Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal review: Price & release date

• List price: $1,299.99 / £999.99
• Released March 2026

The Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal comes in at $1,299.99 / £999.99 — while it’s far from cheap, it’s pretty good value for what it offers. That being said, there are other robot vacuum cleaners with equally impressive features and better software at a similar price point.

Plus, you’ll need to maintain some parts of the vacuum; in particular, refills for the multi-floor cleaner ($13.99 / £14.99) and the odor-neutralizing puck ($9.99 – $14.99 / £7.99 – £15.99), as well as the usual replacement for things like side brushes and mop pads. Over time, these can add up, but you’ll scarcely find a robovac that doesn’t come with added costs at similar prices these days.

• Value: 4/5

Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal review: Design

Out of the box, you’ll find the vacuum, base, power chord, an anti-odor puck, one refill bottle of Shark’s multi-floor cleaner, two side brushes, plus the usual array of instructions and warranty documents.

The base stands at 17 x 18 x 14 inches / 43.2 x 45.7 x 35.6 cm, and comes in either black or white — mine was the latter, and I think it looks a lot more premium than the tackier black colorway. Enclosed in the lid of the base are the 2.74-litre / 96.65oz clean and 1.18-litre / 41.62oz waste water tanks, which lift out easily thanks to the retractable handles, as well as the bagless dirt compartment — I really appreciate that Shark opted for this so there’s one less thing to routinely replace.

You can remove the container with the press of a button situated on the side of the dock, and it’s also HEPA-filtered. There’s also a set of two filters you’ll need to clean every 1-2 months, depending on how often you use your robot vacuum, and a slot for one of Shark’s anti-odor pucks should dusty smells be an issue for you.

The vacuum itself is a fairly standard, rounded 2-in-1 robot vacuum, but a little tall and hefty at 5.35 inches / 13.6cm tall. The top houses its raised puck for LiDAR sensing, which works in tandem with the front of the device, where the cameras and other sensors, including a camera as well as LED and UV lights, to navigate your home and spot messes ripe for cleaning.

If you’d rather not use the app, you can use the four touch-sensitive buttons to activate mop and vacuum modes, send the vacuum home and connect to the Wi-Fi. A soft bumper surrounds the edges of the vacuum to prevent damage from any collisions, which are remarkably rare thanks to its top-tier obstacle avoidance, and you can remove its dust bin and mop plate from the rear of the device.

On the underside, you’ll find the wheels, brush bar, side brush, and a singular, flat mop pad. These aren’t my favorite type — a rondel will typically offer a deeper clean, better post-clean drying and less water waste. However, Shark has designed the robot vacuum to wiggle this mop pad to agitate dirt, which goes some of the ways to make up the difference.

Of note is that the vacuum seems to be a total dust magnet. I have mine placed beneath a desk, where I wouldn’t expect excessive levels of dust — however it’s constantly lined with a thick layer of the stuff.

• Design: 4/5

Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal review: Performance

Setup for the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal is pretty simple; using the app, you’ll connect the vacuum to your Wi-Fi, give it a name (I loved some of the suggestions like Clean Latifah), and after that, the robot vacuum will run its first mapping pass. Broadly, mine was accurate; my apartment has a slightly tricky layout for robot vacuums, including a half-tiled, half-carpeted kitchen-living room, and lots of doors to dodge.

After this first pass, the app will offer you a second mapping run, this time to detect flooring types. If you plan to regularly mop hard floors and have carpets or rugs to avoid, make sure to get this out of the way during setup; I couldn’t find any way to update this map after the fact.

Cleaning tests

I performed my standard pickup tests using oats, cornflour and brown rice to compare performance to other robot vacuums I’ve tested, and the results were a mixed bag. When setting the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal off for a standard, vacuum-only clean, I was immediately impressed as it zig-zagged across my floors, leaving them visibly refreshed — plus, it’s pretty quiet in action.

On hard floors, it excels thanks to a combination of its side brush, solid suction and the jet of air it blasts at hard-to-reach debris, ensuring floors are spick and span post-clean. On carpet, it’s slightly less impressive, especially in the edge cleaning department, but it still does a decent enough job. Its pickup of larger debris was very impressive on carpet, leaving little to nothing behind, but there was a small amount of powdery debris left behind on my medium-pile rugs — hair, however, is no problem, be it human or pet.

Next up, I tried a regular combination clean with vacuum and mopping, and that’s where my experience with the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal became a bit more mixed. The robot vacuum first fills its water tank at the base, proceeding to concurrently vacuum and mop your floors rather than splitting out the tasks. This helps to save time and battery; however, it does increase the risk of soggy carpets.

To avoid this, the robovac will lift its hind to keep the mop pad from drenching carpets — this reduces its effectiveness on carpets, though, as it crushes the side brush, and sometimes, while navigating, it will spin round and spit water across the floor, too. However, once it reaches hard floors, the results are pretty impressive; the mop pad agitates spills and stains with a back-and-forth scrubbing motion, and will reach into corners to make sure every spot is well-cleaned.

It does use a lot of water, though, and especially if you’re cleaning up larger spills, that means the PowerDetect UV Reveal can leave a streaky mess in its wake. I noticed this even more so when there was lots of debris to vacuum up during the clean; the PowerDetect UV Reveal left a clump of soggy oats behind like an owl pellet as well as white streaky marks across the floor, but I wouldn’t typically recommend regularly using your robot vacuum to collect large volume spills anyway. I have especially reflective kitchen tiles, so I noticed this a lot; on my less shiny bathroom tiles, it wasn’t as much of a problem.

Powering up to a higher suction or mopping setting does result in a more thorough cleaning job, especially on carpets, but it’s worth noting that this seems to make the excess water usage more noticeable.

Object detection and navigation

When the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal works, it really works, but I encountered a fair few bugs and limitations that do impact its overall effectiveness — for example, when doing a combination clean, it sometimes skips cleaning certain areas and rooms, or neglects to clean areas I’ve specifically asked it to.

Its LiDAR scanner makes accurate room maps, though they’ll be a bit odd-looking if you have lots of furniture at floor level. That’s unavoidable, to a degree, but I wish it had investigated those areas more closely to find the real edges of the walls; that way if furniture moves around your home, you wouldn’t need to remap.

Its object detection is incredible — perhaps too good, as the robot vacuum avoided my low-hanging (but not floor-length) curtains like the plague, giving wide berth to even the most inconsequential of obstacles. Generally, it’s not too much of a problem, but improved smarts would mean there’s slightly less preparation required pre-clean to ensure your entire floor gets cleaned properly. I was also massively impressed by the ease with which it lifted itself over and cleared thresholds, chair legs, and the like, leading to quicker cleans.

UV detection

After its standard cleaning cycles, the robovac will return to its base, but the cleaning isn’t over quite yet. It’ll issue an ominous warning once it’s refreshed itself: "I detected stains. I'm heading back out to aggressively attack them."

Here’s where the magic of the PowerDetect UV Reveal is really on show; as it cleans, it flares a blue UV light, with which you can see for yourself the stubborn and sometimes invisible stains on your floor, which it will then return to after a standard cleaning run. It was pretty cringe-inducing to watch it navigate areas I hadn’t cleaned recently and see just how much grime was there.

Dock

After the job’s complete, it’ll return for a final time to the base and begin the mop pad maintenance process quietly in the background with just a low humming noise, washing it with hot water before drying it to reduce contamination. In my testing, the robovac lived up to its estimated 3-hour battery life; a 45-minute clean on standard settings dropped the battery by 25%. A full recharge takes roughly 4 hours, and the vacuum won’t perform new tasks when at less than 20%.

• Performance: 4/5

Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal review: Software and app

The app is quite restrictive when it comes to home and schedule customization; you can only have one map, so multi-floor cleaning isn’t possible, no-go zones are always rectangular and you can only create two schedules per day.

I also noticed that the robot vacuum would often get confused when it initiated a clean, forging straight to the corner of my living room and spinning there for a good few minutes before figuring out its path to the hallway. On closer inspection, this happened most frequently when I sent it to clean somewhere other than its home room; for some reason, it wanted to head straight through my wall instead of around and through the doorway.

I couldn’t find a quiet mode, either, meaning if you ever wanted to use the vacuum at night or when little ones are sleeping, they might awaken to an ominous threat from your robovac.

These issues, among other software quirks, make for the primary complaint I have surrounding the Shark PowerDetect UV reveal; its app and on-board smarts hold back an otherwise high-performance robot vacuum.

• Software: 2.5/5

Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal review: Specs

Should I buy Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal?

Buy it if…

You value well sanitized floors
With its UV detection, the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal offers peace of mind and broadly great results, especially in the mopping department… if you can handle slow-drying floors.

You have pets
Again, the UV detection comes in clutch here for invisible pet messes, but it’s also a deft hand at hair collection.

You have a large home
With its great battery life and efficiency, the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal is unlikely to run out of juice before finishing the job even in larger homes.

Don’t buy it if…

You have lots of wooden floors or shiny tiles

While it’ll clean these floor types within an inch of their life, the residual water and cleaning solution could warp or damage wooden floors and leave streaky marks on particularly reflective ones.

You have lots of carpet
Don’t get me wrong, this is an accomplished vacuum for carpets, but if you want to do combination cleans, you might end up with a few soggy spots left in its wake.

You want to vacuum multiple floors — or other smart features

I liken the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal to a power washer in the hands of a caveman; it’s only as good as the software allows it to be, and with frustrations like single-floor mapping, ignored instructions and

Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal review: Also consider

How I tested the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal

I tested the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal for two weeks in my home, completing my standardised pickup, edge cleaning and mopping tests in addition to simulating tests for features like UV detection. I used the app, making a map of my home and testing various features like scheduling and room-by-room cleaning tasks, closely observing the vacuum when in use to note any navigation or performance issues during testing.

• Read TechRadar’s reviews guarantee
• First reviewed June 2026

Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone: two-minute review

The Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone arrives in an increasingly crowded robot vacuum market, yet it still manages to stand out thanks to a handful of genuinely innovative features. Chief among these is the OmniCyclone docking station, a bagless dust collection system that uses Dyson-style cyclonic technology to capture detritus without relying on pricy disposable dust bags. As a result, it's a great system for anyone with molting dogs or cats, as long as the bin is emptied on a fairly frequent basis.

The X12's floor sweeping credentials aren’t exactly anything to write home about, mind, especially its performance on hard floor.And while its navigation is mostly precise and systematic, I have seen evidence of it occasionally missing some areas.

However, it's the mopping system that really sets this machine apart. Rather than dragging two damp spinning pads around the floor and potentially smearing dirt all over the floor, the X12 employs an extendable roller mop that is continuously supplied with clean water, while simultaneously collecting dirty water into a separate tank. The result is a far more hygienic clean, particularly on hard floors where conventional robot mops can often leave a thin film of grime in their wake. This model also has a unique FocusJet system that squirts water on deep stains before mopping them up, but I simply couldn’t get it to function as it should.

No question, the X12 OmniCyclone is extremely well engineered and packed with clever technology, but me thinks it might be worth a trip back to the drawing board to fix some of its frustrating anomalies.

Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone: price & availability

• List price £1,249 / €1,399 / $1,499.99
• Launch date April 2026
• Availability Worldwide

In the UK, the Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone’s retail price is £1,249 but you can purchase it right now direct from Ecovacs or Amazon for a knockdown £949. At this price, the odd glitch in its performance makes it a lot more justifiable. However, if you mainly want a robot vacuum to collect dry debris from hard floors, the X12 still remains difficult to fully recommend, even at this lower price point.

As of writing, US buyers don’t get the same rosy deal as those in the UK – it sells direct from Ecovacs or Amazon for the full price of $1,499.99 – though you can be sure that big discounts will be applied in the not-too-distant future. The same applies to most of Europe, too, where the X12 OmniCyclone is retailing at a quite considerable €1,399.

If the Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone feels too specialized for your needs. or you’ve been put off by some of my reported performance issues, there are several strong alternatives on the market. For instance, the Roborock Saros 20 (£1,249) offers a much more balanced blend of hard-floor vacuuming, carpet performance and premium mopping. Likewise, the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete is also an excellent all-rounder with particularly strong obstacle avoidance and cleaning coverage. Finally, don’t discount this model’s predecessor, the Deebot X11 OmniCyclone, which delivers much of the X12’s roller-mop appeal and bagless convenience for a lot less money (£699 to be precise).

• Value score: 3/5

Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclon:: specs

Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone: design

• Excellent dock with cyclone emptying
• Impressive roller mop system
• Pre-spray system isn’t reliable

I’ll admit that, in this day and age with so many robot vac brands and models on the market, it’s difficult to get too excited about yet another robot vac-and-mop unless it’s bringing a smorgasbord of new tech to the table. Thankfully this one introduces at least three tantalising features that I personally haven’t seen in a robot vac before, and you can read about these below.

As with all robot vacs, setup was very easy because there are only three items in the box: the dock, the robot and the clip-in ramp for the dock. Everything was self-evident, although I will add that there was a surfeit of protective cellophane wrapping on almost every inch of the dock and robot, and I guarantee you will find a piece of cellophane still lurking somewhere that you completely missed on unboxing a few weeks earlier.

Once it was plugged in and ready to go, I launched the Ecovacs Home app and added the robot to my account and Wi-Fi network. I then sent it out on its first mapping run so it could acquaint itself with its new home, and it took a spritely 10 minutes to map my entire floor space of four rooms. The resulting map on the app looked clean and precise and intuitively layout out, though I did have to merge and split some rooms, which is very common and easy to do.

Robot design

The Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone may, at first glance, resemble the vast majority of hybrid robot vacuum leaners, but its engineering sets it apart from much of the competition.

The first thing I should address is that, at 3.85 inches (9.8cm) in height, the X12 won’t be able to scoot under low-slung furniture like the squat Roborock Saros range. However, as is the case with the Saros 10R, this model uses solid-state direct Time-of-Flight LiDAR to navigate so it doesn’t come with an ugly LiDAR turret, and that keeps its height to an acceptable level for most low furnishings.

Aside from its dToF-based navigation system, the X12 also utilises Ecovacs’ AIVI 3D 4.0 which combines an RGB camera and depth sensors with AI processing to detect, identify and manoeuvre around most household obstacles. The camera can also be used to send a live stream to the app and it’s the sharpest image I’ve seen from any robot vac, not that you’ll use it much.

And then there’s something called TruEdge 3D Edge Sensor 2.0, which combines vertical and horizontal lasers to allegedly detect irregular edges, skirting boards, and recessed areas for improved edge cleaning.

Most robot vacs have a pair of manual controls on top of the robot so you can perform a full clean at the touch of a button or, more importantly, tell it to end its cleaning without having to reach for the app. Sadly, this model only has a single on/off button that you press to continue cleaning after a hiccup in its navigation, and press and hold for three seconds for it to return to dock. I personally prefer having two buttons: one to turn it on and off, or pause it mid clean, and another to end the task and return to dock. Had I not checked the manual, I’d never have know its on/off button served two functions.

Heading to the undercarriage, the X12’s single tapered six-inch brush roller makes a very fair fist of dealing with hair tangles by coaxing it towards the tapered end where it’s sucked into the vacuum path. The roller itself is comprised of four soft rubber paddles for carpet beating and two bristled paddles for hard floors.

I’ve been watching suction-power stats of robot vacs for some time, and over the past five years they have has exploded from an average of 2,000–2,500 Pascals to between 20,000 and 36,000Pa for today's flagship models. Mind, suction stats are largely a marketing ploy because real-world cleaning relies much more heavily on brush design and airflow. This model boasts 22,000Pa which is about average for its price range.

One of this model’s most distinctive design elements is the extendable roller mop, which automatically extends one inch beyond the robot's chassis to clean along skirting boards and into 90-degree corners that are often left untouched by standard robot mops. I much prefer a roller system like this over twin spinning mop pads because the roller is continually washed during operation, with contaminated water extracted and transferred to a dedicated dirty-water tank while fresh water is supplied to the roller. This ensures that muck is removed rather than redistributed over other sections of flooring.

The X12’s carpet protection is equally innovative because a protective sleeve rotates beneath the roller, effectively isolating the damp roller and preventing unwanted moisture from transferring to carpet. The mopping system is theoretically further enhanced by Ecovacs’ unique FocusJet Stain Pre-Dissolving technology, which allegedly targets dried-on spills before mopping. This system is said to improve cleaning performance on stubborn messes, but I’ve found it to be very hit-and-miss, which even Ecovacs admits to in a warning written just below the app’s FocusJet setting.

I don’t have any tall thresholds in my home but if you do, you’ll be pleased to learn that the X12 comes with something called TruePass Adaptive four-wheel-drive Climbing System that will, according to Ecovacs, help the robot to scale single thresholds of up to one inch (2.4cm) in height and "navigate continuous double steps of up to 1.57 inches (4cm) with ease".

