ECOVACS Deebot T8 AIVI Robot Vacuum Cleaner For Floors,Carpet, Vacumming and Mopping in One-Go, Laser Mapping, Smart AI Object Recognition, On-Demand Live Video, Custom Clean, 3+ Hours of Runtime

Best Botvac Out There
I normally don’t take the time to leave detailed reviews, but this product is worth it. To begin, I’ve owned a Neato Botvac Connected for about 4 years and before that a BOBSweep for about 5 minutes. Hands down “Dee”, our new Ecovacs Deebot T8 AIVI botvac is the best I’ve owned. We’ve had her about (why we assign gender to a robot is beyond me) 3 weeks and it has been relatively effortless to have her. We also purchased the Ecovacs auto-empty station, which I’ll include in my analysis.Conditions Dee works in: we have a 4000 sq ft ranch-style house on an acreage with 2 dogs. Our has has a variance of hardwood floors and throw rugs as well as linoleum floors in our mudroom. The one main home mess insurgent is Zeus, our 125-lb, 2 yr old Great Pyrenees pup who is a shedding machine of spun cotton-like hair, especially in the Spring. He is also a bull in a China closet.Positives of the Deebot:AI- the Deebot has an exceptional AI that allows it to navigate effortlessly in the above described environment. Dee has only gotten stuck once on a shag throw rug that looks like a reject from the 70s. Otherwise, she has not gotten stuck in the 3 weeks we’ve owned her.Floor Plan mapping/ Navigation- like many have commented, this took us several times to get straight. My recommendation is to follow the instructions and leave all the doors open to the rooms you want Deebot to map and let it do it’s thing. We did this and now close off rooms I don’t want cleaned every time due to lack of use. However, they are in the AI’s map in case we need to add them in. I have not experienced Dee getting lost under couches, etc due to the lack of a flashlight on it, as some other reviewers have indicated. She navigates just fine under our couches and other impediments. Speaking of getting under things, I really like the lower profile of Dee as compared to our Neato Botvac Connected. Dee also goes over high points with no issues whatsoever.App Use- the ecovacs app is exceptional. It immediately connected to our Deebot and it’s functionality is very good. I’ve included a pic of it to give you a sense of it. You can track in real time where your Deebot is at when working, use as it as a spy with it camera and have it go to a pre-designated room to be used in area clean mode. Scheduling your Deebot is easy and has been pain-free. I have Dee clean our upper floor every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday due to the hair insurgent I mentioned earlier. dee responds to return to base command and auto empty without hesitation.Suction- our Deebot has very impressive suction and one of big reasons I bought this model with the extensive dog hair I am up against. Dee varies her suction based on cleaning surface, which at first I thought she was malfunctioning, but I assume this conserves battery life. We’re virtually hair free after each cleaning.Noise- One of the pleasant surprises, although not a key consideration in buying the Deebot was how quiet the Deebot is. I can take phone calls with Dee working in the background, or if you want no noise, it is easy to pause cleaning until you tell it to resume.Maintenance- as with any botvac you will buy, the Deebot will require maintenance. I generally clean the beating brush, vacuum out the dust bin area and wipe Dee down weekly. This is largely due to my hair insurgent dog and long haired wife, all of which their hair gets caught up in the beating brush. Your experiences may vary. I also have to physically clean out the dust bin every few days, because my dog’s poofy hair gets caught up in the it and the auto empty station cannot suck it all out effectively. I believe my hair situation is an extreme one,it may work just fine if you don’t have a big hairy oaf loping through your house, shedding.Battery Life- outstanding. As with many other botvacs, will head to the recharge station, which it has no problem finding, when it needs to take on juice. Just follow the instructions on placement of the recharge or auto empty station. I would highly recommend (at additional cost) the auto emptying station, despite the additional cost. It’s worth it and saves maintenance, in my experience.Instructions- we very good. I am a relatively tech savvy middle aged man with previous experience with botvacs and could understand all of the instructions quite well. I cannot comment on tech support as I have not had to use it (hopefully not at all).Cost- I paid $699.00 for my Deebot and an additional $249.00 for the auto empty station in Mar 2021. Great value, based on my experience so far. My experience has been, you get what you pay for (see the BOBSweep I bought for $200.00 previously).Build/ Long Term Reliability- the design of this botvac is very good. I don’t see any glaring design flaws that could impact on long term reliability. Again, the key is performing good maintenance on your system.Mopping- cannot comment on this; haven’t used yet.In summary, I can give my seal of approval on this product. It actually has improved my quality of life, unlike some other products or gadgets we often shell $$ out for. If it fits into your budget, well worth your money.

