Ecovacs Deebot N30 Omni Review: A solid mid-range robot

Verdict

A well-priced robot vacuum cleaner and mop, the Ecovacs Deebot N30 Omni has an anti-tangle brush, and a self-empty, self-cleaning docking station. Vacuuming performance was good on hard floor and alright on carpet, but I found that mopping lagged behind the competition, and there are cheaper robots that do better.

Introduction

Ecovacs produced the first robot I’d tested to use spinning microfibre mops, giving a better mop than rivals with static mopping pads.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a product from the company, but I now have the Ecovacs Deebot N30 Omni. It’s a good robot, but the other robot vacuum cleaner companies have caught up, and this robot faces stiff competition.

Design and Features

• Self-clean and self-empty station
• Smart obstacle avoidance with a camera
• Anti-tangle brush hair

The Ecovacs Deebot N30 Omni is yet another sign of how far robot vacuum cleaners have come. A mid-range choice, this model has a self-empty, self-clean docking station that not only sucks dirt out of the robot but fills it with water and washes its mopping pads, too.

There’s also the Ecovacs Deebot N30 Pro Omni, which is very similar, only its station washes the mopping pads with hot water; the standard model washes with regular water and then dries the pads with 40°C hot air.

With the Ecovacs Deebot N30 Omni that I have on review, Ecovacs doesn’t say how big its water tanks are, but they look similar to the 4.5-litre tanks on other machines. There’s one tank for clean water and one tank for dirty water.

There’s a slot for Ecovacs’ solid detergent, although none is provided in the box and I wasn’t provided with a sample for my review.

Dust is sucked into 2.6-litre bags, which the company says are large enough to hold 75 days’ worth of dust. A three-pack of replacements costs £19.

The robot has a smaller bin inside, which should be removed and cleaned monthly, along with its filter.

The robot vacuum cleaner itself looks very much like the competition. There’s a LiDAR dome on the front, which is used for fast navigation and map building, plus a sensor on the front for spotting and avoiding obstacles.

Underneath, there’s an anti-tangle brush bar for agitating dirt on carpets and a single side-sweeper brush, which can’t swing out to get into corners.

There are then the dual mopping pads, one of which can swing out to clean right into corners. And, these pads can lift up to 9mm off the floor when carpet is detected, allowing the robot to move over short pile carpet. There’s no option to have the pads dropped off completely to deal with deeper pile carpet.

The Ecovacs Deebot N30 Omni is controlled through the Ecovacs app. Once connected, the app prompts you to create a map of your home, which doesn’t take very long. At the end of the process, the app suggests rooms for you.

I found that the layout was quite wrong, with the app suggesting corners of my main testing room were separate rooms. I found the controls to merge and split rooms quick to use, so that I could soon have the map the way that I wanted it.

Map controls also let me put no-go and no-mop zones, so I could protect valuable carpets or stop the robot from moving into areas where it might get stuck.

Vacuuming controls are flexible, with a choice of zone, room or whole home cleaning. For each selection, there’s then control over the mode, with a choice of vacuum only, mop only, mop after vacuuming, and vacuum and mop.

For quick use, you can use the controls on top of the robot, which let me start and pause a clean, send the robot back to the dock, or spot clean an area I’d carried the N30 too.

There’s a choice of four vacuum modes (quiet, standard, strong and max), three water flow modes, and a choice of three cleaning speeds (quick, standard and comprehensive). Finally, there’s a choice of one or two passes.

More advanced settings include suction-boost on carpet, and the choice to completely avoid covering carpets, rather than lifting the mop pads. There’s also control over the TruEdge Adaptive Edge Mopping.

With this mode turned on, one mop pad is constantly extended to make better edge contact, but withdrawn when the robot needs to move around an obstacle. Most other robots that I’ve reviewed have smart edge sensors, so they can quickly pop out a mop pad when required, but otherwise keep them tucked in.

Full scheduling is available, alongside scenarios, where I could select the rooms I wanted to clean and the modes to use. Scenarios are handy for quick jobs with preferred settings, such as a quick run around the kitchen after cooking, or for a deep house clean.

Performance

• Struggled to mop tough stains
• Good vacuum performance
• Mostly accurate obstacle avoidance

I set the Ecovacs Deebot N30 Omni about its business and watched it navigate. It largely did a good job, getting close to furniture without ramming it, and even skirting around my fake pet mess when it was placed in the middle of the floor.

However, when the pet mess was placed in front of the docking station, the robot charged straight into it on its way back to charge.

I started the cleaning tests with my carpet test, sprinkling a teaspoon of flour onto the test carpet. Running on Max mode and set to two passes, the Ecovacs Deebot N30 Omni engaged its 10,000Pa suction and set about its work. The results were vert good, with just a bit of mess left behind.

After giving the robot another two passes over the carpet, there was still almost the same amount of dust left behind, and the N30 couldn’t suck out dirt trapped deep in the fibres.

Hard floor performance was better, with the Ecovacs Deebot N30 Omni able to pick up all of my flour spill easily.

Edge performance, even when the robot engaged its extendable mop pad, was good but some traces of dust were smeared about the floor. I’ve seen better results from the Roborock Qrevo Slim and the Dreame L40 Ultra.

Moving on to my mopping tests, I started with my coffee stain. With the Ecovacs Deebot N30 Omni put into mop-only mode, set for the highest water levels and made to do two passes, the results weren’t that impressive. The stain was reduced but still highly visible, as pictured below. I needed another double pass to clean it up.

The same was true with the red wine stain. This stain was faded but still visible after two passes (pictured below) and the robot needed another two passes to remove it.

My tough ketchup stain proved very hard for this robot to remove, and two mopping passes barely touched the edges of it. After four passes, I found it easier to handle the job by hand.

The dried-on mud stain was also a tough customer, and the Ecovacs Deebot N30 Omni managed to smear it around after two passes. I had to tackle the stain again with two more passes to remove it.

I tested the Ecovacs Deebot N30 Omni with human hair and found that it collected everything without tangling, which is impressive.

I measured the robot at a quiet 62.9dB, which meant that I could easily sit in the same room and concentrate while the robot was going about its business.

Battery life is quoted at up to 320-minutes, assuming the robot is set to its lowest power setting. In real use, battery life simply isn’t an issue: set to vacuuming and mopping on the highest settings, the robot had more than enough power to do a double pass of the entire Trusted Reviews Home Technology Lab.

Latest deals