The Narwal Freo Z10 robovac mopped my home better than it vacuumed and that’s not its only quirk

Narwal Freo Z10: Two-minute review

I’ve tested quite a few brands of robot vacuums in the last decade, but this is my first Narwal. I was quite excited to try it out as I’ve read good things about the company’s previous robot vacuums from TechRadar’s other reviewers. That includes our Narwal Freo Z Ultra review, where it “smashed [its] mopping tests”.

The Narwal Freo Z10, a slightly cheaper version of the Freo Z Ultra, is very much cut from the same cloth – it too is a fantastic mop but, like its more expensive sibling, carpets are not its forte. Actually, I will go so far as to say that vacuuming in general isn’t its forte.

It’s 15,000 Pa suction looks good on paper, but it took two consecutive vacuum runs at its highest suction setting for it to pass my vacuuming tests. And that’s just hard floors. It struggles even more on carpets, although if you are patient, it will clean about 80% of hair off the fibers, but that’s not a lot considering there are other robot vacuums I’ve tested recently that do a better job.

The other big issue with the vacuuming is the self-cleaning of the onboard dustbin. Even though I can hear it say “self-cleaning started” and it makes the appropriate noises, dust and debris from several vacuuming sessions just kept compacting inside the onboard bin to a point where I had to pull out the hair and dirt myself to increase suction.

And while its anti-tangle brushes do what they promise, I found that the hair strands it invariably misses sucking up from hard floors get collected by the mop pads as clumps that I have to pick up myself.

So while I question the Freo Z10’s vacuuming prowess, I can’t fault its mopping – and the evidence is there to see in the color of the dirty mop water. The kind of tiles I have in my apartment require high waterflow rates, and the Narwal Freo Z10’s Wet Mopping setting was perfect – however, this mode guzzles water. I had to refill the clean water every time I did a full-home cleaning. If you have wood floors, though, you shouldn’t need to worry as the lower water settings will treat the planks kindly.

While I didn’t mind refilling fresh water in the middle of a cleaning session, I can’t quite forgive how basic the map in the app is. It can be edited, of course, but that’s fiddly to do if your rooms aren’t precisely placed squares or rectangles.

Even that is a small issue compared to my experience with single-room cleaning. This defaults to the Customized Mode option in the app and I think it's badly named. The assumption would be that you can set up custom cleans here (those are, in fact, saved as Shortcuts, by the way), but you have to keep editing it for every room clean you want to do – your living room may not need as much cleaning as your dining room, for example, and switching from one to the other means you’re constantly editing that mode.

Then there’s the Freo Mind automatic cleaning mode which, in theory, uses AI to determine the best clean for the room or full house, but oh boy, does it get it wrong most of the time. During my testing, it invariably cleaned my living room multiple times before moving on to do just a basic cleaning in the rest of the apartment. In one such session, it mopped the living room four times, the dining room twice, while the entry hallway and the home office got just a single mop!

The one really good thing about the Freo Z10 is its intelligent use of detergent. It automatically takes some only when it thinks a floor space needs deeper mopping. This automatic detergent use happens in the Freo Mind mode and I could tell when it was using the soap by keeping an eye on the dirty-water tank for suds after each room’s mopping was done over multiple sessions.

Despite its excellent mopping capabilities, it’s hard to get over the fact that the onboard dustbin doesn’t self-empty properly and the app isn’t well thought out either. For just a robot mop, it’s priced too high.

Narwal Freo Z10 review: Price & availability

• First shown at CES in January 2025; released April 2025
• Available in the US and Australia, but not in the UK
• List price: $1,099 / AU$1,999

Despite being cheaper than the flagship Narwal Freo Z Ultra (which retails for $1,499/ AU$2,499), I can’t really say that the Freo Z10 is ‘affordable’ at its full price of $1,099 / AU$1,999. I can’t even say it’s competitively priced because it’s not quite the efficient cleaner I was hoping it would be.

