Lefant M210 Pro OMNI review

The Lefant M210 Pro OMNI is an effective robot vacuum for hard flooring, but it struggles on carpeted areas. So, do you need to spend more money to get one of the best robot vacuums? In short, yes. Despite this vacuum’s unreliable MSRP, you’re much better off spending more on a robot that’ll actually do its job.

While the Lefant is a good option for small spaces with only hard flooring, the lack of a vacuum roller and inability to recognize carpeted areas mean it’s hard to recommend, as it creates more mess than it cleans. During testing, it literally got my rugs damp.

You can find out more about the vacuum and decide if it’s the one for you by reading this full Lefant M210 Pro OMNI review.

Lefant M210 Pro OMNI review: Specs

Lefant M210 Pro OMNI review: Price & availability

The pricing of the Lefant M210 Pro OMNI robot vacuum is sure to leave you with a bit of a headache.

The M210 Pro OMNI is listed on Amazon U.S. for $999, but it has been available for $398 (a 60% discount since its release). $999 is far too expensive for this vacuum’s capabilities, so I would avoid it if you ever see it at this price. The vacuum is also available on Lefant’s U.S. website for $1,296, full price (ouch). Again, at the time of writing this, the vacuum is discounted to $589, so avoid purchasing it at full price.

In the U.K., the price is seemingly more consistent. The Lefant M210 Pro OMNI is available at Amazon U.K. for £799 or from the Lefant website for £955, but at the time of writing this, it’s available for £434.

For another smaller-scale vacuum cleaner, you could look at the Ecovacs Deebot N20 Pro for $199. This cheaper robot vacuum performs much better than the Lefant, but it doesn’t empty the water itself or clean the mop pad, which could be viewed as a significant drawback if you don’t like touching or cleaning dirty mops.

If you’re willing to spend around $1,000, I would recommend the far more capable Roborock Saros 20, which is incredibly low maintenance and can look after itself with a self-emptying and self-cleaning dock all for $1,599. Or, the Shark PowerDetect 2-in-1 ThermaCharged Never Touch Pro offers much better mapping and obstacle detection for $1,199.

Lefant M210 Pro OMNI review: Design

Design-wise, the Lefant M210 Pro OMNI is a compact robot vacuum that self-fills and empties water. The dock isn’t too invasive and measures 17.3 x 13.4 x 11.4 inches, so it can be tucked away pretty discreetly. I stored it in the kitchen, and it took up about as much room as a dog bowl station. The robot is circular with a diameter of 11 inches, so it’s small in comparison to premium vacuums like the Shark Shark PowerDetect 2-in-1 ThermaCharged Never Touch Pro, which has a diameter of 14 inches.

The smaller size means the Lefant can fit into smaller spaces, so it’s less likely to get caught in small gaps, which I appreciated during testing. But as you can imagine, it takes a little longer to clean than a larger vacuum.

Only one thing came to mind when I saw this vacuum in action: General Grievous from Star Wars. This robot vacuum has the longest side brushes I’ve ever seen. Strange appearance aside, this means they get right into the action and manage to sweep as much debris as possible away from the sides of the room.

General Grievous’s docking station has a cleaning water tank and a dirty water tank at the top, which need to be emptied and filled depending on how often you clean your floors. I emptied after each use to avoid dirty water sitting around. Underneath these panels is a section for floor cleaning solution, which is then decanted into the clean water as needed by the vacuum.

You also need to empty the dust bin on top of the vacuum after every clean. The dustbin can hold 27 ounces of debris, and although the robot will tell you when the bin needs to be emptied, I’d recommend doing it after every use to make sure everything stays clean.

The wheels on the underside of the robot are quite chunky and leave track marks in the carpet, so if you have a soft rug, it’s worth keeping this in mind. The Lefant feels pretty sturdy, though, and gets itself over thresholds easily.

There are a bunch of accessories included with the Lefant M210 Pro OMNI, including a cleaning brush with a cutter to help detangle any hairs, as well as two extra side brushes. There’s also an extra mop roller and cleaning solution, as well as an extra HEPA filter. It’s great to have these accessories, but it doesn’t justify the price tag.

Lefant M210 Pro OMNI review: App

The Lefant M210 Pro OMNI is compatible with the Lefant mobile app, free for iOS and Android devices. The app is easy to use right off the bat, and it only took them a minute or so to set up an account to connect with the robot.

It’s been very easy to control the robot through the app while testing, and I feel like I have a lot of control over the robot, including the mapping settings, water levels, suction power, and the jobs it’s doing. Most robot vacuum apps work the same, and this one is more basic than Roborock’s and Shark’s, which give you more control over the mapping function.

