Ecovacs Deebot OZMO T8 AIVI and Auto-Empty Station: It's the good kind of suck!

I think most anyone who has heard of a robotic vacuum cleaner has heard of the industry leader, iRobot. However, I've noticed that the offerings from iRobot have stagnated a bit and lag behind innovations at their competitors. One such competitor is Ecovacs. During COVID-19, my wife and I decided to add a new puppy (Dexter, cream-colored Golden Mountain Doodle pictured near the bottom of page) to our home after our old dog (Fritz, black-and-white Cock-a-chon pictured at very bottom) sadly passed on. Dexter has been wonderful, but his new limber legs and light shedding has meant more fur and leaves (we have a dog door) collecting each day. So we decided to check out the robo-vacuum market. As a control engineering/AI researcher myself, I was impressed to see vSLAM on most robots mid-range and higher, with some of the non-iRobot varieties incorporating other technology that is awesome to see transferred out of the research laboratory. Here, I take a look at the vacuum we ended up getting (after trying the iRobot version and returning it due to incompatibilities between it and our carpet and a lack of state-of-the-art features).

We bit the bullet and got the premium Ecovacs OZMO T8 AIVI and the corresponding auto-empty station that works with it (and some other models from Ecovacs). Here are links to them:

• Ecovacs Ozmo T8 AIVI Vacuum: https://amzn.to/37Q3EGH
• Ecovacs Deebot 2.5L Auto-Empty Station: https://amzn.to/2OMvcWv

As you can see below, after every vacuuming session, I get a report of where the robot has been and what obstacles it has encountered (so I can go and clean them up). In fact, I can even view it moving around on the map in real time while I'm away. Although iRobot models do multi-floor mapping (like this one), you have to wait to interact with the map afterward (and you cannot see exactly where the robot has been and what route it took). The Ecovacs models allow you to pause the robot in the middle of a session and add virtual barriers and no-go zones.

We set our vacuum to run every night downstairs at 2am, and we have a Hubitat Elevation Hub that ensures that the lights come on then to aid in the navigation of the robot (and turn off after it is done). So far, this has not caused any problems for us (or the dog) sleeping. When it finishes (1100 sq. ft. in about 65–90 minutes), it returns to the auto-empty station and empties its dust bin automatically. We then get told when to change the bag in the station. The nice thing about having to buy the auto-empty station separately is that it means I have a spare charger (that came with the main unit). So I've set that up upstairs. Then, on Saturday mornings, when we take puppy Dexter to training, I place the robot on its spare charger upstairs and let it go. It recognizes that it has been moved to another floor and vacuums according to that map (you can load up to two maps). When we get home, I carry it back downstairs, place it on the auto-empty station, and tell it to empty the dust bin (which would have been done automatically if it had docked in the auto-empty station as it does every night).

The Vacuum also has mopping features built in (if you load it up with water and the mopping pad), and there is an additional extension that you can buy that adds ultra-sonic scrubbing to the mop. I understand the potential downside to that is that it isn't always able to get docked when that attachment is connected. That was OK with us because we really got it to pick up fur, Arizona dust, and leaves brought in by the dog (through his dog door). It works well for that, and it adjusts its thrust depending on the surface it is on (we have carpet and tile) and resistance it feels. So we ended up not buying the extra mopping unit (but might someday try the mopping features of the base unit).

There are some geeky additional non-vacuuming features too. The camera (which faces forward and thus is not useful when the bot is docked) can be viewed from remote, and the bot can be driven around as well. You can even set it into "patrol mode" where it moves around and takes video and stores that video for later viewing. If you manually connect and drive it around, you can actually engage its speaker so you can, for example, talk to your dog while you're away.

You can cover up the camera (they give you an attachment for that, which is a little clunky) in case you are worried about privacy. Like most of these super-smart vacuums, it capitalizes on access to the camera for navigation ("vSLAM"). In other words, despite having LIDAR to find obstacles, it fuses both of them. So covering the camera makes mapping and navigation less efficient. Furthermore, it is best for it to vacuum in at least dim light, which is why I ensure the lights come on while it is vacuuming (as described above).