I've been using the Dreame Z50 Station self-emptying cordless vacuum for weeks – its performance should have Dyson and Shark worried

Dreame Z50 Station: Two-minute review

I’ve reviewed plenty of vacuums in the last decade and as impressive as some of them have been, the Dreame Z50 Station is arguably one of the best I’ve tried to date. It’s like a Frankenstein cordless vacuum — taking the best bits from its competition and putting them into one very powerful floor-cleaning machine.

For example, it comes with a self-emptying charging dock that can give Samsung’s powerful Clean Station a run for its money. The suction for self-emptying is good, leaving only the finest of dust caught around a rubber washer on the top of the dust cup, which has also happened on Samsung and Shark cordless vacuums that I’ve previously tested.

The Z50’s floorhead emulates Dyson’s Fluffy attachment by shining a beam of coloured light to illuminate fine dust on hard floors that you wouldn’t be able to see with the naked eye. A side-by-side comparison of the two floorheads showed that they both do exactly what it says on the tin, but Dyson’s green laser is brighter with a broader beam – that’s not a complaint against the Z50, just an observation.

The Dreame floorhead — called the OmniX 2.0 brush — is unique in featuring a ‘smart’ design. It can detect different floor types and automatically adjust the brush so the bristles don't snag on fibres, ensuring it can suck up dirt, debris and dander without interruptions when transitioning from carpet to hard floor and vice versa.

Pair that with its massive 330AW of suction — which beats out Dyson’s 315AW V16 Piston Animal — and you really do have a powerful cleaner in the Z50. While I don’t pay a lot of attention to the suction spec as it doesn’t always translate in real-world use, the Dreame Z50 makes good use of it. In my testing, I found leaving it on its Auto mode ideal as it dynamically adjusts suction to suit the amount and size of dirt detected, and it was able to remove hair clumps tangled in my carpet in a single pass.

The LCD display on the top of the handheld unit will show you a graph of dirt sizes and, at the end of your session, it converts into the number of particles it’s sucked up in the four size categories.

Another unique feature is one of its attachments — a pet deshedding tool. Convert the Z50 into a handheld unit, attach the flexible extension hose and clip the deshedder to it to groom your pooch, if it likes being rubbed down like that.

It even outdoes Dyson and Shark on battery life, with a single charge rated for up to 90 minutes of runtime (on its lowest suction with a non-motorised tool of course), and it never ran out of juice during any of my cleaning sessions that has lasted up to 25 minutes on Auto mode with the motorised OmniX 2.0 brush.

This big battery, as nice as it is to have, makes the Z50 one of the heaviest cordless vacuum I’ve tested — with the tube and floorhead, it weighs 3.57kg, about the same as the Dyson Gen5detect, but it feels a lot heavier than that as most of the weight is around the handle on the top. It’s also slightly shorter than a Dyson, but the wand is telescopic with three extra height options.

If the weight doesn’t bother you, and you can stomach its high asking price, I can’t think of any other newly released cordless vacuum that can match its overall performance. In fact, its high price can be justified, given you’re getting a self-cleaning dock, strong suction and plenty of additional tools. For a premium model, though, a mop attachment would have made it an even more tempting option.

Dreame Z50 Station: price and availability

• Announced in Q3 of 2025, retailing since February 2026
• Currently only available in Australia
• List price: AU$1,499

The Dreame Z50 Station was first announced at a media event in Sydney, Australia, at the end of October 2025, but it appeared on the Dreame site Down Under in January 2026. The company advertised the cordless vacuum on Instagram via its Dreame ANZ account in February 2026. However, it’s not listed for purchase outside of Australia, not even in New Zealand. It's yet to debut in the US and the UK too, with no confirmation when (or if) it will be more widely available.

It’s not a cheap machine, costing AU$1,499 in Australia. That being said, there are a few Dyson vacuums that cost about the same (some are more expensive), so it could be argued that the price is competitive. Given its industry-leading suction, self-emptying charging dock and five additional tools (plus their accessory cradle), that’s not a bad price to pay.

Perhaps the closest competitor to the Z50 Station would be the Samsung Bespoke Jet AI range — the Lite version with 280W of suction and no additional tools costs the same AU$1,499, while the Ultra Elite model that comes with lots of attachments, including a mop, will set you back AU$1,699.

