It’s rare to find a robot that’s both a good vacuum and mop—most of the models we test are only built for one type of cleaning, and those that do both tend to be better at one task than another. Not only is the $799.99 Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo N8 Pro+ equally adept at both vacuuming and mopping your floors, it can empty its own dustbin when the job is done. It works efficiently, quietly, and intelligently, increasing its suction power on carpets when vacuuming and avoiding them when mopping. Ultimately, the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI delivers more in the way of smarts and battery life for the same price, earning our Editors’ Choice award. But the N8 Pro+ comes with a self-emptying base station and has stronger suction power, making it a good alternative depending on your space and what you want to clean.
Deebot N8 Pro+ vs. T8 AIVI
The Deebot Ozmo N8 Pro+ has a sleek design with a matte black finish. Measuring around 13.9 inches in diameter and 3.7 inches tall, it’s one of the larger floor-cleaning robots we’ve tested. It’s slightly bigger than the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI, but otherwise looks identical, with the same raised TrueMapping Distance sensor on top.
Given their shared price and design, you might be wondering how these models differ. The key difference is that the N8 Pro+ is sold with the Auto-Empty Station, rather than separately or as a bundle. The T8 AIVI costs $799.99 for just the robot; the Auto-Empty Station will set you back an extra $249.99 (though Costco sells them as a bundle for $849.99).
Measuring about 7.4 by 8.5 by 16.6 inches (LWH), the Auto-Empty Station is much larger than a standard robot vacuum base. It comes with a hypoallergenic disposable dust bag preinstalled, and there’s an extra one in the box (additional packs of three bags go for $20). Ecovacs says the bag holds around 30 days of dirt and debris, but that will depend on how often you use the vacuum and how dirty your home is. You get a notification in the Ecovacs Home app when the bag is full.
Though both Ecovacs models are better at avoiding obstacles than the average robot vacuum, the T8 AIVI is the superior option for cluttered homes. It uses Ecovacs’ artificial intelligence and visual interpretation (AIVI) technology, which allows it to learn from its daily cleaning tasks and get smarter over time. It also has a larger object recognition library, with the ability to detect and automatically avoid more potential pitfalls, including clothes, slippers, small floor mats, socks, and U-shaped chairs.
In addition, the T8 AIVI has a unique Video Butler feature that allows it to function like a roving home security camera. It also has longer battery life than the N8 Pro+, making it a better option for large homes. In terms of battery life, the N8 Pro+ vacuumed for up to 96 minutes in testing, covering 625 square feet with its power level set to Standard. That’s an acceptable but average result, falling well short of the Ozmo T8 AIVI’s outstanding 170 minutes of battery life.
That said, the N8 Pro+ is more powerful. It has four vacuum power levels—Quiet, Standard, Max, and Max+— the highest of which delivers 2,600Pa of suction, making it an excellent option for homes with pets, carpeting, or both. The T8 AIVI, which delivers a maximum of 1,500Pa, is still strong enough to collect dog hair, but might require more passes to get it all.
Versatile Floor Cleaning
The N8 Pro+ has three cleaning modes: Auto, Area, and Custom. In Auto mode, it methodically moves from room to room, vacuuming or mopping each one. After the robot generates a map of your home, you can use Area mode to select one or more rooms for targeted cleaning. The Custom mode lets you get even more granular and draw a square around a specific room or a smaller space on the map you want the robot to clean. Like most robot vacuums, the N8 Pro+ automatically returns to its base to recharge when it finishes cleaning or runs low on battery.
The bottom of the N8 Pro+ holds a main brushroll in the middle, two side brushes to sweep dust from corners, four anti-drop sensors (two on the front and two on the back), and two carpet-detection sensors. The anti-drop sensors prevent it from falling down the stairs. The carpet detection sensors are useful in two ways. For example, when the robot detects carpet while vacuuming, it will automatically increase its suction power. When mopping, it automatically avoids carpets so it doesn’t get them wet.
The N8 Pro+ transitions from a vacuum to a mop in two simple steps. Simply remove and fill its water tank, then pop on the mopping plate. When you reinsert the water tank, the a voice prompt will say, “mopping plate has been installed,” indicating that it’s ready to mop.