I wouldn’t say that this model’s battery capacity is especially noteworthy, at least when used extensively. However, Ecovacs says the battery can be restored by 13% in just three minutes to help elongate its operation time if the robot is being pushed to the limits, so that’s a very good thing.

Like quite a few high-end hybrid robotic cleaners, the X12 also uses an AI Agent to "autonomously map your home, identify floor types via intelligent scene recognition, and then schedule and execute a weekly cleaning plan". I personally always turn AI off because I’m human and have a brain capable of setting my own schedules, thank you very much.

Score ref: 3.5/5

Dock design

The Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone’s charging dock combines an impressive range of automation features with styling that looks more like a miniature Art Deco skyscraper from Batman’s Gotham City or Fritz Lang’s Metropolis than a household appliance.

Rather than relying on disposable dust bags, which may need replacing on a two-week basis if shedding pets are in the home, the X12’s dock uses cyclone technology to suck dust and debris from the robot’s small bin into a large 1.69-quart (1.6-litre) collection chamber. To empty, simply unclip it, take it to the kitchen bin and slide down the blue lever. Voila, the debris falls out of the bottom just like a Dyson vac.

As a dog- and cat-owner, I’m a big fan of this type of system because it not only reduces ongoing costs — and environmental waste — but it also helps maintain strong suction performance between the robot and the dock while vastly reducing any issues of clogging that can sometimes occur if the robot has collected too much pet hair.

The dock also houses two large clean and dirty water reservoirs (3.7 quarts/3.5L and 2.85 quarts/2.7L apiece) for the roller mop system which minimises the need for frequent refilling or emptying. It also incorporates two cleaning-solution tanks, including a dedicated one that’s used by the X12’s FocusJet system to tackle dried-on spills and stubborn marks before mopping.

As with most premium hybrid robots, the dock’s maintenance is almost entirely automated so the station washes the roller mop using heated, pressurised water, extracts dirty water into a separate tank and then dries the mop with hot air to reduce rancid odours and bacterial growth. Ecovacs has also equipped this dock with some self-cleaning functions, including automatic cleaning of the washing tray and dirty-water system.

Score ref: 4.5/5

• Design score: 4/5

Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone: performance

• Top-notch dock performance
• Very good roller mopping to the edge
• Disappointing hard floor performance

Navigation performance

After a very successful initial mapping run, the X12’s navigation seemed a bit wayward for the first few excursions but improved as the robot seemingly learned the quickest route from room to room.

However, I have been perplexed by some of its behavior in our furniture-cluttered lounge which is a mixture of hard wooden floor and thin rugs. It doesn’t help that the app has so many customizable floor-cleaning options that you’re forced to experiment and the surfeit of carpet settings alone is enough to drive you round the twist as you fiddle and mess about with options like ‘clean carpet first’, ‘avoid fringed carpets’, ‘carpet recognition’, the list goes on.

Possibly as a result of some setting I may have incorrectly adjusted, the X12 has never performed a complete clean of the lounge, at least according to the image of its trail on the app. At first I had ‘AI Agent' turned on, and I never trust AI when it comes to automation because you never know what it’s going to do next. Besides, I prefer to be in control of my gadgets. Anyway, after 15 minutes of online research I noticed a tiny grayed-out ‘exit’ word just below the AI Agent option that had been there all the time. So I turned AI Agent off and breathed a sign of relief. Did it make a difference to its lounge-cleaning navigation? Not much, as far as I can tell.

I’m not really sure what it doesn’t like about my lounge, but for some strange reason it usually misses cleaning the 15 inches of wooden floor gap between two thin rugs and it doesn’t completely vacuum under my sofa, even when I’ve lifted the valence. Instead, it performs one pass under the front edge of the sofa and then leaves.

And another thing… When it started my most recent lounge-cleaning attempt there was a dog bed on the floor, which it deftly skirted around. But when I removed the bed while it was cleaning nearby, I expected it to notice the sudden lack of bed and proceed to clean that area too. But no, it simply went home.

The X12 also has a habit of stalling at the edge of every rug before moving forward. It heads towards the rug at full speed and as soon as a wheel detects a slight incline – we’re talking millimeters here – it stops dead while it assesses the situation before proceeding to cross the rug. No great shakes but it was something I noticed that rarely bothers other bots. Thankfully and despite these slightly confounding anomalies, the X12 has behaved perfectly well in every other room with full clean-ups as one would reasonably expect.

Score ref: 2.5/5

Obstacle avoidance

If the X12’s overall navigation has room for improvement, there’s no such issue with its obstacle avoidance. For this test I set its AIVI 3D obstacle avoidance to ‘high sensitivity’ and used a number of dog toys but also placed two cigarette lighters and a small remote. I was very impressed by how quickly it negotiated a path between them with no collisions to report. At other times the X12’s obstacle avoidance has been set to ‘standard’ and even in this setting it has never ridden slipshod over anything, so I call that a result.

Score ref: 4/5

Vacuuming

I set up two vacuuming tests, one on hard floor, the other on carpet rug using a mix of rice, oats, icing sugar and granola. Test one was on my kitchen hard floor and unfortunately it was a bit of a failure. While this test was extreme, it was no different to every other robot vacuum test I perform on hard floor. Firstly, the act of creating a zone using the Scenario option was far too complicated, but I got there in the end. I went for the full vacuum power, deep clean and two-passes option to give it a better chance.

When it arrived at the zone, it first drove straight over the detritus with its motor off, which was a strange thing to do. It then proceeded to start its cleaning run and collected some of the debris, but left far more behind than it should have done. It also seemed to work haphazardly and made just one pass along the skirting board without cleaning up any of the ingredients. When it finally left the scene, the floor looked in quite a state so I reached for the Dyson Gen5detect, which cleaned up everything in one pass.

I couldn’t tell if this disappointing result was due to sub-par suction power – at 22,000Pa it should pick up debris much better – or if the brush bar is badly designed, but the results for this hard floor test were unacceptable. However, I should add that, during its day-to-day sweeping, I’ve never had too much cause for concern because it has always vacuumed the kitchen and most other hard floor areas efficiently enough. Perhaps I pushed it too far for this test.

Thankfully the rug test was more successful, though I wouldn’t say it was exceptional by any means, especially considering that I had maxed out all the settings. The first horizontal pass clearly showed that it had collected most of the crumbly debris, but it took a return pass and another two vertical passes to leave it fairly clean. I say fairly because most robots leave behind some detritus in a test like this, which is why you should never get rid of your cordless stick vac or any other form of manual vacuum cleaner. While robots are great for keeping on top of things, homo sapiens is thankfully still way more advanced than any robot when it comes to household duties.

Score ref: 2.5/5

Mopping performance

Despite having the X12’s FocusJet activated since installing the product, I have never actually seen it in operation, which has really confused me because I thought that the moment the robot spots a large stain area it jet washes it first to break up the stain and then mops it. But maybe that’s not the case — answers on a postcard please.

For my kitchen mopping test I squirted some tomato ketchup on the floor and adjusted the cleaning settings to Vac and Mop (for some bizarre reason there is no mop-only feature), standard water dispensing, Deep Cleaning, and two passes. As I anticipated given all the mopping tech on this bot, the X12 performed well in this test; indeed better than most spinning mop systems I’ve tested. Yes, it was a bit erratic in its chosen path, but it eventually cleaned the mess up and left far fewer smears than I have normally experienced.

Did it use the FocusJet on this unmissable ketchup stain? No, it simply approached the stain and duly mopped it without once using the squirty jet thing. And yet it did squirt water at least twice on an area with no stains whatsoever.

I personally don’t see a need for this water-spraying function because the task of cleaning a specific stain is a lot quicker if you just grab some kitchen towelling or a proper mop and bucket and do it yourself. The mere fact you need to reach for the app and make an educated guess where the stain is on the map and then wait five minutes while the robot gets ready to trundle over to what you hope is the correct spot, is way too long a process in my opinion. And even when it gets there, there’s no guarantee that it will actually use the water spraying system in the correct place, or even use it at all.

Score ref: 3.5/5

Dock performance

The X12 OmniCyclone's charging dock is among the most capable and innovative docking stations I’ve come across. Its bagless OmniCyclone dust collection system has performed particularly well, emptying the robot's onboard dustbin with no clogging to report, though I will admit that I have set it to empty the bot’s bin several times during its daily routines. Yes, I have had to take the bin to the kitchen bin twice in a month for emptying but even this has been a breeze. In fact, it has a better emptying mechanism than a lot of cordless stick vacs I’ve reviewed.

The dock also automatically washes the roller mop using heated water, removes the dirty water into a dedicated reservoir and then dries the roller with hot air to help prevent unpleasant smells and mould growth. And like most premium models, the dock’s self-cleaning functions also do a grand job of helping to keep the removable washing tray free from accumulated muck.

Score ref: 4/5

Battery performance

The X12’s 4,000mAh battery has a charging time of around two and a half hours. My lounge is roughly 12m² and, according to the app, the double-pass vacuum test in my lounge took 28 minutes to complete, while missing the space between two rugs that I have already mentioned above. After this run the battery showed 54% remaining, which seemed a bit low to me. Anyway, I then set it off to do two vacuum passes at full suction in the kitchen (around 17m²), after which the battery showed just 15%. As a result it headed back to the dock for a top-up before heading out again 20 minutes later to complete the task.

I’ve also noticed it heading back for a near-full top-up midway through an entire house clean and this suggests that the X12 might not be the best model for larger homes. Granted, one is rarely bothered by how long it takes a robot to clean a whole home, but there will be times when you need a quick cleanup in an emergency only to discover that the X12 is too busy charging itself from an earlier task.

Score ref: 3.5/5

• Performance score: 3/5

Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone: app functionality

• Relatively easy to navigate
• Far too many custom options
• Some annoying programming traits

At first I thought the Ecovacs Home app was one of the most intuitive and well laid-out robot app I’d come across – ‘very easy to navigate’, I said in my notes. However, in hindsight I think it’s too complex and confusing for its own good. Don’t get me wrong, I love an app that provides loads of customisation but this app tips it into anorak territory with so many custom options available that it’s difficult to know where to start.

This is especially noticeable when you select ‘Robot Advanced Functions’ because advanced they most certainly are. Yes, some are self explanatory but when you tap ‘Carpet Settings’ you’re met with two pages of settings relating to every carpet-cleaning scenario imaginable. As a result you can find yourself in a rabbit hole of experimentations that take ages to carry out because it’s a robot and robots always do things at their own pace – very slowly.

On the plus side, the app does cleverly divide all settings into Robot and Dock, and provides instant access to one’s pre-programmed routines, or Scenarios as Ecovacs calls them. However, it might take you a while to find the area where you create them, and when you finally get there and create your series of personalised routines and name them accordingly – like ‘Lounge Vac’, ‘Kitchen Mop’, etc – don’t just click on ‘done’ because there’s also a faint ‘save’ button on top and if you don’t click that, you may be back to square one. Also, as mentioned above, I had issues trying to turn off Agent Mode which I simply don’t trust, especially given the amount of engineered wood flooring in my home.

This is far from the worst robot app I’ve ever used. In fact it’s quite similar to my favourite Roborock app for functionality and personalisation. But as I said above, I think the IT department went a bit over the top when they designed this app and ended up providing too many options.

• App functionality score: 3/5

Should you buy the Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

How I tested the Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone

I tested the Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone across a typical mixed UK home environment, combining hard flooring, rugs and high-traffic kitchen areas. The focus was on real-world performance rather than lab conditions, including everyday debris such as crumbs, dust, huge amounts of pet hair and sticky spills. I ran multiple cleaning cycles using the highest levels of vacuum and full mopping modes, observing how well it handled edge cleaning, room transitions and obstacle avoidance. Particular attention was paid to its roller-mop system, water delivery and the behaviour of the Focus Jet and OmniCyclone dock during emptying and refilling.

I also assessed its noise levels, maintenance demands and app control usability over repeated use. The aim was to determine whether its headline mopping innovations genuinely translate into better everyday cleaning performance. It mostly did in this regard but there’s definitely room for improvement regarding its overall navigation and hard floor sweeping.

First reviewed June 2026.

Dyson is making big strides in the world of robot vacuums, and its latest robovac — the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai — uses a camera combined with artificial intelligence to tackle tough stains that other robot vacuums tend to miss, and get your floors as clean as possible. But why did Dyson choose to tackle that particular problem, and what does the future hold when it comes to household robots?

I visited Dyson's UK Innovation Campus in Wiltshire, where many of the company's advanced engineering teams work on new products and technologies, using rapid prototyping to develop and test ideas. The campus is also the home of the Dyson Institute, where undergraduate students from around the world come to learn, and work on real-life projects.

There, I sat down with Jake Dyson, the company's Chief Engineer, to learn more about his own experience, and Dyson's approach to AI and robotics.

Despite being the son of founder James Dyson, Jake hasn't always worked for the company. After a brief spell at Dyson at the age of 22, he left to pursue an independent career in industrial design. He built his own workshop and began to specialize in lighting, separately from the family business, before returning, bringing that experience with him. I asked him how that early work translated into his current endeavors.

"It comes down to identifying problems and solving them," he explained. "When LEDs first entered the market, I realized people weren’t cooling them properly. The promise of LEDs is that they should last a lifetime, but in reality they were being treated like disposable lightbulbs. I visited Osram in Asia, and they explained that if you keep the diode temperature below about 50C, you can maintain brightness, color quality, and lifespan. That became my goal."

"I looked at how satellites manage heat. In space, temperatures swing from extremely hot to extremely cold, so they need precise thermal control. I applied similar thinking by designing systems that passively dissipate heat. For example, the heat moves away from the chip and is cooled by airflow, maintaining a stable temperature even at high power.

"That process, spotting a problem and solving it, is what drives everything."

Stairs and arms

Dyson's latest robot vacuum has been designed to tackle the specific problem of tricky stains on hard floors, which other wet-and-dry cleaners fail to tackle. The Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai uses a high-definition camera and an LLM that includes over 190 different household objects and stains.

I asked Jake why Dyson had chosen to tackle such a (literally) ground-level problem when other companies are debuting robot vacuums that can climb stairs and lift objects with mechanical arms. He explained that Dyson has been tackling those more advanced problems for about 10 years already, but the solutions aren't yet genuinely useful and reliable.

Having seen some other companies' ambitious robots, I can see what he means. The Roborock Saros Z70, for example, has a pincer arm that can lift lightweight objects out of the way, but in our tests it failed to identify and move them independently, instead relying on you to control the pincer remotely. It also has a lower success rate on carpet due to what Roborock calls a "hardware limitation".

Stairs are also a major challenge. My colleague Ruth Hamilton saw two stair-climbing robovacs in action at last year's IFA tech show, but explained that the legs/treads used to navigate stairs aren't actually attached to the robots themselves (they are more like a cradle that holds the bot), which means they can't clean the stairs as they go. Only one robot managed to tackle the first step with confidence as well. According to Ruth, the other "approached this initial challenge at the speed of a geriatric turtle".

They're interesting concepts, but neither looked ready for the mainstream — and as Jake explains, they're attempting to solve a very difficult problem.

"Every staircase is different height, spacing, materials and then you add in pets, children, and people moving around. It becomes a very complex and potentially unsafe problem," he said. "Something going up and down stairs autonomously needs to be extremely reliable. It’s actually more complex than autonomous driving in some respects."

"So while it’s an interesting challenge, and being able to clean an entire home, including all floors, with one machine would be ideal, it has to meet a very high bar for safety and usefulness. Until it does, we focus on delivering products that work reliably in real homes today."

Safer decision-making

Dyson has never been shy about dropping products that don't work out (such as the CR01 Contrarotator washing machine and the Dyson car), but its work on cordless vacuums continues apace. We recently reviewed the super-compact Dyson Pencilvac Fluffycones, and just a few weeks ago the company debuted its first self-emptying cordless vacuum. I asked Jake whether he thinks robots will eventually handle all your cleaning tasks, or whether there will always be a place for stick vacuums.

"No, I don’t see that happening, at least not completely," he said. "Right now, robot vacuums are very good at regular maintenance, keeping floors tidy day-to-day. But people still want a to clean with a cordless vacuum when they do a deeper clean, as well as being able to clean surfaces other than the floor."

However, he added that the world of robotics is advancing incredibly quickly, especially when it comes to AI.

"Previously, robots could see and navigate, but they struggled when they encountered something unfamiliar. Now, with reasoning, they can make safer, more informed decisions.

"We’re also seeing rapid development globally, the US is leading in AI and ‘brains’, and China is producing robots at scale and more affordably.

"In the future robots will learn from each other via the cloud,; one robot’s experience will instantly improve others, and one robot will be able to repair a fault on another robot. That will massively accelerate development.

"However, regulation and safety will slow adoption. These technologies may be ready soon, but it could take around 10 years before they’re widely allowed in homes. Elon Musk said he thinks humanoid robots will be in many homes in three years, and I agree with him. Though they use up a lot of energy to walk for example, so a robot vacuum cleaner is much more energy efficient than a humanoid [robot] using a vacuum cleaner.