The only other robot vacuum cleaner that comes in at this price point that I would recommend is the Ecovacs Deebot T30 Omni (£799 / AU$1,749), but it isn’t widely available and it's got no detergent dispenser. This cheaper Deebot even beats out the Freo Z10 in terms of performance too, vacuuming and mopping well, although the Narwal is the better mop despite boasting higher suction (15,000 Pa vs 11,000 Pa).

If you want more intelligent features, which the Freo Z Ultra can provide, you’re obviously going to need to spend more. For example, the Dreame L40 Ultra available in the US and the UK with 11,000Pa suction has a list price of $1,499.99 / £999 (unavailable in Australia), but take it up a notch and the 12,000Pa Dreame X40 Ultra with detachable mop pads will set you back a whopping $1,899 / £1,299 / AU$2,799. Similarly, the Eufy Omni S1 Pro, with its interesting slimline design but with a maximum of 8,000Pa of suction costs $1,499 / £1,499 / AU$2,699.

Of course, as with any all-in-one robot vacuum, you will also need to take into consideration the ongoing cost of maintaining the Freo Z10. Replacement dust bags will cost you $19.99 in the US for a set of two, while it’s AU$29.99 for a set of three Down Under. Similarly, when it comes to replacing the mop pads, a pair will cost you $19.99 / AU$39.95. That said, each dust bag will last you up to 120 days and the mop pads a lot longer.

What you might require more frequently will be the detergent, which will set you back $29.99 / AU$59.95 for the 19.6oz/580ml pack. Again, I say ‘might’ need frequently – this will depend on how often the machine thinks it needs to use soap on your hard floors. So that 19.6oz/580ml bottle might well last months.

• Value score: 3.5 / 5

Narwal Freo Z10 review: specs

Narwal Freo Z10 review: Design

• Curvy but solid base station
• Robot tucks right inside base station
• Features a detergent dispenser

The Freo Z10 robot vacuum isn’t very different from other vacuum bots, featuring a small turret on top to house some of its sensors, and it's quite similar to the one supplied with the Narwal Freo Z Ultra. The main difference between the two siblings is that the Freo Z10 lacks the camera that the Ultra model has.

I do love the curvaceous look of the base station, though, which is unique to the Freo line. It’s quite different.

What I didn’t expect is how heavy the whole thing would be to take out of the box it came in. You see, the robot is already tucked inside the base station in the packaging, so you’re essentially trying to lift about 11 kilos in one go out of the box. Other robot vacuums come with various parts packed separately, making them easier to set up out of the box.

Well, if you’re prepared to haul out a heavy machine, the rest of the setup is simple. You just need to fit the cleaning tray inside the base station, slip the robot in, then attach the base station extension ramp.

Compared to some other robot vacuums I’ve tested recently, the Freo Z10's base station is broad, so be sure you have enough space around it for the robot to safely maneuver in and out of the base station.

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What sets the Freo Z10 apart from many other brands is that it has two side brushes rather than just one. Both feature two tufts of bristles, but one has them placed closer together, while the other is further apart.

The side brushes turn at different speeds sometimes, depending on what the Freo Z10's DirtSense technology is telling it, or if it’s along a room edge. On paper, the varying speeds should help it push hair and dirt more effectively towards the central bar brush under the robot, but in reality, that doesn’t work as well as I had hoped (more on this in the Performance section).

The central bar brush is anti-tangle and, in the six weeks I’ve used the Freo Z10, I’ve never had to clean it. It pulls everything into a small onboard dustbin that, unlike other such robovacs, doesn’t have a lid, but the filter can be taken off for cleaning.

While it’s supposed to self-empty each time it finishes a vacuum run, I found that dirt just kept compacting inside and I had to manually pull it all out via the two holes (one facing the bar brush, the other towards the base station) as it was beginning to affect the suction.

The mop pads are slightly triangular in shape to help them get into corners, which they do better than most of the rounded mop pads on other similar robovacs.

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The curvaceous base station features a deep cavity that practically engulfs the entire robot when it’s docked, something I haven't seen on any other brand of robot vacuum I've tested. I like that the bot is barely visible, it's a clean aesthetic.