I’ve owned my Deebot OZMO T8 AIVI and an Auto-Empty Station for eight months now, and I decided to use the system for quite a while before posting my review. I wanted to give an in-depth and honest opinion about it. Although there continue to be some annoying glitches, I’ve decided that the Deebot T8 AIVI and the Auto-Emptying Station are a big help to me when it comes to cleaning my house! I hope some of my comments here will help others to decide if this set-up is a good choice for their home.• Let me start by saying that ordering from Amazon was easy and fast. And, the price was as cheap as any other retailer advertising this new model in my area. At the time I wanted to order a Deebot OZMO T8 AIVI, all of the local retailers in my area were out of stock. Amazon was out of stock as well, but within a few days, the robot became available again on Amazon. But it was still not available to purchase at my local retailers. I’ve never had an issue with ordering from Amazon, so I placed my order.• Once both boxes arrived, I didn’t have any problems at all with downloading the Ecovacs app to my cell phone. That was easy. What wasn’t so easy was trying to get the app to work, and the robot to be connected to the app. I discovered that I had issues because the Wi-Fi in my house was set to 5 GHz, and not the 2.4 GHz that’s required for the robot to work. Although I have a dual-band modem/router, the 2.4 GHz network wasn’t set up for me through my Internet provider. After contacting my provider, and getting a reset of my router, I was good to go. If I want to, I can switch my Wi-Fi from 2.4 GHz to 5 GHz when the robot isn’t running. It would be so much easier, though, if Ecovacs would somehow program the robot to work on either band. With that being said, the new outdoor security cameras I recently purchased also only work on the 2.4 GHz signal with my cell phone, so this re-set was necessary anyway.• Now, the app works fine, and I haven’t had any issues. The robot has mapped two floors of my home. I’m able to schedule certain areas to be vacuumed daily [like the area rug in front of the front door]; I was able to setup some virtual boundaries in two places where OZMO tends to get stuck; and, the app lets me know when all parts of the robot and the emptying station need to be cleaned and/or emptied.• I do have one major issue with the mapping: I’d like to be able to save more maps in the app! I have a two story home with a finished basement…three floors in total. Also, my family room is located one-step below the main level of our home, and OZMO doesn’t go up or down steps. And, a new sunroom addition off of that family room has a threshold that’s too high for OZMO to climb over. If I could, I’d like to have a map for all of the areas I need to clean…a map for the main floor, a map for the second story where the bedroom are located, one for the family room, one for the sunroom, and one for the basement. So, instead of just two maps that are allowed in multi-floor mapping—which I currently have set up as one map saved for the main floor and one map saved for the second story—I’d like to have five maps. However, in the end, it really doesn’t matter, as OZMO does a great job in the mapped areas, and it also vacuums and mops in those extra spaces without needing the maps. I just move OZMO and the Auto-Empty Station to each specific area, and OZMO auto-locates in each new area, and makes it back to the station when finished [usually]. Customer Service tells me that adding additional maps will likely be coming in the future. However, I wasn’t sure if this would be possible due to an update to the app, or only with a new model of robot in the future.• Customer Support at Ecovacs told me that I could get additional Auto-Empty Stations if I don’t want to keep moving the one station that I have from one floor of my home to another. That’s something I’m still thinking about, as the Auto-Empty Stations are very expensive to purchase here in Canada.• One glitch I don’t like is that OZMO occasionally can’t find its way back to the Auto-Empty Station when it’s finished with a task. On one occasion, it roamed around the main floor of the house, and stopped a few inches in front of the station. Another time, the robot meandered around the dining room before finally locking in on a signal, and then it made its way to the station, which is actually located in the dining room. Another time, OZMO just wandered around the main floor and could not figure out where it was at all. I have no idea why this happened. However, I just called up the app on my cellphone, and ordered OZMO back to the station for recharging. And, it then crept back to where it belonged for recharging. I don’t get so worried anymore if this happens, as I just grab my cell phone and tap the Return to Charging icon.