"So yes, robots will become more capable, but I think traditional tools will still exist alongside them."

Although you might like the idea of handing over all your household chores to a robot, it seems cordless and handheld vacuums will be around for a while yet — and you'll still need to climb the stairs and pick up socks yourself for now.

• Shark has launched a new Luxe Collection of robot and cordless vacuums
• The range features muted colors, satin finishes, and metallic accents
• It was designed in partnership with designer and TV personality Jeremiah Brent

Robovacs are perfect for keeping your home tidy between deep cleans, but they're not very attractive. Even the best robot vacuum is usually a piece of black or white plastic that sits in a matching dock, and is something you'd probably prefer to hide away if possible — some owners even build miniature garages to keep their bots out of sight. Now, Shark has come to the rescue with a robot vacuum that looks more like artwork than an appliance.

The company has teamed up with interior designer Jeremiah Brent of design studio AD100, who you might remember as the interior design expert on seasons 9 and 10 of Queer Eye. He's used his expertise to help develop a new version of the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal 2-In-1 Vac & Mop that looks much more appealing than the original, while cleaning just as well.

We awarded the PowerDetect UV Reveal 2-In-1 Vac & Mop four stars out of five in our review, and were particularly impressed by its obstacle avoidance, edge cleaning with extending mop pads, and its ability to lift itself over thresholds. It's not much to look at though, which is unfortunate for such a conspicuous appliance.

Now, however, the same vacuum is available in four subtle new colors — Evergreen, Ivory, Espresso, and Deep Harbor (navy blue) — all of which have co-ordinating satin-finished metallic trim.

These new Luxe Collection robot vacuum is available for the same list price as the original black model ($1,299.99, which works out at about £970 / AU$1,820), though it's worth noting that the black version is currently discounted to $949.99 (about £710 / AU$1,330) in Shark's online store.

At the time of writing, the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal 2-In-1 Vac & Mop Luxe Collection is only available in the US, but I'm hopeful it will be ready to clean homes globally very soon.

Cordless and chic

If you're fed up with an ugly cordless vacuum occupying space on your wall, the Shark Luxe Collection also includes a more stylish version of the Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean & Empty. This lightweight vacuum with its flexible head now comes in four extra colors (Oatstone, Harbor Slate, Sagewood, and Walnut), which are again finished with muted metallic accents.

Each vacuum has a list price of $499.99 in the US, or £499.99 in the UK (about AU$700). They're not currently available in Australia, but will hopefully roll out there before long.

Our tester Tim Gee gave the Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean & Empty four and a half stars in his review, saying: "It did a great job picking up fine dust and larger debris in our tests on carpet and hard floors, has good edge cleaning, and can easily be moved around the house making it an ideal occasional cleaner."

• Dreame debuted its Laundry Care L10 Center at Dreame Next
• It combines four washer-dryers with a closet and a robot vacuum
• It doesn't yet have a price or release date

Dreame isn’t unfamiliar with robot vacuum innovation, being one of the first brands to showcase step climbing cleaners — but this latest model might be its weirdest yet: a robot vacuum hub meets closet meets four washer-dryers. All in a single machine.

Debuted at its Dreame Next showcase in San Francisco, the Laundry Care L10 Center is one of the strangest appliances I’ve ever seen — and that includes the robot-arm equipped fridge Dreame also showcased here at the event.

The four washer-dryers are designed to help you finally separate your cleaning loads, because if you’re like me, it all goes in at the same time on the same setting. The largest 10kg drum handles the bulk of your clothes, a 3kg drum tackles shoes, and the pair of 2.5kg ports are designed for underwear and baby wear respectively.

The idea is that each drum can maximize its effectiveness at cleaning your garments, while also helping you better organize your washing.

Beyond your typical water and detergent, this machine also deploys ultrasonic vibrations to dislodge dirt, and ‘AI Lingus’ to ensure your garments are appropriately cleaned and dried (rather than still being damp in spots) — and don’t come out tangled.

Meanwhile, the garment closet section is designed to refresh and smooth your shirts and dresses between wash cycles.

One more thing

Of course the final piece of this all-in-one cleaning machine is the robot vacuum and mop, which hides itself in a compartment at the bottom of the washing machine stack, recharging its battery, emptying its debris, and refreshing its water supply as if it were in a standalone dock.

The complete package sounds like the ultimate cleaning machine — all that's missing is that the robo vac doesn’t appear to be the Z1 Laundry bot that goes around your home and picks dirty clothes up for you, though I expect it’s only a matter of time before that changes.

The other dampener on the announcement is a lack of pricing and a release date for the all-in-one cleaning closet. My impression, however, is that it won’t be cheap if and when it does launch.

I also wonder if this is a less-is-more scenario. While the 6-in-1 package sounds neat, I do fear that its complex nature could make it a nightmare to maintain, or fix if things go wrong.

What’s more, how useful is a dedicated baby clothes cleaning drum? Kids grow up, and not everybody has them to begin with. Maybe one or two drums makes sense, but four does feel like overkill.

As with some smart home tech, this feels like a flashy concept, but likely not something every home should have. Though perhaps that’s intentional — announce a flashy washer dryer to get people interested, and then sell them on the more mundane but solid standard cleaner, and a separate robo vac.

We’ll just have to wait and see if Dreame’s tech can prove me wrong — maybe this 6-in-1 robo vac closet washer dryer is the home-cleaning gadget we didn't know we needed.

Sitting inside San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts, in almost the exact same spot I was seated two months ago for Samsung’s Galaxy S26 and Galaxy Buds4 launch, I can’t help but feel bombarded by déjà vu — and the sensation is entirely intentional, according to my hosts, smart-home brand Dreame.

“It's why we picked the venue,” a spokesperson cheerily admitted while giving me a brief tour of the show floor.

I’m back here to experience Dreame Next, a four-day-long tech showcase featuring the company's products — although with day one including the unveiling of a rocket-powered electric car (yes, really), the term 'product showcase' feels rather inadequate.

Dreame isn’t just broadening its scope of its products with reveals such as its car. It’s using the event to showcase upgrades to its existing appliance lines, as well as announcing two smartphones, bone-conduction headphones, two smart rings, a smart watch and a pair of diamond-encrusted regular watches, a TV with robotically adjusted speakers, a robot that can do your laundry, a fridge with a fingerprint scanner and a robotic arm, smart glasses, and a closet that includes four distinct washer-dryers and a robot vacuum home. And I think I might have missed a few things.

The intentional Samsung mimicry makes sense in this context. While it's perhaps best known for its TVs, wearables and smartphones, Samsung makes just about every kind of tech device you can think of, from household appliances to speakers and smart car tech.

Dreame wants to be seen as a titan, on a par with the South Korean tech giant.

At the same time, Dreame’s showcase is very much in a category of its own. I’ve sat through dozens of conferences as a journalist, but never have I seen the typical announcement routine — hype-filled trailer, audience applause, 15-minute-long deep dive into a “world-first” innovation, followed by a wrap-up screen with product details — applied to an air conditioning unit before.

Many of its reveals are the kinds of announcements you might get a quick press release about from another brand. Dreame is instead treating each one like it's a flying car. It’s surreal, yet endearing.

Total domination

The whole events exudes a weird charm — be it teleprompter hiccups, a 20-minute business lecture on changing consumer spending habits, watching NBA Hall of famer Dwyane Wade be told he has to take over a dozen photos at the end of his on-stage segment (one with every Dreame exec individually, and more with various groups), or seeing attendees spray ketchup on the floor so that they can then clean it up with a vacuum to win a prize. It's a charm which disguises the company's true intentions.

Dreame wants to take over your world.

That robotic arm-equipped fridge I mentioned? It’s designed to organize and scan everything in your fridge, and then, in conjunction with data collected from your Dreame scales and Dreame smart wearables, help you decide on the perfect meal for your health needs. Your robot vacuum will use its robotic arm and your washing machine to do even more chores for you. Your ring and your phone can control, and get updates from, all the appliances in your home — that is, if you’re all in on the Dreame ecosystem. Your Dreame TV is your smart-home hub.

The idea of an interconnected ecosystem isn’t new. Samsung has pitched a similar vision of complete integration between all the tech in your home and on your person, but Dreame’s vision wants to go from one to 100 faster than its rocket-boosted EV.

It’s impossible to judge its efforts yet, though. None of its new tech is available to the public at the time of writing, meaning we haven’t been able to test it and verify Dreame’s extravagant promises.

What’s more, despite the hyperbolic tone of its announcements, most of the tech here has been debuted already, at the CES or AWE shows earlier this year. However, we still don’t have firm release dates or pricing for these devices — some don’t even have release windows yet, and might remain concepts indefinitely.

So while I want to get excited for Dreame’s vision, I can’t; at least not right now. If it can make good on its promises, the tech world had better watch out for this upstart smart-home brand. And if it falters… well, at least I'll always remember Dreame Next as the strangest tech show I’ve ever been to.

Narwal Flow 2: two-minute review

I’ll be the first to tell you that I have had a hate-love relationship with robot vacuums. However, over the years, I’ve watched as the technology has improved, resulting in better mapping, improved object avoidance, and exciting features. This is why I was all too glad to test the Narwal Flow 2 robot vacuum.

Narwal introduced its 2026 flagship robot vacuum in January, which resulted in a lot of buzz. It’s not the first robot vacuum to have dual cameras, but the way they work with the LM OmniVision AI Model feels like a big leap forward.

During testing, I observed the Narwal Flow 2 robot vacuum recognizing the dirtiness of a floor and adjusting the suction and mopping capabilities. Plus, its ability to 'smart clean', or recognize which areas of your house need deeper cleans, and avoid and identify obstacles is next to none. Although I don’t have pets or babies, the Pet Care Mode and Baby Care Mode are quite cool because they let the Flow 2 find your pet (and play with it), switch to quiet mode near cribs, and avoid crawling zones.

Overall, I found the Narwal Flow 2 ’s smart capabilities very impressive, and its customization capabilities within the app particularly convenient. Its mopping capabilities are its best feature, and when paired with vacuuming, it does a great job of cleaning all floor types — though it doesn't fare as well with edge or corner cleaning. The suction capability wasn’t strong enough to pull super-fine materials like flour from a thick rug, but it did better than other robot vacuums I’ve tested. I would have also liked it to be half an inch shorter so it could fit under my kitchen cabinets.

The Narwal Flow 2 stands out in other ways too, such as its ability to climb over high thresholds, app and voice controls, and video feeds. The dock automatically empties the dust cup, and washes and dries the roller mop with hot water and hot air. I still think you’ll need a vacuum and a wet-dry vacuum on hand for deeper cleans or to reach spaces the robot vacuum can’t go, but the Flow 2 will do a stand-up job at keeping your home pristine between deep cleans.

The Narwal Flow 2 launched in the US in April 2026, with a premium price tag to match its high-end cleaning features. There are plenty of other great robot vacuums that are more affordable (even ones with cameras), but most don’t have the AI capabilities of this model, which really set it apart from the competition.

Narwal Flow 2: price and availability

• Price: $1,499 / AU$2,999 (about £1,100)
• Special price at launch: $1,099 (about £810 / AU$1,500)
• Launch date: April 2026
• Availability: US; from June 2026 in Australia

The Narwal Flow 2 launched in the US on April 13, 2026, with a UK release expected at a later date. Australian availability is from late June 2026. Although the list price for the robot vacuum and the base is $1,499, those who buy it during the launch can snag this combo for $1,099. It’s available directly from Narwal and Amazon, but may expand to other third-party retailers later.

The robovac will set you back AU$2,999 in Australia.

The price makes sense considering that the Flow 2 is outfitted with high resolution cameras, a roller mop, and superb AI capabilities that lets it recognize shoes, cords, pets, and toys, and adjust the cleaning settings depending on the type of dirt, debris, or spill. The dock also has hot water and hot air-drying capabilities — something that lesser models lack. We consider the Narwal Flow 2 to be a premium buy since it costs more than $800 / £650 / AU$1,000.

Our review model came with cleaning solution and one extra dust bag. Accessory replacements are available from Narwal.

Now the question remains, is this model worth $1,499 / AU$2,999? Considering all the features and control users have through the app, I would say yes. I just wish the edge and corner cleaning had matched my expectations. Perhaps an update will improve both settings soon.

• Value score: 3.5/5

Narwal Flow 2: design

• Circular robot vacuum and a self-emptying and self-cleaning base
• Anti-tangle mopping roller brush
• Dual high-definition cameras with a wide view

The Narwal Flow 2 is a black, circular robot vacuum that’s about 13.5 / 35cm inches in diameter and has the capability to lift over thresholds. At 3.7 inches / 9cm, the robot vacuum is relatively tall, and even though it can fit under my couch and baker’s rack, it doesn’t fit under my cabinets.

It has a small rotating brush along the bottom edge that sweeps debris toward the zero-tangling floating brush, where the robot vacuum uses 30,000Pa to suck up debris. The Flow 2 uses a crawler mop for edges; think of it like a roller map that has been flattened so that it’s wide, long, and rotates, using 12N downward pressure to clean floors. The crawler mop can extend 1.8 inches / 5cm from the side.

The robot vacuum comes with a black base that’s 20.5 / 36cm inches tall, 14 inches / 36cm wide, and 17 / 43cm inches deep, and a cord that is 4.8 feet / 1.5m long. Separate clean water and dirty water tanks sit on top of a tank that holds the cleaning solution. Both the robot vacuum and the dock have filters.

The dock also features a dust bag that can last up to 120 days, and colored ambient lighting, which can indicate different things like when there is problem with the robot (eg flashing red lights).I

n addition to LED lights on the robot vacuum itself, the Narwal Flow 2 has dual 1080p cameras with a 136-degree field of view. The robot vacuum uses cameras and AI to recognize objects or pets and either avoid them or note them on the map, captures video and photographs, and provides deeper cleanings.

• Design score: 4.5/5

Narwal Flow 2: performance

• Climbs tall thresholds and avoids objects well
• Solid job at vacuuming and mopping
• Truly hands-free experience and easy-to-use app

I had no issue connecting the Narwal Flow 2 to Wi-Fi or the app. The robot mapped my house in 35 minutes. I had to split and merge a few rooms, but that was simple enough.

As part of my testing, I utilized the robot vacuum like anyone else might – letting it clean my entire house multiple times, directing it to specific rooms (like the kitchen after dinner), or to an area where I’d made a mess (like near my sewing machine). In doing this, I found that the vacuuming and mopping capabilities of the Narwal Flow 2 were solid. The water output was perfect, and by that, I mean my floors weren’t too wet and they dried very quickly.

One of my favorite aspects of this robot vacuum is the roller mop. Some brands opt for circular mop pads that spin, however, I always thought such pads just moved wet dirt and other materials around the floor before the robot had a chance to return to the base to wash the pads.

The Narwal Flow 2 has a roller map that’s wide (almost flattened), and as it rotates, the robot sends clean hot water to the mop so that it’s cleaning the mop as it cleans your floors. A 12N downward pressure of the roller mop also aids in removing stubborn or heavy messes. If the robot vacuum recognizes a significant spill, it will also return to the base to clean the roller before returning to clean the floor again.

The robot easily climbed my thresholds – some of which are two inches / 5cm high – and avoided a lot of objects. In fact, I felt like it stayed too far from objects and edges at first, so I adjusted the cleaning to 'meticulous' within the app and was happier with the results.

I also watched it avoid low overhanging areas like my kitchen cabinets. At least the robot vacuum had the ability to extend the roller mop 1.8 inches / 4.6cm under the cabinet. Still, it wasn’t far enough to clean fully under the cabinet, so I had to use a vacuum to reach under there.

The robot vacuum got stuck once on my bath rug, which has fringe, but that was the only object that it ever has any issue with. it avoided cords and shoes, and even noted them on the map.

While I could customize the suction power of the vacuum, I liked to keep it on Smart so that the suction adjusted based on the floor type and whether the robot sensed dirt or a mess. I liked that the robot vacuum used the LED light in low light areas to clean better. The Narwal Flow 2 didn’t do well with suctioning large objects like medium-sized leaves from my poinsettia plants. This isn’t that big of a deal as most robot vacuums (or vacuums) don’t do well with suctioning larger items.

Although I used the app most of the time to direct the robot vacuum, occasionally, I used one of the 34 voice commands. Sometimes I had to use the app because the commands are limited. For instance, I could tell it to clean my living room, but I couldn’t say, “Clean up the living room and the hallway.” Combining commands wasn’t possible.

The robot vacuum took three hours to clean my entire 1,600-square-foot house, dropping to 31 percent in terms of the battery. In fact, the battery was only at 50% at the 2-hour cleaning mark. It took four hours to fully charge the robot vacuum, which is quick in my opinion.

