Review: ECOVACS DEEBOT T30S COMBO Robot Vacuum and Mop — it’s got all bases covered

We’ve all seen the various robot vacuums on the market and what they include. There really isn’t much difference between them besides the occasional function and better specs, such as suction power, etc., but now there is a point of difference with the ECOVACS DEEBOT T30S Combo.

The point of difference is in the name—combo. The DEEBOT T30S Combo includes both a robot vacuum and a stick vacuum, and they both fit in and on the self-emptying OMNI station. The robot vacuum has a powerful 11,000Pa of suction and an OZMO Turbo 2.0 mopping system with a dual-plate rotating mop.  

The handheld stick vacuum part of the T30S Combo includes a “six cyclone structure in the handheld vacuum, which separates air and dust to prevent clogging.” It arrives with four detachable brush heads, including a crevice tool, a dusting brush, a mini-power brush, and a zero-tangle brush—a vacuum head for anything and everything.

The OMNI station allows BOTH vacuums to be emptied automatically.  Yes, it’s not unusual for a robot vacuum to include an auto-emptying station but for the handheld stick vacuum to also auto-empty is different and a big selling point for ECOVACS.

Design

The robot vacuum includes rotating mop heads that extend to clean as close to the walls as possible.  ECOVACS call this extension of the rotating mopping arm TruEdge Adaptive Edge Mopping and while this is a fancy name, the mopping pads are actually extremely useful, allowing for a thorough.  

Underneath, the vacuum roller includes Dual Comb Tooth Arrays for what ECOVACS calls its ZeroTangle Technology. All the fancy names in the world can mean nothing if the product doesn’t work, and this one does, to an extent. After a week or two of use, some hair and other long fibres were still wrapped around the roller, but it was still functioning as it should. It is easy to remove the roller and the hair, so it’s not a huge issue.

The wheels under the vacuum can lift it 9 mm off the ground, which doesn’t sound like much but is handy at times. Give me 40mm, and I’ll get a bit more excited, but we will see some coming with much higher lifts this year.

While the robot vacuums are good for most things, there are times where you just want to quickly do a spot clean of some deeply in-ground dirt/tissue that has come out of pockets after going through the wash (if my wife is reading this, I swear it wasn’t me).  For that, the handheld vacuum cleaner is perfect.

The one included with the DEEBOT T30S slots together easily with whatever of the four attachments you wish to use.  The power brushes work really well although you need to be patient.  You turn the vacuum on and immediately think, well, that sucks by not sucking much but a few seconds later the power kicks in and the power brush becomes powerful and really does suck well.

It is probably as powerful as my dedicated stick vacuum, so I am impressed. The vacuum easily picked up the tissue pieces on my floor (okay, it was me who left the tissue in the pocket of the shorts that went through the washing machine) and some dirt that came off my shoes. Using the handheld vacuum cleaner was faster than using the robot vacuum cleaner, which is its advantage.

The other included brushes and attachments were handy for getting right into corners and also for vacuuming more sensitive areas such as my speakers.  I’m not sure how often I would use them (they are good for cars though) but they are there if and when you need them.

The OMNI auto-emptying station does so many things. It empties the robot vacuum and the handheld vacuum cleaner. You can set it not to auto-empty the handheld vacuum, but why not? The OMNI station does more than that.

It also empties the dirty water out of the robot vacuum and replaces it with clean water from the tanks, which you need to change every few washes (depending on the size of the area being mopped). It also cleans and dries the mopping pads underneath the robot vacuum.

It does all of these things extremely well. It is basically set and forget (except for the water tanks and eventually the vacuum bag — these obviously need to be replaced when required). I have my OMNI station positioned over a carpeted area, and not a single drop of water has spilled out of the station onto the floor, so don’t let that stop you from placing the station wherever you need to.

As you would expect, with an auto-emptying and auto-water filling station for the robot vacuum and a handheld stick vacuum, the OMNI station is massive.  In saying that, it is not much bigger than the standard auto-filling robot vacuum stations we see on the market.  

It is as big as it needs to be but if you are trying to fit this into a small space, make sure you take some measurements first.  For reference, the OMNI station is  62cm wide and 42cm deep.

Features and app

ECOVACS has developed its fast mapping technology over the last couple of years, and it is great. I always had issues with ECOVACS vacuums taking far too long to map my house, but not anymore. The fast mapping that the vacuum offers to perform when you log into the app is fast and accurate.

The app is easy to use, although to set up a schedule you need to go into the settings of the robot vacuum and schedule it from there.  Once you get there though, it’s easy to do.

You can easily set or make the vacuum to clean an area, a room (or rooms) or the entire floor.  From there, you choose what cleaning mode you want (vacuum only, mop only, Vac and Mop or Mop after Vac), the water flow rate, the cleaning passes, the vacuum’s suction power and the cleaning speed.

If the robot vacuum has any issues, the app will notify you. For example, when the robot gets stuck on one of the mats on my bathroom floor, the app will pop up a notification so you can remedy the situation.

ECOVACS is still trying to push its own smart assistant onto us, with YIKO included on the T30S. It works, but who uses it? Not me. It’s just as easy to just open the app and click the “go” button (or leave it to go as scheduled) as it is to remember YIKO commands.

How well does it clean?

As briefly mentioned above, the vacuum cleans extremely well.  I have relatively new carpet upstairs, which is where the T30S is, which makes it difficult for some robot vacuums to clean thoroughly.  

There was no issue at all with the T30S cleaning the floor, and cleaning it well.  Even my wife was impressed, which is something, considering she likes the house to look like a show-house at all times (except for my home-office which is cluttered and organised chaos).

When I come home and the T30S has finished cleaning you can certainly see how clean the carpet is and where the robot vacuum has been.  The floor is also immaculate in those areas.

The handheld vacuum attachments included with the T30S also work incredibly and surprisingly well. The power heads’ suction is quite good, and they cleaned up everything I asked of them. This is great for that extra dirty spot where the robot vacuum may struggle to get clean. Let’s face it: Although robot vacuums are incredibly handy, they are still not as good as most handheld/standing vacuums.

ECOVACS advertise the additional handheld stick vacuum as perfect for “robot-unreachables” (such as stairs, drapes, between couch cushions, and your car) and I will agree with this.  There are often areas that the robot vacuum just cannot get to.

Final thoughts

The ECOVACS DEEBOT T30S offers the best of both worlds. It includes an extremely capable robot vacuum, a powerful handheld stick vacuum with attachments and an auto-emptying and charging station — it does it all. Sure, the robot vacuum may lack the fancy, and yet often useless, video sentry cameras and more, but it maps quickly and accurately, and cleans thoroughly and relatively quietly.

What more could you want? Another vacuum to get to those hard-to-reach places? The T30S COMBO has you covered there with the included stick vacuum. This ECOVACS DEEBOT T30S COMBO has everything I need in an entire floor cleaning solution and I dare say it does for a majority of people. Want a vacuum and mopping solution that is smart, compact and efficient? Then the DEEBOT T30S COMBO is for you.

In Australia, the ECOVACS DEEBOT T30S COMBO has a recommended retail price of AUD $2,299 although it is currently on sale at most places for AU$1,579. At that price it is exceptional value for money given you get two decent vacuums and more in one package. The DEEBOT T30S COMBO is available from Bing Lee, Harvey Norman, JB HiFi, Retravision, Robot Specialist, The Good Guys, Amazon & ECOVACS Online.