Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930

What is the Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930?

Robot vacuum cleaners are ten-a-penny nowadays. What’s rarer is a robot vacuum that can also turn its hand to mopping, such as with the Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930.

With its attachable microfibre cloth and water reservoir, this model can keep your hard floors sparkling clean. Programmable no-go areas and sophisticated mapping round-off the package and aren’t features I’d normally expect to see at this price.

Some navigation issues and a hatred of being moved take the shine off what’s otherwise a competitively priced and decent cleaner.

Related: Best robot vacuum cleaners

Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930 – Design

Squat and round (102 x 354 x 354mm), the Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930’s design has some advantages and disadvantages. Its short height means that it can squeeze under sofas, but its width means that it can struggle to get between some gaps, such as a dining chair’s legs. The Dyson 360 Eye, in comparison, is too tall to get under most bits of furniture, but narrow enough to dart between gaps.

As always with robot vacuum cleaners, there’s always a trade-off to be had, and it’s a matter of picking the model that best suits you and your furniture.

Flipping the robot over, the underside features a rotating brush bar, designed to loosen dirt and therefore make it easier to pick up. Neatly, Ecovacs provides a simple tool with a razor that you can use to cut away any hair that ends up wrapped around the brush bar.

Alternatively, for areas with a lot of hair, you can switch out the brush for a direct suction attachment. It’s worth experimenting with both to see which works best for your home.

There are two rotating side brushes on this cleaner, designed to sweep dirt close to edges into the suction path. Underneath the unit is also where you can attach the microfibre cleaning cloth. Ecovacs provides two cloths that simply fit over a plastic board that clips easily into place.

Attaching the cloth sets the Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930 to mop mode, where it automatically dispenses water from its built-in reservoir. This water reservoir simply pulls out of the back of the vacuum cleaner and can be refilled easily from a tap.

There’s only a 0.47-litre bin inside the robot vacuum cleaner, so you’ll need to empty this every one-to-two cleans. It’s easy enough to do, with the bin lifting up and out of the cavity at the top of the robot cleaner.

You need to replace the filter, side brushes and main brush when the app prompts you. Typically, it’s the main brush once a year, side brushes twice a year, and filter three times a year. Accessory packs with everything you need for a year cost £35.99.

Finally, there’s a simple charging stand that plugs into a wall socket. It’s important to follow the instructions regarding placement, to ensure the robot has enough room to get out and return to the dock.

Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930 – Features

As you’d expect, the Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930 needs to be hooked up to your home Wi-Fi using your smartphone app. The robot supports only 2.4GHz networks, so make sure it’s connected to one of these.

I’ve got a mesh network, which combines the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks under one network name. As a result, I had problems and my iPhone wouldn’t work in connecting the robot to my network; switching to an Android phone fixed the problem.

The most important job is to start a regular clean without the mop connected. This lets the Ozmo 930 use its laser navigation to map out your home.

Mapping has two advantages. First, it lets the robot optimise its cleaning root. Second, it adds in some cool features, including setting virtual boundaries to stop the robot from going where you don’t want it to, or changing the cleaning mode.

The cleaner lets you select where you want the robot to go on the map. You can also set to clean specific areas, as defined by the rooms that the cleaner has automatically detected.

As always, it’s worth pointing out that the accuracy of boundaries and areas isn’t spot on. For area cleaning, it’s best to go a little bigger than you want to capture. And, I’d be wary of using the boundary mode to block off a prized rug, for example, since the vacuum is likely to wander slightly. Even so, these features are great, and something that I’ve only seen on the more expensive Neato Botvac D7 Connected.

Auto mode is used to clean the entire mapped area. If the mop is attached, then the vacuum will also mop the floor using the predefined amount of water. The app lets you adjust water usage (Low, Medium, High or Max), and you’ll need to try out a few options to get the best results for your floors.

Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930 – Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant

Amazon Alexa support is built in. Simply  install the Ecovacs Deebot skill and link it up to your online account. With Alexa, you can ask your robot to start or stop cleaning, or to start charging. It worked flawlessly in my tests.

Related: Amazon Alexa guide

There’s also Google Assistant support available, so you can use your phone or Google Home to start cleaning. You’ll need the Home Control section in the Google Home app to find the robot, and then you can start and stop cleans, or send the Ozmo 930 back to its dock for charging.

Related: Google Assistant guide

Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930 – How well does it mop?

The Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930 is designed to automatically mop floors when the mop is attached. It uses its integrated carpet sensor to avoid cleaning rugs when the mop is attached, although it isn’t perfect.

On my test rug, the robot fully mounted the material, stopped, then reversed, leaving it a tiny bit damp. It avoided the rug for the rest of the clean, though.

My kitchen suffers from my three cats stomping in with the dirty paws. On a light surface, this is noticeable, so I set the Ozmo 930 to clean up. On a first pass, there was still evidence of dirt remaining, as you can see from the before and after pictures.

I upped the water dispenser to Max, and set the robot off again. This time it did a far better job, removing the majority of the dirt and cleaning up some of the more ingrained areas. The only place it struggled was near the cat flap, where there wasn’t quite enough room for the vacuum to pass.

Overall, it made the floor look cleaner, w. As with most robots, the Ozmo 930 should be thought of as a maintenance cleaner, and you’ll need to do a regular manual mop weekly on your floors to keep them in the best condition.

Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930 – How well does it clean carpets and hard floors?

Moving to the hard floor and carpet tests, I removed the mop option. I placed crosses of carpet-freshening powder and flour at the centre of the room and at the edge.

The Ozmo 930 did a good job on the hard floor, picking up the majority of the spill. Its rotating brushes did have a habit of spreading the dust around first, swirling some of it up into the air. The biggest problem is the vacuum’s power, and it struggled to suck up dirt in grooves in the floorboards.

Although the vacuum is quiet at 62.8dB, I’d happily put up with a bit more noise for a more powerful experience.

It was a similar story on carpet, although this time the robot missed a few lumps closer to the wall, where there was still a fair bit of the spillage engrained in the carpet’s fibres. This is definitely a vacuum cleaner that performs better on hard floors.

The 110-minute battery life from a four-hour charge should suit most homes. If you have a larger home, you can turn on the continuous cleaning mode, which lets the robot return to its dock and top up its charge mid-clean. Quite why this feature isn’t just turned on is puzzling.

Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930 – How does it cope with obstacles?

Navigation is generally very good, with the Ozmo 930 making it around the entire kitchen to begin. However, it did wedge itself between the legs of a chair, struggling to get out (it made it in the end, after liberally bashing the chair legs).

Edge detection is excellent, with the Ozmo 930 recognising steps and steadfastly refusing to fall down them. And it handled moving between carpet and hard floors easily enough.

The robot gets a little upset if you carry it around to try to clean a different area that it hasn’t mapped. Rather than starting to clean, it charges off trying to find its charging dock, saying “Returning to the charging dock”. If it can’t find it, the cleaner will stop and perform a clean for you returning to its starting point.

It would be better if the Ozmo 930 had realised it had moved and wasn’t on its charging dock, letting it just perform a one-off clean without hunting for its usual starting point.

Why buy the Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930?

The Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo 930 is a product that’s far better on hard floors than carpets. Its combination of mop and suction do a great job of keeping hard floors looking clean. Its smart navigation and no-go areas make it one of the more flexible robot vacuum cleaners, too.

It isn’t the most powerful of robot vacuum cleaners, lagging behind the leaders: the Dyson 360 Eye and Neato Botvac D7 Connected. And, the Deebot Ozmo 930 doesn’t like being moved to clean new areas.

That said, it’s a fraction of the price of its high-end competition. If you’ve got hard floors and need to clean as well as vacuum, it’s a great choice.

Verdict

Well-priced with plenty of features, this robot vacuum cleaner is ideal for hard floors.

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