Ecovacs are releasing new vacuums at an alarming rate and although they are bringing a lot of their more advanced features to the more affordable robot vacuum market there is always room for more innovation in the premium end of the market. The new Ecovacs DEEBOT T10 PLUS is all of that, with every feature you could want in a robot vacuum.
What makes the Ecovacs Deebot T10 Plus different or better than others?
Right from the first time you turn the Deebot T10 Plus on it is a breeze to use. Setup is incredibly simple using the barcode and Ecovacs app. Once you have set it up the app then guides you through the various functions available on the vacuum.
First things first you need to map out your home/floor which can be done by easily just telling your app to begin mapping or you can use the Ecovacs built-in voice assistant to tell it to begin mapping.
The digital assistant is called YIKO which worked intermittently but certainly not every time. To be honest I’m not entirely sure they have spent so much time and effort developing their own digital assistant, nearly everyone has access to some form of Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri by now that any other digital assistant is superfluous. There is still support for Google Assistant and Alexa control of the vacuum but no Siri so I assume that is where YIKO comes in? By the time you get YIKO to recognise what you are saying you could have opened the app and started vacuuming so I still can’t see the point in YIKO.
While YIKO may be a gimmick the 3D mapping certainly is not. The Deebot T10 Plus uses TrueMapping 2.0 Path Planning Technology, which uses onboard dToF sensors for more accurate navigation and allows you to save your maps in 2D or 3D within the app. While the 3D map is cool I’m not entirely convinced of its value. The 2D map is great though with the app sectioning off the various rooms itself – which you can edit if required – allowing you to name each room.
You can then apply boundaries to each room or section of a room to tell the vacuum where to NOT mop and/or vacuum. On the map you can also place various furniture to make your map a better true visualisation of your home. I’m not sure I need that but it’s just another added detail to the new Deebot T10 Plus – the 3D map with furniture is meant to allow you to “improve cleaning efficiency around and under the furniture”.
Inside the vacuum is a new chipset providing for better onboard computing and intelligence through the AIVI 3.0 feature. This new AIVI and chipset allow for improved object recognition and speed and thus faster vacuuming while also avoiding obstacles in its path.
For those who like to follow their pets around there is a built-in camera and the camera is good enough for it to provide a decent-enough video image for security purposes. The 960P astrophotography camera provides a 148 degree FOV and a crystal-clear picture of what is in front of the vacuum. It uses this camera to not just view what is going on inside your house but to also perform its object avoidance – and it can recognise “up to 18 types of floor obstacles, furniture and floor materials.” It worked well for me avoiding most objects such as dog toys, but it did once run into a mop in the laundry which upended the vacuum requiring it to be manually placed back on the floor.
There is a setting in the app where you can put the vacuum into sentry mode where it will randomly circumnavigate your home checking for any intruders etc. This camera is a vast improvement over the previous versions of Ecovacs vacuums which have included this feature.
The camera is not the only smart feature on the Deebot T10 Plus. There are also ultrasonic sensors to detect carpet types and change vacuum suction strength based on this reading (and to also avoid them when mopping) along with anti-drop sensors to prevent the vacuum from falling down stairs or off ledges. This anti-drop is not uncommon in a robot vacuum but it’s still nice to have it.
Yet another smart feature is a sound localisation technology which along with AIVI 3.0 can identify a user’s location in the house. Using this you can tell the vacuum to clean a specific area or where you are within a five-metre radius. This worked well just telling the vacuum to clean where I was but I’m more of a fan of either telling it to clean a particular room or to draw a rectangle over the area that I want cleaned.
All these smarts are no good if the vacuum does not clean well but there is no problem here with that. Not only does it clean well, it cleans in a nice pattern so that the floor not only is clean once but also looks neat and tidy. Testing it out on the usual flour, sugar and breakfast cereals it cleaned them all well on both hardwood and carpet. The 3000 pa suction power combined with a large 5200 mAh battery provides for long and strong cleaning. I’ve had some vacuums where the battery had to be recharged part way through the cleaning process, especially at stronger suction cleans but after a full floor clean there was still some battery power left, easily enough for it to make it back to the charging station, or to even reclean a certain room if it was particularly dirty.
The Deebot T10 Plus also includes a small reservoir where you can insert an air freshener – you will get one with the vacuum, but you can buy others should you wish. This offers the option to refresh the air after vacuuming in Wild Bluebell, Bergamot&Lavender, and Cucumber&Oak scents. The scents we received, Wild Bluebell, was incredibly subtle and not overpowering at all.
Mopping. All good robot vacuums should be able to mop at the same time as vacuuming. The Deebot T10 Plus can do exactly that and while it will not mop as well as a manual mop by hand it will still be able to clean up the less-stubborn spills and stains – for the more stubborn stains it had some relative success by setting the water flow level to high. The mopping system vibrates at 600 times per minute which seems like a lot but in the end its the cleanliness that is telling – it definitely cleans well. We have a new puppy and there have been quite a few accidents that the vacuum/mop was put to the test – it performed the job well.
The final crowning glory on the vacuum is the Empty Station with it able to hold up to 75 days of dust in a fully-sealed design with no dust leakage. You can change how often the vacuum cleaner empties its dust bin – I just set it to empty after each completed clean given that our house is not that dirty at any one time.
So, it is perfect then?
Unfortunately not. There was an occasion where the vacuum somehow shut the door to the bathroom by itself so “got lost” and couldn’t get out and a couple of times needed help getting back to the charging station but considering I was running multiple cleans every single day this was a relatively rare event. It is not perfect (mostly because Yiko is intermittent at best) but it is the closest to perfect I have seen in a robot vacuum.
Should you buy it?
If you want one of the best robot vacuums on the market at the moment, that includes every smart feature you could wish for then the Ecovacs Deebot T10 Plus is worthy of your consideration. As you would expect though, a smart robot vacuum with everything is not going to be cheap. At $1,799 it is one of the more expensive robot vacuums on the market but as I said, it has everything you could ever wish for (or need) — and more.
The Ecovacs Deebot T10 Plus is launching this week on Amazon AU, coinciding with Amazon’s Prime Day (or week) and as such you can get it on sale for $1,439. The good news is that the Deebot T10 Plus is already on sale and you can get it now for that price with the price lasting for close to a week.
Ecovacs are the best robot vacuums I have used with a full suite of features that work seamlessly together. They are not cheap but you get what you pay for — and the Deebot T10 Plus is the perfect and fully featured example of just what Ecovacs have to offer. Grab it now while it is on sale over at Amazon AU.
