Today, nearly one in five Australian households own a robot vacuum and we are now vacuuming our homes on average 2.5 times a week which is up about 20% from previous years. I have to say with two furbabies that supposedly ‘don’t shed’ (but do’) anything to maximise my leisure time is a bonus. We have reviewed a few robot cleaners, but this is nearing the top of the range for Deebot, leader in the market.
If you have a robot cleaner there are things it can’t do: make a margarita, clean the stairs, your soft furnishings or reach those surfaces like kitchen counters or TV units. So you need an upright/hand held.
Also with wooden floors/tiles a mop is needed, the Deebot does this too. So the question is can you get rid of an upright, stick, mop and general cleaner and just have one thing – the T30S Combo
My new T30S Combo has arrived. I follow the tradition of a new born sourdough mother dough – I have to name it. Mine is called Cinderella, (Cindy is the robot and ‘rella’ the charging station) in the hope of transforming my house into a fairy tale clean. I have lived with it now for 3 weeks and this is how it performs.
Unboxing: A Peek Into Innovation
The ECOVACS T30S Combo aka Cinderella arrives in sleek, protective packaging. It’s a HUGE and I am staring at it wondering just how to tackle the unboxing. Inside is the Omni Station, with a 4L clean water tank, 3.5L dirty water tank, then a robot vacuum with side brush and an extra 3L dust bag, then the stick handheld vacuum with a zero tangle brush, mini power brush, flatbush, crevice tool and extension hose. Oh and for all this gear (yep complex) a user guide.
Assembly
I set up the base station connecting Cindy to the ‘rella’ base station. There is no need to mount anything to the wall. Cindy is sleeping and charging with the hand held also charging at the same time. The dust bag is easily connected by sliding the tab to one side. Boom. Ready to go oh and I download the app.
First Impressions: The Design
The ECOVACS T30S Combo is a good looking rooster. I like its modern, minimalist design with a matte black finish. The base station is larger than average, with two water tanks and has a holder to the side for the handheld vacuum, keeping everything tidy and accessible.
The Deebot Robot Vacuum – Cindy
This is a mean piece of kit. I feel like I should be sitting down with it for a game of GO or chess. It’s infinitely more sophisticated than the others in the range. This is where I can go down a rabbit hole of features which you might wake up to in an hour’s time. So I am going to go through each one by one and tell you my thoughts.
- Suction Power – the 11,000Pa suction, has an advanced motor and airflow technology. it’s waaaay better than the Deebot Neo 2.0 robot I have reviewed previously, picking up leaves which have blown in by the front door and things like frozen to soggy peas which have defrosted and somewhat stuck on my kitchen floor. The Deebot range does got up to a whopping 18,500 so this is ‘mid range’for suction. It actually does a better job of cleaning up crumbs than the hand held (more on that below).
- Zero Tangle Tech – So i was a bit dubious about this, but it has a V shaped roller brush with 21° flat bristles (I didn’t measure them) is able to both cope with my hair – mostly in the bathroom thanks to my 150km cyclone GHD hairdryer, but also manages with dog hair well. This is due to super clever Dual Comb Teeth which proactively sweeps hair into the suction port. Over three weeks and only minimal hair stuck.
- Smart Navigation – I download the app. It has mind boggling mapping capabilities. First it maps my ground floor (lounge/dining and kitchen) then I take it upstairs to map the bedrooms and bathrooms. Cindy has the latest TrueDetect 3D 3.0 Technology with using structured light beams, enabling millimeter-level obstacle avoidance. It does a good job of navigating dog beds, chairs, speakers and rugs particularly where other robots get stuck. The mapping tech is fast (100 square meters in just 6 minutes). I label areas such as bedroom one (which greyhound maggie loves due to the llama rug), and office where they love to play and fur flies. I also set boundaries. My pups are not fans of Cindy at all and it does freak them out. So I set Cindy to do a sweep up at 11.30pm when we are all in bed upstairs which is very handy for getting under the sofa and catching furballs!
- Voice Assistant Integration – If only my partner Mr G could be so compliant around “clean now”. Cindy is my new best buddy and she’s great mates with Alexa and Google. This is perhaps the feature I like the best, which is that I can schedule cleaning and setting by just telling it what to do. In the world of AI I have a lot of mates now. Alexa, Google, Gemini, Siri and now I have YIKO who is Cindy’s AI voice control. Is this getting weird yet? So I say things like ‘OK Yiko clean under the sofa’ ‘OK Yiko return to base’. So obedient. It has one of the best integrations with Apple so “Hi Siri go clean the dining room” It also has 3 buttons on the front which can be activated with a toe tap for easy on/off cleaning and safety.
- Mopping – Other models have been OK but the transition to mop/dont mop has been tricky, given that I have rugs on my wooden floors. Most robots struggle. Cindy does a fairly good job at this, but can’t master the upstairs llama rug given its fluffy height and gets stuck. There is a dual-plate rotating mop system that provides high-pressure scrubbing. It does notice the difference between a light stain and a dark stain and does more than one sweep of some caked on Big Dog food! The Auto-lift Mopping System lifts the mopping plates so that my rugs don’t get soaked, though I did notice both mops were not always out at the same time. The mopping is ok with little spills. I opened a beer which frothed up and then created a lovely puddle in the kitchen. I summoned Cindy and she struggled to properly mop up that large amount of water which tended to be pushed around but was fine with smaller amounts.
Ecovacs Deebot T30S Omni Station – Cleaning & Emptying
Cindy returns to its ‘Rella’ base. The base station is a game-changer, as it auto empties the rubbish into a disposable bag, then detects how dirty the mops are, cleaning at a 158 degree wash. Unlike other deebots this also auto refills the water into Cindy and gives the mops a blow dry too! I also like the storage compartment for the accessories. The BEST thing about this station is that it auto cleans the hand held.
Handheld Vacuum
It’s fairly lightweight (1.2kgs) and comes with four brush heads; a crevice tool, dusting brush, mini-power brush, and ZeroTangle power brush, which is the one I use the most for pet hair. Similar to my Dyson it has a cyclone and mesh filter, along with a washable HEPA filter for fine dust particles. I like that the base station charges and empties the handheld vacuum, ensuring it’s always ready for use. Something my Dyson doesn’t do as I have to clean out the gunk myself (ugh!). Depending what stick vacuum you have the 11k suction power might not be as powerful but the antitangle tech is the thing I also like on this.
Summary: A Cleaning Revolution?
What are we Addicted to? – More than a cleaning device- is this a lifestyle upgrade? Hmmm. I really love it and it’s the best of the robot cleaners I have tried so far. The ECOVACS T30S Combo excels in both vacuuming and mopping, delivering a good finish on various floor types. The handheld vacuum is a massive bonus and the station’s self-cleaning means the worst elements of vacuuming and cleaning are minimized. Love the voice controls and the app integration with voice speakers is great. Its relatively quiet on operation.
What do we need to be more Addicted? At RRP $2,299 it’s a significant investment. Do keep an eye out for sales though. The large base station for me is the biggest drawback with a small inner west home taking up more space than other models. The mopping struggled a bit with large volumes and stubborn stains.
In Australia, the ECOVACS DEEBOT T30S COMBO has a recommended retail price of AUD $2,299. It is available today from Bing Lee, Harvey Noman, JB HiFi, Retravision, Robot Specialist, The Good Guys, Amazon & ECOVACS Online.
In New Zealand, the ECOVACS DEEBOT T30S COMBO has a recommended retail price of NZD $2,499. It is available today from Harvey Norman, JB Hifi, Noel Leeming and Robomate.