Overall, I was very happy with how well Narwal Flow 2 kept my house clean of dirt, debris, and kitchen scraps. That said, after running some cleaning tests, there are some areas where it could improve.

Cleaning tests

To begin my testing, I placed ground coffee, flour, and dried flower petals on my kitchen laminate floor and on my living room rug and utilized the vacuum-only feature to see how well the robot could suction different materials. I even made sure to sprinkle ground coffee under my kitchen cabinets, along the edges of my kitchen, and in the corners. Here’s what I observed.

In the kitchen, the robot vacuum increased suction automatically when it went over the flour and the dried flowers, but not over the coffee. It suctioned all of the coffee, all but one flower petal, and most of the flour. Unfortunately, the wheels of the robot vacuum moved a thin film of the flour around on the floor. Where it didn’t succeed was suctioning coffee from the corners, edges, and under the kitchen cabinet.

To be fair, the robot couldn’t fit under the kitchen cabinet. When it came to corners, the robot vacuum suctioned coffee completely in one corner, but not the other. It failed quite miserably with suctioning coffee grounds along the edges.

As for the suction test on the rug, the robot vacuum automatically increased the suction to 'super powerful' when it recognized the material. On the first pass, the robot vacuum picked up some coffee grounds and flour but all of the dried flower petals. I also placed slightly damp poinsettia leaves on the carpet, and the robot vacuum did not pick them up but unintentionally moved them off the rug.

I was disappointed at first, until the robot vacuum went over the coffee and flour three more times – without me instructing it to do so. By the end, 98 percent of coffee grounds had been suctioned. A lot of the flour had been picked up, minus a small amount that had been pushed into the rug. In the end, I thought the suctioning capability on rugs was better than most robot vacuums.

For the final test, I used the vacuum and mop features on my laminate floor. I covered the floor with flour, coffee grounds, a spilled glass of water, chocolate sauce, soy sauce, wing sauce, and creamer. The Narwal Flow 2 cleaned up the wing sauce, soy sauce, water spill, coffee grounds, and flour in a single pass. I was surprised by how smoothly it picked up the chocolate sauce since it’s a tough substance that dries quickly. (I test wet-dry vacuums and even many of them have issues with cleaning slightly dried chocolate sauce in two passes or more.)

When it came to the creamer, the robot vacuum recognized it as a 'spill', which meant it cleaned it up in a single pass then returned to the dock to clean the mop. It then repeated this two more times — cleaning that area and returning to the dock to clean the mop — before it moved on. The floor was not sticky by the time the robot vacuum had finished.

I also placed coffee grounds under the cabinet, in the corners, and along the edges to see if the mop and vacuum combo would result in better cleaning capabilities. When the robot vacuum passed near the cabinets, it extended the mop to the side, and while it picked up a bit, unfortunately, the roller mop couldn’t extend far enough to pick up half of the coffee grounds under the cabinet

When it came to corners, the robot vacuum had the same results using the vacuum and mop as it did during the suction only test. It cleaned edges better with the mop than without it, but the results weren’t as good as I’d hoped. One edge was cleaned very well but a lot of coffee grounds were left along another edge.

To sum it all up, I’d advise utilizing the vacuum and mop features on hard flooring to maximize the cleaning process. The Narwal Flow 2 does an average job edge and corner cleaning. When it comes to carpets, it can pick up a lot of debris, though for the finest materials like flour, you’ll probably need a more powerful vacuum.

Maintenance

When it comes to the Narwal Flow 2 , there isn’t much maintenance you’ll need to do daily or weekly. It took 16 uses of the robot vacuum before I was informed to refill the water tank and empty the dirty water tank.

I would suggest going through the app when you first start using the Narwal Flow 2 to set up the maintenance how you see fit. Head to the “Dock” section and choose what kind of mop drying intensity you prefer (silent, strong, or smart), as well as how often you want the dust bin to be emptied (every time of execution or when the robot determines it needs to be emptied). You can even choose the noise level of the dust emptying.

The base cleans the roller with 140-degree hot water and dries it completely with hot air. The dust bag holds up to 120 days’ worth of debris. In the future, Narwal may roll out a reusable dust bag. The debris filter is washable and should be cleaned once a month. You’ll need to remove the bottom tray of the base and clean it out once or twice a month as lots of debris and dirt accumulates there.

Within the app, you can keep an eye on which accessories need to be replaced and/or how much longer they will last. For instance, the zero-tangling floating brush on my testing robot is still good for another 144 hours of use.

• Performance score: 4/ 5

Narwal Flow 2: app

• Easy app with fantastic 2D and 3D mapping and insights
• Cleaning customization options (AI clean, vacuum and mop, vacuum then mop, vacuum, mop, and room customization)
• Video features and control through app

I had an easy time using the Narwal app to set up the Narwal Flow 2 . Although there is a 3D mapping option, I preferred using the 2D option and had an easy time labeling the rooms and seeing things like rugs on the map. I ran into some issues trying to split my living room and study on the map. The rooms have a wide doorway with pocket doors, so I understand the robot thinking they are the same room, but when trying to split them, the map says in doing so the rooms are “too small.” This is odd considering that my bathroom is about a sixth the size of each of those rooms and it was considered its own room on the map.

I tried to set up my corridor as a no-go zone (the floors are not sealed and can’t be mopped), but unfortunately, when I did this, the robot vacuum wouldn’t pass the corridor to clean the bathroom. Thankfully I was able to go around this with the room customization feature which allows me to customize the type of cleaning I want for each room. Therefore, I designed the corridor to be a vacuum-only space so that the robot vacuum would be able to reach the bathroom where I have it designated to be vacuumed and mopped.

Within the app, I can choose to clean the whole house, certain rooms, or even specific zones within those rooms. I can also customize this further by informing the robot vacuum to vacuum and mop, vacuum then mop, vacuum only, or mop only.

One of my favorite features is the Navo assistant that sits below the map offering insight on the cleaning or information that’s relevant, like if the vacuum has gotten stuck. If you click it, the assistant shows you the voice commands that you can use with the robot vacuum and lets you adjust the language and voice tone.

The Dock button informs users of the dust bag status and touch-on-demand features like dock dust emptying, dust bag dry and disinfecting, mop washing, mop drying, and adjusting the ambient lighting effects.

Users can watch a live video from the cameras on the Narwal Flow 2 . You can record or take videos, control the direction of the robot, and direct the robot to clean. There is also a Cruise feature that takes photos on a specific route through your house and stores them in the app.

On top of scheduling cleanings and monitoring the cleaning history, you can also adjust the cleaning settings, from the suction power to the mopping humidity, coverage precision (smart, standard, and meticulous), and set things like intensive corner cleaning, priority cleaning for carpet, intensive carpet cleaning, intelligent room splitting and rewashing of the mop, high altitude mode, child lock, do not disturb feature, obstacle avoidance strategy, and smart object detection. It’s also here where you can set up your Narwal Flow 2 with Alexa, Google Home, or Matter.

The Pet-friendly Mode section is very extensive. Users choose which pets they have (cats, dogs, or both) and designate either easy cleaning in specific pet areas or enhanced cleaning in areas that were missed because pets were present. It also allows you to find your pet and/or “play” with your pet by attracting the pet to the robot with a specific sound.

• App score: 4.5/5

Narwal Flow 2: specs

Narwal Flow 2: should you buy it?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

Narwal Flow 2: also consider

If you're not sure whether the Narwal Flow 2 is the right robot vacuum for you, here are two other options to think about.

How I tested the Narwal Flow 2

I tested the Narwal Flow 2 for two weeks on my laminate and historic wood floors and medium-to-large pile rugs. To review all the vacuuming and mopping capabilities, I conducted several tests with various materials (water, chocolate syrup, soy sauce, coffee grounds, and flour) on different types of flooring to see how well the robot suctioned and cleaned the floor. This included testing different features like spot cleaning, video capabilities, mapping, voice commands, and so much more.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed March 2026

Roborock Saros 20: two-minute review

Roborock has raised the bar so high with its robot vacuums that it must be struggling to find new ways to improve, but the Saros 20 manages to do just that. It takes everything that was great about its predecessor — the Roborock Saros 10R; one of the best robot vacuums we've tested — and adds a couple of intriguing features on top.

While a lengthy feature list might be eye-catching, it needs to be in service of great cleaning power, and I'm pleased to report that Saros 20 doesn't disappoint on that front. In my tests, the bot delivered efficient vacuuming (I was especially impressed with its ability to pull pet hair from carpet), and was an equally capable mopper. Reliable and accurate navigation meant the cleaning coverage was always thorough, with the LiDAR puck-free design ensuring the bot was shallow enough to slide under low furniture with ease. Thanks to an extendable side sweeper and mop pad, room edges didn't get neglected, either.

Primary amongst the new additions on this robot vacuum is a 3.0 version of Roborock's 'AdaptiLift' chassis, which can now lift the bot over even taller steps, as well as enabling it to hover at exactly the right height for effective cleaning on chunky rugs and thick carpets. I could see clear evidence of this upgrade in action, with the Saros 20 adjusting itself as it made its way about in my tests. From a robovac's point of view, my home is relatively straightforward, but I suspect upgrade will really come into its own if you have thick rugs or especially tall room thresholds.

As is the standard with premium robovacs these days, the dock will take care of the vast majority of maintenance tasks for you — not only simple things like emptying the dust cup, but also washing (with hot water) and drying (with hot air) the mop pads, topping up water and dispensing detergent. It's so effective that the only thing I've had to do over around a month of use is refill the main water tank and empty out the dirty one.

New to this model is the fact that the jauntily named 'RockDock' will also dry off the internal dust bag, to stop things getting musty over time. I'm not sure this is essential, although if your bot will be tackling damp debris, it could be key to avoiding things getting pongy or unhygienic.

The Roborock Saros 20 is ultra-pricey, but that's no surprise given the amount of cutting-edge tech crammed in here, and the extensive feature list. Nor is the pricing out of whack with other brands' flagship models. If you want the best of the best, the Saros 20 should be in the mix. However, given the rate at which Roborock releases new models, I'd expect discounts to start to appear fairly quickly, so I'd still hang on a few months to avoid paying full whack.

That's the short version; read on for my full Roborock Saros 20 review.

Roborock Saros 20 review: price & availability

• List price: $1,599.99 / £1,309 / AU$2,999
• Available: Widely, including US, UK and AU
• Launched: Announced Jan 2026, on sale from Feb 2026

The Roborock Saros 20 was unveiled at CES in January 2026, and first went on sale in various European countries from February, at a price of €1,499. As of late March, it's now also available in US, UK and Australia, at a list price of $1,599.99 / £1,309 / AU$2,999.

Regardless of where you live, this bot sits at the top of the premium price bracket. The high price is somewhat justified by the amount of cutting-edge tech crammed in here, the high build quality and the extensive feature list. This is one of the most capable robovacs on the market. However, some of the capabilities are nice-to-haves rather than essentials, and many people will be able to get away with paying less for a lower-specced machine, with very little compromise on performance.

It's also worth noting that Roborock releases new models at quite a rapid rate — the Saros is one of three new bots to be unveiled at CES — and as a result we tend to see prices dropping pretty quickly. If you're willing to be patient, you should be able to avoid paying full price on this model. In fact, at time of writing there's already an early bird deal that knocks off $210 in the US, and £180 off in the UK.

• Value for money score: 3.5 out of 5

Roborock Saros 20 specs

Roborock Saros 20 review: design

• Chassis boosts the bot over thresholds and hovers it over thick carpet
• Two spinning mop pads, one of which extends to clean edges
• Dock takes care of most maintenance, including drying the dust bag

Roborock has honed its robot vacuum designs to near perfection over the years, and the Saros 10 is a feast of features picked from previous models, plus a few all-new additions.

The Roborock Saros 20 is an upgraded version of the excellent Roborock Saros 10R and has a sister model, the Saros 20 Sonic (itself an upgrade of the Saros 10). The headline new addition is that the AdaptiLift Chassis — essentially, the little feet that can raise the robovac up — has been upgraded to a 3.0 version, and gained some cool new capabilities in the process. As well as enabling the Saros 20 to vault itself over tall room thresholds, and lift itself out of the situation if it gets stuck, it has a further trick that makes it especially good at handling thick carpet.

The bot can assess the depth of the carpet or rug in front of it, and elevate itself to one of a selection of preset heights, where it will hover as it cleans. This theoretically means an efficient clean without the risk of getting bogged down in the fibers. It's suitable for pile up to 1.18in / 3cm.

One key point of difference between the Saros 20 and its Sonic sibling is the mopping setup. While the 20 Sonic has a single, D-shaped mop pad, the 20 has dual spinning discs. One can kick out to the side to mop close to the edges of rooms.

In fact, there's a whole clever lifting-and-lowering setup that can adjust to exactly what's going on under-bot. If the Saros 20 is tackling a mop-only task, its main roller will be elevated so floors get a thorough scrub without fine particles getting spread around or stuck in the roller. If tasked with just vacuuming, it'll leave its mop pads in its dock. And if it's on a mixed route, it can raise or lower its main roller and mops as required.

On the vacuuming front, you've got a roller that includes rubber fins and bristles, to agitate carpet fibers and sweep up debris from hard floor. It's split in the middle to help combat hair wrap, and the whole thing can be popped out from its casing for cleaning if required. This roller is supplemented by a side sweeper that can extend out to one side when the bot needs to sweep the edges of a room.

Another notable feature is the navigation system. The Saros 20 uses an upgraded version of 'StarSight', Roborock's own navigation technology that does not require a raised LiDAR puck to be positioned on top of the robot. This means it's shallow in profile, and as a result can sneak under relatively low furniture.

The object recognition has been improved, with Roborock promising recognition of over 200 common object types, as small as 0.8in / 2cm in height or width. In contrast, its Sonic sibling model uses more traditional LiDAR, but has a LiDAR puck that can raise or retract as required.

The jauntily named 'RockDock' clean station is the all-singing, all-dancing type that empties the bins, tops up the water tanks and washes and dries the mop pads for you. As is the current trend, Roborock has upped the cleaning temperatures to tackle grease and dirt more effectively: the mop pad cleaning water is 212°F / 100°C (i.e. boiling) and the drying air is 131°F / 55°C. Another added trick is that the dock will also dry its base and internal dust bag, apparently to lessen the risk of mold or odors.

• Design score: 5 out of 5

Roborock Saros 20 review: performance

• Although hesitant at first, AdaptiLift lifting works well on tall thresholds
• Excellent at tackling pet hair on carpet
• Even, full-coverage mopping and very good vacuuming too

To get started with my review, I set the Saros 20 up in my home and used it as my main vacuum for around three weeks. During this time, I scheduled regular cleans of different types, and observed the bot's capabilities. Having tested a number of Roborock robot vacuums now, I was expecting a straightforward setup process, and the Saros 20 didn't let me down.

Getting it hooked up to my WiFi was painless, and the speedy initial mapping run produced a map that was decently accurate, even if it did think my lounge was a 'sunroom' (what even is a sunroom?).

In general, it just trundled out and completed its scheduled cleaning tasks with no fuss. It never got lost or needed rescuing, and based on the data it almost always followed a logical route around each room, too.

However, I did experience a few odd behaviors following more specific cleaning requests. Once, I sent it out to mop, but the mop pads were completely dry. Another time, I tasked it with a simple Zone clean, but rather than just cleaning the designated 1.5 square-meter area, it took a very convoluted, 20-minute sightseeing tour of my living room, stopping only when I instructed it to 'Return to dock'. However, in day-to-day use it proved reliable and behaved how I expected and wanted it to.

Vacuuming

After a couple of weeks of regular vacuuming with the Saros 20, I was impressed. It consistently did a thorough job on both carpets and hard flooring, and I didn't have any issues with clogging during self-empty, either — even though it was dealing with a decent amount of pet hair.

I also ran TechRadar's standard robot vacuum suction tests, using loose tea (to represent fine particles), dry oats (to represent chunky particles) and dog hair (self-explanatory). I tested pickup on both a mid-pile carpet and a tiled floor, and the results were very good.

On carpet, almost all the oats were cleared in a couple of passes — with only a few being flicked out of my chosen cleaning zone — and the robovac made a very good attempt at clearing the tea, too (a purposefully very tricky task). On hard floor the results were equally strong, although it required a higher setting to tackle the finest dusty tea particles.

The Saros 20 handled oats at the edge of a room fairly well, but I did need to go in with a manual vacuum and a crevice tool to clear these completely. As with all robovacs I've tested, the side sweeper brush can only do so much, but this model's sweeper handled the challenge better than most.

I was most impressed with how well the Saros 20 handled dog hair on carpet. I rubbed a fistful of loose hair clippings into our living room floor, being sure to dig it right into the fibers. I then set the Saros 20 on a Zone clean using the maximum vacuum settings. After two passes only a fine layer of hair remained, and two more all-but cleared it all. That's an excellent result — typically, to clear pet hair you really need to get a manual vacuum out.

