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Ecovacs DEEBOT T50 Pro Omni Robot Mop & Vacuum It wasn’t that long ago that the original iRobot Roomba robot vacuum bumbled around picking up a few odd hairs but mostly just got in the way. Today there are many new robots from Chinese manufacturers that can also mop, with advanced navigation and mapping, at increasingly reasonable prices. Review by Nicholas Vinen S ome of the more prominent robot vacuum/mop brands now include Dreame, Ecovacs, Roborock, Dyson, Samsung, LG and Xiaomi. Most of those are Korean or Chinese companies. Recently, we were in the market for a new vacuum cleaner because we were sick of our Dyson vacuum, which was very noisy and had a relatively short battery life. We also don’t have a lot of time for manual vacuuming, and even less if you consider that we mostly have hard floors that really could use frequent mopping. Those factors, and the fact that an increasing number of our acquaintances use robot vacuums/mops, led us to consider going down that route. are so efficient at dirtying the floor with food, grass, sand, confetti and so on. Having a robot would mean that, as long as we could keep the floor clear of larger items, we could clean it as often as needed. Installing and setting up the robot was easier than I expected. Unpacking the box, I quickly found the large base station, the smaller robot, plus a few accessories like a spinning brush and power cord. I had to partly disassemble the base station to remove all the bits of tape they put on it for transport, but it only took a couple of minutes and the parts snapped back in place easily. After that, all I had to do to set up the base station was find a location for it, install the ramp (it also clicks into place), fill up the water reservoir and then put the detergent in the internal bottle. Then I plugged it into mains power. It came with a vacuum bag pre-installed. Annoyingly, the box (which costs $1500 at full retail price!) didn’t come with any detergent, and you have to use a special one – you can’t just use whatever you have on hand. So I had to run out and buy some before I could finish setting it up. The robot itself came almost fully pre-assembled. I just had to remove a bit of tape and snap the spinning brush into place on the bottom of the unit. I My robot After looking at numerous brands and models, we ended up purchasing the Ecovacs T50 Pro Omni “Deebot” robot vacuum because it had all the features we wanted at a price we could afford. It can vacuum and mop, frequently cleaning the mops with hot water and detergent back at its base station. That’s ideal for keeping our timber and tile floors clean. After last Christmas, it was on sale at half price, for $750. I’ve since discovered that these robot vacuums are frequently on sale (it went on sale again in late January). So we took the plunge, especially since our children 38 Silicon Chip Photo 1: the mops are attached magnetically so they’re easy to replace and one can extend outward to clean edges, as shown here (there’s also an extended brush at the front to pick up fluff and dust). Australia's electronics magazine siliconchip.com.au You can see the camera/lidar system on the front of the T50. The hatch at the top gives access to the power slide switch, pairing button and QR code to connect the app. On the underside, you can see the cliff edge sensor & drive wheels (which have a suspension system). The mop pads and brush are held on by magnets, so if they get caught, they’ll fall off and you can pop them back on. then set it on the floor and switched it on. The next step was to connect it to my WiFi network and set up the app. Not another app I’ve previously written about how I don’t like devices that rely on apps and I intend to avoid them as much as possible (eg, in the February 2022 Editorial Viewpoint; siliconchip.au/ Article/15192). However, I have to be realistic in this case and accept that a robot vacuum is going to need an app to control it. I’ve accepted that it may well be that this app stops functioning before the robot does. That will be very frustrating, especially given what it cost, but I think it would be received very poorly if Ecovacs or any of the other manufacturers pulled support prematurely, so hopefully that keeps them from doing anything too stupid in the near future. Connecting to WiFi was pretty easy. First, the app connects to the robot’s WiFi network. Then you select the network for it to connect to and enter your password. It then connects to your network and you’re ready to control it via the app. The robot automatically returns to its base station and begins charging. The battery came more than half charged, so I could have immediately initiated cleaning, but I let it charge first. siliconchip.com.au Options While the battery charged, I went through the options in the