The Ecovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni steps things up with better vacuuming and mopping, making it the best out there.
Pros
- Excellent roller mopping system
- Very good vacuuming
- Stylish design
- Matter support
Cons
- Expensive
- Can sometimes struggle with edges
| Buy From | List Price | Sale Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,599.99 | $1,599.99 | See It |
Robotic vacuums are improving at breakneck speeds. Just a few months ago, Ecovacs launched the Deebot X8 Pro Omni, but now it’s already back with a follow-up in the form of the Deebot X9 Pro Omni. The new model is pretty similar to the previous generation, offering the roller mop feature that it announced at CES earlier this year, but switching out some of the actual vacuum features to better pick up dirt and dust as it goes, without getting tangled up.
There are other improvements too, but perhaps the biggest change comes in the form of the new price tag, which is a fair bit higher than the X8 Pro Omni. Does the Ecovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni do enough to justify its high price, or should you go for one of the many competitors from the likes of Roborock?
Ecovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni specs
| Dock dimensions | 13.8 x 18.8 x 21 inches (LxWxH) |
| Weight | 36.9 pounds |
| Battery life | 228 minutes (standard mode, hard floor) |
| Smart home compatibility | Matter |
| Suction power | 16,600Pa |
| Vacuum dust bin capacity | 0.22 liters |
| Dock dust bin capacity | 3 liters |
| Clean water tank capacity | 4 liters |
| Dirty water tank capacity | 4 liters |
Ecovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni review: Design
The design of the Ecovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni is very similar to the X8 Pro Omni, but it’s more refined. Most of those refinements are found in the new docking station, which swaps out hard edges and corners for a more curved, natural look. I like the new look. It’s certainly not a reason to buy the X9 Pro Omni if you already have the X8 Pro Omni, but it’s still definitely a step in the right direction.
There are other new design touches, too. The overall color scheme is the same, but the X9 Pro Omni has a brushed metal look to it, as long as you don’t look too closely. To be clear, it’s still built from plastic, and you can tell when you touch it or get up close, but from a distance, it looks more premium.
Some design tweaks will impact functionality for some users. On the Deebot X8 Pro Omni, you could see water levels thanks to transparent sides on the water tanks. The X9 Pro Omni does away with that transparency, so you can’t see into the water tanks at a glance. I don’t really judge water levels based on looking. Anyway, I just refill the clean water and empty the dirty water when the app notifies me that it’s time to do so. Others, however, might have a different experience.
Thankfully, the things I really liked about the Deebot X8 Pro Omni are still here. The X9 Pro Omni’s docking station is still taller than it is wide, which makes it easier to fit into smaller spaces. In fact, it still fits into the perfect spot that I found for the previous generation. And the vacuum itself still manages to fit LiDAR sensing into a body that doesn’t have a large node on top.
On the bottom of the X9 Pro Omni, you’ll notice a few minor differences compared to the last generation model. The X9 Pro Omni still has the headline feature, which is the Osmo Roller Mop that was unveiled at CES. We’ll get into how that impacts cleaning performance later, but the general idea is that it can wash the mop pad on the inside of the vacuum as it mops. Not only that, but the system means it can apply more pressure to the floors to better scrub stuck-on messes.
The vacuum still has the single roller brush on the bottom, but Ecovacs has added a new comb-like feature that’s designed to remove hair tangled around the brush. All in all, I actually found that it was pretty good at preventing hair from being tangled onto the brush. It wasn’t necessarily flawless, but it did do a better job than the X8 Pro Omni.
Ecovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni review: App and smart features
Generally speaking, the Ecovacs app is decently designed and easy to use. I did have some trouble with the mapping feature, though. When you first set the vacuum up, you send it around your home to map out the area, and it’ll get a sense of where the different rooms and walls are. Initially, however, it dramatically expanded some rooms and didn’t add some walls that it should have. Thankfully, to fix this, you won’t have to have it map your whole home again. You can edit the map, dividing rooms, deleting areas, and so on, but that took me a good twenty minutes or so given how many errors it made in creating the map.
Once everything is set up, you’ll be ready to start cleaning. Your main options are to vacuum, vacuum and mop at the same time, or vacuum and then mop. You’ll also be able to set suction levels for the vacuum and water levels for the mop.
Like the Deebot X8 Pro Omni, the X9 Pro Omni supports Matter, which means that it can be added to your preferred smart home ecosystem. I was able to add it to Apple Home easily and within a matter of a minute or so. From there, I could have the vacuum clean the house with options including vacuuming or vacuuming and mopping. You can also select which rooms to clean, and you have the options of deep clean or automatic clean. Obviously, the settings and features aren’t as comprehensive as in the Ecovacs app, and it would be nice to have a vacuum then mop option. With that said, Matter support is very handy, and it means that I don’t have to ask my wife to download an additional app just to use the vacuum. She can simply fire up the Apple Home app as usual and at least perform basic tasks, which is what she would do with the Ecovacs app anyway.
Ecovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni review: Cleaning performance
The Ecovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni offers similar mopping features to the X8 Pro Omni, which is a good thing. The roller mop seems to work quite well, and while the difference between it and a spinning mop pad doesn’t necessarily seem to be night and day, it is definitely better. Essentially, you’re still not going to use the Deebot X9 Pro Omni to clean massive spills, but it’s easily able to handle day-to-day cleaning, and with the roller mop, it’s better at scrubbing off sticky messes that have been there for a few days. This model also steps roller mopping up even more with a pressure of 3,700Pa.
On top of being able to apply enough pressure to clean off stuck-on messes, the Deebot X9 Pro Omni can extend the mop pad out from its body so that it can get into corners and edges. This is very helpful, and it helps cut down those little spots where robotic vacuums previously couldn’t clean properly.
Technically, the suction power on the Deebot X9 Pro Omni is lower than the X8 Pro Omni before it, sitting at 16,600Pa instead of 18,000Pa. However, Ecovacs says that its new so-called BLAST suction system means that it’s able to better clean debris from your floor without as much raw power. Marketing speak aside, I did find that the X9 Pro Omni was quite good at cleaning up dry debris, whether it be large chunks like Cheerios thrown on the floor by my daughter, or simple dust and dirt from going in and out of the house while gardening.
Its cleaning performance wasn’t necessarily perfect, though. It sometimes struggled to get debris from edges, like next to a carpet or a threshold. To be clear, it was still better than the vast majority of the competition in this area, and it wasn’t necessarily consistently bad. Instead, it simply left some debris behind and picked it up on its next run.
All that to say that, like the X8 Pro Omni before it, the Ecovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni is perhaps the best robotic vacuum when it comes to mopping. When it comes to vacuuming, it’s very, very good, but it’s not the clear-cut best on the market.
Conclusions
The Ecovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni is easily one of the best robotic vacuums available, but it isn’t perfect. Its mapping functionality is subpar, and I would like to see Ecovacs dramatically improve this for its next-generation models. But that’s a one-time issue — once you have your map set up properly, it seemed to navigate the house pretty well, and it performs excellently where it counts. It’s a good vacuum and an excellent mop, and it has helpful smart features like Matter support.
The competition
Competition in the robotic vacuum space is fierce, but I’ve tested a number of models and find the Ecovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni to be the best out there right now. It’s certainly the most well-rounded, offering an excellent mopping system and a very good vacuuming system, along with some smart features that come in handy.
Should I buy the Ecovacs Deebot X9 Pro Omni?
Yes. It’s the best robotic vacuum out there right now.
