Eufy\u2019s robotic vacuums have always felt decent to me, but never great. I wouldn\u2019t call the Eufy Robot Vacuum Omni E28 great, either, but I would call it one of Eufy\u2019s best robot vacuums, thanks to some gimmicky features that actually work well, fun beta ones that don\u2019t, and broad smart home support via the Matter protocol. It\u2019s held back, though, by hellacious noise, unimpressive mopping, and the leakiness of its otherwise handy \u201cdeep clean\u201d wet vac module.<\/p>\n
Mostly, all I want out of a robot vacuum is for it to do its thing quietly without me babysitting it, and for it to leave no treats for my feet to pick up. No robot vacuum nails this, but some, like the Matic I recently reviewed, do get close. The Omni E28 isn\u2019t quite as close as that, but if the Matic\u2019s limitations\u2014its ongoing costs and the fact it can\u2019t go under a lot of furniture\u2014make it a non-starter, then the E28, just as a vacuum, could be a solid alternative that\u2019s shaped more like a regular robot vacuum and can, therefore, go more places.<\/p>\n
Eufy Omni E28<\/p>\n
Solid vacuum performance and a handy wet vac attachment don\u2019t make up for mediocre mopping and an overly noisy self-empty dock.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Fast cleaning <\/li>\n
- Good battery life <\/li>\n
- Good object recognition <\/li>\n
- Solid vacuuming performance <\/li>\n
- Included deep clean module <\/li>\n
- Robot itself can be very quiet <\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n\n
- \n
- Expensive <\/li>\n
- Mediocre mopping performance <\/li>\n
- Very noisy self-cleaning base <\/li>\n
- Deep clean module requires unplugging the base itself to use <\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
The Omni E28\u2019s gimmick is that most of its base\u2014the clean and dirty water tanks, suction motor, and a hose attachment hidden under a cowl\u2014is also a modular, manual wet vac that you can tote around to deal with liquid spills on rugs and furniture upholstery. And pleasantly, this actually works pretty well, but for some caveats I\u2019ll get into later in this review.<\/p>\n
For now, is the Omni E28 worth its street price of $1,400? No, and for me, its flaws mean it\u2019s not even worth the $700 the company has it priced at as of this writing if you clip a coupon on its website.<\/p>\n
Frustration-free operation (mostly)<\/h2>\n
![\"Eufy](\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2025\/12\/eufy-omni-e28-review-3.jpg\")
\u00a9 Wes Davis \/ Gizmodo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n I\u2019ve always loved robot vacuums as the science fiction gadgets they still are to me, whether they work particularly well or not. But it feels like they\u2019ve recently crossed some vague threshold of set-it-and-forget-it-ness that makes them finally feel practical. That\u2019s not true of all of them\u2014see my review of the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller\u2014but the Omni E28 seems to tick most of the boxes.<\/p>\n
Box number one? It can vacuum, and quickly. The Omni E28 generally handled the roughly 300-square-feet area I gave it to clean\u2014which includes my living room, dining room, and kitchen\u2014in around 30 minutes, leaving very little behind in the process. Eufy says it can run for up to 216 minutes in vacuuming-only mode, which should mean it runs long enough to cover most homes in one go. As for vacuum performance, in direct, head-to-head testing, it collected fewer rice grains and less sugar than the Matic, but not by a lot. And it was good at avoiding household objects (another box I like to see ticked) hewing close to the edges of clothes, books, and other large objects without driving over them and jamming up its dust roller. It would still gobble up small objects like pencil-top erasers and paperclips, but so has every other robot vacuum I\u2019ve tested. The Omni E28 wasn\u2019t so noisy that I couldn\u2019t comfortably talk over it\u2014something else that I consider a requirement.<\/p>\n
All of that means I was able to let the robot go on its own at night without it being bothersome, at least if I set it not to automatically empty its bin into its extremely noisy dock. (More on that later.) The Omni E28 almost always ended up back in its dock the next morning, only once getting stuck overnight when it tried to ingest one of my kid\u2019s sweaters. Unlike my Roomba J7, that sort of thing doesn\u2019t seem to make it run out of battery\u2014it still had an over 70% charge, letting me send it on its way again after freeing it.<\/p>\n
