This robot vacuum mops so well, it cleaned up the mess my Roomba left behind

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Ecovacs is becoming a popular go-to brand for robot vacuums, thanks to its leading innovations in cleaning technology. The company launched its new high-end robot vacuum and mop, the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni, with market-leading features, like a self-washing mop roller that extends itself to clean along the edges of your walls without compromise. 

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I’ve tried multiple Ecovacs-branded devices, including the previous flagship and even a window-cleaning robot. Still, the Deebot X8 Pro Omni is one of the best ones I’ve ever tested from any company. Aside from a whopping 18,000Pa of suction power, the strongest for Ecovacs yet, and anti-tangle technology, the Deebot X8 Pro has a self-washing mop roller instead of the company’s typical dual rotating mop pads.  

The Omni station is the robot’s charging dock. It is also where the robot vacuum empties its dustbin as needed, washes its mop roller, refills its clean water tank, and drains the dirty water. 

I love a robot vacuum and mop with a self-cleaning mop roller. The Deebot X8 Pro’s mopping system features an OZMO roller, a technology the company told me at CES 2025 was developed by its sister company, Tineco. Tineco has honed in on the mop roller technology with several wet/dry mops, including the Tineco Floor One S5 Combo.

A self-washing mop roller in a robot vacuum is a feat of engineering. The robot has a clean-water and a dirty-water tank within its body. 

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When you send your robot out to clean, it washes its mop pad at the dock and refills its clean-water tank from the station’s water. It then vacuums and mops simultaneously, with dust and debris entering the vacuum nozzle, which is located in front of the mop.

The mop roller constantly spins to clean the floor, simultaneously pumping clean water into it and scrubbing it clean as it spins. The dirty water from the roller goes to a dirty water tank inside the robot. 

I ran various tests with my Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni, including cleaning up dried-on messes like spilled juice without leaving sticky floors behind, which it excelled at. It also cleaned up sand, dirt, muddy paw prints, and stubborn stains effectively. 

The X8 Pro Omni also excelled in rigorous tests at the ZDNET lab, earning an award for best pickup performance. This robot outperformed nine other comparable ones in the lab, with an average pickup performance of 60.3% in hardwood and carpet.

The biggest test was cleaning up salt from our hardwood floors after a snowfall. I got a little carried away salting the driveway and entryway in preparation for snow and freezing temperatures, leaving a trail of white footprints on my dark wooden floors. 

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I sent my Roomba Combo 10 Max to clean after this happened, but it only spread the salt around, leaving long white streaks on the hardwood. This is because this Roomba has a mop pad it drags behind, unlike the self-cleaning roller mop on the Eufy S1 Pro, SwitchBot S10, and the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni.

These robot vacuum and mop combinations, even with a self-washing mop roller, are meant for light cleanings to maintain your floors between deeper cleanings. They’re not meant to tackle tough jobs like cleaning up all the salt tracked in during a busy winter day. But, as a robot vacuum reviewer, I like to give the testing units as much of a challenge as possible. 

After running the Roomba 10 Max twice and still seeing white opaque streaks on my floor, I decided to try the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni on it. The first time this robot ran, it left some barely noticeable streaks, but I can attribute that to the enormous challenge of a robot vacuum and mop cleaning such a big mess across the entire floor. 

However, the next time the Deebot X8 Pro ran, it cleaned up all of the salt from my floors, leaving no streaks behind. Before this, the only way I’d managed to get all the stuck-on salt off my floors in a single pass was by using a wet/dry mop throughout the house, or a traditional mop while constantly changing the water in the bucket, so I was thoroughly impressed by the X8 Pro. 

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This robot’s mop roller rises when it detects carpet and successfully leaves my medium-pile carpet dry. I was delighted with how well it handled carpets and have never had any issues with its brush roller getting tangled in pet hair or debris. This means the robot does a great job avoiding obstacles, so it doesn’t often get stuck with cables or small toys.

The X8 Pro Omni has one big problem: a stuck bumper. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this error from a robot vacuum before, but I often get an alert that “the bumper is stuck. Please tap the bumper gently and make sure it bounces back.” This happened when the robot was stuck on a cable for no apparent reason, but I always check the complete robot when this error occurs.

During the Deebot X8 Pro Omni’s first few weeks, I noticed a lingering plastic smell emanating from the dock after a cleaning session. I’m not sure if this was a problem with my robot, but I removed any plastic packaging before using it, so I was never sure where the smell was coming from. Thankfully, the smell went away after a month or so.

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Another thing I notice when walking by is that the dock is a dust magnet. I believe it’s the material it’s made of, a shiny plastic finish, but it attracts dust like a lint roller.

ZDNET’s buying advice

The Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni is a perfect robot vacuum and mop for pet owners and busy households. It does very well avoiding obstacles, much better than its predecessor, and its upgraded mopping system is fantastic for maintenance cleaning. Aside from the mopping roller instead of rotating mop pads, I like that this robot vacuum is mostly hands-free, with a self-emptying dustbin and a self-washing mop. 

Since the X8 Pro Omni launched as a high-end model last year, it was initially quite expensive. Now that Ecovacs has released a couple of flagships since the X8, the price is sitting squarely at $799, making it an outstanding deal for one of the top performers in cleaning efficiency.