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Once upon a time, there were two loving parents doing their best to shake off the shackles of school, shame and society’s narrow expectations of life. Yet they lived-in constant fear of their homestead being attacked by a gaggle of 3-foot-tall, giggling mess monsters. The parents were chained to a cycle of seemingly endless servitude with hours of their lives lost every week to the aftermath clean up.
One day, a saviour in a box, the Deebot X1 Omni appeared on their doorstep. It immediately took to work, alleviating the pressure and saving the house from ruin. Forever more, the lives of the parents were transformed. Their fears were kept at bay and their floors sparkled like the stars. They even had enough time to write this blog!
Table of Contents
Our deebot X1 Omni review
As a parent, this is perhaps the most impactful thing we’ve ever bought and so it had to be the first of our reviews on Healthy, Curious …Occasionally Furious. The difference this has made to our lives and the knock-on effect to our kids cannot be overstated.
One of the many joys of home educating our lot is that they’re naturally home more than most children. With our self-directed unschooling approach to learning and their freedom of access to materials around the house, they get ever more experimental. This basically means there is more mess than if they were at school for almost half their waking life. When we know we’ll likely be the ones cleaning up, the anxiety can be intense!
Just get the best…
The benefits of a robot vacuum to any household is obvious but there are hundreds available. You’re welcome to scour the internet, like Miles did for hours, deliberating for weeks as to which is the best one. But more than likely you would come to the same conclusion – the Deebot X1 Omni by Ecovacs is ridiculously good!
The difference this has made to our lives and the knock-on effect to our kids cannot be overstated.
We could bore you with comparisons of technical specifications like its superior 5000PA suction power, self-emptying bin, and the self-cleaning OZMO™ Turbo Rotating Mopping System. And we could cover details we discovered on videos like in Snazzy Labs Youtube review. But we won’t. because if your family is anything like ours, every day you live without this wonderful thing in your life is another stack of time you’ll never ever get back. So… we’re going to sell the shit out of the Deebot by inviting you to think about the following questions.
How valuable is your time?
A degree of satisfaction can be felt from cleaning. The physical exercise; the meditative, repetitive nature of the task; listening to music or a podcast at the same time; and of course the end result is good too. But is it something you want to do every day?
Multiple times per day?
How do you feel when you’ve successfully managed to beautify your home and the family immediately descend and obliterate it?
Infuriated is an understatement!
If we were to tally ever hour spent cleaning the floors in our house, particularly since having children, we’d weep. Putting a price on that time and considering the opportunity cost gave us perspective.
What is your time is worth?
Not necessarily your hourly rate at work, although it could be. Keep that figure in mind.
How many hours a week do you spend cleaning?
Particularly, the floors of your house. Sweeping, vacuuming and mopping. What does that add up to over an entire year? What percentage of your life?
Imagine all of the things you could be doing instead. Building better relationships with your family, exercising, enjoying hobbies, growing a business, god-forbid… even relaxing and improving your mental health! What about the things you’ve missed out on?
Try our cleaning calculator
Being a little bit nerdy, we made a calculator that might possibly shock the shit out of you.
Our life is cleaner and better
Now we have the Deebot, we watch the kids enjoy their experiments and messy play with a degree of calm. Even when the more messier of messes occur, we relax. We’re a team. Us, the kids (occasionally) and the Deebot!
When heading out for the day after breakfast, we quickly clean the kitchen surfaces and sweep as much of the crumbs in to my hands and the bin. Now, if some of it ends up on the floor, it doesn’t matter. In fact, sometimes if we’re in a rush we don’t even bother catch the mess because faithful Deebot will get it for us.
Flippin’ amazing!
Being able to leave home knowing the house will be far cleaner than we left it, is a fantastic feeling. We smile every time we walk in the door. It never gets old.
A constantly clean floor is such a pleasure to walk on! Even if we were to pay for a domestic cleaner they’d likely only visit once or twice a fortnight. With its auto-schedule cleans, our Deebot keeps on top of the cleaning day and night.
Being able to leave home knowing that the house will be far cleaner than we left it, is a fantastic feeling. We smile every time we walk in the door. It never gets old.
The icing on the robotic cake
If we haven’t already convinced you to get one of these bad boys, there’s a tonne of other benefits.
Like, security – with its onboard cameras, microphone and speaker. The Deebot can patrol the house. The ability to look around when we’re out for the day or night; to check-in and say hello to the cats; or make sure no one is there brings peace of mind. Either manually control it or select the room you want to monitor and the Deebot will make its own way there.