• As an update to the above, OZMO had trouble finding its way back to the station a few times last week, even with tapping Return to Charge. I notice that this is more of an issue if OZMO has not been used in a few days. When this happens, I just pick up the vacuum and return it to the charging station.• OZMO is bigger in diameter than I had expected, and the robot can’t get into all the spaces in my house that need to be vacuumed. For example, it can’t fit between the bathtub and the toilet, or the toilet and the vanity. It also can’t fit between a few end tables and the wall, or between my bedside night tables and the wall. I’ve slightly re-positioned a few pieces of furniture to maximize the area that OZMO can cover. In other spots where this isn’t possible, I use a micro-fiber dust mop in the areas that OZMO can’t reach. But I have to say that OZMO covers about 95% of the floor area in every room. And, the time I have to spend with the micro-fiber dust mop is far less than the time it would take to do all of the vacuuming and mopping on my own.• Although OZMO is able to get underneath my dining room table, and it’s able to vacuum and mop around the legs of the chairs, it can’t do this around the kitchen chairs when they’re left at the kitchen table. That’s because the cross-supports on the legs of these particular chairs are too low for OZMO to fit under. I do have to move the chairs from the kitchen table when OZMO is vacuuming the area rug there. Some days, if I don’t feel like moving the chairs, I just set up a temporary virtual border.• Another issue has been with the kick-pleats on the bottom of my living room sofa and loveseat, and on the bottom of a few chairs, and the dust ruffles around two beds. OZMO sees these as solid walls, and will not vacuum or mop under these pieces of furniture unless I tuck up the kick-pleats and skirts so that the area underneath the furniture is accessible. A bit of a pain, but at least those areas are getting cleaned on a regular basis now, as I rarely bothered vacuuming under the beds or under the furniture before I got the Deebot. And, if I don’t have time to lift up everything, OZMO just doesn’t clean under the sofa, under the loveseat, under the chairs, or under the beds that day.• When I first got the robot, I had a problem with OZMO not being able to navigate consistently from the hardwood floors onto two particular area rugs. OZMO could do it sometimes, but not other times. The robot could easily get onto two other area rugs, but these two particular rugs were sometimes a challenge. I noticed that this was more of an issue if I had removed the water tank for drying after mopping the floors. With the water tank in place, even when empty, there’s less of an issue about OZMO getting up and onto the rugs. I actually ended up trimming the under-padding of the two area rugs by about 1.25 inches all around the edges. This allowed the borders of the rugs to lie flat on the hardwood, which has made it possible for OZMO to get up onto the rugs now.• There are spots in my home where OZMO always gets stuck. One is where an area rug at the front door is close to, but not up against, a step. And, he also tends to get stuck against the oven door in the kitchen. I think OZMO is just the right height to get jammed there. OZMO getting stuck in those places happened so frequently that I setup virtual boundaries. They’re not problems any longer! However, those are now areas that I have to clean myself. The other area is where a heat-vent register sits on top of an area rug at the front door. Because this register is slightly domed on top, OZMO tends to get stuck on it. Again, I put up a virtual boundary, and it isn’t an issue any longer. I think I’ll get a flat vent-register and see if that helps.• Sometimes when I send OZMO to clean in a particular designated area, it doesn’t actually clean the whole area. OZMO will sometimes…but not always…clean only part of the area, and will then say it’s finished, and return to charging. Again, I’m not sure why this happens sometimes, but not others. I’m able to check the tracking on my cellphone app of what OZMO has cleaned, so when I see that OZMO hasn’t cleaned the whole area, my solution to this is to send OZMO back again. Some people will find this annoying. However, for me, having to do this still allows me to get other things done while OZMO is vacuuming.