I've seen two game-changing stair-climbing robot vacs in action – there's one clear winner in the race to the top

• Eufy and Dreame have both announced stair-climbing robot vacuums at IFA
• The Eufy MarsWalker and Dreame Cyber X both use independent arms and roller tracks to scale steps
• Eufy's will go on sale 'next year', but Dreame's is at concept stage

You wait years for a robot vacuum that can climb stairs, and then two come along at once. There are plenty of cool new robovacs making their debut at IFA, but none quite so exciting as the Dreame Cyber X and Eufy MarsWalker.

One of the biggest problems with robot vacuums is their inability to move unassisted between floors. Even today's best robot vacuums are only able to clean one story of your home at once – which puts a significant cap on how truly autonomous it can be. Of course, you can carry your bot between floors, but once it's done you'll need to carry it back to charge (and maybe also empty its bin and clean its mop pads), which means you need to present throughout the cleaning process.

All that might be about to change, though, with two leading robovac brands both unveiling bots that can traverse full flights of steps: the Eufy MarsWalker and Dreame Cyber X. I've seen both in action at IFA 2025, and for me, there's a clear winner.

Design-wise, the concepts are very similar. Both have four, independently-moving arms that rotate to bump the robovac onto the first step, and then roller tracks that guide it down (or up) the flight in a controlled manner. In both cases, the arms aren't attached to the robot itself, but are part of a separate module into which the robot vacuum docks.

This acts like a little robovac transportation pocket to carry the bot up the stairs and deposit it on its new floor (both brands say their bots can identify stair type – ones that go straight up, ones that turn a corner halfway, and so on). It'll then leave the pocket to do the cleaning.

At first I was disappointed the arms weren't on the robot itself. In that sense, it's not really a stair climbing robovac. However, the benefit here is that the stair-climbing module could presumably be paired with a range of different bots, rather than being tied to just one.

Design-wise, the biggest difference is that the tracks on the Eufy MarsWalker are just on the main part of the climbing module, whereas on the Dreame Cyber X they run along the full length of the arms, too. The benefit of Dreame's approach is that it might be slightly more secure.

However, having seen both in action, Eufy's is the bot I'd choose. It climbed up and down the stairs more smoothly and with more confidence, and got itself up / down onto the first step much more quickly too. (The Dreame model approached this initial challenge at the speed of a geriatric turtle.)

Overall, the Eufy model seemed much more complete than the Dreame – at least, based on what I saw. Eufy's had its own charge dock for the stair module, which it maneuvered itself back onto one it had dropped off the bot. I am also told this bot will go on sale 'next year'.

In contrast, the Dreame effort is still at concept stage. No sign of a charge dock and we had to wait ~10 minutes for it to 'rest' before it could embark on any run.

You can see the Eufy in action below, but beware there is some seriously off-putting strobe lighting in this video.

For the past year we've been seeing more and more bots that can bump themselves over especially tall room thresholds (perhaps the most notable example is the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete with its tiny feet, but plenty of brands have been exploring this problem). This represents something quite different, though, and if it works reliably, will be a major breakthrough in robot vacuum technology.

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