid that matches the silver top of the T20 itself; it's about as easy on the decor as these things get. It's quite large, however, as it houses not only a vacuum bag for self-emptying but also clean- and dirty-water tanks for the mop. You'll need a decent chunk of floor space for it and some clearance overhead, as tank access is from the top.
While the T20 is charging, you can install the Ecovacs app. As usual these days, you'll need to set up an account. (Yep, another password to remember.) But the Deebot T20 also has its own voice assistant, Yiko, which can respond to commands like, "Yiko, mop the floor" and "Yiko, vacuum the living room." If you prefer, you can link the vacuum with an Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant device and use those voice commands instead. Either way, you still need the app.
Ecovacs Deebot T20 Omni features
On paper, this is one seriously capable smart vac. Ecovacs promises 6,000Pa of suction power, a bit higher than that of the Dreamebot L10S Ultra and Roborock S7 Max Ultra, two other high-end robo-cleaners I've tested. And because it has two brushes instead of one, it should be faster and more efficient at sweeping than a single-brush model.
As for mopping, the T20 employs a pair of rotating pads that the docking station sprays with hot water before cleaning. That's a first for me; the Dreamebot and Roborock models don't have heat. Needless to say, hot water cleans better than cold. You have the option of adding cleaning solution to the tank, but Ecovacs doesn't supply any.
The T20 will also automatically raise those mop pads by 9mm when it detects carpet, the idea being to keep them from dragging and getting the carpet wet. The aforementioned competing robots can do likewise, but raise their mops only 7mm and 5mm, respectively.
One more unique feature: After a mopping cycle, the docking station blows hot air on the pads to dry them more quickly. Having experienced the Dreamebot's lengthy cold-air drying cycle (which is relatively quiet but definitely not silent), I appreciate this little perk.
Ecovacs Deebot T20 performance
As noted above, on paper this thing's a champ. On floors, it's a little different. I used it numerous times on the main level of my home, which consists of a laminate-covered kitchen and dining area flanked by two carpeted rooms; pretty typical.
On the whole, it did a fine job vacuuming, leaving the telltale (and highly desirable) vacuum lines from its paths across the carpet. But it seems less effective with edges, as you can see in these photos from my kitchen. We'd accidentally dumped a little flour on the floor; much of it went under the lip of the cupboard (where, let's face it, crumbs typically accumulate in kitchens). For whatever reason, the T20 didn't get anywhere near that corner.
I noticed that in the Ecovacs app, there's a setting called Edge Deep Cleaning that promises to "perform deep cleaning for corners" when enabled — but only once every seven days. Huh? I want my corners cleaned every time. And why was this function disabled by default?
Speaking of the app, it's confusing in some areas and just plain buggy in others. Like most robo-vacs, the T20 creates a virtual map of your floorplan, one you can use to divide rooms, set no-go zones, specify cleaning areas and so on. It also affords a live update so you can see where the robot is currently and where it has cleaned.
In my tests, the map often didn't update during a cleaning cycle, and if I zoomed in or out, the floorplan disappeared entirely. Sometimes switching from 2D to 3D view simply didn't work. And while you can assign names to different rooms in the virtual plan, you're limited to a handful of existing labels; you can't modify them or add new ones. Where's "foyer" or "front hall"? Where's "TV room"?
I encountered some usability frustrations as well. For example, if I set my cleaning preference to "mop only," the T20 should already know which floors are which — in other words, it shouldn't bother traversing carpeted areas. But it doesn't work that way. Instead, I have to manually select the rooms or areas that need mopping.
What's more, although my carpet is hardly a deep shag, I noticed that the mop pads still dragged on it, even when raised. That's all the more reason I wish I could just assign the T20 to "vacuum all the carpeted areas" and then "mop all the hardwood." Both tasks are doable, they just require some manual setup.
I was especially disappointed to see the T20 get stuck on things that shouldn't trip up a modern robo-vac: cords, clothes, etc.
That happens even to the best of the 'bots, but in comparison, the Dreamebot I tested previously rarely got stuck. During four of the last five whole-house cleaning cycles I ran, the Deebot T20 got tangled up in something and had to be rescued. This is despite the presence of Ecovacs' TrueDetect 3D 3.0 Object Avoidance, which obviously didn't work very well.
I was also disappointed at how often the robot returned to its dock for mid-cycle mop washing and, consequently, how quickly it used up its clean-water tank. I found myself having to add water and empty the dirty-water tank just about every other cleaning cycle.
Ecovacs Deebot T20: Should you buy it?
When I first reviewed the Deebot T20, it was selling at its list price of $1,100 — and that seemed way too high given its app and navigation issues. Consequently I suggested buyers should look elsewhere.
Since then, however, the price has dropped to $699, which makes at least a few of those issues easier to overlook. With a little patience and coaxing, this robo-cleaner can make a nice addition to your smart home. While I couldn't recommend it at $1,100, at $699 it's "recommended with reservations."