• I do find that OZMO needs to be cleaned frequently. I often clean underneath the unit; I wipe the Fall Sensors with a micro-fiber cloth; I wipe off the infrared sensor area and the camera; I wash the brushes; I clean off the main brush; and, I have to clean or replace the filters on the dust bin. I also replace the vacuum bags in the Auto-Empty Station. All of this needs to be done more frequently than I had expected.• I found that all of the third-party, no-name replacement parts that I ordered online—like side brushes, mopping cloths, dust-bin Hepa filters, the main floor brush, as well as bags for the Auto-Empty Station—all fit with no problem, and they were hugely cheaper than the brand-name parts. However, if you buy third-party replacement parts, make sure that they’re specifically labelled as being for the T8 AIVI.• The mopping isn’t an outstanding feature, but I do believe that OZMO mopping my floors is better than me not mopping very frequently at all! I wash out the re-useable pads immediately after use, and I let them air-dry. An issue I have, and yet to solve, is that water droplets tend to remain in the water tank after emptying it. Even when left to dry in the sunlight or over a heat register, the moisture doesn’t easily dry out in the tank. This might become a problem with mold or mildew in the future, but I’m sure that I’ll figure out something before long! I’ve had chats with Customer Support about this issue.So, to me, are the Deebot OZMO T8 AIVI and the Auto-Empty Station PERFECT solutions for not having to vacuum or mop myself? The short answer is “No,” they’re not PERFECT. There certainly are issues. But I love them anyway! I have to admit that it’s a pain to move OZMO and the Auto-Empty Station from one floor of my home to another, to pick up a few things off of the floor, to move the chairs away from the kitchen table, and to raise the sofa kick-pleats and bed skirts out of the way. However, the time it takes me to do all of this is definitely less than the time it normally takes me to get out my central vacuum, plug it in, and do the work myself. And, I can’t schedule my central vac to clean the area rug at the front door every evening at 5:30 PM after my husband has finished his daily run, and he’s tracking road grit into the house. It’s true…sometimes OZMO gets lost when trying to find its way back to the charging station. And, OZMO can’t vacuum or mop 100% of my floor space, so I do have to do a little follow-up work. However, considering everything, I really find that this robot saves me a HUGE amount of time that I can now spend doing other things. For example, as I’m writing this review, OZMO is busy cleaning and mopping my basement…the rec room, the bar area, the bathroom, the exercise room, and the laundry room. And, all I had to do was carry OZMO and the Auto-Empty Station downstairs. This robot vacuum, along with the Auto-Empty Station, is a KEEPER for me!

I use a central vac, a powerful Dyson handheld but the need to vacuum in shedding season becomes a daily chore. It looks a few tries to get the software to properly map out a 2.5k sq foot bungalow (+ solarium) but once mapped and saved, what a joy that it can deep clean tiled, carpeted areas and shag rugs equally well without getting stuck or overheating. Took a chance on this model from online reviews, and they were correct. The bumper sensors are sensitive and the camera “vision” avoids chew toys, cords and most smaller obstacles. But thee best feature is watching it map out an exact floorpan using its laser scanner in no time and the fact it can crawl under my 2 sofas (where I cannot get to) getting to places next to impossible to reach. I was truly surprised by how it can grab into corners pulling debris. into its front vacuum. Another benefits is that it’s easy to detangle on long hair. Forget the mopping feature as it really doesn’t clean but light wipe only. Make sure too buy the optional self cleaning tower for super easy emptying.

I resisted the robotic vacuum idea for many years, dismissing as a gimmick. We have recently finished renovating, new hardwood, new tile and with two very busy schedules often procrastinated on the routine cleaning despite being very conscious of dirt and dust accumulation.After a recommendation I took a leap on prime day and after a summer of routine cleanings I can say that out floors have never looked so good and with the addition of the auto empty station, there is literally no effort on our part to keep that way.Totally converted. Doesn’t replace all manual cleaning, but what’s left we easily manage.Alexa integration is terrible, but not important to me. App is good enough, set it up and forget it. The remote video drone mode is a fun feature when away and wanting to check on something, added peace of mind.