Robot vacuums used to be little more than automated sweepers that wandered around the house collecting dust before eventually getting stuck under a chair, or have part of a rug trapped between the brush. These days, they’re expected to do much more since actual vacuuming is only part of the job and the best models now include mopping, self-cleaning and washing, navigating around clutter, and even emptying the dust receptacle, but otherwise requiring very little input from owners.
The Ecovacs Deebot T90 Pro Omni is one of the latest advanced models that aims to take care of almost all your floor cleaning, so that owners spend less time vacuuming, mopping, or maintaining their floors. After the initial setup, mapping of the home and device configuration on your phone, what surprises most is how much cleaning it is capable of handling on its own, without needing additional attention.
Like most robot vacuums, the T90 Pro comes in two major parts – the familiar puck-shaped main vacuum, and the base station. Measuring 40 cm by 34 cm, and at 50 cm tall, the Omni Station is substantial in size, and similar in shape and layout to the Ecovacs Deebot X11 OmniCyclone, the brand’s flagship robot cleaner. The T90 Pro is a slightly smaller version that offers similar features and you’ll need to set aside a reasonable amount of space at home for it, which means ample clearance around the station for the vacuum to navigate and glide itself home.
More than just a charging dock, the station unit houses two separate dirty and clean water tanks at the top, a small container for the cleaning solution at the bottom front, a bag for dust collection to the right of this, as well as the cleaning system within that washes and dries the mop roller after every wet cleaning session, all accessible through easy to open panels at the top and front of the base platform.
Luckily, Ecovacs makes daily maintenance easy, as both tanks are simple to slide out with everything clearly labelled, so each container is designed to fit its designated slot, and there’s no chance that you will accidentally slot the dirty water container into the clean water container slot, and vice versa. The one key difference between this and the X11 is that it uses a dust bag on the base station to collect all the dust collected by the unit. The X11 uses a container that can be cleaned, while you will need to be careful with the bag, and ultimately, replace it as needed after prolonged use.
To get the unit going, everything starts with your phone. You need to download the Ecovacs app and pair your phone to the vacuum, and this is done through a series of audio and visual cues from your phone and vacuum. The first thing the app does is start mapping the layout of your home, where it slowly crawls through each open space and corner of your home, to map out its cleaning journey. It’s actually fun to watch as the machine moves through each room, identifies walls, furniture, and obstacles, and then creates a detailed map you can adjust later.
This means you should move anything that isn’t supposed to be permanently placed on the floor, like a bag of newly bought items, or even a computer chair in the study room that’s not always sitting in the same spot. It took just under an hour to map out a 66 sqm (free floor space) HDB apartment and there was no additional supervision needed, other than keeping the floor clear of temporary items.
With its AIVI 3D 4.0 obstacle recognition, the robot vacuum is capable of spotting and avoiding common obstacles such as table legs, cables, toys, shoes, and furniture. It usually spots these obstructions early, so it moves around them smoothly instead of bumping into them and then adjusting.
So instead of bumping into objects, hesitating or repeatedly adjusting its position, the T90 Pro navigates with ease, gliding across the floor on the first attempt. The TruePass Adaptive 4-Wheel Drive also helps when transitioning across different surfaces, including thresholds and uneven flooring, which remain challenges for many other brands of robot vacuums, but the T90 Pro Omni handles them better than most. It won’t perform miracles on every obstacle, but it handles everyday transitions with far fewer interruptions.
After mapping is done, the app gives you plenty of options, including to establish cleaning routines for each room, change the type of cleaning, from vacuuming only, or vacuuming followed by a mop, to schedule cleaning when say, your children are at school and not at home, and even allows you to mark areas that don’t require the vacuum to access, such as the wash area by the kitchen.
And cleaning is where the device shines, and while high suction numbers don’t always mean better cleaning, the performance matches the paper specifications here. The new Blast airflow system delivers up to 30,000Pa of suction power, placing the T90 Pro Omni among the most powerful robot vacuums currently available, and beating even the Deebot X11, which comes in at 19,500Pa of suction power. More importantly, it uses that power effectively, picking up everything from dust, food crumbs, long and short hair, and everyday debris including even in areas where dirt tends to accumulate, such as under sofas and along the edges of the wall, and around furniture.
One of the biggest frustrations with robot vacuums has always been strands of hair wrapping around the brush roller, and anyone with pets or family members with long hair will know the routine of regularly – and manually – cutting tangled hair. Ecovacs tackles this with its ZeroTangle 4.0 system, and this system works remarkably well, with very little to no hair snagged around the brush, which means far less cleaning maintenance is required.