Lefant M210 Pro OMNI review: Mapping

Mapping on the Lefant M210 Pro OMNI is… interesting. It does a good job of mapping the shape of the room and the boundaries, but when it comes to obstacles and the difference between carpet and hard floor, there’s not much intelligence. The Roborock Saros 20, on the other hand, is excellent at detecting different flooring and adjusting its mops accordingly.

On the first use, I watched it repeatedly crash into its own dock. The way that the robot vacuum cleans is also a little confusing. As you can see from the map above, the vacuum didn’t move across the room in sweeps but rather broke it up into sections. When watching it move around, it just looked confused.

Overall, mapping is quick and takes just 5 minutes to map 2 rooms, but I wonder if it would be more useful and accurate if more time were spent on it.

Lefant M210 Pro OMNI review: Cleaning

The Lefant M210 Pro OMNI vacuums and mops floors. But what I wasn’t expecting it to do was both at the same time — seemingly unintentionally. So if you don’t want to get your carpets wet after cleaning the hard floor, you should select the vacuum-only option in the app by turning off the water flow function.

While it can maintain itself by cleaning the roller mop and emptying and filling its own water and cleaning solution, the dustbin for the vacuum needs to be emptied out by hand.

Vacuuming

I tested the Lefant against our standardized lab criteria and was extremely disappointed. I mean, all General Grievous did was fling debris around the room rather than actually cleaning anything up.

Hardwood floor:

I first performed the testing on a hardwood floor, which is where the robot performed the best. Although these results show the Lefant picked up a lot of hair, at first, it balled it up into little piles, which was annoying.

The hair also became wrapped around the washer roller, which was frustrating, but it meant that the cleaning brush with the cutter came in handy.

Low-pile carpet:

When I moved on to carpeted flooring, things started to take a turn for the worse. Since this robot vacuum doesn’t have a roller on the underside like a traditional vacuum to gather up debris and direct it to be sucked up, it can only clear up surface-level mess.

It particularly struggled with larger debris as its wheels crushed the Rice Krispies further into the carpet. It did, however, do a great job of picking up all of the small flax seeds.

High-pile carpet:

Here’s where the Lefant proved to me that it’s so important for a robot vacuum to have a roller to pick up debris. If you have a thick carpet or rug in your home, this vacuum is an instant pass. It literally did next to nothing, and I had to go back over the areas with a handheld vacuum.

Mopping

During mopping, the roller mop repeatedly detached from the vacuum. Annoying. It missed patches on the floor. Annoying. And it made my rug wet. Annoying.

Unlike other robot vacuums, such as the Roborock QV 35A, the Lefant doesn’t lift the roller section off the floor, so the carpet gets wet. It also doesn’t recognise the difference between carpeted floor and hard floor, unlike other expensive. For something that’s going to keep your carpets dry, you need to look at something like the Roborock Saros 20, which can detach its mops when they’re not needed.

Noise

The Lefant felt quite loud as I needed to have it on the highest suction power for it to be effective. It was operating at around 70 decibels. This is normal for a vacuum cleaner; it’s just a shame that it’s not effective at lower suction levels if you want to watch TV while it’s running, for example.

Lefant M210 Pro OMNI review: Storage & maintenance

Since the Lefant M210 Pro OMNI has a docking system with a short power cord, it needs to be set up near a power outlet. It’s pretty small, though, so it won’t take up too much room in your home. I set it up in the kitchen, and it fit right in.

The mop roller cleans itself in the dock, but afterwards, the dock was a little dirty, and there was still some debris left around the roller. The robot vacuum comes with a spare roller that you can swap out and also a bottle of cleaning solution.

You need to swap out the clean water regularly and empty the dirty water tank. This is easy to do, and since the water tanks are small, they’re not heavy to lift and change over. You get a one-year warranty when you buy the vacuum, and spare filters can be purchased from Lefant too.

Lefant M210 Pro OMNI review: Verdict

Overall, the Lefant M210 Pro OMNI is an effective robot vacuum for hard floors. It can fit into small spaces with its 11-inch diameter, and the smaller docking station means it’s not too invasive in the home.

The long sweeping brushes are effective for getting debris from the edges of the room into the line of the vacuum, but when it gets on the carpeted floors, it starts to struggle. Since there’s no vacuum roller, it struggles to gather debris on carpets, so it’s mostly left behind. The robot vacuum doesn’t automatically recognise carpet and also can’t lift the mopping roller, meaning that if it goes onto a rug after mopping the floor, you’re left with a damp carpet.

The confusing pricing is also something to watch out for, as the price varies across sites. For a smoother experience all around, I would recommend purchasing a premium vacuum from the likes of the Shark PowerDetect 2-in-1 ThermaCharged Never Touch Pro or the Roborock Saros 20.