app. Some of them are shown in Screen 1 (there are more). You can choose whether it just vacuums, just mops, vacuums and mops at the same time, or vacuums first and then mops. You can also control things like the vacuum power (higher power will lift dust better but make more noise and discharge the battery quicker), how much water it uses for mopping, how quickly it goes about its business, and whether it makes one pass or two. Having set those, and with the battery, water and detergent all full, I told it to go ahead and clean. The first thing it does is drive around your home to build a map using its camera and lidar. That only takes a few minutes. Once it has built a map, you have the opportunity to name rooms. You can also divide large rooms into smaller ones (eg, in case it accidentally considered two separate rooms as one), merge rooms and make other changes to the map – see Screen 2. I then set it to work. By default, it picks a room, then drives around its perimeter while vacuuming and mopping. It mops using two microfibre disc mops at the back, one of which can extend outwards to reach edges and corners (Photo 1). The vacuum is in the middle and the mops at the back of the robot (see above), so it will Australia's electronics magazine Screen 1: these are the standard options that you would be most likely to change. The Cleaning Modes are vacuum only, mop only, vacuum+mop in one pass, or vacuum then mop. Screen 2: it only takes a few minutes for the robot to build a lidar map of your home. You can name the rooms, split them, join them, specify which areas have carpet or hard floor etc. The white lines and lighter shaded areas show its cleaning progress, the base station is shown in dark grey and obstacles are shown as darker areas. July 2026  39 normally pick up dust, dirt and hair before mopping that area. After it has driven all around the perimeter of the room, it starts making linear passes, going back and forth until it has cleaned all the areas it can reach. It automatically drives around obstacles like furniture, pets or people, even if they’re in a different location each time. You can track its progress in the app, as shown in Screen 2. Because it’s low, it can get under couches, beds, tables and some doors (Photo 3). Once it has finished one whole room, it will move onto the next and repeat until all rooms are clean. I found it surprisingly quiet, especially if you set it to the lowest vacuum power, which seems to be adequate for hard floors. You can hear it moving around and doing its thing, but it isn’t that annoying – much less bothersome than a person vacuuming. Thoroughness Its mops certainly do a good job of cleaning our timber floors. The two rotating microfibre mops constantly have water added from an internal tank as it drives around. By default, after every 15 minutes of cleaning, it returns to the base station to empty its dustbin into the main bag and wash its mops with hot water and detergent. Then it goes back to where it was and carries on. You can change that interval (eg, to 10 or 20 minutes), or ask it to go back to the station after cleaning each room. Since this model uses hot water and detergent to clean the mops in the base station, they stay relatively fresh throughout the process. You keep the clean water tank on the base station full (it holds several litres) and it dumps dirty water in another tank. That water certainly comes out black (see Photo 4)! Even after several passes, the water still came out black, even though we regularly mopped the floors before getting this robot. Part of that is because it cleans areas we can’t easily reach – under couches, cabinets and beds – and the rotating mops do a good job of working grime out of cracks in the timber. After we ran it once or twice a week for a few weeks (probably 6-8 total passes), the water stopped coming out so black and turns grey instead. That suggests it has picked up most of the remaining grime. After running the robot the first time, the floors looked, felt and smelled cleaner than they had done for years. Our whole home smells better now. I can tell from all the dust, hair and detritus that has accumulated in the bag in the base station that the vacuum function works too. And similarly, because it goes under things we can’t easily vacuum under, it picks up dust and dirt that has been sitting there a long time. Living with it While the robot is very convenient, it isn’t completely hands-off. If you want it to do a good job, you need to go around picking things up off the floor before you start it (otherwise it’ll clean around them). For example, if you have a table surrounded by chairs, you’ll want to move at least a couple to let it get under the table. Most of the time, the only maintenance you need to do is refill the clean water tank if it’s getting low and periodically empty the dirty water