As with similar models, the base station has the capability of emptying out the onboard dustbin into a 2.5L dust bag which, incidentally, is supposed to compact the dirt to accommodate about 3L. As I’ve mentioned though, the self-empty did not work for me and the dust bag remains nearly empty even after six weeks of use at the time of writing.

Beside the cavity for the dust bag is space to fit a bottle of detergent and one comes in the box – the Freo Z10 will automatically take detergent only when it’s needed, which is an intelligent function I appreciate.

On the top of the base station are a few buttons that allow you to control the robot without needing to reach for your phone each time. And under the top cover are two plastic tanks – one for clean water and the other for the dirty mop water.

With some silver accents on the white unit, the Freo Z10 is a well-designed robot vacuum – I just wish it performed as good as it looks.

• Design score: 4 / 5

Narwal Freo Z10 review: Performance

• Excellent mopping and good obstacle avoidance
• High suction on paper doesn’t translate in performance
• Auto-emptying of dustbin doesn’t work; mops get washed even when not used

Starting off with using the Narwal Freo Z10 was a wonderful experience – it connected to my home’s Wi-Fi instantly and was set up within a minute, ready to map my apartment.

Mapping took about six minutes for the one-bedroom space, but I have to admit I wasn’t quite enamored with the final map that was created (more on this later in the App Control section).

The test space for this review, which measures approximately 40sqm, includes wall-to-wall carpet in the bedroom, with the rest being tiled floors throughout.

The Freo Z10’s first cleaning run was fantastic! It did a decent enough job on the carpet (although I have tested others that did slightly better), but I was thrilled with how well it mopped.

Vacuuming

My initial vacuum run with the Freo Z10 was satisfactory, so I went into full testing mode with high expectations from its 15,000 Pa of suction.

It has four vacuum settings – Quiet, Normal, Strong and Super Powerful – and you can choose to have it vacuum up to three times in a single session. One thing I have to note right up front: even on the Strong setting, the Freo Z10 is comparatively very quiet. It’s only when you switch to Super Powerful that it truly makes its presence felt.

In my testing, I wasn’t particularly impressed with the Quiet and Normal settings as it barely sucked up anything – hair strands and visible dust remained on the hard floors and carpets looked untouched. Strong, though, is fine for hard floors, although I found it needed to be set to Super Powerful for the best possible vacuum on carpets.

Case in point: while performing TechRadar’s standard tests of vacuuming oats and tea on carpets and hard floors, I found that the Freo Z10 needed two sessions in the highest suction setting to pick up all the oats from tiles, but I could still see some tea on the tiles (to be fair it’s tea from a bag, so fine particles). I also sprinkled some talcum powder to test suction of very fine particles and it wasn’t able to do a good job even after two passes. I had to use my Dyson V15s Detect Submarine to clean the remaining tea and talcum powder off the tiles.

It was a similar experience on carpets, although here it even struggled to clean up the larger oats pieces too. In the bedroom, where my hair collects on the carpet fibers each day, it managed to clean about 80% of the strands, so a little disappointing compared to the Ecovacs Deebot T30 Omni and the Roborock Qrevo Edge I've previously tested in the same area.

Long story short, I’m really not impressed with the Freo Z10’s vacuuming prowess, but it works in a pinch if you need a quick job done before guests arrive – provided the onboard dustbin isn't already full to reduce overall suction.

Mopping

Interestingly the Freo Z10 robot doesn’t have a water reservoir onboard – it just goes back to the doc to repeatedly wet its mop pads. Despite that I was quite impressed with how well it mopped – a pleasant relief after seeing its lack of vacuuming strength.

Its slightly triangular mop pads can manage to get into corners, but temper your expectations for corner cleaning as there's just not enough pressure exerted on the edges of the mop pads to be effective. On the rest of the floor though, the 8 Newtons of pressure it exerts can mop up dried and wet stains well, although the waterflow rate you choose will determine how well.

