Maintaining the cleanliness of the home is something we can all aspire to do, but it’s also a something tech can be automated to do, such as with the latest robo-combo on the way.
Keeping the house tidy and clean is one of those things we all want to do, but with all the burdens of a regular life, not to mention work, kids, and the straggling bits of life, sometimes the desire to clean can just get away from you. Or that’s what you end up telling yourself at the end of a day.
The problem is cleaning typically isn’t fun. It’s the last thing you’re likely to do because it’s simply not fun. Some people are driven by it — cleanliness is how they tick — but for others, the maintenance of keeping something clean is difficult. They might prefer anything else. Anything else.
It’s that desire to deal with the maintenance of keeping things clean that could well be driving robotic cleaners at the moment. When they’re not trying to find curious paths around your home, these gadgets are combining features and taking a background approach to tidiness and cleanliness, allowing your life to see the positives without you necessarily having to do as much, if anything at all.
In fact, with Ecovacs’ latest the most you might have to do is take it out of the box, plug it in, and occasionally keep it topped up with water or empty its spent containers. The Deebot T30 Pro Omni seems built with maintenance cleaning in mind.
Like other robotic vacuum cleaners, the design and form-factor is something you’ll have seen before: a circle that features sensors, wheels, sweeping brushes, and a vacuum inside, as well. All of that seems roughly normal for the category. It also has a rather long name.
Unlike other robo-vacs, the Deebot T30 Pro Omni comes with two sets of mopping pads that can deal with cleaning the hard floors when it encounters them, and can move them up in position when it encounters a rug or carpet that it can’t.
Perhaps more interestingly, the T30 Pro Omni has one special arm on the right side that can move in and out at varying degrees to make sure that it cleans edges and corners more tightly, getting as close as possible to walls and the skirting board so it can actually mop the parts of the home other cleaners might miss.
The technology is something Ecovacs calls “TruEdge Adaptive Edge Mopping”, and is a combination on sensors, algorithms, and a mop extender arm that can be retracted at various amounts, allowing it to move in at different points so the robot can clean as close or as far as it needs to be to get in there.
Watching it work the test, it wasn’t always perfect, but the mopping arm definitely got as close to the edges as we’d ever seen a robotic mop before. About the only way you’d do better is if you literally did it yourself.
Not doing it yourself, however, may actually be the point of why this Ecovacs unit exists, with the company’s regional director, Karen Powell, telling Pickr that these robotic vacuums were about the maintenance of the home, and keeping it tidy and clean.
“These are clever features developed in direct response to consumer feedback, making the evolution of our T-series robot more time-saving, powerful and hands-free than ever before,” she said.
“It means that Australians can enjoy the promise of a spotless and hassle-free home, with less time spent cleaning and more time spent living.”
The technology in the T30 Pro Omni goes beyond having a vacuum and mop automatically go around and do both, even if that’s what it is primarily doing. It’s also about storing what’s been spent, so you don’t have to get rid of it until you actually do.
The compact-ish station of the T30 Pro Omni is large about to hold separate water and dust bins, and these can be taken out for refilling and cleaning respectively as and when they need to. The mop component will actually clean itself after each successful go around in your home, using 70 degree water to clean the mopping pads, while it uses cold water to mop the floors.
Meanwhile, the dust bag is a 3 litre bag, which can see the vacuum running for up to 90 days without needing a change. Ecovacs also notes that you only need to clean physical docking station once every 150 days, meaning the maintenance of dealing with a robo-vac-mop is less a chore than regular cleaning.
That’s far less than the physical time you might normally have with a standard mop — or even the more complex tech savvy mop — and less for a vacuum, as well.
There are other developments, such as improving the vacuum suction power — now at 11,000pa (pascals), which is stronger than the 5000pa of others and the something Ecovacs says is the highest in the industry — while also improving the brush technoloy underneath to prevent tangled hair from stopping the vacuum from doing its job.
You can also touch the T30 Pro with your feet to make it start cleaning — a light nudge — if you don’t want to touch the thing, or you can pick it up and press the spot cleaning button on top to have it clean a 1.5m by 1.5m square. There’s also the app on iOS and Android, support for voice assistants so you can talk to the robot, or you can just let it do its thing and maintain your cleanliness in the background.
“The Deebot T30 Pro Omni is more than just our latest robot vacuum, it is also a testament to Ecovacs’ commitment to pushing the boundaries of robotic cleaning technology, each and every year,” said Powell.
Interestingly, it doesn’t use disinfectant, something that’s becoming a bit of a point for journalists like this one to talk to companies about. While mops have been known for cleaning with disinfectant for quite some time, Ecovacs was quick to explain that it didn’t believe you needed it for maintenance of cleaning, but more for when disinfecting the floor was still important.
And that largely seems to be the point of this robo-cleaner, and others like it. Simply put, it won’t likely replace your need to disinfect the floors when a proper mop is required, but it will clean the home in the background and keep things looking spick-and-span, so to speak.
In Australia, the Ecovacs Deebot T30 Pro Omni is priced at $1799, with the unit heading to stores and online shelves shortly. It will also be joined by a slightly lower model in the T30 Omni (no Pro!) that misses out on some of the AI features for $1749.