So while I think the Z50 is expensive, its performance and attachments can justify its price, but it's too much of a heavyweight to recommend over lighter models that can be had at steeper discounts.

I should note that the Z50 can be used with swappable batteries, with the second one chargeable on the provided accessories cradle, although Dreame Australia is not selling either the second battery or the charging cable you'll need for it.

• Value for money score: 4 / 5

Dreame Z50 Station: Specs

Dreame Z50 Station review: Design

• Plain, monochrome design for both dock and vacuum
• Easy-opening Side panel for dust bag in the dock is a good touch
• Additional accessories cradle for attachments

It might be that I’m used to seeing colors on a Dyson machine or white models from Shark, but the dark charcoal-grey body of the Dreame Z50 Station appears a little drab in comparison. Now, that’s in no way a criticism, it’s still a smart-looking machine, but it doesn’t stand out and looks nearly identical to the other Dreame Z-series cordless vacuums.

A metallic brass band around the top of the dust cup and a couple of gold accents are the only spots of colour to break up the monochrome body, without which I don’t think the vacuum would look premium enough to match its price tag.

The only other bits of colour are on the floorhead, where the brush has purple and orange bristles. According to Dreame, this floorhead — called the OmniX 2.0 — not only detects different floor types, but it can automatically adjust the brush to minimise carpet damage.

There are indicator lights for hard floor, transition zone and carpet on the front of the OmniX 2.0, which should automatically illuminate in turn as you move from one floor type to another but, in my case, the floorhead stayed in the transition zone setting on tiles and mid-pile carpet. When asked, Dreame said that the floorhead’s “stall-resistance threshold” would be triggered only on longer-pile carpets, but it still doesn’t explain why there were no adjustments when I was cleaning hard floors and it remained in the ‘transition zone’ setting. This, however, didn’t seem to impact its cleaning performance in any way.

Another light on the OmniX 2.0 is its blue headlight. Dreame calls it CelesTect Lighting and it’s similar to the green light on Dyson’s Fluffy Optic. It’s there to illuminate dust you can’t see on hard floors with the naked eye and, the company says, the 140º wide beam helps you see 16x more dust than without any lighting. It does exactly what it says on the tin and is very handy to have, although Dyson’s green light is a tiny bit brighter and slightly more effective when doing a side-by-side comparison.

Unlike Dyson, though, it’s just the one floorhead for all floor types, which I appreciate when having to clean a home with mixed floor types — it saves you time on having to swap out attachments as you go from one room (or area) to another.

Also unlike Dyson, the wand on the Dreame is telescopic, with three levels of extension, so should suit users of different heights, plus it can bend at a 90º angle to get under furniture. In fact, the OmniX 2.0 floorhead remains in position when you lie the Z50 fully flat on the ground, with no loss of suction that I could detect. So you don’t necessarily need to even engage the bendy wand, thus making cleaning anywhere a lot easier.

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As with many modern-day cordless vacuums with swappable batteries, the handheld unit on the Z50 is heavy, so much so that it makes the entire machine harder to manoeuvre than even the Dyson Gen5detect, although they both weigh about the same. However, the design of the handheld part is quite different from any current Dyson cordless, in that the wand doesn’t fit into the bottom of the dust cup, rather is more like an extension of the handle — this is to enable auto-emptying of the canister directly into the bag inside the dock without needing to remove the wand each time.

As convenient as the auto-empty function is, Dreame has thought of every scenario and given you the option of manual maintenance as well, which is a good thing as it allows you easy access to the washable filter at the top of the handheld unit. Kudos to Dreame for making this process simple, something I struggle with on a Dyson — press a button on the side of the handle and the dust cup pops out with the filter on top that you just twist out.

The dust canister’s trapdoor can be easily opened by just getting a nail or finger under the cover and pulling open, but it slams shut if you don’t hold it open. Twist the top of the dust cup and the transparent plastic comes away from the inner cylinder to remove entangled strands of hair or clean out fine dust that invariably will get caught on the rubber washer. Everything then just snaps back in place just as easily.

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There’s a clear, circular LCD screen on the top of the handle that displays an animated graph of particle sizes being sucked up in real time, plus a rundown of the battery life and the suction setting you’ve chosen. This clears up once you switch off the machine to show you the final count of the particle sizes it's cleaned.

There are two buttons below the screen — one to power the vacuum on or off, the other to cycle between suction modes of Eco, Auto and Boost. The suction button also has a long-press function that can be used to reset the filter.