The robot comes with one washable mopping pad and a package of 10 disposable ones. To get the longest service life out of the water tank, Ecovacs recommends filling it with purified or distilled H2O. When mopping, it gives you the choice of four water flow levels: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra High. Ecovacs warns that High and Ultra High water flow levels may cause the robot to slip.
Setting Up the N8 Pro+
It only took a few minutes to get the N8 Pro+ up and running. You simply remove the protective packaging materials from the robot, flip it over, and snap on the color-coded side brushes. Next, remove the protective film from the Auto Empty Station, find a suitable spot for the base, and plug it in.
Ecovacs recommends setting up the Auto Empty Station at least 1.6 feet away from anything on either side and 4.9 feet across. In the box, you also get a plastic ramp extension, which Ecovacs recommends attaching to the base if you plan to set it up on carpet.
Next, place the robot on the base and power it on using the red switch under the top cover. When it powers on, you’ll hear a startup sound. Note that the robot will only charge when it’s powered on. When the robot is charging, its indicator light flashes white. When it’s fully charged, the indicator light will go out.
The N8 Pro+ doesn’t come with a physical remote. You control it using the Auto mode button on the top of the unit, from your phone via the Ecovacs Home app (available for Android and iOS), or with voice commands via Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
Press the Auto mode button to send the robot out to clean. While it’s in operation, press the Auto mode button to pause the robot. When paused, press the Auto mode button for three seconds to send the robot back to its Auto-Empty Station.
To set it up for control from your phone, open the Ecovacs Home app, tap Add, select the Deebot N8 Pro+ from the list of robots, enter your Wi-Fi password, then press Next. The app then instructs you to make sure the robot is powered on. Then, press the Reset button for one second. When the robot says it’s ready for network setup, press Next in the app, and it will begin connecting. You then need to go to your phone’s Wi-Fi settings menu, tap the network that starts with Ecovacs in the name, and wait for a check mark to appear. Finally, go back to the Ecovacs Home app to finish the setup process.
Once everything is connected, the app asks you to name your robot and select its voice language. The app gives you the option to enable Continuous Cleaning and set up Do Not Disturb hours. With Continuous Cleaning enabled, the robot will return to its base to charge if it doesn’t have enough juice to complete a job, then pick up where it left off. With the Do Not Disturb setting enabled, it won’t automatically start a scheduled or Continuous Cleaning job; its speaker and light will turn off during a designated time period.
Vacuuming and Mopping Performance
The N8 Pro+ had no problem traversing different flooring types in testing, including tile, laminate, and carpet, or the transition strips that separate them.
It works quickly and quietly. When vacuuming and mopping, it first goes around the edges of a room, then makes straight lines to cover the middle. As for volume, it puts out around 55dB when cleaning over hard flooring, according to a reading from the NIOSH Sound Level Meter app. The CDC says that’s quieter than a normal conversation or air conditioner.
Thanks to its strong suction power, the N8 Pro+ does an excellent job of collecting pet fur, human hair, dust, and debris. When vacuuming, it always automatically increases its suction power over carpeting, a welcome feature not available on the Shark IQ Robot Self-Empty XL R101AE. While vacuuming carpet, it puts out around 60dB of sound and leaves straight, satisfying vacuum lines behind.
In testing, my dark purple bed skirt prevented the robot from cleaning under the bed, a problem I haven’t experienced with many other robot vacuums. When I looked at its cleaning path on the map, I could see that it vacuumed all around the bed, but not under it. For a subsequent run, I tucked the bed skirt under the mattress, and the robot cleaned underneath without issue. That’s an easy solution, but still kind of annoying.
In 11 test runs, the N8 Pro+ got stuck twice. The first time, it got tripped up on a mess of cords under my bedroom dresser, an area that has proven difficult for other robot vacuums as well. In the app, I set up a virtual boundary cordoning off this area, and the robot avoided it on subsequent runs. A different time, it got stuck on a bathroom floor mat. When the robot gets stuck, it sends you a notification.
