ECOVACS DEEBOT T10 Omni review: Is it life-changing, or does it still choke on wires?

The ECOVACS DEEBOT T10 Omni is a relatively new robot vacuum (robovac) cleaner in the Singapore market.

It is packed with features that will make cleaning your house a less painful process, especially if you are a busy person. I say less painful, because there is still some manual work to be done, although it is much less hassle than cleaning the whole house on your own.

I personally have not had good experiences with a robovac prior to the year 2022, as the technology that I was exposed to made me assume that all robovacs will get stuck sucking on carpets, tangled on stray wires and jamming on ledges.

Fortunately, we've come a long way since then, and robovacs these days have functions to avoid such mishaps, and then some. It really has made things easier around the house.

First impressions

The T10 Omni may look familiar to some that follow robovac technology. Although being 'new' to the Singapore market (ECOVACS Singapore only started to sell this on the last week of 2022), it comes with features that are not new to the robovac line.

It has the self-cleaning dock that is present in ECOVACS's other premium model, the X1 Omni. After doing some digging, I found out that it IS essentially a carbon copy of the DEEBOT X1 Omni, just with a white colour scheme. Some markets even call it the X1 Omni White. Why this confusing naming scheme exists, I do not know.

Other versions of the T10, like the T10 Plus, use a different robovac version, and have totally different suction power and functions (like an in-built air freshener).

What's even more confusing is that the T10 Omni is S$300 cheaper than the X1 Omni at the time of this writing.

The only obvious difference between the two models is the colour.

Cross-checking with a friend who has the X1 Omni, I couldn't find any notable differences. Even the robovac unit has the same features, right down to the suction power of 5000pa.

Box content

The packaging comes with:

• the giant dock

• the robovac

• a pair of mopping pads for the robovac

• a pair of side-brushes for the robovac.

• water tanks (one for dirty water, and clean water)

• a dust collection bag.

If you need any other accessories, like additional dust collection bags or spare parts, you can purchase them from the ECOVACS Lazada store. Like I said earlier, because it is essentially the same as the X1 Omni, you could purchase spare parts that were meant for the X1, and they will fit right on the T10 Omni's robot.

Setting up

Setting it up is relatively easy.

Just make sure you place it in an area where the robovac is able to access the dock freely (i.e not bump into anything on its way in or out of the dock).

You will need to download the ECOVACS app, and link your robovac it and the internet. The pairing process was painless; just scan a QR code, connect to your home's WiFi, and you are done. I always appreciate simple ways to connect your smart device

Once that is done, let the robovac familiarise itself with your house by choosing the quick mapping function on the app. Make sure you do not attach the mopping pads on it yet at this stage.

The robovac's mapping system will miraculously form a blueprint layout of your house, and while that it may not get it entirely right during its first tour of your house, subsequent uses of the robovac will refine this map to make its cleaning route more efficient.

You are also able to modify this initial mapping manually to help the robovac. You can elongate or cut off room dimensions, place objects on the map, and also instruct the robovac to not clean specific areas of the house if it is a 'no-go' zone.

Once all this is set up (it took me just a few hours to monitor the path of the robovac and place the 'no-go' zones), you will highly likely never touch this feature again, unless there is new furniture in the house.

So, does the robovac actually work?

To be honest, for solely vacuuming the house, the T10 Omni does it perfectly well.

It has a built-in "object avoidance" system that easily avoids little things in your house like wires or random objects that can choke the vacuum, unlike its predecessors.

It even manoeuvres around my cats if they're too lazy to move out of the way of the robovac.

It picks up a lot of the big chunks of dirt situated around the house and in its pathway.

What it doesn't do very well - albeit it tries - is clean corners as effectively.

To be honest, that doesn't really affect me that much. I will just clean the corners of the house manually if I have the time.

Mopping, on the other hand, gets a little tricky.

The robovac will only start its mopping function once the mopping pads are installed. And you can't turn it off at all once the mopping pads are on the robovac.

Yes, that means you have to manually remove the pads to get the robovac to switch to vacuum-only mode.

Not only that, the T10 Omni will not traverse carpeted areas if it has the mopping pads on.

This is the tradeoff, compared to getting something like Roborock's S7, a robovac that is able to automatically retract its mopping module when it detects carpeted surfaces.

