Ecovacs Deebot T50 Pro Omni review: One low sucker

I don’t think too many categories are developing at the same speed as robot vacuum cleaners. It was maybe three years ago when I bought my first robot vacuum, the Deebot N8 from Ecovacs, and it changed my life.

But it was also massively underpowered. It didn’t really avoid obstacles all that well, and I had to manually empty the dust bin every couple of days. It was good, but a far cry from the high-performance models Ecovacs offers today.

That said, I’ve had some issues with the last two flagship Ecovacs vacuums. While they do an exceptional job at cleaning, with incredible suction and the X8’s innovative roller mop, the mapping seems to have taken a step backwards.

So I was a little uncertain as to what I should expect with the T50 Pro Omni. This model sits in the middle of the range, both for price and performance. Would that mean middle-of-the-road performance as well?

Thankfully not. Ecovacs still hasn’t nailed its mapping software, but the T50 Pro Omni didn’t avoid any of my rooms unnecessarily. In fact, if you’re not too worried about mopping functionality, I’d argue this is a much better option for most people than the X5 or X8 models.

What is the T50 Pro Omni offering?

Travel back in time 12 months and compare the T50 Pro Omni spec sheet against the best robot vacuum of the time, and you’ll see that the T50 holds its own.

At full power, this model generates up to 15,000Pa of suction — a massive step up from the 2,400 Pa of my original N8. It’s also designed with a slim profile that lets it glide under your furniture, thanks to a height of just 81 mm.

The T50 has a 6,400 mAh battery, which is more than enough to vacuum and mop my three bedroom home.

It comes with a number of features designed to make maintenance even easier, like the second-get ZeroTangle technology that promises to stop long hair from getting all caught up on the main roller. There’s also TruEdge 2.0, which extends the side brush and right mopping pad out to make sure the vacuum gets right into the corners and edges of your room.

The OMNI station is fairly compact, yet fully featured. Obviously, there’s the fresh and dirty water tanks on top, with a similar design to this year’s X8 Pro Omni, where you can see the water levels of the tanks. I don’t love this design, but it’s functional.

The T50 also has a detergent container that automatically adds cleaning solution to your vacuum for mopping. Ecovacs says you should only use its detergent in there, but then doesn’t include a sample in the box of the $1,499 vacuum. It seems like a missed opportunity to me.

The base station uses water heated to 75ºC to wash the mop pads, before drying them with 45ºC hot air. It doesn’t completely remove the need for maintenance, but it makes the need to wash the mop pads manually much less frequent.

Despite its shorter frame, the T50 Pro Omni still lifts its mopping pads up to 9 mm when going over carpets to avoid smearing them with wet mop pads. The rotating Omni mops do a decent job at cleaning, though don’t offer the same level of hygiene as the roller mop in the X8.

The T50 also offers the ability to make video calls over the vacuum’s 960p camera. I get some people might want to check out their pets from afar with this, but this is not something I want or need in a robot vacuum. Your mileage may vary, though.

What does the T50 Pro Omni do well?

When I think back to how I felt when I first started using the N8 to vacuum the house daily, I was blown away by how well it cleaned.

But having the T50 suck dirt out of our carpets was so much better. The vacuum worked its way around the home, systematically cleaning carpets then harder floors. After a period of time, it heads back to the Omni station to empty the dustbin before continuing from room to room, until the house has been cleaned.

Like many of today’s models, you get a fair amount of customisation with the cleaning routine. You can have it vacuum and mop at the same time, or vacuum then mop. You can also tell it to vacuum carpets around the house before it cleans everything else, so there’s no chance of accidentally mopping your rug.

Setup in the app is quick and easy, and even as I was reviewing this model, a firmware update came through that improved the app’s functionality. You can now cancel a clean in a schedule for just one day, rather than having to turn off the entire schedule, for example.

What could the T50 Pro Omni improve?

My biggest concern going into this review was that the vacuum would continue the trend of the X5 and X8 models of not cleaning my home’s third bedroom.

Fortunately, those fears were unfounded. The T50 can get in there and suck up the dust, leaving the whole home feeling cleaner.

It’s far from perfect, though. In fact, my biggest underlying feedback would be for Ecovacs to improve its mapping software. I know that’s easy for me to say as a critic (and much harder to implement), but there are things that seem like they should be easily fixed.

For example, the T50 Pro – like the last few models I’ve reviewed, doesn’t automatically detect the carpeted bedrooms in my home. Instead, it merges the family / dining area / kitchen into one mega-room with the bedrooms.

You can edit the map to break it up (which is what I ended up doing), but surely, there has to be some part of the algorithm that can detect the combination of a doorway shape and a different floor type?

It also has a weird tendency of getting the floor type wrong. In the screenshot from the app below, you can see that the vacuum has detected 3/4 of the very round, circular rug underneath my dining table.

This can pose some problems. For a start, with the “vacuum first” option selected, it means that the T50 starts a house clean by vacuuming 3/4 of the rug. Then when it comes time to do the last 25% later on, if you have vacuum and mop selected, you know you’re getting a wet carpet.

Meanwhile, obstacle avoidance is good without being great. For the most part, I had no issues, though the T50 did get tangled on an errand iPhone cable on a couple of occasions.

And as much as I appreciate being able to add a cleaning solution to the mop pads to help it do a better job (as well as helping with odours), I cannot understand why a small sample of the cleaning solution isn’t included in the box.

Verdict

Despite its position as a mid-range model, the T50 Pro Omni does a premium job of cleaning, outperforming flagships from a couple of years ago.

Its lower profile means it can get under more furniture more easily, without sacrificing performance. The T50 has impressive suction and a strong mopping capability, with intelligent voice controls, Matter support and the ability to effectively clean itself.

There’s still plenty of room for improvement with the mapping and obstacle avoidance. The T50 isn’t terrible in this regard – it will avoid bigger objects and detect most rooms okay, but it can get tangled on smaller cables.

But from a value for money standpoint, the $1,499 RRP of the T50 Pro Omni is difficult to pass up.

Behind the scenes

Compare the T50 Pro Omni VS

Want to see how the T50 Pro Omni stacks up against other Ecovacs robot vacuums? Compare below:

T50 Pro Omni VS T50 Pro Max

T50 Pro Omni VS T30 Pro Omni

T50 Pro Omni VS X8 Pro Omni

Tips and tricks

• The T50 Pro Omni supports Matter, which means you can add the vacuum to your Apple Home setup, and control it via Siri or setup automations based on your Home situation. For example, if you only want the vacuum to clean when nobody is home, and everybody in your house has an iPhone, you can automate that process nice and easily.
• At 81 mm high, the T50 promises to get under your low furniture. But by default, the vacuum is programmed to have a bit of a buffer to avoid getting stuck. If you’re happy to risk it, head to the Settings section in the Ecovacs app, choose “Robot advanced settings” and then adjust the low-height settings to “Extreme Passage”.
• If you want to use the inbuilt voice commands but not sure what to say, the app has a pretty comprehensive list of commands in the “Yiko Settings” option.

Additional thoughts

• I don’t like the transparent water tanks on top of the Omni station, but I understand that it makes it easier to identify when you need to fill or empty the water tanks. I find it surprising that we haven’t seen a sensor-based tracking of the water tanks (aside from when they are completely empty). If it does come, I’m sure it will come to the high-end first, though.
• This year, Ecovacs has overhauled its packaging, and it’s a big step forward. It’s much more compact, with less rubbish and easier to manoeuvre. A really great step forward.