A battery indicator light glows white while the machine is in use, then blinks once the battery drops below 10%, when the display changes from a percentage number to just showing LO below the graph. This light also blinks when the Z50 is charging on its dock.

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The Station, as Dreame calls it, is free standing, with cable management under the base and the 3L dust bag accessible via a side panel that snaps back in place quite easily — if I didn’t know better, I’d say the plastic panel was magnetised.

Two indicator lights on the front of the Station remain lit at all times, one to manually enable the auto-empty function, the other to cool the vacuum down if it’s overheated when running on boost mode. The latter delays the battery top up to optimise recharge times.

The Z50 ships with five additional attachments, but there’s no space within the Station to store them. Instead, an accessory cradle very similar to the one Samsung provides with some of its Bespoke Jet AI vacuum models is in the box. However, only four of these can be stored on the cradle, so you’ll need to figure out how to put away the one remaining attachment. The cradle also has space to charge a second battery, but strangely the brand isn't selling this accessory kit that it clearly mentions in its user manual.

Having the dock and the cradle means the whole shebang will need a fair amount of floor space, so the Z50 may not be ideal for small homes and apartments.

• Design score: 4 / 5

Dreame Z50 Station review: Performance

• Excellent suction on carpets and hard floors in Auto
• Floorhead light is useful but not as effective as Dyson
• Good battery life in Auto; about standard in Turbo

As I’ve already mentioned earlier in this review, the Z50 boasts a whopping 330AW of suction, but that number only means something if there’s good airflow within the machine — and I think Dreame has done an excellent job of harnessing this power. Whether I was cleaning a hair-covered mid-pile carpet or a dirty patch of hard floor, I’ve not had cause for complaint with the Z50.

To test the vacuum, I allowed a mid-carpet to accumulate a lot of hair and dirt over a couple of weeks before running the Z50 for the first time, while also conducting TechRadar’s standard tests with different debris sizes on both carpet and hard floors.

I found that leaving the Z50 in its default Auto mode was perfect, no matter how dirty the floor was, as this mode includes dynamic suction. If it detects more dirt or debris, the Z50 in Auto mode will automatically increase suction, and do the same when it moves from hard floor to carpet. Dynamic suction, however, isn’t available on Eco or Turbo modes.

Hard floor performance

Most cordless vacuum cleaners don’t need a lot of suction power to ensure hard floors are dust free, but I have to commend Dreame for what it’s been able to do with the Z50.

To test how well it can handle different sizes of dirt and debris, I created a mixture of cornflakes, chia seeds, oats, freeze-dried raspberries, tea leaves and tea dust. I sprinkled this over tiles and it took just a single forward motion in Auto mode for a clean strip of floor to appear. There was a tiny bit of scattering due to the edges of the floorhead, but that was easy enough to clean up since the particles didn’t move too far away.

Even on Eco mode, with lower suction, the mixed up mess got cleaned up easily and I had no need of using Dreame’s Turbo mode for this. What works well in the Z50’s favour is that that’s no loss of suction when moving the floorhead backwards (ie pulling it towards you), as can happen on some cordless vacuums. That means a mess gets cleaned up quicker.

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I don’t have a pet, but I collected hair from a friend’s dog, plus my own shoulder-length tresses from my brush, and it was an easy job on both Eco and Auto modes.

While Dyson’s Fluffy Optic makes certain dust particles shine, Dreame’s CelesTect Lighting doesn’t, but it goes a long way in showing you spots that need cleaning. For example, the test space for this review has light flooring that camouflages light-coloured dust, and the OmniX 2.0 revealed it quite well, resulting in an efficient clean on hard floors.

Carpet performance

I used the exact same mixture of cornflakes, chia seeds, tea and dried fruit on a mid-pile carpet, only to be surprised at how well it cleaned up the mess. It took a forward and backward pass to fully clean up one strip — no remnants of debris was visible — on the Auto mode. This was better than how my Dyson V15s Detect Submarine performed on the same mess, which took three passes (front, back, front) to clean up an adjoining strip also on its Auto mode. To be fair, though, the Dyson’s maximum suction is 240AW compared to 330AW for the Dreame.

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As with any cordless vacuum, the Eco mode on the Z50 isn’t as impressive as Auto (or even Turbo) on carpets, but I found it still managed to suck up some hair strands from carpet fibres. I found no entanglements of hair around the brush inside the floorhead, which makes ongoing maintenance of the machine easy.