Assuming your kids leave as much stuff on the floor as ours, the artificial intelligence obstacle avoidance feature allows for seamless vacuuming. If it gets in to a pickle, the Deebot moves back and forth to untangle itself. It does a pretty good job. If it needs your help, it asks with a ping on your phone. It’s also easy to locate by looking at the map on the handy Ecovacs app.
Our Deebot has definitely got smarter the longer we’ve had it. It used to struggle to get over quite a high and wide threshold between our hallway and dining room. The kids loved giving it a helping hand but one day something clicked and now it’s no problem.
Wipe your botty
We empty the dirty water tank most days straight in to the toilet or down the drain, give it a quick swill with clean water. We top up the fresh water tank and do the odd wipe of the sensors thats basically all the regular maintenance.
For those with allergies, not having to empty the dustbin will be a godsend. Ecovacs say the dust bag needs replacing once a month and despite the regularity and intensity of our cleans, that’s pretty accurate.
A couple of times a week, we’ll flip it over and use the handy tools included to slice off any hair caught in the brushes and automatically fill the cleaning sink so we can give it a little scrub. Do make sure that happens regularly though to keep the drain holes clear and your mopping pads fresh.
Ecovacs claim the DEEBOT removes 99.26% of bacteria from your floors. If we spot a stubborn stain we might pretreat an area with cleaning spray. Ecovacs sell their own additive cleaning solution but it’s not necessary. The water alone will do most of what is needed assuming your kids haven’t just pissed on the floor.
Everyone and everything and has a limit
Earlier this year, the kids took a box of cereal to their bedrooms. The hallway was a sea of Sainsbury’s own brand Cheerios. To be honest, the robot did struggle with this and it required some cleaning out. Had we nipped around with a handheld and got up the big piles, it no doubt would have cleared the rest.
It’s not the best at picking up cat hair from our carpets but weirdly it picks up human hair pretty well.
Obviously, Deebot can’t dust the ceilings, wipe the skirting boards etc. It also can’t climb stairs. But with the ability to store multiple maps of each floor of your house, simply pick it up and place it where you want it to clean. It’ll use the LIDAR system to figure out where it is and which map to use.
The only flaw
Our greatest gripe (it’s actually pretty small) is that the mopping pads need to be removed before it will travel over carpets. But this takes 5 seconds and we only run this schedule a couple of times a week. It’s a good opportunity to quickly clean the brush and the sensors.
If your house is mostly hard floors (wood, tiled, stone) like ours, you’ll barely have to touch it.
Quick tips
The accessories aren’t particularly cheap, so instead of replacing the bag when its full, we shake it in the outside bin. Most of the mess is heavily compacted and easily removed, meaning the bag can be used effectively two or three more times.
On Deebot’s Max+ vacuum power and deep mopping setting it will only cover a couple of small rooms before it needs to recharge. We usually set it to the middle power modes to conserve energy. The robot charges fast enough that we can do a clean after each meal if needs be.
Is Ecovacs Omni worth it?
We moan about house work now but it’s nothing compared to that of previous generations. The washing machine, in particular, literally changed the face of society. Perhaps the impact of a dishwasher wasn’t quite so revolutionary, but they are bloody good too! A handsfree Deebot X1 Omni robot vacuum cleaner and mop has impacted our lives in an equal if not greater way.
If you’ve read this far you might still be wondering about other robot vacuum cleaners? There’s no comparison. Most robots on the market simply can’t do what the Deebot does.
It pays for itself
When we used our calculator, we figured out in the first year of use our Deebot will have paid for itself seven times over! Yes, it really is worth it.
We hope you found our Deebot X1 Omni review useful. Regardless of how you enjoy it, if you value your time and could use it to better effect, get the Deebot.
Miles, an ex-teacher turned business owner, home educator and co-founder of home-educating blog healthycurious.com, is on a mission to empower others to break free from societal constraints and build the life they desire. He and his wife Louise, unschool their children.
With a rebellious spirit and a strong drive for success, Miles ran a DIY record label and music publishing company for five years after leaving teaching.
As a hobby Miles began creating a large catalogue of white noise and sleep-inducing sounds under the moniker Noise Foundation. Things went a bit nuts and he now receives millions of streams annually on Spotify and Apple Music from all around the world.
In addition, Miles and Louise run Cassette Property Group, a property investment company helping others to build assets for a freer life.