Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni: A supreme cleaning machine

Best Prices Today: Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni

As you might guess from the name, Ecovacs’ new flagship robot vacuum is an evolution of the Deebot X1 Omni we reviewed last year. Like its predecessor, the X2 Omni is a high-end vacuum-and-mop hybrid with the corresponding premium price tag. But for the $1,500 sticker price, you get a raft of top-shelf features.

The Deebot X2 Omni’s charging base automatically empties the robot’s dustbin and washes its mopping pads after cleaning jobs. The vacuum has 8,000 Pa of suction power, which bests the Roborock S8+’s 6,000 Pa. Its mopping pad lifts 15 mm when it detects carpet to prevent water and bacteria transfer. It uses AI obstacle avoidance to steer clear of charging cables, shoes, and other items that commonly litter floors. And it even has its own built-in voice assistant you can use to control the robot.

Design & build

Unpacking the Deebot X2 Omni, I was immediately struck by its size and unconventional design. The Omni station is smaller than the X1 Omni’s dock and has a sleeker feel than its predecessor, yet still demands a good deal of space. That girth is necessary to house the Omni’s two water tanks (a 4-liter tank for clean water, plus a 3.5-liter tank for dirty water) and its 3-liter dust bag.

The X2 Omni did a great job vacuuming dust and pet hair from my laminate floors and throw rugs, but its rotating mop pads didn’t provide enough downward pressure to scrub away stains and other tough spots.

Then there’s the robot itself. The X2 Omni leans into a square rather than round design, which helps it get into corners while accommodating a wider roller brush that can actually sweep up the dirt in those tight spaces. Ecovacs has also forgone the LiDAR tower that’s a typical fixture of higher-end robot vacuums, building a dual-laser LiDAR system into the edges of the robot. This reduces its height by nearly half an inch and allows the bot to slip under couches, beds, and other hard-to-reach areas that might get neglected by a taller robot vacuum.

In another design twist, the robot has a flat lid that attaches magnetically rather than with a hinge. The lid pops off easily to allow access to the vacuum’s power switch, Bluetooth pairing button, and dust box. On the underside are the rubber rolling brush, a single spinning edge brush, and a pair of rotating chenille mop pads.

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best robot vacuums.

The X2 Omni requires minimal setup. You need to attach a plastic tray to the base station and a spinning edge brush to the robot, then download the Ecovacs Home app and follow its prompts to connect the device to your Wi-Fi. The connection process is straightforward and takes only a minute or so.

Setup & room mapping

The robot performs a mapping run of your space without cleaning the first time you activate it, then immediately performs a “whole house cleaning.” It takes a stab at identifying and labeling the rooms on the newly created map, but the results for my downstairs level weren’t terribly impressive. It identified my living room as a balcony, labeled my entryway as the kitchen, and my kitchen as “Room 1.” Fortunately, you can manually edit the map to make it more accurate and add furniture and virtual boundaries to help the robot out with navigation.

You can choose from four “cleaning preferences”: Vacuum Only, Mopping, Vacuum & Mop, and Mop After Vacuum. However, the robot can automatically generate cleaning parameters for different rooms based on its AI system’s recognition of room and floor types. Its choices were accurate in my testing and so I put AI in the driver’s seat for most of my usage.

Vacuum & mop performance

The X2 Omni generally did a great job vacuuming dust and pet hair from my laminate floors and a few throw rugs. It boosts its suction automatically when it detects carpet, which clearly helped with the results. Its rotating mop pads did a better job of wet cleaning than static mop cloths most other robot vacuums use, but they still didn’t provide enough downward pressure to scrub away stains and other tough spots. Don’t throw out your stick mop just yet.

The X2 Omni was designed to deliver as close to a hands-free experience as possible. When the robot returns to the base station, the contents are sucked out of its dust box, and its mop pads are washed, wrung out, air-dried, and moisturized. There’s also a one-touch self-cleaning option that cleans the base plate where the mopping pads are washed to prevent accumulation of water, dirt, and odor.

The only manual labor you have to perform is to keep the clean water tank filled and the dirty water tank empty. Depending on your usage and the size of your space, that task could be done as infrequently as once a week. You’ll also need to replace the Omni Station’s dust bag when it’s full, which could be anywhere from every 30 to 90 days, again depending on your usage.

App & voice control

The Ecovacs Home app gives you full control of your robot, from managing cleaning preferences and maps to scheduling cleaning jobs, to tracking your cleaning history. It also allows you to view your home through the robot’s front camera. That’s handy for helping get it untangled from an obstacle if you’re not nearby as well as using it as a mobile security camera. Everything is laid out cleanly and with clear labels.

You can also control the robot with your voice. Most robot vacuums can use Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant for voice control and will respond to simple commands to start and stop cleaning, return to the charging dock, and the like. The X2 Omni’s built-in voice assistant allows for much more sophisticated interaction.

Using the trigger “OK Yiko” (pronounced “eeco”), you can tell the robot to go clean specific rooms as in “OK Yiko, go clean the kitchen” or specific areas such as “OK Yiko, go clean under the couch.” You can also direct the robot while it’s cleaning with detailed instructions such as “OK Yiko, turn left, move forward for one meter, and clean there.”

As you can see from these examples, Yiko responds to specificity and if your command is too general—“OK Yiko, go clean under the bed,” for example—it will ask, “Which bed are you talking about,” to which you can reply “the bed in Room 1.”

Deebot X2 Omni specifications

• Cleaning modes: Vacuum and mop
• Charging dock type: Auto-clean station
• Mapping: LiDAR
• Suction: up to 8,000 Pa
• AI obstacle avoidance: Yes
• Dustbin capacity: 420ml onboard, 3L in the base station
• Mopping type: Rotating mop ×2
• Water tank capacity: 180ml onboard, 4L (clean) and 3.5L (dirty) in the base station
• Carpet detection: Yes
• App control: Android and iOS
• Voice control: Alexa, Google Assistant, YIKO Voice Assistant

Should you buy the Deebot X2 Omni?

The biggest challenge with mopping robot vacuums is that they typically perform one task significantly better than the other. That’s no concern with the X2 Omni as it does each equally well and with a level of customization that lets you tailor each job to your home. If you long to be free of these household chores, it is well worth the investment.

Best Prices Today: Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni