Ecovacs Deebot OZMO 950 robot vacuum review – versatility and value

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• VERDICT

The Ecovacs Deebot OZMO 950 is a truly versatile device that can lighten the cleaning load at your place. And with price under $1000 it’s also represents remarkable value as well.

Vacuuming and mopping are those chores you hope someone else does. Or you can leave it up to the Ecovacs Deebot OZMO 950 which can now operate on multi-level homes.

No, it’s not going to climb the stairs on its own but the OZMO 950 can map more than a single level of your home and remember the fastest path to clean.

And it’s a vacuum and mop in one with improved suction to deliver a more thorough clean.

The unit is just 9.3cm high – one of the thinnest bodies you’ll find on a robot vacuum in this class – which means it can slip under furniture and beds on its rounds.

It also has numerous sensors and bumpers so it can thoroughly, yet gently, work its way around your home without damaging furniture or skirting boards.

It’s really easy to connect the Deebot OZMO 950 to your network via the Ecovacs Home app.

From the app you can start and stop the robot and even send it back to the charging base.

The app will also tell you how many times it has gone out to clean and the area of floorspace that has been cleaned.

There are also advanced controls that will allow users to set up area cleaning, custom cleaning modes and even set up a virtual boundary.

It is here where you can also access the map of your floorplans.

The Deebot OZMO 950 creates a map of your house with its Smart Navi 3.0 Laser Mapping and Navigation technology every time it starts to clean so it can know its way around and find the most effective cleaning path.

The OZMO 950 can handle multiple floors so it will store these saved maps in the advanced section of the app.

The one and only issue we had with the multi-floor mapping feature was that we had to move the charging stand from floor to floor so the robot can establish a start point.

Perhaps the app could be improved to be able to set a manual start point.

The charging stand is obviously needed so the robot can automatically return and charge itself up if needed.

But with a massive 5,200mAh battery onboard – which equates to about 200 minutes of cleaning time – we’re sure the OZMO 950 could vacuum our second level without the need for a recharge.

The other option is to include two charge stands in the box or make it cheap to buy so a user can set up multiple charging areas in their two or three storey home.

In our case, we have a two storey home so we had to unplug and relocate the charge stand, along with the robot, every time we moved the OZMO 950 between floors.

It’s a great idea to be able to clean multiple floors but the reason customers would buy the product in the first place is for convenience.

Ecovacs needs to maintain that convenience factor and not impose on our convenience to facilitate a new feature.

But this is far for a dealbreaker for us.

The OZMO 950 is a noticeable improvement over its predecessor.

On the vacuuming side, the cleaning quality has stepped up to a new level.

We have two Dalmatians at home and our chocolate coloured carpet easily shows up short white hairs.

The OZMO 950 didn’t catch all the hair (not even a Dyson can do that with a single pass) but it did an impressive job.

The dust bin filled up pretty quickly on the robot’s first trip around the house which is a good sign that it can maintain that clean on subsequent runs.

What was really impressive was how easily the OZMO 950 can move from surface to surface and easily climb up to rugs and on to slightly raised edges, door sills and other sections of the floor.

It can actually scale up to 2cm to a new level.

You can also hear the vacuum change tempo and strength as it moved from carpet to our tiles and back again thanks to the Floating Brush 2.0 pressure retention system.

When it’s time to mop, you simply fill the 250ml tank that sits inside the back of the unit and attach the cleaning pad and it will clean your hard floors as well.

In our case we have tiles and you could see where the robot had been thanks to the shiny moisture trail.

The water is regulated with an electronically-controlled water pump at four different speeds depending on how much dirt the robot finds.

The robot did a respectable job with the mopping. The other way we usually clean our floors is with a steam cleaner and that needs to be operated by a human.

The OZMO 950 did a nice clean, while not as thorough as our steam mop, it was good enough to pick of the dirty patches on the tiles that I would normally have to spot clean with a disinfectant wiper cloth.

But, just like vacuuming, if used every day or every two days you can maintain an impressive cleaning level.

This is easy to do through the app which allows users to remotely activate the OZMO 950 to get to work from anywhere.

The unit is also compatible with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa so you can also control it with your voice and it will work with other smart devices.

And you can get all of this for $999 – which is a really competitive price when compared to similar products from other brands.

The Ecovacs Deebot OZMO 950 is available now from JB Hi-Fi, Godfrey’s and Appliances Online.

VERDICT

The Ecovacs Deebot OZMO 950 is a truly versatile device that can lighten the cleaning load at your place. And with price under $1000 it’s also represents remarkable value as well.