That said, the S7 is also $500 more expensive at the time of this writing. I personally don't mind that simple trade-off if I can save that amount of money.

On the mopping performance, the T10 Omni does the job perfectly. My floor feels as clean as when we do some manual mopping around the house, and the murky water in the dirty water tank tells me it is at least doing its job.

Traversal is as good as it gets. Long gone are the years where it will choke on random wires and cloths, or get stuck trying to climb a ledge, thanks to its object-avoidance.

Voice control

The T10 Omni comes with its own voice assistance, called YIKO.

It functions much like Google Assistant or Siri — you are able to give it commands to clean specific areas of the house and also give it instructions on when to schedule a cleaning session.

If you connected your ECOVACS app to Google Home, you will also be able to give the commands to Google Assistant instead of directly talking to the robovac.

Battery life

At full charge, the T10 Omni takes about an hour to fully vacuum a 4-room HDB apartment, and uses up 40 percent of its battery doing so at max suction.

Usually after vacuuming, I will then send it out again to mop the whole house. This takes up the remainder of the 60 percent remaining charge, and the T10 Omni takes about one and a half hours to fully mop the house. Mind you, this is with the robovac having to return to its station periodically to clean its mop.

The dock

The dock is where the magic happens.

It is able to automatically clean the robovac by emptying the dirt and grime from vacuuming into the dustbag provided.

ECOVACS claims that the dustbag is able to contain 3 litres of dust, so depending on how much you use your robovac, how long before you need to change it may vary.

The dock also cleans the mopping pad and dries them when you use the mopping function. You will need to constantly top up the clean water tank with water and floor cleaner, and empty the dirty water tank periodically.

You will also need to manually clean grime from the bay of the dock if you do a lot of mopping.

Thankfully, the dock makes it simple by dispersing water into the area automatically, and all you need to do is just brush the area until it is clean. It will then drain the dirty water, and flush it with clean water from the tank to complete the cleaning process.

One thing that stands out in the Omni series from ECOVACS is the in-built hot-air drying unit. You would think that a more expensive Roborock unit would come with a dryer built into its dock as well, but that is not the case.

One of the main reasons I chose the ECOVACS over its competitor, the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra (besides the price) was the drying unit. You will need to purchase the hot-air drying unit for the Roborock for another $129.90.

I can live with manually removing my mop pads now and then, rather than spending a lot more money just for minor conveniences (the total price difference between the T10 Omni and the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is a whopping $629.90 with the drying unit)

Conclusion

Should you get a robovac? If you ask me, if you are already prepared to dump some budget on an expensive vacuum cleaner, it really is worth the investment in 2023 over vacuum cleaners like a Dyson.

It will change your life. Or at least you know it will be as good as manually cleaning your whole house on your own, without actually doing it yourself.

If you asked me the same exact question two years ago, I would probably have asked you to get a manual vacuum cleaner instead.

2022 was the year where helpful technologies like area-mapping and object-avoidance really propelled robovacs to be the better choice than a typical vacuum cleaner, since it will no longer get stuck on random objects or ledges in the house.

Which model should you get really depends on your needs, however, and how much you are wiling to sacrifice.

Some robovacs are vacuum-only models, and some come with the mopping function like the T10 Omni and S7 MaxV Ultra.

If you do not need a self-cleaning dock and are able to manually clean the bot yourself, ECOVACS and Roborock still offer cheaper dock-less units that have the same object-avoidance and area-mapping technologies.

If you are debating between a S7 MaxV Ultra or a X1/T10 Omni, it also depends on what you are willing to sacrifice, like manually removing the mopping pads for carpeted areas, or sacrificing more money to get more convenience.

The S7 MaxV Ultra is retailing at $1,599 without the drying unit, while the T10 Omni retails at $1,099. The X1 Omni retails at $1,399 at the moment, but is a silly buy unless you really want the colour scheme, because the T10 Omni exists.

Dominic loves tech and games. When he is not busy watercooling his computer parts, he does some pro wrestling.

Do you have a story tip? Email: sgnews.tips@yahooinc.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. Also check out our Southeast Asia, Food, and Gaming channels on YouTube.