The Omni E28 wasn\u2019t a great mopping robot out of the box. Eufy didn\u2019t include any of its bespoke cleaning solution and doesn\u2019t recommend using just any old floor cleaner, so I stuck with water during testing. Even so, it ought to be able to clean up some of the salty crud my family brings into our entryway after heavy snows like those we had while I was testing Eufy\u2019s robot, but it didn\u2019t seem to make a dent in it. And when I sent it to deal with ketchup I\u2019d squirted on the ground, it got most of it, but left some smears\u2014and tracked some onto the rug in front of its base. The wet vac module was helpful there, but it highlighted why it\u2019s just not that great an idea to trust robot vacuums with such messes.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m also not especially impressed with how the Omni E28 seems to handle change. In my entryway are three small rugs that we leave our boots and shoes on when we come in from outside. I moved them, hoping the robot would mop where they were, but it didn\u2019t seem to register the difference, still avoiding the space where they were. Nice to know it wouldn\u2019t have mopped the rugs, but in the ever-morphing environment of a human household, I want my robot vacuums to be more adaptable.<\/p>\n
Dock of all trades, master of some<\/h2>\n
![\"Eufy](\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2025\/12\/eufy-omni-e28-review-5.jpg\")
\u00a9 Wes Davis \/ Gizmodo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n I liked how quiet the Omni E28 was while it toodled around my house, sucking up dirt and debris. But holy hell, it sounds like the end of days when the dock clears the robot\u2019s dustbin. Not only that, but the dock always engages its vacuum motor twice in a row, and the second time it\u2019s somehow even louder<\/em>. It even does it once during the mop-cleaning cycle, and each time the dock turns on its vacuum motor, it fills the air with this unpleasantly musty, chemical odor. The smell got less intense after a few cycles, so hopefully it goes away in time.<\/p>\n
On the plus side, Eufy\u2019s cleaning base seems to be quick to clean its mop roll, and it doesn\u2019t take forever to prepare the roll before a mopping job, unlike the Aqua10 Ultra Roller. That\u2019s good, unless it means the roller isn\u2019t getting as clean and would need replacing sooner. According to Eufy\u2019s site, the mop roll should last about two months, give or take depending on usage, before it needs replacing.<\/p>\n
Besides that, the dock uses 3-liter vacuum bags that Eufy says can last around 75 days before you have to swap them out. Also, the base mixes water and cleaning solution for you, so if you decide to buy Eufy\u2019s solution, all you have to do is fill a small container on the base and you\u2019re done there. And the generous 2.5-liter water tank meant that I didn\u2019t have to refill it across several spot cleans with the deep cleaner and multiple mopping runs of the roughly 100 to 200-square-feet of exposed hard flooring I have in my home.<\/p>\n
![\"Eufy](\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2025\/12\/eufy-omni-e28-review-4.jpg\")
\u00a9 Wes Davis \/ Gizmodo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The wet vac is the star of the dock\u2019s show, though. It\u2019s a lot like the ones I used to see on infomercials as a kid that spray water into a rug or carpet and feature\u00a0a transparent cleaning head you can watch it suck dirty water back up through. That\u2019s attached to a flexible hose that sticks out of the side of the module, sending water into the Omni E28\u2019s 1.8-liter dirty water tank. Happily, this thing works\u2014remember that ketchup I mentioned earlier? There\u2019s no sign of it in my rug. Same goes for some spilled milk I cleaned up during the testing process (after crying over it, of course). It\u2019s all deeply satisfying, and\u00a0a nice bonus, especially if this isn\u2019t the sort of thing you already have in your house as a standalone device.<\/p>\n
How long the wet vac will be useful and not a nuisance is another question. The hose seems to trap water easily, meaning you have to be careful when wrapping it back up at the end or you\u2019ll end up with dirty puddles on the floor next to the base afterward. But also, trapped water means mold and the bad smells that come with it\u2014so I\u2019d expect to disassemble and clean it regularly. Maintenance is a regular part of life if you own a robot vacuum, but there\u2019s a line for everyone, and this one crosses it for me. I also found the wet vac noisy (it\u2019s the same motor that empties the robot vacuum\u2019s dustbin, after all), and I don\u2019t like that it shares its power cable with the dock overall, meaning I had to reach behind a piece of furniture to unplug it every time I wanted to use it. Lastly, I have a bit of a semantic gripe\u2014Eufy calls this a deep cleaner, which to me implies that it can do more than just suck up liquids; in practice, it clogged easily when I used it on any serious amount of debris.<\/p>\n
