This Robot Vacuum and Stick Vacuum Combo Is a Mixed Bag
With the market flooded with vacuum cleaners and mops, and models changing so quickly, it’s almost impossible to be sure of what you’re buying at any given time. For the past month, I’ve been testing the Ecovacs Deebot T30S Combo ($1,199.99), a robot vacuum and mop in a self-emptying tower paired with a handheld vacuum. It’s a machine trying to do a lot of things; I’m going to discuss the details in comparison to other vacuum cleaners and mops that have already been released.
Huge tower
The T30S comes in two variants: the first one has a handheld vacuum cleaner with several attachments, but without a vacuum cleaner extension, it is just a good vacuum cleaner. (For about $30, you can get a fully retractable vacuum cleaner .)
The first thing you’ll notice about the T30S is its monster base: it’s larger in size than any other robot I’ve tested in the past year, especially in height. Water containers and vacuum accessories can be placed in the tower itself, which is convenient, but even then, its size and width make it difficult to fit into your home. There is virtually no assembly required other than assembling the ramp to the tower and storing the accessories in the designated drawer. Connecting the robot to the Ecovacs app was also quick and convenient.
Advanced features in the app, but a lot of ads
Open the Ecovacs app and you are sure to receive offers and banners. It’s easy to turn them off, but it’s still annoying. Otherwise, the vacuum cleaner’s interface works very similar to that of other advanced robots, including Roborock , Switchbot and Dreame . Like Roborock, it has a voice assistant named Yiko, and it works about as well as Roborock (which isn’t very good, but is promising). Unlike other robots in this price range, the T30S does not have built-in video. The T30S lacks two of my must-have features in robot vacuums these days: remote control and the clip-and-go feature that you now see in almost all high-end models, including those mentioned above. Remote control allows you to control the robot using your phone, meaning you’ll never have to catch the bot under the couch again. You can just drive him to your place. The “Pin and Go” feature allows you to mark a point on the map and ask the robot to go to that mark and clean that specific area. This is a great way to quickly deal with a spill.
In turn, the T30S had a feature that I’m starting to see more and more: the ability to assign cleaning priorities to a room. In other words, if he cleans my bathroom or any other room, I can ask him to always clean the bathroom last. If he cleans the kitchen and any other room, I can make him always clean the kitchen first. Another new feature I like is the maintenance log of all working parts, which gives a report on the condition of each part that is replaced. Other standard features like child lock, schedules, and mop and vacuum intensity settings are present on the T30S.
A mop is better than a vacuum cleaner
Every home produces different types of waste. For floors that only have a small amount of dust on them, almost any robot vacuum can be used successfully, and it may be worth focusing on models like the Dyson that are specifically designed to capture microparticles. Some vacuum cleaners are specifically designed to pick up pet hair. I, on the other hand, have “particulates”: large objects that the dog tracks down or drops during various craft or cooking activities. For example, if you have kids who drop Cheerios, you have a particulate problem and robot vacuum cleaners are addressing it. The T30S struggled with particulates, getting stuck on almost anything larger than a popcorn kernel, which meant I had to clean the roller brush. But it actually wasn’t that good at picking up smaller debris either. This may be due to the unusual design of the rollers, but I think it also has to do with the small size of the waste container. The T30S did not appear to return to base after filling to empty itself, but instead stubbornly continued its run, unable to pick up anything else. If you, like me, suffer from larger debris, then this vacuum is not for you. But I believe it can pick up pet hair, dust, etc. without any problem.
More successful has been a mop that is controlled by two rotating pads, like the Roborock Qrevo line. While I still think mop pads like the Roborock S8 are better for cleaning floors than spinning pads, I think the T30 did an excellent job: better than the Dreame L10 I recently reviewed, and on par with Qrevo. Because the pads extend out from the robot, they can penetrate corners and edges of the room perfectly. I usually found that things were more successful when I ran a full vacuum wash followed by a separate mop wash.
Navigation issues may be more of a feature than a bug
The T30S did something that surprised me: it drove through a fenced area. When robots used bump-and-go technology to map an area, they could go anywhere a small battery-powered motor could take them. New robots, including the T30S, use LiDAR (lasers that use light and distance to determine where to go), which means most robots these days don’t collide with objects at all and actively avoid them – they see obstacles through which they can go through or overcome. like walls. So I was shocked to see the T30S slide under the floor-length velvet curtain between my hallway and living room, as if the curtain didn’t exist. While this is likely a bug (Ecovacs is still looking into it), I think it’s a bug that could work in your favor if you have a space that previous LiDAR robots didn’t “see”, be it a space blocked by a pet . a gate that the robot can still slide under, anywhere you use a partition or curtain like I did. While the bug can always be fixed, I think it’s unlikely to happen given that most companies are just creating new robots. In fact, this “bug” was not present on the Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni , which I tried (and loved) just a few months ago.
On the other hand, the T30S got stuck several times after shutting down. He struggled to get back to base by throwing himself into hallways and other random places, and while that only accounts for 15% of the times I’ve used him, it’s still something to consider.
A near miss on what could have been a killer feature
The handheld vacuum included with the T30S makes you wonder how much you want to use it. On the one hand, having a self-emptying handheld vacuum cleaner is a good idea; you’ll never have to deal with a dirty can instead of a trash can. It’s this feature that makes me prefer the Samsung Bespoke Jet AI vacuum cleaner to any Dyson vacuum cleaner I’ve tried, because you simply pick up a ready-to-go vacuum cleaner, clean it, and then put it back on the dock where it empties itself. However, unlike Samsung, there are additional steps required to use the T30S. You’ll have to assemble it every time you want to use it, and then take it apart to put it back in the dock, where it empties itself. All the time and energy saved by the self-emptying feature is negated by the labor of assembling and disassembling the vacuum cleaner every time you want to use it.
At least when you get the T30S with the extended vacuum, you simply remove the handheld part to place it in the tower, and the handle and any other accessory you use attaches to the outside of the tower, so it’s not that labor intensive. -intensive. However, this also means that the tower now takes up even more vertical and horizontal space.
Not a bad buy, but not the best buy either
Despite all this, the truth is that if you were to buy a mid-range vacuum cleaner and a robot vacuum, you’d still be spending more than the list price on this combo tower. While I think if you wanted a better robot vacuum/mop you’d buy a Roborock or Switchbot, and if you wanted a better vacuum you’d buy the Samsung Bespoke Jet AI , the Deebot T30S is good for those who don’t have large debris on the floor , who just needs a reliable bot that can handle the daily dust, and who needs a handheld vacuum nearby for things above ground level.