Once, when I tried to send it on a mopping run, I got a notification about a “D-ToF Sensor malfunction.” The notification gave me options to Ignore or View; I tapped the latter, and it offered a simple two-step solution (tap the TrueMapping Distance sensor, then tap the Anti-Collision bumper) that fixed the issue.
When mopping, the N8 Pro+ does an excellent job of automatically avoiding carpeting and area rugs. Its carpet detection sensors are located on the bottom, opposite the mopping pad. As soon as the sensors start to pass over carpet, the robot backs up so the mopping pad never touches it.
After a couple of passes with just water, the robot’s mopping pad was visibly dirty and my floors looked and felt a lot cleaner. That said, the N8 Pro+ isn’t going to mop away stubborn buildup. If you’re looking for a more powerful robot mop, I recommend the $399.99 Bissell SpinWave Wet and Dry or the $299.99 Samsung Jetbot Mop, both of which support cleaning solutions and scrub your floors with spinning pads until they shine.
In testing, the N8 Pro+’s automatic bin emptying feature worked well. After 11 cleaning runs, the N8 Pro+’s 14-ounce dustbin was completely empty, meaning its contents were successfully transferred to the bag each time. When the robot docks after cleaning, the Auto-Empty Station kicks on. It gets pretty loud for about 30 seconds—about the volume of an old-school standing vacuum—as it sucks all the debris from the robot’s bin into the dust bag.
Smart Features
Before its first run, Ecovacs says to open the doors to each room you want to clean and tidy up small objects on the floor. Once the robot starts working, avoid disturbing it, so it can fully explore and map your home—it needs to complete a cleaning job and automatically return to its base station to generate a map.
After its first test run, the robot successfully docked and generated a map of my roughly 1,000-square-foot main level in the Ecovacs Home app. It automatically labels each room on the map with a letter. You can merge or divide lettered areas, label each room, or create virtual boundaries and no-mop zones.
The Ecovacs Home app is intuitive and offers lots of ways to control the robot, but I did experience a few minor issues. After the first few test runs, my bedroom appeared on the map without a letter (even though the robot had cleaned this room). Thus, I couldn’t edit, label, or select it for Area cleaning. After a subsequent test run, it updated the map and labeled my bedroom, but split it into two areas, so I had to merge them manually.
Meanwhile, the N8 Pro+ initially labeled my open-floor-plan kitchen, dining, and living rooms as one space. I was able to divide the space into three rooms, but it took a couple of tries. I guess I kept accidentally dragging the dividing line out of bounds because the app kept saying to “please divide only the selected area.”
After some trial and error, I managed to individually label each room in my home on the map. I even set up a virtual boundary around my dresser, as mentioned, so the robot now avoids the wires underneath.
After several cleaning runs, I unlocked two new features in the app: Sequence Cleaning and Cleaning Preference. With Sequence Cleaning, you can have the robot pass through rooms in a certain order. With Cleaning Preference, you can set the number of cleaning passes (once or twice), vacuum power, and water flow level for each room. The robot will apply your preferred settings when in Auto and Area cleaning modes.
The N8 Pro+ also works well with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. After connecting it with Alexa, I was able to control it using voice commands such as, “Alexa, start my Deebot N8 Pro+,” and, “Alexa, stop my Deebot N8 Pro+.” To make those commands less awkward, I changed the name of the robot to just Deebot in the Alexa app and am now able to start it with the command, “Alexa, start my Deebot.”
High-End Hybrid Cleaning
The Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo N8 Pro+ excels at both mopping and vacuuming, making its high price a bit easier to swallow. Its ability to empty its dustbin into a hypoallergenic bag is a major plus, especially if you suffer from allergies. It doesn’t have the longest battery life and its obstacle avoidance could be better, but its strong suction power and virtual boundary features help mitigate these shortcomings. That said, the Deebot T8 AIVI offers similar functionality and more smart features for the same price. If you have carpeting and/or pets, you might prefer the stronger suction power offered by the N8 Pro+. But if you have a larger space to clean with a lot of furniture in it, the T8 AIVI offers superior battery life and navigation, giving it the edge and earning our Editors’ Choice award.