On the kind of tiles I have in my apartment, the Wet Mopping option was best for dried-up dusty stains and wet sauce spills. A single run was good enough to clean up the former but I found it sometimes needed to be run twice in an area to clean up the latter. It's a slightly different story if there's dried sauce spills on the floor – three turns in the Wet Mopping mode did the trick during my testing, although it will depend on what exactly it's cleaning up.

For everyday mopping, however, I found the Normal waterflow option to work well and, if you have wood floors, the Low setting will treat them kindly.

One thing to note though: the Freo Z10 guzzles water much more than other robot vacuums I've tested, particularly on the Wet Mopping mode, and I had to refill the clean-water tank every time it did a full-house mop. It's not a deal breaker because it really does a good job.

Another thing to keep in mind about its mopping is related to its lack of vacuuming: because it doesn't always pick up all the hair or fur from a floor, I found the mop pads gather the strands and leave them on the floor as damp clumps. Not ideal at all and that means it's hard to recommend it for households with pets.

Navigation and obstacle avoidance

Complementing the mopping is the Freo Z10's obstacle avoidance. It's the first robot vacuum that I've tested that was able to avoid cables in its path. While it tried to swallow up a very slim Lightning cable for an iPhone, it easily avoided three other USB-C cables I put in its path while testing.

Anything a little bigger and that's an even easier job for the Freo Z10 to avoid. Footwear, slim furniture legs, even little tea-light holders (I have a floor-height shelf under my entertainment unit that most robovacs climb onto) are all left in peace. However, beware the sock on the floor – the Freo Z10 will try and swallow little booties or no-show socks, like practically every other robot vacuum.

Its navigation is a mixed bag, though. It's fine as long you don't move things around after its map has been created, but shift a chair even a little bit and it does tend to get confused.

I noticed this first when I left a large package in a corner that was cleaned on a previous run. While it avoided banging into the box, it moved around it a few times to figure out it couldn't get to that space it had previously roamed. To test this again, I moved my living room chairs a little (just by a couple of inches) and, lo and behold, the precise back and forth movement the Freo Z10 usually employs was messed up and that also meant it went around in circles a few times before getting back to its dock after its job was done.

It never got lost during my testing, but it definitely doesn't quite like things out of place.

Base station performance

Like many other similar robovacs, the Freo Z10's base station is multipurpose, requiring minimal human intervention and, for the most part, that's true. All you need to do is remember to refill the clean water as needed and empty out the dirty so it doesn't begin to grow its own little ecosystem.

It's mop washing is arguably the best I've seen in any robot vacuum. Even after six weeks of use, the mop pads still look quite pristine despite the color of the dirty water being, well, very dirty. I was impressed with the Deebot T30 Omni's washing, but this surpasses even that. Narwal's use of hot-water washing and hot-air drying is very effective indeed.

This could perhaps be attributed to the fact that the mops get washed even if they didn't get used. Every time I did a vacuum-only run (whether it was a single room or the full house), the mops always got washed. I hadn't experienced this with the previous robovacs I'd tested, so it took me by surprise. This also meant that the base station was consuming more power than was necessary as the hot-air drying can take a few hours.

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Another feature I appreciate here is the 'disinfecting' of the bin and dust bag. It uses hot air to keep things dry so as to avoid growing bacteria and fungus inside and, after weeks of use, there's no smell anywhere to indicate otherwise.

Now, I can forgive the excessive mop washing I suppose but, as I've already mentioned, the lack of self-emptying of the robot's dustbin is worrying. Where most robot vacuums return to their docks to repeatedly empty their bins in the middle of a vacuum run, the Freo Z10 doesn't – it waits till the job is finished to do so. I can hear the robovac say "self-cleaning started" and the base station suction can be heard but, obviously, no emptying takes place and this subsequently starts affecting the suction power of the bot.

Maintenance of the unit involves needing to refill and clean out the tanks and, every few days, washing and drying the filter on the bin of the bot. What should be minimal intervention, however, also included emptying the bin myself after a few uses, which is far from ideal.

Battery life

Narwal says that the Freo Z10's 5,200mAh battery will run up to 210 minutes on a single charge, but that of course depends on what settings you use.