Mopping

In general use, the Saros 20 put in a seriously good shift when it came to mopping. The rotating mop pads did a stellar job of cleaning my tiled kitchen floor, covering the whole space evenly, removing marks and leaving a streak-free finish. It also reliably avoided mopping the thin, canvas rug, and I could see one of its pads popping out to one side as required to mop the edges of rooms.

To challenge the robovac further, I dribbled soy sauce and smeared honey on the tiled kitchen floor, then sent it out on a two-pass zone clean. It smeared the soy sauce about a bit on the first pass, then cleared it more effectively on the second. The honey put up more of a fight, and while the two passes did remove some of this sticky substance, I still needed to go in with a cloth to clear the remainder.

That's not a surprise — no matter what the marketing materials would have you believe, no robot vacuum can match a damp cloth and a bit of elbow grease when it comes to cleaning hard floors.

Note too that this style of mop pad isn't a particularly choice for sticky or messy spills. The pads are only being cleaned when the bot returns to its dock, so to a certain extent the bot can only really smear the spillage around. (Roller mops, which are fed with clean water and the dirt scraped off as they go, tend to deliver more of a thorough mop. Although that mop style has its own down-sides, which I won't get into here.)

The Saros 20 reliably dropped off its mop pads in the dock when embarking on a vacuum-only run, but I was surprised — given the precise lifting/lowering setup this robovac has — that the rotating side brush didn't lift when mopping, even though the bot was on a mop-only pass. It pained me to see those spindly fibers spinning their way towards a puddle of soy sauce, and knowing they wouldn't be cleaned during the mop pad washing process.

Navigation & object avoidance

The Saros 20 performed well on my object avoidance task, skirting carefully around a shoe and pausing to judge the gap between two objects before slowly making its way between them. The performance here wasn't perfect — some things got pushed around when they should have been avoided, and as with every robot vacuum I've used, the Saros 20 couldn't resist chowing down on a cable or two — but it's good enough that I'd still recommend this bot for use in a fairly cluttered home.

I was especially interested in the advanced 'AdaptiLift' features, designed for use on thick carpet and for crossing tall thresholds. There was clear evidence that something was happening; on several occasions I could see the bot lifting and lowering in response to its surroundings. Although hesitant at first, the Saros 20 also learned how to cross the chunky room threshold between our wood laminate hall and carpeted living room, by backing up, raising its body up at the front, and approaching at speed.

Dock

The dock cleaning features are very impressive. After mopping the honey and soy sauce mess I expected to need to remove the mop pads and wash them manually, but after the self-clean cycle was complete they looked (and smelled) good as new, and with no stickiness to the touch, either.

I also had no issues with the self-empty mechanism jamming, as can happen when a robot vacuum has gobbled up too much pet hair. The automatic cleaning fluid dispensing is useful, and in general the dock just takes care of a good chunk of the maintenance so you just don't have to think about it.

I'm yet to make my mind up on the self-drying feature. The dock emits a humming noise while this is going on, and while it's not loud it is understandably noisier than a dock that doesn't have this mode. I've never had problems with a dock getting musty or clogging due to dampness, but that's not to say this drying feature isn't doing good things for my robot vacuum setup hygiene.

• Performance score: 4.5 out of 5

Roborock Saros 20 review: app

• Oodles of control options
• Fairly easy to navigate, with a few exceptions
• Perhaps a little overwhelming for newcomers

As a seasoned robot vacuum tester, I'm generally a fan of the Roborock app. It offers plenty of control options, is pretty logical in layout, and I've never had any issues with bugs, glitches, or sloppy mistranslations. However, the sheer volume of information that Roborock is wrangling here means things can get a little overwhelming.

There are a few sections I feel could be streamlined, and I can imagine that a newcomer who's not especially tech-savvy could have problems making sense of it all. Thankfully, the presets and 'smart' options mean even if you haven't dug into all the various settings, you can still achieve some very decent cleaning.

• App score: 4 out of 5

Should you buy the Roborock Saros 20?

How I tested the Roborock Saros 20

I used the Saros 20 as my main robot vacuum for around a month, during which time it followed a set cleaning schedule of mopping and vacuuming. During this time I got a feel for its cleaning capabilities as well as any failings. I also ran a series of standardized cleaning tests to get a more objective view of its position in the wider market. These included testing the vacuuming powers on carpet and hard floor, and with fine and chunky particles as well as dog hair. To test mopping, I used honey and soy sauce, and for object avoidance I laid out an obstacle course for it to make its way around.

I compared my findings to the many other robot vacuums I've tested, and weighed everything up against the price to ascertain if it offers strong value for money.

Read more about how we test robot vacuum cleaners

• First reviewed March 2026

• The Deebot X12 OmniCyclone from Ecovacs tackles particularly tough stains
• It identifies dried-on dirt and pre-treats it using high-pressure water jets
• Once the dirt is softened, the OmniCyclone's extra-long mop scrubs it away

Ecovacs, maker of some of the best robot vacuums we've tested here at TechRadar, has just launched a new flagship model designed to tackle particularly tough dried-on stains that most robovacs would fail to clean.

The Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone uses infrared and camera-based detection to identify particularly tough stains like muddy pawprints and spilled juice that you may not have even noticed before they dried. It pre-treats them using high-pressure water jets to soften them, then uses its roller mop to scrub them away.

The extra-long mop is rinsed with fresh water throughout cleaning to avoid spreading dirt or creating streaks. It won't make your carpets wet either; when moving off a hard floor, the OmniCyclone automatically raises and covers its mop head to keep everything dry.

The OmniCyclone cleans particularly close to baseboards, while also staying a safe distance from obstacles like pets and charging cables, and furniture.

After it's finished cleaning, the OmniCyclone's dock will handle messy jobs including washing and drying the mop, emptying debris, and managing cleaning solution automatically. It also has a fast-charging system called PowerBoost, which means it's ready to start cleaning again faster than other wet-dry robovacs.

The OmniCyclone is on sale now for $1,499 (about £1,100 / AU$2,100) direct from Ecovacs and from Amazon. We'll be testing it soon to see how it compares with rivals from the likes of Roborock and Dreame, so stick with TechRadar to find out whether the OmniCyclone can scrub its way to first place.

I’d never have guessed that consumer and industrial drone manufacturer DJI would ever consider bringing a robot vac to the dining table, but I was wrong. And when you think about, why shouldn’t they? After all, the company’s amazing squadron of drones are capable of following users through difficult terrain, even through woodland with tree branches everywhere, with breath-taking accuracy and speed.

Given that navigation and obstacle avoidance are prerequisites of any successful robot vac, it makes perfect sense to use established drone navigation tech in a robot vac, or even a robot lawn mower. And since DJI would presumably never dream of sharing its navigation technology with anyone else, they may as well make their own robot vac. And that it did.

I’ve already given the new transparent DJI Romo P a very favourable review after putting it through its paces and watching it work over the course of a week. I also spent a lot of time analyzing its cleaning power on both hard floor and carpet. However, one facet of this new upstart has truly amazed me and that’s its extremely good obstacle avoidance.

In fact, I think that the DJI Romo P’s obstacle avoidance represents one of the most technologically sophisticated navigation systems yet deployed in a consumer robot vacuum cleaner. Unlike cheap and simple robot vacuums that rely on bumper switches or basic infrared sensors, the Romo P combines dual fisheye vision sensors with three solid-state LiDAR units that, according to DJI, bring ‘millimeter-level obstacle sensing’ into the home.

When combined, this multi-sensor data allows the Romo P to identify not just large, basic obstacles like furniture legs and walls, but also extremely thin obstacles as narrow as 2mm in thickness. And this means it is also a dab hand at dodging thin phone cables of any length, a myriad of toys including Lego bricks and, if approached head on, even flat objects like train tickets and playing cards. This level of discrimination is quite significant because credit-card thin items are among the hardest for robot vacuums to detect.

Navigation and obstacle sensing hardware in itself only gathers data but making intelligent decisions from that data is equally important. Hence, DJI and, it must be said, other big players like Roborock and Dreame, also incorporate onboard machine learning algorithms — including AI-assisted learning — in their premium bots that interpret the combined sensors’ inputs. These algorithms enable the robot to recognize different types of obstacles and choose the most appropriate course of action.

Sometimes it will weave close to narrow legs of furniture to clean nearby, while other times it will give a wide berth to most smaller objects. This contextual awareness apparently helps minimize cleaning interruptions and prevents the bot from getting stuck or inadvertently spreading messes, which is something I observed when the Romo P actively avoided a large dollop of tomato ketchup in my review’s mopping test.

I’ve also noticed the logical routes the Romo P takes every time it performs a task, and I can only assume that this is also down to its spatial awareness and ability to perform almost human-like movement through a maze of obstacles.

For my review test I tried to prove this and set up an assault course using a variety of items both large and small. I was frankly amazed at the speed with which the Romo P navigated its way around the obstacles without stopping for a breath or knocking anything over. In fact, it was like watching an Olympic slalom skier in action.

Anyway, this got me thinking. So for this article I set up another two, even more extreme tests and not only focussed on the Romo P, but enlisted the help of my trusty Roborock Saros 10R, another robot vac with very decent obstacle avoidance.

By the way, the Romo P offers three levels of obstacle avoidance in the DJI Home app: Obstacle Avoidance Priority, Standard and Cleaning Priority. For the following tests I selected the Standard mode because it better balances the gap between cleaning and avoidance.

Roborock Saros 10R vs DJI Romo P obstacle tests

I’ve been using the Roborock Saros 10R since April 2025 and, along with its stablemate the Saros 10, it is one of the best bots I’ve ever had the pleasure of reviewing. So I thought I’d see how well it faired against DJI’s new Romo P when it comes to negotiating a challenging obstacle course.

For this comparison test I carefully positioned a wide range of obstacles including dog toys of various sizes, phone cables of different lengths, three titchy diffuser oil bottles, a small leaflet of stamps, a mock train ticket, a packet of cigarette papers, two thin black lids, a silver spanner, a small screwdriver and a sock.

I created two different tests because I wanted to see if either bot had learned from previous mistakes. However, I can’t categorically say if they learned anything from Test 1 because I’ve never seen any robot do exactly the same thing twice. They’re robots, after all, and they quite literally have minds of their own.

Anyway, back to the two tests which started with the Saros 10R followed by the Romo P. Both models were commanded to go from their dock positions (the Saros in the hall and Romo in the lounge) and head to the kitchen over a patterned rug. They were then commanded to return to the dock.

Although they were both coming from different areas, I made sure that both bots were given equally challenging tasks, or as close as I could get it. Setting both robots to leave from the same area would have entailed remapping the whole home on one of the bots and I simply didn’t have the time or, for that matter, the inclination. However, as the video demonstrates, both bots faced equally complex assault courses.

Test 1

Roborock Saros 10R

The Saros 10R happily jaunted into the room and simply headed straight over the cigarette papers and one phone cable but then made a very good fist of reaching its goal without causing any chaos in about one minute. Its return trip was more haphazard and it rode over a small cable and the stamps and, after having a good think with it’s camera facing the cigarette papers, it decided, what the heck, and continued onwards, carrying the packet into the hall before depositing it as it approached its base station. Its return trip took 35 seconds.

DJI Romo P

Now it was the Romo P’s turn, and for this I selected its ‘Standard’ obstacle avoidance mode which is the best option for better cleaning performance. Straight away it turned towards the spanner and, rather disappointingly, rode right over it. Typical! It also rode over the book of stamps before continuing with a weird detour around a small phone cable. However, it still completed the task in just 48 seconds.

Its return trip was also a bit wayward and took exactly one minute though it did glance the small screwdriver (understandable) and rode over the stamps. But this time it stopped at the spanner before detouring around a hair scrunch before returning to dock.

I have to say that both of them performed extremely well in this test and I was especially surprised by how adeptly the Saros 10R handled the course. However, the Romo P was clearly a lot quicker to complete the task.

Test 2

Roborock Saros 10R

The Saros 10R approached the cigarette paper packet and pushed it aside before heading over the black phone cable. It then carefully worked its way between the two diffuser bottles before noticing it had run over the short cable and reversing. It then continued, glancing a small black plastic cap before running over the second one, completing the task in 45 seconds.

Its return trip was less successful. It immediately rode over the black cap and, after some time thinking at the small bottles, ran headlong over the black cable, which it dragged most of the way home. Time: 38 seconds

DJI Romo P

A perfect gold-medal run. This time the Romo avoided everything, including the spanner, the cigarette paper packet, the stamps and both black caps. An amazing achievement in 48 seconds flat.

However, Rom(e)o got very cocky on its 50-second trip home and rode over the screwdriver, stamps and cigarette packet (twice) as if it had had enough testing for one day and just wanted to get home as quickly as possible. You’ve got to laugh.

Test 3

DJI Romo P

For this final test I used just the Romo P and selected it’s ‘Obstacle Avoidance Priority’ mode which further enhances its navigation capabilities for ultra-cluttered homes. I even added some smaller obstacles like a thin piece of cardboard, along with the black caps and stamp booklet from the previous tests. While the Romo P did a bit more thinking and a couple of detours, it nailed the run with no major issues to report other than its side brush tampering with the thin slice of cardboard. Another gold-medal result.

While these tests in no way represent the real world (at least I’d like to hope so), they just go to show how refined the navigation is on both of these models. Yet while the Saros 10R’s obstacle avoidance can be considered perfectly acceptable for everyday scenarios, I have to give the winning rosette to the Romo P for a more accurate and speedy approach when it comes to overall navigation and the perfected art of obstacle dodging.

DJI Romo P: two-minute review

On the face of it, it’s a perfectly logical step for a highly established drone manufacturer like DJI to venture into the smart-home world of automated floor cleaning. After all, the Chinese company’s drones have been boasting autonomous navigation since 2016 and successful robot vacuuming is much more about accurate navigation and successful obstacle avoidance than it is about raw suction power.

The Romo P marks an ambitious first step for DJI into the world of smart-home floor cleaning and I think the company’s tech bods have mostly hit the nail on the head. The Romo P’s key feature is its sophisticated navigation system combining dual fisheye cameras with solid-state LiDAR to enable precise obstacle detection — even for items as thin as 0.08 inches / 2mm. Believe me, this model truly impresses when it comes to avoiding obstacles of most sizes.

With a whopping 25,000Pa suction and extendable cleaning brushes and mops for edge coverage, the Romo P delivers flagship-level performance on hard floors and it’s not bad on carpet either; at least no worse than the majority. The ROMO P's self-cleaning dock is equally impressive, offering dust collection, automated mop washing and decently long maintenance intervals of ‘up to 200 days’ according to DJI.

Smart features like remote monitoring through the robot’s front camera, app control and voice assistant integration enhance convenience, although these have also introduced some privacy considerations which are typical of connected home devices.

Overall, I’d say that the Romo P is one of the most technologically advanced models I’ve seen to date. It vacuums hard floors exceedingly well, isn't bad on carpet and its navigation and obstacle avoidance is second to none. However, its dock’s dust bag is on the small side which isn’t great for pet owners and the air intake when emptying the robot’s bin could easily clog with pet hair if you don’t run enough cleaning schedules. Otherwise this is a brilliant opening salvo from DJI in an arena that it is already chock full of very competent autonomous robot cleaners.

DJI Romo P: price & availability

• List price £1,299 / €1,899 / AU$2,299
• Launch date April 2026
• Availability UK, Germany, Netherlands, Australia

The DJI Romo P has finally been launched to market in the UK, Germany, Netherlands and Australia. As of writing, the ROMO P model we are reviewing here is available to pre-order in the UK from DJI Retail at a price of £1,299, with dispatch from 15 April. However, it is also available to buy right now in Germany and the Netherlands for €1,899.

In Australia, its retail price will set you back AU$2,299 when full but, at the time of writing, it's already discounted by AU$300 on Amazon and other stores.

These figures put the Romo P firmly in the upper bracket of robot vacs, along with premium models from Roborock and Dreame. For instance, Roborock’s new, to-be-reviewed Saros 20 retails at £1,129 / AU$2,999, which is roughly in the same ball park as the Romo P. However, the Saros 20 is slim enough to venture under low furniture and mount thresholds up to 8.8cm, which the Romo P can’t compete with. But on the other hand, the Romo P’s navigation and obstacle avoidance is more impressive than the Saros 20 and much more suited to very cluttered households. Swings and roundabouts spring to mind.

According to research, the entire Romo series is currently rolling out region by region rather than globally all at once. Aside from China, we believe it’s set for a rollout in several European markets, including Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

As of April 2026, availability in the United States and Japan has not been officially confirmed or announced by DJI, so launch dates for those regions remain pending.