tank. Every couple of months you’ll also need to empty or replace the vacuum bag (maybe more frequently if you have pets that drop a lot of fur). The mop pads and vacuum filter will need to be replaced eventually (perhaps every 6-12 months). A year’s worth of ‘consumables’ comes in at roughly $100, depending on whether you buy genuine or thirdparty parts, and how often you use it. It’s actually quite clever the way the robot announces what it is doing: “Starting cleaning!” “Washing the mop with hot water!” “Drying the mop!” You can track its progress on the map; it shows where the robot is, which way it’s facing, what areas have already been cleaned, and in what order it will clean the rooms. With the T50 Pro Omni model, you can even watch its view from its onboard video camera, although I haven’t tested that feature. Apparently there are comprehensive security features to prevent others from accessing that camera, but I’m not sure how much I trust them. Its coverage is pretty good; with the central vacuum, roller brush, spinning side brush and two mops (one of which can extend to clean edges, or retract so Photo 2: you can see the sheen from the wet areas of the floor it has already mopped. It’s cleaning the middle of the room in a racetrack pattern. Photo 3: it can fit under furniture to clean where you can’t easily, including under this Majestic loudspeaker! 40 Silicon Chip Australia's electronics magazine siliconchip.com.au it doesn’t get caught), it cleans pretty much 100% of the floor area it can reach. The only places it won’t clean are where it can’t fit through gaps. It can detect the difference between carpet/rugs and hard floors, deploying the mops for hard floors or retracting them, and increasing the vacuum suction power, for carpeted areas or rugs. You can also specify which areas have which flooring types, but it seems to get it right. While it’s very good at avoiding obstacles, if it bumps one, it does so gently with a spring-loaded bumper. A switch in the bumper lets it know when that happens and it will make its way around the obstacle. Once it knows where it is, it will avoid it for the rest of the cleaning run. By the way, you don’t have to use the app once it’s set up. You can just press the button on the top of the unit and it will start a standard cleaning pass (it also supports voice commands). The same button can also be used to pause it (or you can pause it via the app). It will just sit there until you ask it to resume. That’s quite handy if it’s getting in your way. Cleaning multi-level houses You can carry the robot up and down stairs to clean another level. I think if you have carpet and just need to vacuum, that would be OK. You’d ensure the battery was 100% charged, carry it up/down and let it clean that level. Then you’d bring it back and let it dock and charge when it was finished. When you pause it, bring it to a new level and unpause it, it realises it is not in an area it knows and generates a new map. However, since we’re mopping hard floors, it needs to return to the dock roughly every 15 minutes to refill with water and clean the mop. That means, for a full clean upstairs, I had to carry it up and down at least four times to do the whole job. While it was easier than doing the cleaning myself, it wasn’t exactly “set and forget”. Annoyingly, you can’t buy a new base station to put on another level for your existing robot. If you want two base stations, you have to buy two robots. That does at least mean you don’t need to carry them up and down the stairs. I therefore considered buying a second unit. The one we bought for $750 was back up to its full $1500 price, siliconchip.com.au Photo 4: you can tell the mops do their job by how dirty the wastewater is (the water used to clean the mops periodically). Even after multiple passes, it’s still picking up grime. Photo 5: the T50 Omni base station is the same size as the T50 Pro Omni’s. It takes up room but not too much. It’s slightly deeper than the nightstand it’s next to but only about 2/3 as wide. which I was not going to pay on top of what we had already paid. However, Ecovacs gives existing customers discounts, and the slightly cheaper T50 Omni model was on sale for $650 (no “Pro” in the model name; full price is around $1300). I got an additional $60 discount for already owning one of their robots. So I decided that for $590, it was worthwhile to get a second robot for the convenience. Luckily there was a space upstairs that was unused and perfect for the base station, right next to a power point. We ended up getting a white one this time (Photo 5), making it obvious which robot we’re dealing with. The main differences I’ve noticed are: • The non-Pro model doesn’t have a detergent dispenser in the station, so it seems you can’t use detergent with it. • The non-Pro model has a smaller battery capacity. • The non-Pro