Eufy gets better at app interface design<\/h2>\n
Eufy does a better job than usual with the Omni E28\u2019s user interface (accessible via the Eufy Clean app). Its map is presented in 3D by default, although you can use the old 2D presentation found on other, older Eufy robot vacuums like the Robovac L35 if you prefer, and the company has done a mostly good job making sure it\u2019s an accurate representation of your home, insofar as a bunch of colorful rectangles can do that. It doesn\u2019t quite place all the rugs in my house properly on its own, though, so I had to do that manually, or face the possibility of having the robot try to mop them.<\/p>\n
The home screen for the vacuum consists of the interactive map, tabs for choosing where you want the robot to clean\u2014\u201dCommon,\u201d or preset areas you can configure; \u201cHome,\u201d or the whole region it has mapped; \u201cRoom,\u201d or cleaning by rooms in the order you choose; and \u201cZone,\u201d which you\u2019ll use to send the robot to do spot cleaning by drawing a rectangle on the map.<\/p>\n
Once you\u2019ve picked where you want it to go to work, you\u2019ll choose the specific tasks the robot will carry out. At the top of the screen there\u2019s an \u201cAI Automation\u201d toggle that preselects options for you, but if you prefer to be in control, you can pick whether you want it to vacuum, vacuum and mop, and clean quickly or deeply. You can also choose how much suction it uses, via labels \u201cQuiet,\u201d \u201cTurbo,\u201d and \u201cMax,\u201d as well as whether you want it to do one or two cleaning passes.<\/p>\n
![\"Eufy](\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2025\/12\/eufy-omni-e28-review-6.jpg\")
\u00a9 Screenshots by Wes Davis \/ Gizmodo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n A settings icon at the top of the home screen gets you to cleaning history, scheduling, general preferences, and even a set of experimental \u201cEufy Lab\u201d features. One of those was \u201cSmart Track Cleaning,\u201d a mode where the robot follows you, cleaning as it goes. I love the idea, even if this beta implementation wasn\u2019t very good; it got stuck on corners and lost track of me if I walked out of sight or got tricked by a pair of nearby shoes. It didn\u2019t even have to be shoes; it once mistook the pedal on my trashcan for my foot\u2014see the picture above\u2014and stopped there, waiting for the can to start walking. (It did not.)<\/p>\n
With another of the experimental features, \u201cDirt Inspection,\u201d turned on, the Omni E28 will go back after cleaning and inspect each room to see if it missed anything. In testing, it did do that, and it did pick up some dead plant leaves I dropped in one of the rooms it had cleaned, but it also seemed to just be going back and doing another quick pass regardless. It was hard to tell if this feature did anything beyond that. But hey, another quick pass is nice?<\/p>\n
One non-experimental software feature I was pleased to see was support for the universal smart home standard Matter. That means the robot works with Apple Home, and that I could talk to my HomePods to get it to clean everywhere, only specific rooms, or to end the job early and go to its dock. All of that worked pretty well in my testing. It\u2019s not as extensive as using the app itself, but that\u2019s not unusual for more complex smart home products like this.<\/p>\n
A mixed bag<\/h2>\n
![\"Eufy](\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2025\/12\/eufy-omni-e28-review-2.jpg\")
\u00a9 Wes Davis \/ Gizmodo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The Eufy Robot Vacuum Omni E28 has some high highs\u2014it\u2019s very good at both vacuuming and object avoidance, two key things that make it a great candidate for the kind of set-it-and-forget-it scheduling that I prefer in a robot vacuum. Unfortunately, its mopping performance is too low a low for me to want to deal with the headache and upkeep of its water tanks, both internal to the robot and in the dock itself; I\u2019d rather save money on a vacuum-only robot, and mop the old fashioned way. I also wish its dock wasn\u2019t so startlingly loud.<\/p>\n
The \u201cdeep clean\u201d module, misnamed or not, is the next best thing this robot has going for it. It\u2019s fun and effective, but that comes at the cost of lots of maintenance and maybe a few puddles on your floor when it leaks. Ultimately, if the Eufy Omni E28 hits enough of the right notes that if Eufy sold it for $400 without the self-empty base, I\u2019d consider it. But subpar mopping and a noisy base just don\u2019t justify its $1,400\u2014or even $700 discounted\u2014price.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n