• Value score: 4/5

DJI Romo 3: specs

DJI Romo P: design

• Unique transparent dock and bot
• A full banquet of navigational aids
• Not squat enough for low furnishings

I’m coming to this review as a big fan of DJI and have reviewed many of its drones and stabilised cameras over the past decade or so. Granted, the company’s first slew of Phantom drones never had any autonomous navigation systems on board aside from GPS receivers and downward-facing sensors but that all changed with the launch of the Phantom 4 in 2016, which was the first DJI drone to feature an advanced obstacle avoidance system and high-level autonomous navigation capabilities.

Well what a difference a decade makes because today’s fleet of DJI drones are so insanely adept at self navigation they can follow — and keep up with — a user through pretty dense woodland while avoiding all manner of obstacles in their path.

While I like to think I have my ear to the ground regarding all things DJI, I have to admit that I did not see this hybrid robot coming. And what a bot it has turned out to be. Yes, I’ve read the news about 7,000 or so DJI Romos around the world being accidentally accessed by an early adopter who just wanted to steer his Romo using his PlayStation controller. DJI is said to have fixed this glitch and we can only hope this never happens again.

But truth is, when you opt to have your home filled with smart gear, that’s a risk you take. For all I know my security cameras could be filming my every move and my smart virtual assistants could be listening in to every conversation. After all, we’ve all experienced those weird moments when we spot an advertisement in our social media feeds for a product we were privately discussing within earshot of our phones. Coincidence? Who knows. Welcome to the 21st century.

My editor sent me the flagship Romo P variant with a unique transparent frontage on the dock and the same on the robot’s top shell. However, there are another two Romo variants available: the Romo A with transparent robot top and white base station, and the Romo S which is all white and the cheapest of the bunch.

Looking at the paucity of specs on the range, all three variants have the same suction power (25,000Pa) and mechanical features, plus cleaning solution and dust box drying ability, but only the P model comes with a floor deodoriser and dust bag UV disinfection. In fact, the only difference between the Romo A and Romo S is that the A has a transparent robot appearance and the S is all white. Finalised pricing hasn't been announced yet but it looks like the Romo A’s transparent top could cost up to £200 (about $270 / AU$380) more, which seems a bit steep.

But I digress. I wasn’t sure what my final thoughts would be on unboxing the ROMO P but I certainly loved the notion of a transparent household product. However, I’ll admit that I was dreading my wife’s reaction on unveiling this machine and its dock in the lounge because she has such impeccable taste in design. Well my jaw hit the floor when she said she loved the look of the entire package. I do too, though, just to prove how subjective style is, my tech-obsessed brother thought it was pug ugly and said it reminded him of Apple’s coloured 1998 range of transparent iMac G3s.

I personally think the Romo P’s futuristic base station looks more like Roborock’s QRevo Curv series, which isn’t my favourite, it has to be said. However, I’m prepared to forgive the bulbous shape of this dock because I love seeing all the gorgeous transparency and, more crucially, the inner parts and workings of both the dock and the robot. To be more accurate, you can’t actually see any moving parts on the dock but you can see its smaller-than-average 2.4-liter dust bag exploding outwards against its clear Perspex-style cover when it’s emptying the contents of the robot’s much smaller dust receptacle. However, you can see some moving parts in the robot unit, most notably the spinning nubs that are attached to the robot’s two spinning mops.

I’ve tested many robot vacs over the years and have seen some pretty poorly built and designed bots moving around my home, but I have to say that the Romo P is easily one of the best built models I’ve ever come across. The plastics look unbreakable, and the fit and finish throughout is exemplary. But then I knew this would be the case because everything DJI turns its hands to is built to well above average standards.

Let’s take a look at both the Romo P robot and its base station in more detail.

Robot design

Unlike the majority of flagship models coming out of the Roborock and Dreame stables that boast a low operating height of just 3.1 inches / 7.98cm, the Romo P clocks in at 3.8 inches / 9.7cm so it won’t scuttle under very low furnishings. Its width, however, is the standard 13.8 inches / 35cm.

Like many hybrid bots these days, the Romo P both vacuums and mops using a split Roborock-style tangle-free roller for the vacuuming function and two spinning mops on the rear that appear to be a little more plush and a tad more absorbent than others I’ve seen. Also like most of it competitors, the right-hand mop articulates outwards by a few inches for cleaning around furniture legs, along skirting boards and, to some degree, in corners. However, unlike some high-end hybrids that either raise their mops on carpet or leave them behind in the dock when vacuuming, this bot’s mopping pads remain fixed in position though they at least raise up when on carpet.

This model also comes with two front-mounted side-spinning brushes instead of just one, and that’s a massive bonus in my mind because, well, two brushes are obviously better than one. What’s more, one of the brushes extends by an inch or two to sweep debris in tight corners and along walls into the path of the robot’s suction.

And speaking of suction, the Romo P sports a whopping 25,000 Pascals of dust-grabbing oomph which is on par with the Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro but still shy of the Dreame Matrix10’s 30,000Pa and Roborock’s soon-to-be launched Saros 20, which boasts a whopping 36,000Pa. Where will it end?

Where most of today’s flagship models are able to mount thresholds of between 0.6 inches / 2cm and 1.6 inches / 4cm in height, this one can only manage about 1.5cm at a pinch so perhaps avoid it if you have any protruding thresholds between your rooms.

I also noticed that it can’t scale the edge of a thin, loose rug. I have one such vintage rug on the hard floor in the lounge and the Romo P simply cannot get over the front lip where practically every other bot I’ve tested manages to eventually make it. I’m not sure if it has something do with the twin spinning brushes that are always flush with the floor or if the undercarriage is set low for better suction, but it means I have had to stick the rug’s leading edge down using some sticky rug tape.

When it comes to all-important navigation, this model is on another level. According to the spec sheet, all Romo models are equipped with ‘High-Performance Binocular Fisheye Vision Sensors and Dual-Transmitter Solid-State LiDARs’. DJI emphasises that its drone guidance tech has been adapted for use in this first fleet of robot vacs and I’m inclined to believe every word because, on my evidence, the Romo’s obstacle avoidance is insanely good.

Believe me, I’ve tested dozens upon dozens of robot vacs over the past six years or so and I can’t remember seeing any other model steering through a minefield of obstacles with such elegant precision, with hardly any pausing or spinning around, and with impressive pace, too. But more on this in our Performance chapter.

By the way, for those who like the idea of being able to watch the world through their robot’s camera, you can do just that with this model and, like others on the market, drive it around the house like an RC car. You can also operate it using various voice commands.

Score ref: 4/5

Dock design

As mentioned above, the transparent Romo P’s dock is reminiscent of Roborock’s Qrevo Curv range. I must say I’m rather smitten by it and, despite its sci-fi looks, it seems to magically meld into its surroundings — and that’s more that one can say for many other robot base stations.

As is the norm, this dock comes with the obligatory dust-emptying function from robot to the dock’s smaller-than-average 2.4-liter dust bag via a large 16mm waste port. It also boasts full autonomous mop cleaning using hot water at 140˚F / 60˚C (Roborock’s is nearer 212˚F / 100˚C) and hot air mop-drying. However, unlike Roborock and Dreame’s cleaning basins, which self-clean and come with removable trays for deeper cleaning, the Romo P’s has a fixed base which is much harder to clean by hand.

Unlike every other robot vac I’ve reviewed, the Romo doesn’t empty the contents of its own bin into the dock’s larger bin bag on completing a task. Instead, it starts to dry the robot’s undercarriage and dustbin area for a period of time, along with a blast of UV rays for disinfection purposes. This dust box drying sequence is to prevent moisture from any mopping sessions from mixing with the dry debris and causing caked-on muck on the robot’s undercarriage. Instead, the bin from subsequent clean-ups empties just before its next task. I think it’s a great method and possibly the way forward for all robot vacs. However, I really do think this model’s dust bag should have been bigger because mine is nearly a third full with pet hair after a week or use.

On the mopping front, the Romo P’s dock is also equipped with a sealed bottle of hard floor detergent and, unique to the P model, another sealed bottle of deodoriser which does make the floor smell rather fragrant. Since the bottles are sealed, you can’t fill them with third party solutions, which isn’t great it must be said.

Despite the unit’s transparency, I have seen no evidence of any dust forming on the inside of the Romo P’s dock casing or the robot, and that’s a very good thing because it shows how well sealed everything is. Hope it stays that way.

Score ref: 4/5

• Design score: 4.5/5

DJI Romo P: performance

• Impeccable obstacle avoidance
• Excellent hard floor cleaning
• The dock’s dust bag is on the small side

Navigation performance

DJI has made great claims about this hybrid floor-cleaning robot’s drone-sourced navigation credentials and so far I’ve been extremely impressed by its sure-footed and speedy navigation. Aside from getting stuck trying to climb over my thin vintage rug (now solved), the Romo P’s initial mapping run was extremely successful, even though the final map treated my whole open plan area as one giant room which I had to correct in the DJI Home app — no great shakes.

By comparison, the Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro I tested recently divided the rooms pretty accurately while the Dreame Matrix10 Ultra miraculously mapped and named almost every room correctly, including the kitchen and living room. In DJI’s favour, I’m sure the ROMO’s mapping feature – and the app’s clean but overly-simple map presentation – could be improved with a few software tweaks.

Score ref: 4.5/5

Obstacle avoidance

Clearly quite a large chunk of DJI’s amazing drone navigation tech has been implemented here because I’ve never seen a robot vac negotiate obstacles as quickly and as accurately as the ROMA P. In fact, it’s almost human like in the way it dodges obstacles.

For my main test I programmed a kitchen vac session that entailed a short trip across the dinning area floor. I scattered more dog toys than ever before and complimented them with two really small aromatic oil bottles, two phone cables — one long, the other short — and two dreaded half-inch-high nylon dog chews that have caught out almost all previous robot vacs I’ve tested.

On test number one it shot out of its base and, with no faffing about, quickly started its way to the kitchen through 90% of the obstacles before stopping to think at the last hurdle. It then went the long way round under a dining room chair before arriving in the kitchen — and that was good enough for me. On its return, it had a few thinks at some of the obstacles but continued quickly on its way and proceeded to dock.

Test two — mind blown. This time it took a similar route but, instead of going the long way round under the chair, it made a bee-line straight for the kitchen, twisting and turning like a slalom skier on steroids. It literally dodged all obstacles as if it had learned the best route from its previous run. Its return run was equally successful.

What surprised me was the speed with which the ROMA P navigated a pretty complex assault course, and without knocking anything over. In fact, it was so fast I nearly missed catching it on video.

In a nutshell, I consider this model’s obstacle avoidance to be the best I’ve ever tested – for both accuracy and speed. A high-five to DJI’s clever little sausages for giving us such amazing results.

Score ref: 5/5

Vacuuming

From a day-to-day cleaning point of view, I’ve been exceedingly impressed with this model’s vacuuming performance, especially on hard floor. Also, the twin spinning brushes really make a difference in my opinion. Since their speed is varied during the cleaning process, they don’t scatter debris as much as models with just one side brush. I’ve also noticed that the extendable brush on the right is employed more frequently than other bots.

I should add that my tests have involved setting its suction to Max (there are three levels) and Turbo on carpet, selecting two passes from a choice of three, and opting for the Fine route setting which performs a checkerboard clean (you can also choose Fast and Standard). I always like to go above board on suction and route settings with robot vacs because they’re working in the background and this model’s amazing battery can certainly handle it.

For my hard floor zone test I used 0.21oz / 6g of flour plus some oats, muesli, rice, and loosely crushed cornflakes, amounting to 1.27oz / 36g in total. I then set up a zone clean in the kitchen and selected Max suction mode, plus two passes and the Fine route setting. The Romo P collected an impressive 1.2oz / 34g, leaving just 0.07oz / 2g (a pinch) of flour in the floor cracks. During this test I could also hear the suction motor increase in speed when its sensors encountered increased levels of detritus.

I then produced the same vacuum test on a carpeted rug but this time set the suction to Turbo since that is what I would always use on carpet. However, I forgot to set two passes in the app. I used the same set of ingredients, though this time it was 50g worth.

Despite setting only a single pass in Fine route mode, the Romo P collected a pretty decent 1.62oz / 46g. Decent because at least 0.11oz / 3g of missing dirt was the flour still remaining in the carpet. Flour is a notoriously obstreperous substance for robot vacs and I’ve always had some flour remaining on the carpet after a robot test which I then sweep up with a cordless vacuum cleaner. After all, no robot vac on earth can beat a human pushing a vacuum cleaner.

DJI makes great pains to explain that the ROMA is equipped with a ‘three-stage sound suppression system that filters up to 80% of noise during dust collection’ and I’m inclined to agree because this model is much quieter in operation than the vast majority other models I’ve tested over the years. I measured it at 59.2dB from five feet away and that’s a very decent figure.

Score ref: 4.5/5

Mopping performance

I’ve watched the Romo P do a number of general mopping runs in the kitchen and it has been no better or worse than the vast majority of high-end mopping bots. If you set a series of regular mopping schedules, it will keep on top of daily grime and light stains and leave the floor looking relatively shiny and clean. But don’t expect miracles from any of these robot mopping bots because you would be better served by using a little elbow grease with a simple mop and bucket or grabbing a dedicated cordless mopping machine and letting it do the hard work for you. This is because most mopping bots with spinning pads simply drag their mops over a dirty area and then smear the often unseen residue over the rest of the floor. And you only notice this hours later when you walk on a sticky floor.

I’m personally not a fan of robotic floor cleaners that also mop, and wish manufacturers would produce at least one high-end robot that vacuums only, with a dock that forgoes all the mop-cleaning malarky and smelly dirty water containers in favor of a whopping dust bag that I don’t have to change every two weeks. Please, someone do it!

Rant over, for my main kitchen mopping test I created a small zone and selected two passes, medium water flow, the Fine route for criss-cross cleaning, Degreasing mode, and re-mopping with clean water. This is way more than I would normally use on my engineered wood flooring because too much water is never a good thing for wooden floors.

I then squirted some tomato ketchup, soy sauce and milk on the floor, and set the Romo P on its way. I should add that I would never perform a test like this in the real world, mostly because robot vacs are designed for general day-to-day mopping of footfall marks and light stains and not for cleaning up liquid spills, despite what you might read or see on the internet.

Anyway, the Romo P duly went off to tackle the mess I created and, sure enough, it appeared to wipe up most of the mess. However it positively refused to tackle one dense section of tomato ketchup because it thought it was an obstacle. You might consider this a failure, but I consider it a success because, as mentioned directly above, I don’t want my robot getting overly filthy with smelly foodstuffs clinging to its undercarriage. Yes, this model will dry itself after its robust self-cleaning regime but you can bet there will still be residue remaining around the brush head area that will eventually go rancid and require reaching for a toothbrush to clean it. Some Roborocks get around this by lifting the whole brush section when mopping.

Before I leave this chapter — having successfully put you off using your robot to clean up liquid spills — I should add that regular mopping of wooden floors is not a great idea, especially if you have thin laminate flooring. Also, every cleaning session removes a little more of its floor protection coating and this may result in the floor losing its sheen. Well I’m here to the rescue with a shout-out to Bona and its tried-and-tested Wood Floor Polish, which genuinely helps restore tired wooden floors after too many mopping sessions.

Score ref: 4/5

Dock performance

I was considering giving the charging base / cleaning dock a very respectable 4.5 stars for functionality but I’ve dropped it to 4 because of one slightly annoying anomaly that has also affected some Roborocks I’ve reviewed.

Let me explain. When you have pets in the home — I have two labradors and a cat — you have to expect to live with a lot of loose hair floating about. It gets everywhere, even in areas you never thought possible. It’s a fact of nature — most dog breeds molt, especially in spring and autumn when old coats are discarded and new ones grow. This creates an awful lot of hair on a daily basis so to keep on top of it you need to set at least a bi-weekly schedule on your robot vac or the robot’s bin will get so packed with hair that the dock’s strong suction may fail to remove it properly.

In its favor, DJI has equipped this model’s dock with an extra large dust intake from the robot’s bin to the dock’s 2.4-liter dust bag. But even this was no match for the amount of Labrador and cat hair the robot had collected in my lounge.

I knew something was wrong when I didn’t hear a whoomp sound during emptying and, sure enough, it had failed to budge any of the matted hair from the robot’s bin. Instead, as my images illustrate, it got halfway out of the robot bin’s outlet before jamming. This has happened a few times with my Roborock Saros 10R and a couple of other models in the past, and I think it’s down to a lack of raw suction power in the base station.

I now schedule my Saros 10R to perform much more regular runs around the home. And, of course, being a robot that never grumbles, it now goes out on a triweekly basis and I’ve had no problems since. To prove this, I set the Romo P to do another lounge clean a couple of days later and I have no more bin-emptying issues to report. With this model, regular scheduling is clearly key to keep on top of pet hair clogging.

Perhaps more concerning is the smaller size of the Romo P’s dust bag. I’ve only used the Romo for a week and the bag is already a third full. That means a bag change about every two weeks, so bear this in mind if you live with shedding pets.