Despite having it set to max suction (Super Powerful in the app) and at the highest waterflow rate, I found the Freo Z10 could do a single full-house vacuum-then-mop session without needing to go back to the mains to charge.

It needed to top up when it was set to 2x vacuum and 2x mop in the Meticulous cleaning pattern.

The Freo Z10 runs all the way down to about 5% before making its way back to the base station and, in my case, juices up till it's about 45% to complete a job if may have left unfinished.

So when it comes to battery life, I really can't complain.

• Performance score: 3 / 5

Narwal Freo Z10 review: app control

• Basic map that's fiddly to edit
• Able to save plenty of Shortcut routines
• Freo Mind AI mode is not efficient

If there's one thing all robot vacuums have in common is a subpar app experience. I've said this before with the Ecovacs app and a colleague has complained about it with Dreame too. The only brand that has a wonderful, albeit over-the-top, app experience is Roborock.

Sadly the Narwal Freo app can't compete with Roborock and is even more disappointing than the Ecovacs Home app.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's perfectly functional, but the map is very basic and if your home isn't divided into near-perfect squares and rectangles that align well, it's hard to edit the map to accommodate rooms perfectly. In my case, I couldn't edit the entry hallway in my apartment to the correct size, which I was able to do in the Roborock and Ecovacs apps.

That's not a deal breaker, to be honest, and the Narwal Freo app actually does one thing better than Ecovacs – offer a Shortcuts list that accessible from the device's home page. You can set up several routines in this list and it makes for quick and easy access for frequently used cleaning runs (for example, carpet-cleaning only or after-dinner cleaning).

What's confusing is a Customized Mode within the app that it defaults to when you pick a room or zone cleaning. While I can see why it's there, it's rather annoying as you constantly have to edit that one option for each room or zone clean.

Case in point: I clean my dining room more often than the rest of the apartment but each run has different requirements. I might have set it to do a vacuum-then-mop session one afternoon, but the next time I might want just mopping and I have to edit the Customized Mode for each. The next day I might need to vacuum my bedroom only (which is carpeted) and I have to delve into the Mode to change things.

It doesn't take long, but when using it every day or two, it does become rather annoying. Other brands have a more seamless room or zone cleaning app experience in my opinion.

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Like other premium robot vacuums released in the last year or two, the Freo Z10 also features an AI mode called Freo Mind. In theory, this automatically picks the best cleaning option for your home based on previous sessions but, in reality, I found it to be very inefficient.

In the six weeks of testing, it has cleaned my dining room more than any other space in the apartment, but it doesn't leverage that knowledge. Instead, it chooses to do multiple cleaning sessions in my living room, which hardly ever gets dirty (the dining room is where everyone congregates), but does maybe one or two cleans elsewhere.

This means it's using up its battery life, so chances are it will take the entire day to finish cleaning a home when set to Freo Mind as it will need to repeatedly charge itself. It will also require you to refill the clean water repeatedly if it mops one space multiple times.

After trying out Freo Mind a few times, I gave up on it and never went back – Narwal will need to work on it to make it a little more efficient.

• App score: 3.5 / 5

Should I buy the Narwal Freo Z10?

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Narwal Freo Z10 review: Alternatives

How I tested the Narwal Freo Z10

• Used three times a week for six weeks
• Set up different custom routines and performed room cleans
• Tried different suction and waterflow settings

As previously. mentioned, I tested the Narwal Freo Z10 in an apartment with mixed flooring, which gave me a good opportunity to assess both vacuuming and mopping prowess.

I tried all four suction modes and the different waterflow rates for both options, I set up various Shortcuts (or custom routines) and tried room cleaning too. I also delved into the settings in the app to adjust various options, particularly for the base station, and repeatedly checked the dirty-water tank for detergent use.

I also conducted TechRadar's standard tests for both vacuuming and mopping, scattering oats and tea from a bag onto both a carpet and tiles, and allowing a dollop of ketchup to dry.

I've previously tested several robot vacuums, including two in 2025 prior to the Freo Z10, giving me plenty of experience to compare performance and user experience.

Read more about how we test vacuums

[First tested July 2025]