Ecovacs Deebot N20 Pro Plus review: Lost in the woods

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One of the great advancements of vacuum cleaners in the past 15 years has been the move away from requiring a vacuum bag to collect all your dirt and dust.

With the rise of robot vacuums and self-emptying base stations, vacuum bags have made a comeback.

Typically, only need to empty them every couple of months, but the additional expense of disposable bags feels like a step backwards.

The Ecovacs Deebot N20 Pro Plus is the first robot vacuum I've seen that uses a self-emptying cyclonic dustbin in the base station, so you don’t have to spend any extra money on disposables.

It’s a superb idea, that’s only let down by how easy it is to forget to empty the dustbin.

That said, the vacuum itself has some serious mapping and obstacle avoidance challenges.

What is the Deebot N20 Pro Plus offering?

The Deebot N20 Pro Plus is the latest entry-level robot vacuum from Ecovacs.

It is the first robot backing cleaner to feature a cyclonic auto-empty station that doesn't require disposable bags. This means it works very much like a Dyson stick vacuum, sucking the dirt and debris from the robot vacuum into the base station using suction.

You will need to empty the base station's dustbin periodically, which is both a good and a bad thing. On the upside, you won't need to spend any additional money on disposable bags. But on the downside, emptying the bin does get a little dirty, with dust and debris inevitably getting free.

You’ll probably have to wash out the auto-empty station as well, though I haven’t had to do that yet.

While the most obvious changes are on the base station, the N10 Pro Plus also has some significant upgrades over the N10 PLUS we reviewed last year.

For a start, the suction has been boosted from 4,300 Pa in the N10 to 8,000 Pa in the N20. Given how impressed I was with the N10’s suction, it goes without saying that the N20 picks up so much dust and dirt.

Battery capacity remains the same at 5,200 mAh, but the mopping system has had a bit of an upgrade to the OZMO Pro 2.0 vibrating mopping system. It still boasts the same flat mop pad, but offers a deeper clean thanks to a vibration function.

The other big improvement is in the brush, which adds a new anti-tangle technology to better manage hairs.

Given how fragile the rubber brush was on the Dreame L20 Ultra during my review, having a brush that can prevent hair tangling sounded perfect to me, though it didn’t quite work as well as I would have liked.

What does the Deebot N20 Pro Plus do well?

This thing sucks in a good way. With 8,000 Pa of suction, the Deebot N20 Pro Plus manages to pick a huge amount of dust and dirt every day.

I had the N20 Pro Plus running through the house every weekday morning at 8:30, and it worked wonders. The floor around the house felt clean.

Setup is wonderfully simple, with a simple installation of the auto-empty station, then just connecting the vacuum to the dock before mapping your home.

And for what it’s worth, I think the bagless auto-empty is an excellent idea. I did find that it was a little troublesome to empty, though. I would typically empty the bin every week or two, and I would need to use my fingers to get it out of the container.

That’s a minor quibble, though. I asked Ecovacs at the launch why only the N20 Pro Plus featured the cyclonic dustbin, and I was told it was a something the entry-level market was more inclined to be interested in.

I disagree. If you could make the emptying process flawless, it’s the type of feature that would set Ecovacs apart from the competition.

What could the Deebot N20 Pro Plus improve?

The last few robot vacuums I’ve reviewed have all been at the higher end of the market, so it was a bit of a shock to come back to entry-level mapping and obstacle avoidance.

The map the Deebot N20 Pro Plus created of my home wasn’t great. I have two large windows in my family/dining room that look out onto a back verandah, and despite the windows being closed, the Ecovacs created not one, but three rooms on the verandah it couldn’t reach.

It also combined my kids rooms, which are the only two carpeted rooms in the house and – while next to each other – have doorways about 3–4 metres apart.

You can customise the map in the Ecovacs app, but only to a degree. You can combine and divide rooms, but there’s no way to delete rooms that don’t actually exist. Not that I could find, anyway.

The obstacle avoidance also lacks the level of performance I was hoping for. Not only would the Deebot seem to seek any possible wire or cable not fastidiously tied down, but when combined with the mapping challenges, it would spend hours vacuuming the same spots over and over.

Despite the improvement to the mopping system, it's still something I would never really use. You need to swap to the mop pad unit in the back of the vacuum to make it work, for a start.

But it still just kind of smears dirty water along the floor behind it. The vibration makes it better, but doesn't necessarily make it good.

Finally, I’m a bit unimpressed by the anti tangle brush. While it hasn’t ripped to shreds – a great thing – it still manages to collect longer hair from around the home that gets tied around the middle of the brush.

I was hoping it would simply manage hair a lot more effectively, but you still need to chop away the hair from the brush periodically.

Verdict

Don’t let those negatives sway you, though. I’m at the stage of my home vacuuming that I would happily spring for a more premium model than the N20 Pro Plus, but if you’re just starting your journey, this is a great option.

My first robot vacuum was the Deebot N8, and it was weaker than this, had no base station and needed to be emptied after every vacuum. But it kept my home much cleaner than I could without it, and the N20 Pro Plus delivers a better experience.

I’m excited to see how Ecovacs enhances the bagless base station technology. And I hope the anti-tangle brush improves.

Because there’s a very solid foundation here for Ecovacs to grow with.

Buy the Ecovacs Deebot N20 Pro Plus online

Ecovacs Deebot N20 Pro Plus

A solid entry level vacuum cleaner with a unique auto-empty station, the N20 Pro Plus could use better mapping and obstacle avoidance software.

Check Price @ Amazon