Score ref: 4/5

Battery performance

It’s no surprise that the Romo’s battery holds such an exceptional charge. After all, I believe DJI incorporated its drone-battery knowledge into this model and any drone pilot will know how impressive DJI batteries are at keeping a surprisingly heavy craft aloft for up to 35 minutes at a time.

I set the Romo P off to clean the entire downstairs area and set the suction to Max and selected one pass and the Fine route for a checkerboard pattern, and it amounted to a cleaning area of 38 square metres which the bot completed in 1 hour 14 mins with 18% of battery remaining. That’ll do.

Score ref: 4.5/5

• Performance score: 4.5/5

DJI Romo P: app functionality

• Excellent layout
• Extremely comprehensive
• No detailed room furnishings

It took a few moments for me to get a handle on the DJI Home app but after using it for a while, I’m pleased to report that it’s almost everything a robot app should be, and not a million miles from the way the Roborock app is presented.

The Home app’s clean, polished and intuitive interface makes controlling the ROMO very straightforward and mostly enjoyable, whether it’s creating custom cleaning zones right on the home page, adding virtual walls and no-go zones or scheduling routines.

It’s incredibly comprehensive, too, allowing the user to customise cleaning routines, suction power, level of moisture on the mops and whether you want to vac and mop, vacuum only or mop only. I personally keep vacuuming and mopping separate from each other to prevent any cross contamination of moisture mixing with dry dust on the undercarriage of the robot. One of this app’s strengths is how clearly it presents its cleaning data – you can track its progress, view coverage history and receive timely maintenance reminders for filters, brushes and water tanks.

However, there is one area I’m not too enamoured of – its map presentation. I guess I’m used to Roborock’s maps which not only illustrate the shape of each room in sharp detail with designated colours for each room, but also the furnishings within it, including sofas, tables, cupboards, etc. DJI’s method is to keep things Scandinavian clean with rooms divided into blocks with just very faint outlines of the rooms’ shapes and no furnishings other than carpeted areas. I have found this tricky to read when selecting a specific zone I want cleaning, especially if it’s directly in front of a specific piece of furniture. With the Roborock app I can place a zone exactly where I need it but with this app there’s a lot more guess work. DJI will hopefully improve this area because everything else about the Home app is extremely intuitive, comprehensive and logically laid out for both beginners and tech nerds like me.

• App functionality score: 4.5/5

Should you buy the DJI Romo P?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

How I tested the DJI Romo P

As per usual, I’ve had the ROMA P perform a regular set of schedules over the past week and watched how well it swept a room. I’ve been very impressed. I then set about performing a series of decisive suction tests, weighing the amount of detritus I laid down and then weighing the contents in the robot’s bin. This model has performed exceedingly well in on hard floor and well enough on carpet.

I also ran a few general mopping sequences at which it performed acceptably well, plus an over-the-top liquid spill test which was no worse than the competition but still not a patch on a mop and bucket.

However, the test that really blew me away was the ROMO P’s exquisite obstacle avoidance for which I give it full marks. With just a few small design and software tweaks, I think DJI’s next model could be up for a full five stars.

First reviewed April 2026.

Robot vacuum brands have cottoned on to the fact that the mopping part of their bots is a major asset. Early robovacs had mop pads tagged on as an added extra; a nice-to-have that worked pretty well, but only for the most straightforward wipe-downs. However, I've started to see some seriously innovative mopping setups join the party recently — ones that promise to mop much more intelligently, and might even be good enough to rival human efforts.

One example is the newly announced Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal. Notably, this product's press release focuses almost entirely on the mopping element and its supporting dock functions, while the vacuuming details are relegated to side notes. The USP here is that the PowerDetect UV Reveal is equipped with an ultraviolet light, which can illuminate hidden messes like dried juice, sweat, and pet wee.

Once a spill has been identified, the robot kicks into 'HyperSonic Mopping' mode, where it moves in a deliberate scrubbing motion over the stain until it's clear. Shark claims that this delivers seven times the scrubbing power of traditional mopping... although a footnote reveals that by 'traditional mopping' what it actually means is 'mopping conducted by an old Shark robot vacuum'. I haven't had a chance to see this robot in action yet, but I'm intrigued to see how it works in practice.

The idea — minus the flashy UV light part — is similar to another new robot vacuum. The Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai is also designed to identify hidden stains, and then run back and forth over them until they've been fully dealt with. Unfortunately, my reviewer didn't see too much evidence of this feature in day-to-day use, but it's a clever idea nonetheless.

More of 2026's new robot vacuums show an increased focus on mopping, too. The new Roborock Saros 20 Sonic has a wide, flat mop pad that can extend to one side to get close to the edges of rooms, and attaches magnetically so it can be dropped off in its dock when not required. We've seen both of these features with the dual, disc-shaped mop pads, but never before with a D-shaped mop pad. Roborock has also announced a roller mop robot vacuum, as part of a wider drive to offer customers a broader range of options to choose from.

That's not to mention the brands experimenting with offering more specialized mop pads. The Dreame Matrix10 Ultra has three sets of mop pads with different properties for different tasks. It dispenses them automatically using a jukebox-style dock, along with one of three different cleaning fluid options. Roborock is currently putting the final touches to a similar setup to accompany its 2026 flagships.

I'm pleased to see this renewed focus on mopping. Manual mopping is a messier and more involved job than manual vacuuming, and it's common these days for homes to include a mixture of hard flooring and carpet. Effective mopping capabilities can make a big difference to how useful a robot vacuum can be. Which of the new mopping setups prove the most genuinely useful remains to be seen, but a greater focus on this capability, and its effort-saving potential, can only be a good thing.

I've been reviewing robot vacuums professionally for a couple of years now, and as a result I've been drawn into conversations about these handy home helpers on a regular basis. Everyone I've met outside of a work context seems intrigued by the idea of a robot vacuum, but there are some misconceptions about what they can and can't do. In many cases, people are underestimating modern robot vacuums' capabilities.

So let's set the record straight. Here are eight common robot vacuum misunderstandings, and some information on what you can actually expect...

1. They're just for vacuuming

Newsflash: modern robot vacuums can mop, too. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that these days, you'd be hard-pressed to find a robovac that doesn't have mopping functionality built in.

The level of mopping varies quite considerably, however. Cheap, basic machines such as the Dreame D9 Max Gen 2 will have a large, flat water tank with a mop pad mounted to the bottom. You'll need to fill it up and attach it to the machine every time you want to mop your floors. In some cases, having the tank attached automatically means water will be coming out, so you'll need to carry the robovac into any target room unless you want your carpets mopped too.

Pricier robovacs have really quite advanced mop setups. You'll almost always be able to set no-mop zones, many robot vacuums can lift their mop pads when traversing carpet, and some will even drop their mop pads off in the dock when they're not needed. Some premium robot vacuums have docks that will refill water tanks, dispense detergent, and wash and dry the mop pads for you.

2. They can't be used on multiple floors

Autonomous stair-climbing is off the cards (for the moment, at least... more on that in a sec) but that doesn't mean your robovac is confined to one floor only. You'll just need to carry it up and down the stairs yourself.

The vast majority of robot vacuum apps can store multiple floorplans, so you can map each floor, then place the robotic on the floor that needs cleaning. It won't be able to return to its dock mid-clean to charge or empty its bin; but otherwise, it will just operate as usual. Cliff sensors mean it won't take a tumble down any stairs, either.

3. Roomba is still the best brand to buy

Roomba is still kicking around (although for a while, it was touch-and-go for parent brand iRobot) – but it hasn't been top of the bot charts for some time now. Brands such as Roborock, Dreame, Ecovacs and Eufy have leapfrogged Roomba in terms of features, and in my experience the latter bots are generally more reliable, capable, and offer better value for money too. I'm not writing off Roomba completely just yet, but it isn't currently troubling my best robot vacuum roundup.

4. They're not for pet hair

Pet hair is notoriously "sticky", so pulling it up from carpet is a challenge for any vacuum — let alone one of the robo-variety. However, robot vacuums can still be very useful for owners of shedding pets, simply because they can clean as regularly as you want them to, without you even needing to be awake, or in the house.

These regular, light cleans can help stop hair from building up, so when you do go in for a deep clean with a manual vacuum, you aren't dealing with enough hair to stuff a king-sized duvet. Robot vacuums are also great at cleaning in hard-to-access places — under the bed, for example — where flurries of fur can easily collect.

There are some key things to look for if you're seeking the best robot vacuum for pet hair. Decent suction specs (around 6,000Pa or more) are a must, as is a self-empty bin, unless you constantly want to be pulling hair out of the small onboard dust cup. On that latter point, it's worth spending more for a higher-end dock, since cheaper units can become jammed with fur during the self-empty process.

5. They're super technical

If you want to understand how robot vacuums work, you'll need to get quite technical. However, if you pick a good one, using it will be pretty straightforward. Any decent, modern robot vacuum will walk you through the set-up process, which is typically no more involved than downloading the correct companion app and connecting the robot to the internet (I've never had issues with this, but here are some things to try if your robot vacuum is losing internet connection).

Most will then prompt you to do a quick mapping run, where the bot will wander into each room and build a basic map for you to edit. You could tidy up, lift chairs and so on for this bit; but even if you don't, your bot will likely discover any previously inaccessible areas on a later run.

Generally, with robot vacuums there's plenty to dig into if you are tech-savvy — precisely editing your maps, setting up complex schedules, tweaking settings and so on. However, if you don't want to get into all that, most will have a big Go button that you can press and the vacuum will make a good fist of cleaning your home with no more information required than that.

6. They can't cope with clutter

Modern robot vacuums arrive with navigation tech that means they'll be able to skirt around any obstacles. The most advanced options can also accurately identify the exact type of clutter, and figure out what needs a wide berth and what doesn't. In short, a little bit of clutter will generally not be a problem.

That said, there are some limits. In particular, shallow obstacles often get missed — I've never met a robot vacuum that wasn't desperate to chow down on charge cables like spaghetti. And I'd never trust a robovac's object avoidance enough that I'd let it loose in a home with a non-house trained pet, either.

7. They can replace a manual vacuum

Robot vacuums can be great, but they are unlikely to replace a manual vac. There are some things that even the priciest, most advanced robot vacuums can't do. An obvious one is vacuuming the stairs (although there are various prototypes in the works from Eufy and Dreame, and most recently Roborock, that look to change that). Bungalow-dwellers aren't in the clear, either — a robovac can't vacuum your sofa, your mattress, or be used to dust away the cobwebs on your room coving.

In addition, I'll make it clear that robot vacuums still can't really rival the best manual vacuums in terms of suction. They're excellent at taking care of regular, light cleans, but for a proper deep dust-busting session, you'll need to roll up your sleeves.

8. They cost a fortune

This depends on your definition of "a fortune". You're unlikely to find the top-end flagship robot vacuums for less than four figures, and for features such as automatic mop cleaning and water dispensing, you'll need to shell out over $600 / £600. However, there are plenty of capable, basic models under the $400 / £400 mark — my best cheap robot vacuum guide has more information. That's still an investment, but perhaps not as ruinous as you might expect.

Discounts aren't hard to come by, either. Robot vacuums almost always feature in shopping events such as the Black Friday sales, and when you consider the rate at which the market is moving, it's common to see relatively new models discounted to make space for an even-newer range-mate.

• Dyson Beauty has a new limited-edition colorway for its haircare gadgets
• It's called 'Ceramic Apricot and Topaz' and combines oranges and golds
• Dyson is calling it 'The Colour of Summer 2026'

Dyson has revealed a new look for its haircare tools. Drawing inspiration from the summer solstice, the 'Ceramic Apricot and Topaz' colorway combines shades of vibrant mandarin orange, soft apricot blush, and accents of gold and pink. Dyson says the color combination captures 'the astronomical, visual and psychological resonance of the longest, brightest day of the year'.

While that might be overselling it slightly, I'm certainly a fan. The warm tones remind me of summer holidays, and have me ready for lighter evenings and milder temperatures. (The announcement was particularly well-timed for me, as in the south-west of England we're just starting to see the first signs of spring, after what feels months of solid rain and gray skies.)

"Researching the solstice, we were inspired by mapping out shifts in daylight intensity, temperature, and the color spectrum," explains Amelia Ayerst, a manager on the Dyson CMF (Colors, Materials, Finish) team. "Using this data, we blended pigments that mimic the higher wavelengths of visible light found at sunrise, noon and sunset: warm apricots, bold oranges and playful pinks."

Apricot and vibrant orange are used for the main body of each styling tool, with a metallic pink featuring on the filter casing, and touches of gold being used for the buttons and switches. Amelia describes it as "a palette that radiates liberation, energy and celebration — bringing the outdoors in and representing the high-energy vibrancy of the sun."

Dyson is rolling out its 'color of the summer 2026' across its haircare range, including the Airwrap multistyler, Airstrait wet-to-dry straightener, and Supersonic Nural and Supersonic r hair dryers. The Dyson Corrale straightener doesn't feature in the press images, so may not be included.

It's listed as a limited-edition, but I expect it to stick around for a little while at least. The Jasper Plum and Red Velvet colorways were announced as limited editions in January 2025, but are still available to buy now.

In the UK, the Ceramic Apricot and Topaz colorway will be available to buy direct from Dyson and via Boots. Generally we see colorways being rolled out internationally, but I don't have details on availability in the US or Australia (although it may perhaps be timed to coincide with the arrival of summer in Australia).

• A DJI Romo owner has exposed a huge security flaw
• He gained access to a global network of 7,000 robovacs
• DJI says it's busy patching the security vulnerabilities

DJI's first robot vacuum, the DJI Romo, is expanding to more markets after launching last year – but it apparently comes with some rather large security holes that led to one hobbyist hacker gaining control of 7,000 of the machines.

As The Verge reports, DJI Romo owner Sammy Azdoufal was trying to get his PS5 controller to operate his new robovac when he inadvertently took over thousands of the devices. Azdoufal's remote control app, made with the help of Claude Code, slipped through some rather basic security on DJI's servers.

Not only could Azdoufal control any of these robovacs, he could also access the video and audio they were feeding back, and view 2D floor plans of the homes they were in. IP addresses were also accessible, meaning approximate locations of these properties could be calculated, alongside everything else.

It seems that the security token that Azdoufal used to confirm ownership of his own device was good enough for DJI's servers to grant access to thousands of other DJI Romos too. Even DJI Power portable power stations were showing up on the map, reporting back diagnostics and status.

Fixes coming

The good news is that DJI has patched this problem, confirming to The Verge that the issue is now "resolved" and indeed that "remediation was already underway prior to public disclosure". However, it's very worrying that this was possible in the first place, with so little security put in place against hacks.

New DJI products are in fact banned in the US at the moment, due to concerns about security protocols and the company's connections to the Chinese government – and suspicions around spying and surreptitious data collection aren't going to be allayed by this latest security disaster.

There is actually another security problem with the DJI Romo, which The Verge has deemed too serious to report openly about. DJI says that this second issue will be fixed within weeks, but it's hardly going to inspire confidence or trust in anyone looking to purchase one of the best robovacs right now.

It's yet more evidence that smart-home devices are some of the worst when it comes to security. We've reached out to DJI for an official statement on the reporting done by The Verge, and will report back if we hear anything.

• iRobot is now fully owned by Chinese manufacturing company Picea, following Chapter 11 bankruptcy process
• A new 'iRobot Safe' subsidiary will be responsible for protecting US consumer data
• Engineering, product development, marketing, etc., will be 'anchored' in the US

In December last year, we learned that iRobot – the parent brand behind Roomba – had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and was set to be saved from oblivion by Chinese manufacturing company Picea Robotics. Now, that takeover is officially complete: iRobot is now a privately held company, and completely owned by Picea. However, based on the press announcement, it looks like iRobot is clinging to its US roots as much as possible.

The most notable new development is that iRobot has announced a series of safeguards designed to protect US and other global consumer data, including European data. This includes creating a subsidiary – 'iRobot Safe' – that's entirely focused on data protection and governance.

When I spoke to CEO Gary Cohen shortly after the takeover plans were announced, he assured me that customer data would not be leaving the US. It looks like iRobot is doubling down on this point as a way of reassuring customers.

The announcement reads: "iRobot Safe, as well as other iRobot controls, are designed to maintain a clear separation between iRobot's non-US ownership and its US and other global consumer data." The subsidiary has been created as part of the wider company restructure, will be "governed by an independent board of US citizens," and will be based in the US.

Another notable point is that iRobot was keen to emphasize it would be clinging to its US roots. "iRobot will continue to be a US-based global consumer robotics company, maintaining its Bedford, Massachusetts headquarters," the press release reads. It goes on to confirm that key processes, including engineering, product development, and marketing, would remain "anchored" in the United States.

Who is Picea and what does this mean for iRobot?

