Ecovacs DEEBOT T80 Omni Review: Flagship-Level Clean, Budget-Level Navigation

After testing many a robovac, the Ecovacs Deetbot T80 Omni has shown me that when a consistent, high-quality clean is available without flagship frills, you won’t miss competitors’ bells and whistles. That said, you might miss their obstacle-avoidance techniques.

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Price and Availability

The T80 Omni, only available in black, retails for $1,200 on Amazon and Ecovac’s website. Replacement parts are available from both retailers. The robot only comes with one dust bag included, so you might want to order extras when making your initial purchase.

Easy Set Up, Plain Design

The Ecovacs Home app, available on iPhone and Android,is used for the device’s initial setup. After plugging the dock in, you pair the robot to your account and are ready to map your space. This app makescreating and editing maps particularly easy.

During set-up and continued use, every interaction with the dock feels easy. The water tanks are easily accessible right from the top of the dock, the front panel pops on and off easily, and the dustbag seamlessly slides into place.

The dock’s design is relatively similar to that of the current flagship model, the Ecovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni. I have to say, I liked the look of the X8 Pro Omni a bit more, but there is something nice about this dock’s visual simplicity.

The robot itself feels a bit on the chunky side. I most recently reviewed the Roborock Saros 10, and this Ecovacs is noticeably taller at 3.8 inches. It can vacuum the majority of the places that the shorter robot can, but there are two small areas it leaves out that the Roborock didn’t.

With a direct time-of-flight navigation system, there is no sensor popping out from the top of the robot. The metallic finish of the tri-legged button is pretty reflective. If you have pets that become fixated by reflections, it might get old, fast.

Vacuums Great For Day-to-Day Use

Vacuuming with the T80 has been very smooth. It picks up everything in its path, whether on hard floors or carpet. With up to 18,000Pa of suction power, it does a solid job of deep cleaning, though the quicker and quieter methods are more practical for daily use. My carpets are as cat-hair-free as they get, minus where the carpet meets the wall. All robovacs seem to struggle with that.

Both the edge brush and the main brush are designed to prevent tangles. The angled design of the main brush does a pretty good job of that. It’s not flawless, but I’ve barely had to intervene. That’s certainly a win with multiple pets and my long hair.

As with most robot vacuums, you can set routines, pick specific zones to clean, and customize your cleaning mode within the app. I’ve come to enjoy running quiet mode during workdays and then deep cleaning over the weekend.

During a cleaning session, it regularly returns to the dock. Every time it empties the dustbin, I chuckle as it says, “About to start auto empty. You might hear a little noise.” A similar prompt plays when the mop is auto-dried.

It is on the loud side compared to its competition, not only when vacuuming. When the dock auto-fills the robot’s water tank, it’s just loud. You hear it drying for over an hour after mopping. That noise isn’t bad; it’s just noticeable. Even when navigating to an area before cleaning, it is louder than I would expect.

While I don’t use it regularly, I love having a remote viewing capability on robovacs. I now use my robot to check in on my home when I’m away and look under furniture when things go missing.

Masterful Mopping

The roller mop on the T80, as well as many other Ecovacs robots, is downright impressive. It has significant downward pressure to mop up grime, yet that feature isn’t as notable as either the extending arm and regular mop draining.

The extending arm actually reaches to the perimeter of most spaces. It gets all the way to the baseboards and pretty close to objects along its path. It is extremely successful in straight lines and only misses areas where the robot has to turn in tight radii.

Every rotation of the roller discards old liquids and grabs some new clean water. Since dirty water is never just pushed around, there’s less risk of cross-contamination. Any household with pets or spill-prone children will likely appreciate this feature.

I wish there was a “Mop Only” setting. I’ve long since gotten rid of my Swiffer and rely on my robovac to clean up spills. I can still tell it to clean specific areas, but for a spot clean, I just want it to mop up a spill and don’t want a robot to attempt to vacuum liquids. It does take a minute to get loaded up with water and head to the targeted area, but it gets the job done.

With so much of the reason to purchase this robot coming from its first-rate mopping, it seems odd that the dock doesn’t have the ability to dispense detergent. You can add a bit of floor cleaner directly into your water tank, but you’ll have to remember to add it multiple times a week since it goes through water pretty quickly.

A Navigational Underperformer

I’m not a fan of the T80’s obstacle avoidance. My robot continually gets stuck on the same chair, to the point where adding a no-go zone was necessary. This was disappointing since they are under my kitchen counter, so it is very much an area I want cleaned regularly.

When this robot gets caught on something, it really wedges itself in place. With this chair, I could pick up the chair and have the robot come with it. It happens regularly with a side table as well. I will note that the distance between the legs of both the table and chair is similar to the diameter of the vacuum, so it’s a bit more justifiable, but that doesn’t make it less inconvenient.

It had better luck when I moved the same chair to a hard surface rather than the carpet it regularly sits on. While that is promising for people with hard flooring, it is a regular experience on carpeting.

It is able to get itself under my coffee table, but I’m not sure that it should have attempted to do so. While it just barely fits, I witnessed it hit its own pause button. While this only happened once, one time is more than enough.

Fabric seems to be this robovac’s kryptonite. I regularly have to rescue it from a drive wheel tangle. Between sheets overhanging onto the floor, hanging clothes that reach the floor, and socks that haven’t quite made it to the hamper yet, your space could be a landmine of potential wheel tanglers.

Since I experienced those tangles on carpeting, I decided to test lack of fabric avoidance on a hard floor. I clumped up one shirt and then watched the T80 try to scale it then wind up with a locked up wheel.

Floor mats regularly manage to get caught in wheels too. When they aren’t tangled, they are often moved feet from their starting position. At this point, I am moving my floor mats out of the way and making sure every cat toy is picked up daily which is more effort than I should have to put in for a $1,200 robot.

Should You Buy the Ecovacs Deetbot T80 Omni?

The price of the Ecovacs Deetbot T80 Omni is on the higher end of mid-range robovacs. Its cleaning performance justifies it, especially when it comes to mopping. The extendable roller keeps your space clean. It also offers flagship-level suction, which is impressive for the price point.

It falls short on the obstacle avoidance front. If you have a lot of open space, I doubt you will run into issues as frequently as I have. If you do encounter them in the same areas regularly, you can add no-go zones to help, but then you are on your own to clean those spaces.

If you are looking for a fancier design or an integrated voice assistant and are willing to deal with a bit more tangling from an older brush model, you might want to opt for last year’s flagship, the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni. It’s available at a similar price point while providing the same roller mop system I’ve loved on the Ecovacs Deetbot T80 Omni.