Ecovacs X11 OmniCyclone review: Nothing but

Over the years I have reviewed quite a few Ecovacs Deebot robot vacuums, and I’ve usually come away underwhelmed. In my experience the products always look good on paper, but they’ve faltered in practice. The zero-tangle rollers tangle, the object detection doesn’t detect objects, the “ultra-quiet operation” scares my dog. But when it comes to the Ecovacs X11 OmniCyclone, I finally get to write a different story.

Ecovacs’ latest flagship has fixed almost all the issues I’ve had with Deebots in the past. It is smarter, quieter, faster, and more independent. The X11 Omni is a robot vacuum you can almost trust to do its job without intervention. With this upgrade Ecovacs has taken itself from a brand with a but, to the gold star standard.

The act of cleaning continues to be a strong point for the X11 Omni, with it breezing through our testing protocol with a 98% clearance rate on all surfaces and debris. Whether it was small hundreds and thousands, larger oats, or even some sticks my pup had conveniently destroyed during the cleaning cycle, the X11 cleared the vast majority of it from hard and soft flooring. Performance dropped on sticky residue mopping, and edge cleaning however.

Most of the mess sitting along wall edges gets swept up the general clean, but a 1-2mm strip right on the edge is consistently missed. Whether it is dry debris for the vacuum, or wet messes for the mop, the same strip remains. Ecovacs doesn’t make any claims about how close the OZMO ROLLER 2.0 with TruEdge 3.0 (their name for the telescopic roller mop technology) can get to edges, but it does claim 100% cleaning coverage. In our testing the edge clearance rate was more like 90%.

Similarly the Ozmo Roller doesn’t quite have enough grit in its 3,800Pa mopping pressure to entirely rid the floor of sticky messes. Even after multiple cleans, powered by the device’s AI Stain Detection and Deep Re-Mop, there was still a thin film of sticky maple syrup on the wooden floor. This is the same result we have found across every robot vacuum mop we’ve tested, so it isn’t anything to be concerned about in comparison to the rest of the market. But still, it is worth noting that you won’t be able to give up your mop (or electric mop) entirely.

These two issues are admittedly nit-picky. It’s unlikely you’ll be cleaning up maple syrup, and pouring oats on to the ground only to find them huddled in corners in your day-to-day life. These little issues are more likely to manifest as built up debris by the wall over time, or an uncomfortable stickiness under your feet in the kitchen. Both can easily be remedied with a tiny bit of physical labour, but these should be few and far between in most households.

You may, however, find yourself doing more heavy lifting, saving the X11 OmniCyclone from itself. Although the object detection is markedly improved from previous Deebots, the X11 still isn’t a great judge of height.

The device, like many of its brethren before it, keeps getting stuck underneath my entertainment unit. It will bump up against the edge a few times, before accelerating to push itself underneath. Once underneath it either gets bundled up with the cords in the darkness, or can’t seem to get the momentum it needs to get out. Every time I ran the X11, I had to get on my hands and knees and save it from the darkness. To its credit, the X11 is so quiet during operation that it took me quite a while to actually realise it was stuck. While the struggle has been audible from other Deebots in the past, this time around the actual whisper-quiet operation disguised its struggle. This is a quick fix - just set up a ‘no-go zone’ in the app - but it is also the remaining hold over of recurrent Deebot issues.

Apart from the inexplicable draw to the darkness, the X11’s object detection and avoidance has significantly improved from previous models. Where every other Deebot I’ve tested has ran over and sucked up cables, and gotten stuck on shoelaces, this one no longer does. It can navigate its way around the house, avoiding anything that shouldn’t be vacuumed, without any interference from myself.

This was the step forward I had been waiting for when it came to Ecovacs robots. Plenty of other brands have nailed this in the past few years, and up until now Deebots had been lagging behind. Personally, I have found it hard to recommend robot vacuums that can’t avoid cables and cords. It might seem like a small annoyance, but realistically it is one that affects most people. If your charging cord sits on the ground next to your bed, and every day your robovac runs over it, or sucks it up and drags it around the house, you’re going to be frustrated. And, you’re going to have to buy a lot more charging cords to account for the damage. Ecovacs nailing this makes the X11 OmniCycle easier to recommend, even if it has a penchant for cave-like living.

There are quite a few interesting design additions to the OmniCyclone. The most obvious is the OmniCyclone Station, which utilises a bagless design similar to Dyson, and Ecovacs’ very own N20 Pro Plus robovac from last year. Pitched as a sustainability and cost-saving play, the OmniCyclone Station is said to save around 5 dust bags a year. I, personally, am not a fan, but I do see the appeal.

Bagless vacuums are incredibly popular in Australia, and there is a convenience in not having to buy extra consumables for a product. I think they defeat the purpose of having HEPA filters at all, but that is a rant for another time. Instead, I’ll just tell you the 2.1L tank fills up much faster than a 4L dustbag. I have been able to use dustbags for well over 6 months without issue, but the OmniCyclone Station was full after just three runs around the house. Admittedly my dog is currently shedding, but I’ve been through this season before and this is the fastest I’ve needed to empty or replace a dust bin/bag. In saying all that, it is relatively easy to empty, especially compared to Dyson’s dust bins.

On the note of a shedding dog, the anti-tangle rollers haven’t changed but the additional BLAST vacuum solution has made hair removal far more effective. Rather than pet fur (and other tangle-prone debris like human hair and thread) getting tangled up in the roller’s comb, the vacuum now powers up to suck it all into the vacuum. The extra 100W performance fan adds the extra oomph that helps to pull that roller from tangled, to true zero-tangle performance.

The other notable design feature is the hot water soaking tray for the mop roller. Although this is hidden, the tray allows the mop to sit and spin in 75°C water while it cleans. While this won’t sterilise the mop head, it ensures a better clean than you’ll get on most other robovacs with similar mop designs. Compared to these, the X11 mop has stayed fluffier, and visibly cleaner than others we’ve tested like the MOVA Z50 Ultra.

Despite the X11 OmniCyclone being the most expensive Ecovacs robot vacuum cleaner, its performance is worth the price tag. The iterative updates to the volume, object detection, and anti-tangle rollers may be small, but they make the X11 a more polished device that is less likely to frustrate you after a few months.

As with every robovac, there are still small issues. You’ll need to mop up big messes yourself, you’ll still need to get the stick vacuum and crevice tool out to finalise your clean, and you might have to pull it out from underneath a lowline table every now and again, but these are tiny problems. Negligible even, compared to what else is on the market.