Handheld and accessories

As I’ve already mentioned, the Z50 comes with five additional tools, and a cradle to store four of them, and this includes a pet-grooming attachment designed to be used directly on a dog… if your pooch would deign to sit still during the process. To make this as easy as possible, a flexible and folding tube is included that makes movements at any angle possible. Like I’ve already said, I don’t have a pet and I’m yet to meet a furry friend who enjoys being hair-dried, let alone have a loud vacuum attachment run over its body.

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The other attachments proved very useful, particularly the rotating dusting brush — its soft bristles have made keeping dust off shelves and decorative items easy, although the weight of the handheld unit makes it hard to use it for over 5 minutes at a stretch.

I used the motorised mini brush to clean my mattress, but I find Dyson’s Hair Screw Tool to be better at pulling up fine white dust (skin cells, mostly) than the Dreame. The combination crevice tool doesn’t create any suction when used at the end of the main wand, only working effectively when attached directly to the handheld unit, making cleaning cobwebs from ceiling corners a no-go with the Z50.

Dock performance

I did my best to see how the cooling button on the Station works, but no matter how much I used the Turbo mode on the Z50, it didn’t seem to heat up enough to trigger the cool down. So while I can’t comment on that aspect of the Z50 Station, having an auto-empty feature that works well makes vacuuming less of a chore.

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The suction is good and most of the dust, debris and hair does get pulled into the 3L dust bag inside the Station, it’s not as good a clean as I’ve experienced with Samsung’s Clean Station that comes with the Bespoke Jet AI.

Some strands of hair were left entangled around the inner metal cylinder, while very fine dust collects along the rubber washer at the top of the dust cup on the vacuum. I even found hair caught half sticking out of the lower hatch of the dust cup after an auto-empty and this doesn’t necessarily clear out if you manually trigger another empty.

As described in the Design section earlier in this review, Dreame has made it easy to dismantle the dust cup for cleaning as and when necessary.

Battery life

The Z50’s battery is rated for a maximum of 90 minutes runtime, provided it’s on Eco mode and when using a non-motorised attachment, but you can imagine my surprise (a very pleasant one) when it went on for about nearly two hours on a full charge. This was tested by attaching the combination crevice tool to the handheld unit and letting it run on Eco mode with a timer going.

In Auto mode with a non-motorised attachment, a full charge timed out at 87 minutes, but that was no dynamic suction being triggered. Using the main floorhead and automatic suction adjustments while it’s cleaning mixed flooring, a full charge gave me 37 minutes.

On Turbo mode, with the floorhead attached and cleaning over mixed flooring, the Z50 stopped at the 12-minute mark. I should note that runtime here, like Dyson, is fade free, so there’s no loss of suction until the machine shuts down on its own.

This isn’t bad at all and a one-bedroom apartment typically takes no more than 20 minutes to vacuum. A larger home will, of course, take longer, but I think the 37 minutes I got with dynamic suction can be stretched if your floors are relatively clean or in homes where the Z50 doesn’t have to adjust suction when moving over different floor types.

Moreover, the battery can be swapped out, although you will need to purchase the second battery separately. This can be charged on the accessory cradle but, again, you will need to purchase the second charging cable as well.

• Performance score: 4.5 / 5

Should I buy the Dreame Z50 Station?

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How I tested the Dreame Z50 Station

I used the Dreame Z50 Station in my own one-bedroom apartment as the test space, which includes mixed flooring — carpet in the bedroom, tiles everywhere else.

While I used it for my regular cleaning, I also collected dog fur from a friend and my own hair from my brush to use as tests. For the carpet, I allowed the fur and hair to entangle into the fibers by walking over them for a couple of days.

I also created my own mixture of pantry items to test cleaning of different dirt sizes, sprinkling that over both carpet and hard floor.

I also used three of the five attachments to see how well they work with the handheld unit, but I was unable to test pet deshedding tool and the flexible tube as I don't have a dog.

To measure battery life, I used a stopwatch to time when the machine powered down on its own during different suction settings and with different attachments. I also ensure that it was used on mixed flooring with dirt and hair when timing with the main floorhead to see how long it would run with dynamic suction.

Read more about how we test vacuums at TechRadar

[First reviewed March 2026]