Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni vs Roomba Combo J7+

Today we're going to compare two top-of-the-line robot vacuums the Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni and the iRobot Roomba Combo J7+. 

These two robot vacuums are in a similar price range and have similar specs and features making them a natural fit for a head-to-head competition.

Features

Both of these robot vacuums are top-of-the-line robots they have many of the same advanced features.

They make a map of your house using LIDAR in the case of the Ecovacs and v-slam in the case of the Roomba. But in both cases, they navigate more or less the same way each time. 

They both have an auto-empty dustbin. 

Where when they return to their charging dock they automatically empty the contents of their dustbin into an included bag. 

They also both have obstacle avoidance sensors in the front. 

Which helps them to avoid household items that other robots miss.

They both have mopping capability using pressurized mopping pads to clean wet and dried stains. 

Though there are some differences here. 

They also have a number of similar advanced app features like room selection and no go-zones. 

The Roomba picked up a few points in the features category because it has some things that the Deebot doesn't such as a mop pad that lifts up automatically when it encounters carpet. 

And that's important because it allows for vacuuming and mopping of the house with a mix of hard floors and carpets in the same run instead of with the Deebot. For example, where you would essentially have to run it two times once without the mopping pads attached for vacuuming and once with them attached for mopping. 

If you have 100 hard floors in your house this wouldn't matter because the Deebot can vacuum and mop hard floors at the same time. 

The Roomba also has dirt detection and dual brush rollers where the Deebot doesn't both of which help it with carpets as well as the light on the obstacle avoidance camera where the Deebot does not. 

On the other hand, the Deebot X1 Omni has a lot of things that the Roomba doesn't, for example, it automatically cleans its mopping pads automatically dries the mopping pads. 

And automatically empties and refills its mop tank which makes it a much more automated system. 

The X1 Omni is also the only one to have dual side brushes live video monitoring and a built-in virtual assistant.

So at the end of this features category, we have the Ecovacs X1 Omni winning.

Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni

$1272.14 on Amazon

Performance

Performance category which is where takes into account a lot of bench tests like airflow and suction tests but also a variety of pickup and mopping tests as well. 

Here the Ecovacs seems to have more raw power when it came to things like suction and airflow it also did better than the Roomba with the crevice pickup test. 

However, the Roomba did better with carpet relay-related tests like the deep clean test where the Roomba Combo J7 got one of the best scores ever 891 and the Ecovacs X1 scored only a little above average at 78. 

When it came to picking up surface debris on both hard floors and carpets arguably the main job of a robot vacuum both of these robots were incredibly good picking up everything from fine to extra large debris on both surface types with no noticeable differences between them though they used entirely different methods a pressurized mop plate for the Roomba Combo J7 and two spinning brushes on the Deebot X1. 

They both did incredibly well with mopping up not just wet stains but stuck-on stains like grape juice and V8 juice as well. 

So in the performance category, the Roomba's good carpet performance and the Deebot's good power numbers sort of cancel each other out, and it was almost a tie here with the Deebot having a slight edge over the Roomba. 

iRobot Roomba Combo J7+

$999.0 on Amazon

Navigation

First, we test how many minutes it takes them to make a map of the floor plan and here the Deebot with its LIDAR sensor was able to create a map a little quicker than the Roomba but they were both relatively fast. 

In the main navigation test, we found that the Ecovacs covered more area but at around the same total run time as the Roomba. 

Giving the Deebot a slightly higher square meter per minute rating at least with regular vacuuming but when it came to vacuuming and mopping the Roomba was the clear winner as it only took it 49 minutes to vacuum and mop in just one run versus the Ecovacs.

Where the minimum time to vacuum and mop the house was 56 minutes. 

We also found that they were very similar in terms of their average battery efficiency. 

We measure by minutes per percentage point but the Ecovacs was calculated to be able to cover slightly more area per charge around 131 square meters per charge compared to 124 on the Roomba. 

But take these numbers with a grain of salt since there are a lot of factors at play.

Obstacle avoidance

Here we also test their obstacle avoidance sensors as part of the new navigation tests which we do by running them in four different runs for cords clothing toys and Novelty pet waste with three obstacles per test. 

And here it was a tie each which are the best scores I've seen so far with both of them beating the Roborock S7 MaxV and Dreamtech L10.

But they both seem to be better than their competitors. 

Conclusion

And we have the Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni winning over the Roomba Combo J7+. 

But with a huge disclaimed if your house has a pretty good mixture of hard floors or carpets or if it has mostly carpets then the Roomba would probably be my choice here but the Ecovacs was just about as impressive as it gets with its powerful performance and it's a long list of advanced features including its auto-mopping system.