BTTR is independent, but when you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a commission. Find out more.
On paper, the Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni looks like the holy grail of robot vacuums.
Most robot vacuums need regular manual intervention, either to empty the dust bin or to untangle the random sock hidden under a bed the vacuum managed to suck up. The X2 Omni, however, has developed to a point it almost does everything for you.
I’ve had the X2 Omni cleaning my house for a few weeks now, and it is far and away the most advanced robot vacuum I’ve ever tested. It’s not quite where I want it to be in terms of an autonomous cleaning machine, however.
It’s fantastic, and a strong contender for the best robot vacuum in Australia.
But it’s not quite a set and forget appliance. Not yet, anyway.
Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni review: Design
Rather than the circular design that has become accepted as the standard for robot vacuums, the X2 Omni is a striking departure from the status quo.
The vacuum itself is square in design, with rounded corners to help it navigate your home.
Also gone is the protruding head that houses the components that let the vacuum “see” what it is cleaning. The X2 Omni has a whole new sensor system to navigate and map your home and avoid obstacles.
The square design means the vacuum is a bit narrower than other vacuums, yet Ecovacs has managed to make the most of that width with a wider brush head.
That’s wider area for suction is made possible by the improvements to the vacuum itself, which can now suck up to 8,000Pa, a 60% improvement over the X1 Omni model.
Because of the shift in the mapping sensors, there’s also only one corner sweeping brush to push crumbs and debris into the vacuum’s maw.
The rear circular mopping pads have also had a big improvement, with the ability to lift when the vacuum moves onto carpets or rugs.
While the 15 mm mop lifting is impressive – and the sensors do an impressive job of detecting when to lift – the uneven nature of carpet means that the mop pads will still rub across your carpet regularly.
It won’t be enough to leave them soaking wet, but it’s still more than you want, particularly if the X2 has just cleaned a particularly dirty area of the house.
There are ways around this, like setting the robot up to vacuum the whole house before it mops. It’s a little fiddly to do in the app, though, it would be good if that option was a binary request asked during the setup of the vacuum.
A better base station
Not content with improving almost every aspect of the vacuum itself, the X2 Omni has big improvements to the base station as well.
After a hard day cleaning your home, the vacuum will return to the base station and get a nice 55-degree mop pad clean, which kills bacteria without clogging up.
To avoid musty smells, the base will then blow hot air on the mop pads to dry them out completely, a process that can take a few hours. It’s not very loud, though, so you’ll barely notice the drying happening.
Because of the mop cleaning function, the base station has two large water tanks. One holds fresh water, both for filling the vacuum’s mopping reservoir, and for cleaning the mop pads. The other is for the dirty water collected after it cleans the mop pads.
The greatest challenge with this system is that the water tanks can last awhile, and there’s no regular alert to empty the tanks unless they are either empty or full.
That means your dirty water tank may end up sitting there for weeks, festering. It’s sealed quite well, so the smell doesn’t escape. But when you do empty it, be prepared for quite the fragrance…
Naturally, the base station will also empty the dust bin after every clean, so you don’t have to manually intervene. I haven’t had to empty it after a month of cleaning yet, which is nice.
Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni review: Performance
This is a flagship robot vacuum with a flagship price tag, so you expect it to perform well.
The very first mapping task, where the X2 drives around your home creating a 3D map of your different rooms and furniture, is done quickly and efficiently.
The app will add in furniture to your map if you want it to, though you will probably want to spend a bit of time tweaking that. It placed a large cupboard where the window was in my main bedroom, for example.
The good news is that it’s fully customisable, though controlling different prices of furniture exclusively through a touch interface on a mobile screen isn’t exactly the simplest way to do it.
While the mapping was a painless process, I did want to call out that the X2 Omni’s software still has room for improvement. My first clean, which was done using the “AI” cleaning mode, went straight to my bathroom – typically one of the dirtier areas of the home.
It vacuumed and mopped, doing an impressive job. And then it went straight to my daughter’s bedroom, where it proceeded to vacuum while rubbing the mop pads on the carpet.
I quickly intervened, fortunately. Since then, the X2 Omni still follows the same cleaning path, but returns to the base to clean the mop pads after cleaning the bathroom.
It would be much better if, knowing it was going to clean my whole house, the vacuum navigated first to the carpeted bedrooms, then through the rest of the hard-floored home before ending in the bathrooms.
That’s something that can be fixed via a firmware update, and I’d love to see Ecovacs continue to improve the vacuum’s intelligence over time.
Cleaning performance
Odd navigation choices aside, the X2 Omni does an outstanding job of actually cleaning.
Having 8,000Pa of suction power really helps because my home feels pretty great after the X2 has finished making its way around the home.
Unlike our old Deebot N8, and most of the other Ecovacs robot vacuums we’ve tested, the mopping actually feels like it’s mopping too, rather than just smearing water across the floor.
It’s not as good as an old-fashioned mop and bucket for cleaning up stubborn marks on my vinyl flooring, but it’s still better than nothing.
But it’s still a lot. One of the aspects I appreciated most with the X2 Omni was the ability to set custom cleaning routines.
So, for example, I could set a weekday daily vacuum, where the robot did its thing cleaning the house, but without mopping. Then on Saturdays, I’d set a proper deep clean, where it used the vacuum and the mop.
There are other options too, like having it automatically vacuum under your dining table in the evening after dinner.
These automation tasks take time to set up, and can occasionally kick off when your wife has an important Zoom call when she is working from home. But it’s still a level of versatility I appreciate in my robot vacuums.
Obstacle avoidance
This, without a doubt, is the best aspect of the X2 Omni.
Robot vacuums historically work well, so long as you walk through the home and pick up every cable, every sock and every other thing sitting on the floor the vacuum may decide to try to eat.
The X2 Omni’s new sensors mean you don’t need to worry about that. It will detect all manner of obstacles on the floor and work around them to clean.
It is amazing.
If I’m being picky, I’d note that it maybe gives stationary objects too wide of a berth when cleaning. That means there’s probably a good 30 cm radius from anything on the floor that doesn’t end up getting vacuumed.
But that can be improved as software gets better. What’s most impressive is that after a month of using the X2 Omni, I only had to intervene once. And that was because it got its square head stuck between some chair legs and a table leg, not because it ate a Lightning cable.
At first, I was a bit reluctant to not clean up before using the vacuum. After a few weeks, I’m at the point I’ll just let it clean, regardless of what state the kids have left their bedrooms, knowing it will do its best to avoid the mess.
Battery life
With a pretty massive 6,400 mAh battery, I expected that the X2 Omni would be able to clean my 3-bedroom home in a single attempt, especially seeing as how the N10 Plus could manage that.
And it could when it was only vacuuming. When the mop function was running, it would take a couple of attempts to get through the home.
This was exacerbated by the vacuum returning to the base for a mop pad clean and a bin empty every 20 minutes or so.
Of course, the good thing with robot vacuums is that if they run out of battery, they simply return to charge and then continue where they left off when they have enough juice.
So while the X2 Omni still needed a couple of charges to get through my whole home, it wasn’t something holding it back.
Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni review: Verdict
The X2 Omni is the best robot vacuum I’ve tested this year. It does an impressive job of cleaning, has fantastic features, and its obstacle avoidance is without peer.
There are a few software issues, like the AI cleaning washing my bathroom floor before the rest of the house, that I would love to see fixed in an update.
There are also hardware challenges, like the mop lift not being enough to stop the mop pads rubbing along the carpet.
But overall, this is an incredible robot vacuum. If you can afford the asking price, it’s a worthwhile investment.
Buy the Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni online
Ecovacs supplied the product for this review.
