Ecovacs Deebot T30S Combo reviewed: a clever duo

If you’re unsure whether a robotic vacuum is vacuum enough for the job of cleaning, the Ecovacs Deebot T30S Combo has a solution, arriving with a stick vac to finish the job.

“It’s trapped,” Ms 3 says after setting up a rough barricade for the Ecovacs robotic vacuum cleaner as it cleans the room. Having just spent the past hour playing with the extra stick vac the robot arrives with, she has now determined the automatic cleaner can do its own thing without returning.

“But how will it come home?” I ask curiously.

She thinks to herself, glancing at the robot’s home and the dust around the house she hasn’t sucked up with the extra vac, and then moves her barricades and pats the T30S vac on what could only be assumed is its head.

“You can go home,” she says, and the T30S continues on its merry way.

A combination of robot and manual help, the T30S is another one of those robotic vacuums that we’re seeing more of in the house.

Circular and capable, they’re the new hired help for ridding the floors both of dust and muck and grime and dirt. They do it all, thanks to a combination of brushes and vacuum suction and mopping pads and sensors.

But there’s a catch: what happens when there’s a situation the robotic vacuum isn’t quite equipped for? What happens when you need to use the vacuum and take care of a bigger mess?

Ecovacs has a solution for that, too, with a robo-vac that lets you do some work, too. It’s almost a match made in heaven.

What is the Ecovacs T30S?

Another in the long line of Ecovacs robotic vacuum cleaners, the T30S Combo comes with something that seems like it costs extra, and yet doesn’t: a stick vac.

Yes, the word “combo” in its name really does mean something useful: you get a combination of both a robotic vacuum and a stick vacuum, probably because one will eventually clean up what the other one misses out on.

It’s a clever concept if only because robotic vacuums won’t get the big messes. If anything, they’re more of a maintenance vacuum you use when the big cleans are taken care of already.

You still kind of need a proper vacuum alongside a robotic vacuum if you want one in your home, so Ecovacs is basically cutting the middleman out. Instead of keeping a Dyson or some other stick vac in your home, it’s just including it in the package, and finding a great way to make use of it.

What does it do?

Like other robotic vacuums, the Ecovacs Deebot T30S comes with obstacle avoidance and mapping sensors, as well as a tank for sucking up gunk using its 11,000Pa motor, plus a way to deal with mopping, as well. Robotic vacuums do both things these days, and the base station includes a tank for clean water and dirty water.

Unlike other robotic vacs, however, the Deebot T30S’ inclusion of a stick vacuum and accessories means you’re not beholden to simply having the robo-vac do its job. You can get in and help, knowing full well there are areas that it may be less useful at.

For instance, if your kids have just dropped the box of porridge or Rice Bubbles, you can easily send your Deebot to do its job, but that can also take more than a few minutes to kick in and get to work. Alternatively, you as an adult can grab the included stick vac, suck it up, and put the vacuum back, going on with life.

The inclusion of a stick vac is smart. It’s giving you the best of both worlds: automatic and manual labour.

Does it do the job?

We already live in that era where robotic vacuums can clean the floor with a small vacuum and a mop, handling background maintenance of home chores with ease. Ecovacs’ T30S Combo expands on this slightly by giving back some of the maintenance to the vacuums owner, and honestly, we’re not perturbed at all.

While the idea of a robot doing everything for you is the dream, it’s also largely unrealistic. There will be messes your vacuum just can’t clean, or can’t clean fast enough. The floor being left scattered with crumbs and cereal is an obvious example, but it’s not alone.

Sooner or later, you’ll have to clean something yourself. That’s fine.

The T30S Combo largely celebrates the limitations of a robotic vacuum by suggesting you still have a little bit of work to do, minor as it may be. You won’t need to do the maintenance cleans or as much mopping — that’s the robo-vac’s job now, pal — but for the big cleans it can’t touch, you can grab the stick vac and an accessory to two.

