The ECOVACS DEEBOT N20 PRO PLUS is what ECOVACS call a “class-leading vacuum” with ECOVACS’ first PureCyclone Station with a no-bag, auto-emptying dust bin which already includes ECOVACS’ full mapping, mopping and vacuuming feature set.
With 8,000Pa and an easy-to-empty Auto Empty station, the vacuum will clean even the most stubborn dirt and dust. With anti-tangle technology, the DEEBOT N20 PRO PLUS is perfect for cleaning pet hair off carpets.
Mopping is also a targetted function of the robot vacuum cleaner with its OZMO Pro 2.0 Vibrating Mopping System and the high-frequency vibration resulting in easy cleaning of spills and stains on your hard floors.
The ECOVACS DEEBOT N20 PLUS offers all these functions and more for under $1,000, which is impressive for a robot vacuum cleaner.
We tested out all of these functions and came away very impressed. Read on to find out why.
Design
The vacuum design itself is certainly not innovative, but it just works. It has DEEBOT’s Anti-Tangle technology and yes, this one actually works. I’ve used quite a few vacuums where their so-called anti-tangle technology just did not work at all but this one did.
The mopping function of the N20 Pro Plus is not a circulating mop like some but instead a mopping pad on the back of the vacuum that vibrates – and boy does it vibrate. If you watch the vacuum while it is mopping the whole thing shakes like crazy, and that is what it is meant to do.
The dust bin at the rear of the vacuum is emptied at the base station which is innovative and the first time I’ve ever used a base station like this on a robot vacuum. It reminds me of the barrel of a Dyson vacuum.
The PureCyclone Auto-Empty station uses a 2-level separation cyclone system for dust separation. The technology gives up to 26,000Pa of suction as it removes the dust from the vacuum, ensuring filters on the vacuum do not get or remain clogged.
The station does need to be emptied every few weeks but you don’t have to worry about buying more bags etc for this station. It is just a clear cylinder that fills – and then you can see when it’s full too.
Features
In the past, I have bemoaned the mapping functionality of the ECOVACS vacuums. They have often taken days and days because they keep getting stuck under furniture etc and you cannot tell it not to go somewhere until the map is finished, but you can’t finish the map until it can get that room done where it keeps getting stuck and… well, you see my point.
This ECOVACS vacuum though has the fastest mapping ever (that could be a stretch but it’s the fastest out of all the robot vacuums I have tested. This time though once I had connected the vacuum to my network and the app there was a Fast mapping shortcut on the home screen of the app. Tap that and off it went around the floor.
With the fast mapping, the robot vacuum was able to map my entire floor in under five minutes. Not just fast but it was super accurate, picking out furniture and labelling rooms well so that you can clean certain rooms only easily in the future.
The app is good at deciding boundaries for rooms and if it does get one wrong it is super simple to combine two rooms or split one up. Simple interaction on the map tapping and moving a slider delineates the new room boundaries for the app.
There are three cleaning functions you can choose from in the app – Auto Clean, Rooms and Zone.
‘Auto Clean’ is where the vacuum cleans everywhere on your maps, minus those areas you have bordered off using the virtual boundary functionality. I love the virtual boundary function as it allows me to tell the vacuum not to go anywhere near the couch that it always gets stuck under (see above mapping whinge), nor onto the thick rug and can tangle the brushes easily. Auto Clean is the function I use to do my bi-daily automatic clean at 10am when no one is home. It just cleans all the rooms.
‘Rooms’ cleaning is handy and works as advertised although it’s not something I’ve used a lot before. You simply tap on the map on the rooms you want cleaned and the vacuum will go and clean just those rooms. It is super simple to use and is great if you want to just quickly clean the kitchen or dining room after preparing and eating a meal etc.
‘Rooms’ can also be used as a Scheduled Clean. Just select the rooms you want it to clean on a schedule and what days, if any, you want this clean to be repeated. A good use would be to clean the kitchen and dining room every morning after the kids have hoovered their way through their cereal and have left for school.
‘Zone’ cleaning is where you simply draw a zone on the map and the vacuum will clean just that zone. I used it to test out the vacuum, dropping some breadcrumbs and cordial on the floor in a small one metre square area. I drew a zone on the map around that area and sent the vacuum to clean there. It is something that could be handy for specific spills or drops.
The N20 Pro Plus offers a suction boost up to 8,000Pa when it detects that it is on a carpeted surface. This isn’t the highest suction I have tested out but for some reason, the results are as good as I can remember from nearly every vacuum I have used.
The N20 Pro Plus also can climb over 20mm rises to get from one surface to another. This is not something I have ever had an issue with in the past so I tested it out and it worked as advertised. Now I do not have any rises like this in my house but you might and this could be very handy. I’m more interested in climbing over a rise of 20cm – up the stairs – wake me up when they do that!
The vacuum has a 5,200mAh battery which should be enough to clean more floors in a single pass, but that depends on the suction power and mopping strength you have the clean set on. As I was reviewing the vacuum I set it on the highest and second highest suction which was enough to run the battery out before it had finished cleaning the area asked of it. The vacuum returns to the dock when it detects a low battery and recharges fully before heading back out to resume the clean.
My only issue with this is that I’d much prefer it to head out and finish the clean once it had enough charge to do so, rather than waiting for it to fully charge again. Maybe those maths are a bit of a stretch for the app at this stage but sometime in the future, you would expect (and hope) ECOVACS and other robot vacuum manufacturers to incorporate this into their software.
How well does it clean?
On a regular basis, the DEEBOT N20 Pro Plus cleans well. I come home and the floor is perfectly clean – to the eye. I did need to put the vacuum on a high suction setting to get it to suck up all the debris on the carpets so keep that in mind if you have carpet that collects a lot of debris.
I also tested it out by throwing breadcrumbs and cordial on the floor, in the same area of 1m2. First I ran a single pass over the area but it missed a lot of the breadcrumbs, not wet as they were mopped over after the vacuum ‘cleaned’ over them already. Running a second pass over the area resulted in a perfectly clean surface.
You can set this in the cleaning options on the front page so I suggest if you have specific substances you want to be cleaned, especially if it includes wet spills, use the ‘Two passes’ option.
Final thoughts
There are a lot of robot vacuums on the market, all with varying features but in the end all you want is something that is easy to set up, easy to run and easy to maintain. The ECOVACS DEEBOT N20 PRO PLUS is that and more.
It maps faster than any other robot vacuum I’ve ever used, it cleans really well and has a brilliant new PureCyclone dust bin that incurs no ongoing costs as there are no vacuum bags required. My only gripe is the small water tank only lasts a single mop — I do prefer the large one I have that refills the water tank for me — but then that does cost three times as much.
At $999 the DEEBOT N20 PRO PLUS is one of the more affordable robot vacuums that includes all the useful fancy features without the gimmicks.
In Australia the DEEBOT N20 PRO PLUS will have an RRP of AUD $999 from Bing Lee, Harvey Norman, JB HiFi, Retravision, Robot Specialist, The Good Guys and ECOVACS Online.
In New Zealand it will have an RRP of NZD $1,199 NZD from Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi, Noel Leeming, PB Tech, and Robomate.
Scott is our resident open technology expert. If you can mod it, or want to use it your way, Scott has probably done it. From Laptops to phones, headphones and game consoles, he’s played with it and wants to see the next generation.
