I’ve told you before about how I’ve changed the way I see time. Every moment that I have is valuable, even if I choose to use it to binge on Netflix series or relax outside with my husband drinking a glass of wine. Thanks to working per hour as a freelance writer, I am much more aware of how valuable my time is, and I appreciate time-saving hacks or tech. Which is why I wanted to share my Ecovacs Deebot review and why I think that everyone needs a robot vacuum.
In the interest of full disclosure, yes, I will be using affiliate links in this post in the hopes that you click on them and buy yourself a robot vacuum. I bought this one with my own money, and I’m not being paid by anyone to write this review, so it’s all totally honest. But I like this thing far too much, I think you will too, and I’d like to earn some extra cash if my words help you decide that this is the vacuum for you.
Why we decided to buy a robot vacuum
I have always hated to vacuum. Of all the household chores, it’s up there with my least favorite. But I also think it’s one of the most important things to do to keep a home clean. Back when we were in South Africa, we had an amazing domestic worker who would come once a week and make my house awesomely tidy and clean. But now in Arizona, we just haven’t gotten to that point of wanting or needing a paid cleaner. So we’ve been doing it all ourselves.
Of course, one of the things we needed to buy when we moved into our home was a vacuum. Dean and I both liked the canister style vacuums, which are pretty much the norm overseas but less common here in the States. It seems upright vacuums are still the norm around here, and we HATE them. But because the other types of vacuums weren’t as common here, they were also more expensive. In fact, we soon realized that for the price of the type of vacuum that we would want, we could afford a robot vacuum. Which is why we decided to jump in with an entry-level model, the Ecovacs Deebot.
Ecovacs Deebot Review – What I love about it
First and foremost, I don’t have to do the vacuuming! I can’t even tell you how amazing this is for me. The Deebot goes all over the house, cleaning every area, every room. He (Dean and I refer to it as male. I don’t know why, but we do.) goes on a little cleaning journey, wandering from one room to the next, sucking up all the dust, cat hair and crumbs as he goes. He fits easily under our tables and chairs, working around the edges of the room as well as the open spaces, picking up all the stuff vacuums should suck up.
It is just so cool that I can be working or cooking or doing the dishes and the floors can be getting vacuumed at the same time. This saves me so much time. Plus, I can keep the house way cleaner than I would otherwise – I’d never vacuum 3-4 times a week, but with the Ecovacs Deebot, I can run it as often as I like and it’s never going to cost me any time or stress me out.
It really does clean well, too. I was worried that because it was a cheaper model it might not REALLY suck up all the dust or dirt, but he does a very good job. This means that there are days the dustpan is filled will all of Harley’s discarded snacks, but at least I don’t have to be the one to pick them all up. Plus, he has all the good filters and stuff, so it’s not like that dust ends up making its way back into the air or anything.
What’s also nice is that it’s not particularly loud. Of course, it’s still a vacuum and does make noise, but it’s not irritating or getting in the way – it’s about the same level as my microwave. So no matter how many times I run it, or for however long, it doesn’t become intrusive or aggravating.
Ecovacs Deebot Review – What’s not so great
Let’s be clear, this is not an intelligent life form. It takes a lot longer to vacuum the whole house with a robot than it would take a person because he often goes over the same places a few times, or goes around just missing an area with dust, or just generally isn’t very efficient. But this is probably a good thing because it seems to take him a couple passes around the same room before ALL the dust is picked up. A human might move the vacuum brush back and forth over the same area two or three times just to make sure everything is sucked up, but with a robot, it’s a more circuitous way to the same result.
The Ecovacs Deebot does seem to get stuck sometimes. We try to always pick up everything on the floor and keep cables or wires neatly tucked away, but he has a knack for finding extension cables or power strips, or even once he got stuck under the refrigerator. It’s easy enough to get him to move on, but it does mean that I probably wouldn’t want to leave the vacuum on when we went out unless I closed off certain areas.
It takes a while to charge after doing a full run. So we will turn it on and let it run for 45 minutes to an hour (yes, it really does go for that long) of wandering around the house, sucking up all the dust. But if we haven’t run it for a while, we might still have MORE dust around the house. We have to wait a couple hours to recharge before he’s ready to go out on another mission. It’s not a deal breaker, but if you really need to clean a big house quickly, this might frustrate you.
Some other things to be aware of
It is still a normal vacuum in many ways. You’ll need to pick up items on the floor so that it can get everywhere, so you’re not getting out of picking up toys, books, clothes or whatever else lies around in your home. You’ll also need to empty the collection bin and occasionally clean out the brushes and rollers to keep the vacuum going.
We have an upstairs and downstairs in this awesome new home of ours. So in theory, we just bring the vacuum upstairs when we need to, and the rest of the time it lives downstairs. In reality, I think we’ve only ever brought it upstairs twice. It’s not heavy, or difficult to do it, but it’s just the inconvenience and the thought required. If you have multiple levels in your home, you’ll also either need to bring it up and down, or perhaps invest in a second one at some point.
There are other robot vacuums out there. We considered getting the Roomba or the Shark Ion before we decided on the Ecovacs Deebot. We’ve been totally satisfied with this brand and model. Maybe it will burn out at some point, but at this point, I can’t imagine any of the other version of robot vacuum offering anything extra that would make me think they’re worth the higher price.
DID YOU LIKE THIS POST?
If you like these words, please check out more of what I say on twitter and Facebook, and pics I take on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me on Pinterest.
Also, please be sure to sign up to my carefully curated, crafted and infrequent newsletter.
