The Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI robot vacuum recognises clothes & cables, talks & patrols homes

We are at a time when some robotic vacuum cleaners not only vacuum and mop, they see, speak and patrol your home.

Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI robotic vacuum cleaner

We are at a time when some vacuum cleaners purport to be intelligent. They not only vacuum and mop, they see and talk, turn into patrol guards, roam your home and stream video as they go. They are modern day suction Daleks, the only thing they don’t do is yell “exterminate”.

When it comes to intelligence, the Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI robot vacuum will not beat you at Jeopardy, Mastermind or trivia, but it can recognise cords, shoes, chairs and clothing strewn on the ground as it cleans your carpet.

I have reviewed the Ecovacs line of robotic cleaners before and its best feature is efficiently picking up dust and dirt in your carpet.

As with previous models, the first step is to charge the unit, and connect it to your home Wi-Fi via the Ecovacs Home smartphone app. Be aware that the T8 needs to connect to the 2.4GHz Wi-Fi signal and most modern routers offer both 2.4GHz and 5Gz, so choose the right home network in the app.

You might have problems getting the robot to connect if your router combines the two signals, otherwise connection should be straight forward.

I hadn’t vacuumed for a while before the T8 review unit arrived, and it picked up a container of dirt on its first run. After three sessions, the carpet looked good and the quantum of dirt scooped up was small.

Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI robot vacuum cleaner

We have said that a robot vacuum is best for in-between vacuums and you still need a larger regular one for heavier jobs. That’s becoming less so. I found that unleashing the T8 every two or three days keeps the carpet in good condition.

The T8’s claim to fame is the addition of artificial intelligence. It would be confidence depleting if your vacuum cleaner could beat you at chess, but fortunately it’s not that kind of AI.

Ecovacs has started building object recognition into its vacuums so the vacuums can recognise the environment around them, so hopefully they won’t bang into walls, get wrapped in cords, drag your plugs out of power boards, rip up your clothes on the floor, or get stuck underneath furniture.

Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI robot vacuum cleaner

The object recognition may be a little limited now, but it’s there and Ecovacs says more is on the way via firmware updates. I gave my T8 a little test. I ran it in the living room where there are several power boards beside the walls, and I threw some shoes, socks, clothing, cables and chargers onto the carpet to see how it reacted.

I noticed that the T8 is cautious about walls and floor surfaces. It keeps a cautious distance from objects in general, and seemed to register it was transitioning from carpet to lino to an exercise mat I have underneath a training bike. The motor revs up and slows down as the T8 decides on the appropriate cleaning level as it navigates its way around.

Object recognition isn’t perfect. I had to unravel the unit from a cable and it nudged another cable along the ground rather than avoid it, but it mostly avoided obstacles.

Cleaning map

Importantly, I gained the confidence to let it run unfettered without fear of it running into furniture or getting stuck between the legs of chairs. Previously I’d create virtual barriers to zone-out areas from cleaning. I didn’t feel the need to do that.

Like its recent predecessors, the T8 initially maps its environment, so it can vacuum more efficiently on successive runs. You can use the map to define areas needing spot cleans and exclusion zones.

Ecovacs has already introduced multiple floor mapping, so if you live in a two-storied dwelling, the robot vacuum can maintain separate maps for each floor.

These maps are even more useful with the AI feature. They display the power cords, clothing and shoes that the robot cleaner detected. Of course you don’t need to look at an electronic map to know that you have stuff on the floor. But you can check what the robot cleaner is seeing.

You then get the option of clearing obstacles and starting a reclean. The cleaner only returns to those obstacle areas, rather than do a complete reclean.

The T8 gives you the option to remove obstacles and reclean those areas.

Be careful not to pick up the cleaner and move it to another location, as it may have to perform a remap of your home if it loses its orientation.

The other new feature is video. When it’s not busy cleaning, you can use the robot’s camera to check what’s happening at home from the app on your phone. Manual controls let you move the robot cleaner forward and rotate it clockwise and anticlockwise. I felt like I was remotely driving the Mars rover (sort of).

There’s another automated surveillance mode called patrol. The cleaner travels around your home by itself, rotating periodically to give you a birds eye, or should I say cockroach view of your abode from each room.

You can be viewing this from far away, maybe from the other side of the world. You need to have good Wi-Fi throughout your home for this to work well otherwise you get delays or glitches in transmission.

Remote viewing of what’s happening at home.

You can also remotely talk to whoever is home through the vacuum. You speak through your phone and the voice comes out of the robotic cleaner a few seconds later. To encounter a talking robotic vacuum could scare the living daylights out of people. Maybe it’s good for putting living fear into burglars if you detect them on your security cameras. Or you can talk with your cat.

This model, like its predecessor, includes a mopping function. You remove the underneath cassette and slot in the supplied water tank cassette. There’s a removal mopping cloth on the underside.

I carried the device to some lino in the kitchen and left it there. The T8 confined itself to the lino section and didn’t stray onto the carpet and leave water marks.

Ready for mopping

However, unlike the vacuuming, I feel the mopping function is not so strong. Sure, if you have a few scraps of dirt and crumbs on the kitchen lino, it will scoop them up and improve the cleanliness of the floor.

But you will need a proper mop if the floor is really grubby. The little cleaner is too light to excerpt elbow grease.

Ecovacs claims three hours of battery life. I could easily clean this sizeable apartment twice on one charge.

The Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI is available for a recommended $1299 from JB Hi-Fi. The company says more retailers and products in this line will be announced later this year.