model apparently has less advanced mapping, although I haven’t noticed any differences. They seem to work equally well in terms of navigation. • The non-Pro model doesn’t let you look at the camera feed. I think the processor on the non-Pro model is overall less powerful, so it lacks some AI-type features (detecting stains etc) but in our usage, I haven’t found that it makes any difference. One advantage of having a robot for each floor is that you can run them at the same time if you want. And the upstairs robot seems to detect our stairs just fine and keeps itself from falling down. I’ve heard the ‘cliff edge’ sensors can get dirty and fail, though; I hope we don’t hear an expensive robot tumbling down the stairs one day! Australia's electronics magazine Conclusion It’s nice to finally see a truly useful application of fairly advanced robotics in the home! I think these robots are worth getting at their sale price. July 2026  41 Silicon Chip PDFs on USB ¯ A treasure trove of Silicon Chip magazines on a 32GB custom-made USB. ¯ Each USB is filled with a set of issues as PDFs – fully searchable and with a separate index – you just need a PDF viewer. ¯ Ordering the USB also provides you with download access for the relevant PDFs, once your order has been processed ¯ 10% off your order (not including postage cost) if you are currently subscribed to the magazine. ¯ Receive an extra discount If you already own digital copies of the magazine (in the block you are ordering). EACH BLOCK OF ISSUES COSTS $100 NOVEMBER 1987 – DECEMBER 1994 JANUARY 1995 – DECEMBER 1999 JANUARY 2000 – DECEMBER 2004 JANUARY 2005 – DECEMBER 2009 JANUARY 2010 – DECEMBER 2014 JANUARY 2015 – DECEMBER 2019 OUR NEWEST BLOCK COSTS $150 JANUARY 2020 – DECEMBER 2024 OR PAY $650 FOR THEM ALL (+ POST) WWW.SILICONCHIP.COM. AU/SHOP/DIGITAL_PDFS 42 Silicon Chip If you’re wealthy, perhaps you could consider paying full price, but it’s better to wait for a sale if you can. The bottom line is that they work very well, if not quite perfectly. If they’re both on sale, I suggest you pay the extra $100 and get the T50 Pro Omni model. The detergent reservoir (Photo 6) is nice to have, although I think the non-Pro model does a fine job of mopping without it (the hot water cleaning makes a bigger difference). The extra battery capacity is nice to have, mainly because it will offset some of the ageing effect of Li-ion batteries. The non-Pro model does not support detergent use at all; there is no detergent dispenser in the base station (just a space where the T50 Pro Omni has it), and Ecovacs specifies wateronly operation for both the robot and base station. Oddly, the detergent they sell is listed as being compatible with the T50 Omni, but it’s unclear how you’re supposed to add it. Mentioning it could be a mistake. It appears that the battery packs for the T50 Omni (5200mAh) and T50 Pro Omni (6700mAh) share the same voltage, physical dimensions and connector. If that proves to be the case, it may be possible to replace the smaller pack with the higher-capacity one when the battery eventually fails, although that would be unofficial and unsupported. Pros ☑ Thorough cleaning of hard floors (likely good at vacuuming carpet too, but we don’t have any) Pushbutton convenience Relatively quiet Easy setup, both hardware-wise and software-wise Many cleaning options Self-cleaning mops Minimal day-to-day maintenance Avoids obstacles even if they move run-to-run (toys, chairs etc) Can be run while people are around or when you’re out (avoids people and pets) Can clean under furniture and right up to edges Announces progress audibly and can be tracked via the app, including an end-of-cleaning report Won’t fall down stairs (unless it malfunctions...) ☑ ☑ ☑ ☑ ☑ ☑ ☑ ☑ ☑ ☑ ☑ Cons ❎ Relatively expensive Australia's electronics magazine Photo 6: the T50 Pro Omni base station with the door opened, revealing the vacuum bag on the right and the detergent dispenser on the left. In the T50 Omni base station, there’s just an empty space on the left. ❎ App & camera privacy concerns ❎ Premature obsolescence concerns ❎ The moderately large base sta- tion permanently takes up space in your home Finite rechargeable battery life (although the battery is user-replaceable) Presence of people and pets can reduce cleaning effectiveness Can sometimes get stuck and require manual intervention, making it less convenient to run unattended Limited support for multi-level dwellings without multiple robots You can’t buy an extra base station for an existing robot ❎ ❎ ❎ ❎ ❎ Videos You can see a few short videos of the T50 Pro Omni in action at these links. Leaving the dock: siliconchip.au/ Videos/Deebot+start Cleaning the floor: siliconchip.au/ Videos/Deebot+clean Avoiding a table: siliconchip.au/ Videos/Deebot+avoid Returning to the dock: siliconchip. SC au/Videos/Deebot+dock siliconchip.com.au