With many robot vacuums, mopping seems like an extra feature. The floor might get a bit damp, but tough marks and residue often remain. The Deebot T90 Pro Omni offers a clearly better mopping experience with its Ozmo Roller 3.0 system that scrubs at up to 200 RPM while maintaining consistent pressure against the floor. The roller continuously cleans itself with fresh water during operation, which helps prevent dirt from simply being pushed around the room.
One of the by-products of this is that the machine can clean a room, but before it’s complete, the sensors note that the water is dirty, and it returns to the base station for a refresh of water before it continues the job. You can see the difference, as floors are much cleaner, with less streaking and residue compared to other robot mops. Does it take longer? Yes, but that’s why you leave it running while you’re not at home, and make a conscious effort to lift your bedroom slippers and bath mats off the floor.
To maximise efficiency and battery performance, Ecovacs also deploys its recharge and resume PowerBoost Technology that recharges the unit by about 10 per cent in three minutes – which is about the time needed to dump the dirty water and top up a fresh load. And rather than abandoning a task midway through, especially for those with bigger homes, it intelligently returns to the dock, tops up its battery, and resumes cleaning from exactly where it left off.
The machine also does a great job cleaning the edge of your home, as its TruEdge 3.0 technology allows it to stay close to walls, baseboards, and corners, reaching spots many robot mops miss. After cleaning, there were barely any missed spots along the edges of the home.
Artificial intelligence has become a popular marketing phrase in the smart home category, but the brand’s own – Agent Yiko – is one of the few implementations that feels genuinely useful. Instead of just following set schedules, the system learns how your home is used. It detects busy areas, recognises different floor types, and adjusts its cleaning automatically. Suction, water use, and cleaning patterns all adjust on their own, and you’re also able to set the cleaning rhythm, such as use more water in say, the living room that’s trampled on by more members of the household, and perhaps opt to vacuum, but not mop, the study room since you’re the only one using it daily.
The Ecovacs app is still one of the best parts of the whole system. It strikes a good balance between offering detailed controls and remaining easy to use. You can monitor cleaning progress in real time, review completed routes, customise room settings, schedule cleaning sessions, and check cleaning history without digging through endless menus.
In real use, this means you spend less time managing the robot and more time letting it work. For most people, the automatic cleaning modes are probably all you’ll need.
Like the X11, it also comes with a built-in camera that serves multiple purposes beyond allowing you to check on the cleaning process. It doubles as a convenient way to keep an eye on pets, quickly inspect a room while you’re away from home, or identify an object obstructing the performance of the vacuum, so that you can call someone at home to clear it.
And once it’s done the rounds at home, the unit returns to the Omni Station to complete the routine by emptying the dustbin, washing the mop roller, cleaning its internals and drying everything with hot air. The app will notify you if fresh water levels need a top-up, and you don’t even have to worry about emptying the dirty water as the Dirty Water Box Auto-Cleaning system helps reduce odours and keeps maintenance to a minimum.
Over two months of use, my involvement was mostly limited to topping up clean water, emptying the dirty water tank when needed, and potentially cleaning out the dust bag though I haven’t had the need to do so yet, as everything else happened in the background. The Ecovacs Deebot T90 Pro Omni feels less like a robot vacuum and more like a complete floor-care system. It vacuums well, mops when there’s a need, and is supported by smart navigation and a self-cleaning feature that doesn’t require supervision.
Things like higher-than-normal door thresholds, loose rugs, and very cluttered rooms can still prevent it from doing a good job, but these are pretty minor compared to everything else it does well.
The Ecovacs Deebot T90 Pro Omni is priced at S$1,199, which is S$500 cheaper than the flagship D11 and has pretty much similar features. More importantly, it doesn’t break the bank so this robot cleaner is a no-brainer.
GEEK REVIEW SCORE
Summary
For households with pets, busy families, or anyone who wants to spend less time thinking about floor cleaning, the Ecovacs Deebot T90 Pro Omni is one of the most complete robot cleaning systems currently available. More than anything, it succeeds by making cleaning feel like something you no longer need to manage yourself.
Overall
9.2/10
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Aesthetics - 9/10
9/10
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Build Quality - 9.5/10
9.5/10
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Performance - 9/10
9/10
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Value - 9/10
9/10
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Geek Satisfaction - 9.5/10
9.5/10
Yonk is a geek who is fortunate enough to have an equally geeky Star Wars fan for a wife, who owns a LEGO Millennium Falcon encased in a glass coffee table as their home’s centre-piece.
Kevin Low
Si Jia