One of the things this reviewer loves about the T30S Combo is how Ecovacs takes care of the dust and debris from the stick vac. After you plug it in to charge, the T30S will release the stick’s dirt barrel into the main chamber where the robo-vac’s dirt is stored.

Now that’s clever. You don’t need to empty two vacuum chambers, just one. That’s very clever, Ecovacs, and a time saver. Even the fact that the chambers holds some of the stick vacuum’s accessories is clever. It doesn’t get everything in there, but much of it seems to fit.

What does it need?

What needs work, however, is the software side of things, with Ecovacs still needing more work on its app. It’s just not quite where some competitors are, and can make creating rooms or setting up smart home integration feel more like the chore the auto-vacuum is meant to replace.

Take the automatic mapping of your home: the system isn’t amazing at doing this, even if your home isn’t particularly long or varied. The mapping technology should be able to expand as it works, but that doesn’t always happen. In fact, when the Ecovacs system has finished making a map, it just kind of works with that, even if it hasn’t quite delivered the full map.

We found we needed to re-run the map generation system several times to get it to understand the section of the home it was in, and it wasn’t a thoroughly complicated area. Other robotic vacuums had no problem nailing the layout of the home. The Ecovacs T30S just didn’t quite get it.

Eventually, we moved the vacuum to a smaller section for testing — what is basically a hallway — and it handled that mapping system completely fine.

Frankly, this could easily be a teething issue where Ecovacs delivers improvements via firmware updates and app improvements, and probably will. That happens.

But it’s one of the problems, as is the smart home integration, which doesn’t always seem to work perfectly. You can talk to the Deebot T30S and have it talk back, but like all the robotic vacuums we’ve tested, this part doesn’t feel ironed out. It’s just easier to reach for the app and control it by touching the screen and pressing in-app buttons.

Is it worth your money?

The price is also a bit of a sticky issue, largely because it’s an over-$2K vacuum at its recommended retail price. Head to a store when it’s not on sale, and the Deebot T30S Combo is a staggering $2299, just a buck shy of $2300.

However, the street price is much more appealing.

It doesn’t take much of a look to find the T30S Combo can be found for around the $1500 mark, and that’s a lot friendlier overall.

The $2K to $3K mark tends to be the place where the best vacs with AI sit, with the back end of the price scale even getting robo-vacs with arms and such.

In terms of value, while the Ecovacs T30S Combo does appear pricey, the value is definitely there: stick vac + robo-vac makes it a winner.

Granted, the stick vac doesn’t have the strength of other stick vacs out there — Dyson’s recent V-series has a real edge in performance and power — but given you’ll get both in a box, plus a place to store them, you probably won’t care.

The T30S will even clean out what’s in the stick vac bin and send the gunk to the same place as the rest of the system. That’s a win for making your life easier, too.

Yay or nay?

While the AI and mapping isn’t quite on the same level as other robotic vacuum solutions, Ecovacs has done something few vacuum makers have: the T30S Combo is the whole package.

It’s a robotic vacuum and a stick vacuum. It’s both gadgets you need for a clean home.

The thing about robotic vacuums is that they’re not really a solution for whole-home cleaning. Rather, they’re more for background maintenance. Robotic vacuums are great for all the dust and hair and little bits that pop up around the house every day and need cleaning.

Robotic vacuums are handy for mopping and making your floors look lovely and polished when you’re not there. But big impromptu random spills from the kids? They’re not great at that. In fact, they are often utterly useless at that.

The Ecovacs T30S Combo almost appears a tacit admission of that fact, including the very thing you need to keep the house clean of the big messes while the robot takes care of everything else.

And sure, it’s not perfect, but it is a fantastic start. More robotic vacuums need to have this level of an honest conversation, a statement that says “yep, we know, and we’ve got you covered”.

The Ecovacs T30S Combo has you covered. That’s a great place to be. Recommended.