Picea already had a relationship with iRobot before the takeover began – it has been on board as a contract manufacturer for some years, and took a more involved role in the engineering development and testing process when the brand decided to completely wipe and replace its product lineup in March 2025. In my chat with Cohen, he emphasized how excited he was at the expertise Picea could bring to the table.

The most recent announcement doesn't cover iRobot's short- and long-term plans, but when the takeover was first agreed, Cohen was keen to emphasize it would be "business as usual" for existing Roomba customers, with no break in product or app support and no impact on warranties. He was also excited about the potential longer-term developments, hinting that not only was the company looking at creating new robot vacuums to hit specific niches, but that it might be moving into developing different kinds of robo-helpers.

Today's robot lawn mowers are more capable than ever. I had a sneak peek at most brands' new models at CES 2026, and there's certainly some exciting new tech on offer. However, when I caught up with George Ren, CEO of leading lawnbot brand Segway Navimow, to find out more about the company's plans, he emphasized that the company wasn't interested in feature wars.

"Rather than simply piling on features for the sake of more functionality, we're working to ensure that our range truly meets consumers' needs and addresses pain points," he says. "I have always hoped that technology can truly be applied to people's daily needs."

He goes on to clarify that the original intention of the brand is to "liberate time", in both household and business use. That might be homeowners having more leisure time that's not taken up by tedious chores, or park administrators having more energy to care for their plants.

A new mindset

"The core challenge Navimow faces is not a single technological breakthrough, but rather how to deeply integrate hardcore robotics technology with real-life scenarios, and build a brand ecosystem with emotional resonance," explains George. "[It's] how to make technology invisible through our R&D – users don't care about RTK or AI algorithms, but only about whether lawn mowing is aesthetically pleasing and whether product use is hassle-free."

Functionally, that means robot mowers that can handle whatever the terrain throws at them, without getting stuck or churning up the lawn, have good enough navigation systems that they never get lost and need rescuing, and can mow a lawn completely without the need for a human to go back in and finish the job.

"We have spent a great deal of effort optimizing adaptability to extreme weather, handling of complex terrains, and even simulating the random path patterns of manual mowing to make the results of machine operations closer to the 'texture of human care',' he continues. "This requires the team to break out of engineer thinking and redefine technical standards from the perspectives of gardeners and users."

The 2026 Segway Navimow lineup includes a compact mower that uses LiDAR – a navigation technology that's perfect for smaller yards with lots of obstacles, and one of the big 2026 robot mower trends. A second compact mower (the i2 AWD) has all-wheel drive and is designed to be able to make tight turns without damaging the lawn. The other main addition is the Navimow X4 Series, which is built to handle large residential spaces with efficiency and precision.

Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro: two-minute review

The Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro is a premium, feature-rich, hybrid floor-cleaning robot that delivers an impressive 25,000 Pascals of suction – great for lifting fine dust, debris and pet hair from hard floors and even deep-pile carpet. With its ultra-slim profile. retractable LiDAR navigation turret and clever AdaptiLift chassis with omnidirectional wheels, this bot can clean under very low furniture and scale especially tall thresholds.

Those 'AdaptiLift' stilts also enable this robot vacuum to hover at exactly the right height over thick carpet and rugs. In practice, this worked extremely well – the Curv 2 Pro offers some of the very best carpet cleaning performance I've experienced.

While the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro's navigation is robust and reliable (it uses a combination of lasers and an RGB camera), its Reactive AI obstacle avoidance isn't quite up to the accurate standards of some of its premium stablemates.

Given that this is a hybrid robot, it comes with a dual-spinning mop system that exerts 12 Newtons of downward pressure for tackling everyday messes though it will struggle with liquid spills and some ingrained stains. These mops also automatically detach or lift up whenever the bot is on carpet or crossing a rug.

The chunky, curvy look of Roborock's newly updated Hygiene+ 3.0 docking system may not be to everyone's liking but there's no doubting its efficiency at maintaining the robot on a daily basis. Like most of today's hybrid models, the dock charges the bot after every cleaning session, automatically empties the contents of the robot's diminutive bin into the dock's large 2.7-liter dust bag, and washes the robot's two spinning mop pads with hot water before wafting hot air over them to prevent smells and mould. In other words, it's mostly hands free.

Overall, the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro is an exceptionally capable everyday floor cleaning solution that offers excellent suction, intelligent navigation and a highly self-sufficient dock. Granted, it doesn't have the best obstacle avoidance I've ever encountered, but for everyday household cleaning of both hard floors and especially carpet, it's an efficient workhorse that shouldn't let you down.

Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro review: price & availability

• List price: £1,199.99 (about $1,620 / AU$2,290)
• Available: UK, Europe and Asia (US and AU to follow)
• Launched: September 2025

The Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro initially went on sale in September 2025, in most of Europe (where it's selling for around €899) and some Asian and Middle East countries. It launched in the UK at the end of February 2026, with a list price of £1,199.99, and is due to arrive in the US, Canada and Australia later at some point this year.

The Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro sits toward the premium end of the robot vacuum spectrum and generally delivers solid value for money, if your priorities are advanced automation and cleaning performance. High-end features like expert LiDAR-based mapping and decent obstacle avoidance justify the price for users who want a mostly set-and-forget cleaning solution rather than a basic scheduled robot.

That said, there are similar robots at lower cost that may suit some households just as well. For instance, in the UK the standard Roborock Qrevo S5V with a decent 12,000Pa of suction power, self-cleaning dock and similar mopping system retails at a smidge under £500 for the black model and £425 for the white. Or, for just £549, the excellent Dreame L40 Ultra with 19,000Pa is an equally good bet.

No question, the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro offers very decent value for those who want maximum convenience and features (including AdaptiLift), but there are some less expensive robots out there that are on a par for typical floor cleaning tasks.

• Value for money score: 4 out of 5

Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro specs

Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro review: design

• Excellent suction power, with split rollers to avoid hair tangle
• Retractable LiDAR puck and 'AdaptiLift' legs for deep carpet and tall thresholds
• Large but fully-featured cleaning dock

As I mentioned in my review of the Roborock Q5 Pro+ in March 2025, there's a proliferation of robot vacuum brands on the market right now, each with a huge roster of models. This makes it a challenge for any journalist writing about a specific robot vacuum cleaner that is, in many ways, very similar to other models on the market, and it must be even more confusing for the consumer when faced with so many options.

Take Roborock, for instance. There are currently five different models in its Saros range, five in the Qrevo Curv Series, eight in the standard Qrevo range, five in the S Series, four in the Qrevo Edge Series and seven models in the lower-priced Q Series. And that's without even having a sniff at all the other brands like Dreame, Ecovacs, Eufy, Narwal, EZVIZ, Switchbot and iRobot. It seems that the world is awash in robot vacs at the moment and the same thing is already beginning to happen with robot lawn mowers.

But I digress – let's look at the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro in more detail and see if it's as good as the myriad of other premium models I've reviewed from the Roborock stable.

Robot vacuum design

On the surface, Roborock's Qrevo Curv 2 Pro adopts the same design principles as many other premium robot vacuum cleaners. The robot itself – 13.8 in / 35cm in diameter – is circular in shape with a centrally-located roller brush, an expandable side sweeping brush for edge and corner cleaning, two circular mops that are automatically ejected in the dock or raised whenever the robot is working on or crossing over carpet, a LiDAR turret for expert navigation, plus a full gamut of other navigational and obstacle avoidance aids. The Full Monty, in other words.

As one might expect from a renowned manufacturer like Roborock, build quality is exceptional throughout and well up there with the best in premium robot vacs. I've reviewed many Roborock products over the years and have never once experienced any issues aside from the odd clogging of a dust bag or some cotton tangled around a spindle. In the main, they have all performed reliably and efficiently. As a consequence, Roborock is the brand I always recommend whenever asked.

Given the popularity of Roborock's retractable LiDAR turrets that allow many models from its current roster to venture beneath low-slung furnishings, it's no surprise that Roborock has opted to fit the same RetractSense system to this particular model. As a result, when the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro's turret is retracted, the height of the robot measures a squat 3.14in / 7.98cm.

That means it can scuttle under most wardrobes, TV stands and low sofas as long as there's a minimum of 3in / 8cm of clearance. This is a major boon for anyone who has struggled to clean such inaccessible areas using a standard stick vac, especially one that isn't equipped with a Shark-inspired bendy suction tube.

The Qrevo Curv 2 Pro uses the aforementioned tried-and-trusted LiDAR system for its primary navigation, a VertiBeam lateral laser system for accurate edge cleaning around furniture, an upward-facing Range Finder for measuring overhead clearance, a top contact sensor to prevent the robot from jamming itself and, importantly, a combination of 'structured light' and a front-facing RGB camera with LED light for expert obstacle avoidance in all lighting conditions.

According to Roborock the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro can recognise over 200 objects, 'from tangled cables to pet surprises' but presumably only when the 'Pet' switch in the app is activated. Incidentally, the Pet setting also ensures that the robot's brush roller stops working the moment the sensors detect a furry friend.

While I personally prefer the idea of a dual counter-rotating brush head system as introduced by iRobot, Roborock has quite recently started fitting some of its bots with single split rubber brushes that meet with a small gap in the centre, and that's the case with this model. According to Roborock, the so-called 'DuoDivide' layout helps deal with hair tangles by moving the hair towards the suction gap in the middle to prevent it from getting tangled around the roller's spindles. I vouch that this system works very well and I have no issues to report regarding pet hair tangles.

However, as mentioned in my article on overdue robot innovations I want to see, I really do wish robot manufacturers would adopt D-shaped bodies to their products, because the circular ones of norm require fitting a short 6.3in / 16cm roller brush between the robot's wheels, which leaves as much as 3.5in / 9cm of unused space on either side of the roller.

I cite iRobot's very early S9+ as an example. This D-shaped robot came onto the market in 2019 and featured a long 9in / 23cm rubber roller positioned near the front, almost across the entire width of the machine. This meant it was not only better at collecting dust along edges, but it also picked up a wider band of detritus with every sweep. Perhaps there's a valid technical reason why the vast majority of robot vacs are circular, so answers on a postcard please.

Let's look at this bot's suction power, because suction strength is one of the only differences between the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro and its sibling, the Qrevo CurvX. Where the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra TechRadar reviewed in July 2024 featured a then 'industry-leading' 10,000 Pascals of suction power, this one hits the 25,000Pa mark; 3,000Pa more than the Qrevo CurvX. Mind, even this lofty stat is still 5,000Pa shy of the Dreame Matrix10 Ultra I recently reviewed, but it just goes to show how fast robot vacuum technology has advanced in such a short space of time. For the record, the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro offers five levels of suction, from quiet to MAX+.

Given that this robot is of the hybrid variety, it also comes with a full mopping system comprised of twin spinning mops on the rear, with the ability to extend the mop on one side for cleaning around furniture legs and in corners. These mops are only used for hard floor cleaning and are therefore either raised when the robot is crossing carpet or rugs, or left behind in the dock if the robot is only performing a vacuum task. Like all decent mopping bots, the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro's mops are given a thorough wash and dry after each working session, and you can read more about this in the Dock Design chapter directly below.

Finally, those with single or double thresholds up to 1.6in / 4cm in height will be thrilled to learn that the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro has been fitted with Roborock's clever AdaptiLift technology. Rather than relying on fixed-height wheels like traditional robot vacuums, AdaptiLift gives the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro the ability to dynamically raise and lower its chassis and wheels to adapt to complex floor environments.

The robot's two articulated wheels literally allow the robot to automatically lift and tilt its body to clear high thresholds and even maintain optimal brush and suction contact across different floor types, including carpets with up to 1.2in / 3cm of pile. It also helps free the robot when encountering an obstruction. By intelligently sensing floor transitions and responding in real time, AdaptiLift reduces the need for manual intervention while expanding the robot's practical reach within a home. What's not to like?

Dock design

Roborock's Qrevo Curv series is defined by the curvature of its newly updated Hygiene+ 3.0 dock design. Available only in white, this rounded design aesthetic differs from the rectangular norm and looks shiny, minimalist and, dare I say, rather swish when installed in a modern home. However, its rotund shape may not be to everyone's taste.

Like the majority of robot docks, this one charges the robot after every task (it takes approximately 3 to 4 hours to charge from 0%) as well as emptying the contents of the robot's small 270ml bin into the dock's much larger 2.7-liter dust bag. If you don't have pets, expect about a month or so to pass before the dust bag is full and ready for disposal. However, if you have hairy pets like me, then be prepared to fit a new bag every couple of weeks or so. To save on the cost of extra bags, I often remove the hair and muck in the bag using a pair of long-nose pliers. It's messy, yes, but it saves money in the long run.

Given that this robot also mops hard floors, the mops always go through a thorough cleaning regime in the dock after every cleaning session. This involves scrubbing them using water at 212F / 100C followed by a 122F / 50C hot-air drying session to prevent mould and nasty odours. All you have to do is occasionally fill the dock's 3.2-liter reservoir with fresh water and dispose of the contents in the 3-liter dirty water tank.

Various levels of moisture can be added to the mops depending on the type of flooring you have. Simply go to the Roborock app and select the level of moisture required – for vinyl flooring I would suggest a higher level, and for wooden flooring I'd opt for one of the various levels well below the midway mark. This is especially pertinent for thin laminated flooring which can easily warp if too damp.

• Design score: 4 out of 5

Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro review: performance

• Exemplary carpet cleaning performance
• Acceptable mopping performance
• Slightly disappointing obstacle avoidance

I have no major anomalies to report regarding this bot's navigation which is generally very good, though it might take the long way round to get to its place of work rather than a direct path. I've noticed a lot of robot vacs do this but then I've also noticed that some models, specifically those from Roborock, appear to learn over time and eventually take the shorter, direct route. I would expect this model to start doing the same over the next few weeks.

While the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro's first mapping run of my open-plan area was a success, it didn't initially name the rooms in my home as accurately as the Dreame Matrix10 Ultra. While it correctly named the kitchen, it treated the open-plan lounge and dining area as one large room and called it the sunroom. It also named the hallway as the living room and the hall passage as a bedroom. By comparison, the Matrix10 Ultra not only named every room correctly, but all areas were divided correctly, too.

Mind, this slight hiccup in the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro's room recognition was easily rectified by using the Roborock app to divide, merge and rename all rooms correctly. The key takeaway here is that this bot has never not found its charging dock, has never got lost under a sofa and has never stranded itself under the dining table. Every cleaning task has generally gone without any navigational hitches, and that's all you need to know.

Obstacle avoidance

For my obstacle avoidance test I laid out an assault course of dog toys, including two small items to replicate the size of average dog waste. While the robot deftly avoided the larger obstacles over two inches in height, it twice ran over one of the smaller items, a one-inch tall nylon bone. In the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro's defence, this item often flummoxes robots though I'll admit that I was surprised that the Curv 2 Pro didn't avoid it given the Roborock website's poo-dodging claim.

I then added a phone cable to the mix and, despite adjustments in the app, I was surprised to see the robot run over the cable on three separate occasions, even wrapping the cable around the brush head in one instance. This one really surprised me so I checked the multitude of parameters in the app – I had 'Pet' selected for extra overall sensitivity – and I couldn't see any conflicting settings. The upshot is that, while I consider this model's obstacle avoidance to be generally acceptable, I wouldn't rely on it to avoid all clutter in the home. More importantly, I would never rely on it to avoid dog mess of any shape or form.

Vacuum performance

Roborock has been marketing this bot as one of the best for carpet cleaning and, on evidence of my test using oats, muesli and crushed biscuits, I'd say the claim is spot on. I was blown away by how well it tackled the test.

I admittedly selected two passes in the app and MAX+ mode for 25,000Pa of suction, but I needn't have bothered going that far because pass number one was enough to remove the vast majority of detritus. That's an exceptional result, and one of the best I've seen for carpet pickup. I also tried it on a thick pile carpet upstairs and was equally impressed that it a) it managed to collect a sprinkling of oats and b) it didn't get bogged down in the pile.

For the hard floor test, I used the same ingredients but changed the suction one level down to Max. I was generally very pleased with the results though, as is often the case with robots, the edges weren't completely cleaned and some of the debris was scattered by the robot's spinning side brush – which just goes to show why having a cordless stick vac to hand is always advisable.

Mopping performance

In terms of its bi-weekly mopping ability, I've been impressed by the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro's overall performance. It has dealt with light stains and general footfall marks very well, including regularly extending one of its articulated mopping pads when traveling along skirting boards, in corners and around chair and table legs.

However, there's only so much one can ask of a twin-pad mopping system like this because, unlike some roller-based models which rinse the roller while it's cleaning, the pads on this aren't cleaned during the mopping task. And that means that any gunk that appears to have been cleaned off the floor actually remains on the mops – which is then spread around the rest of the floor. It's the nature of the beast, which is why it's never advisable to let a robot with spinning pads loose on a large-ish liquid spill.

To prove this, I created a small 'zone' in my kitchen, squirted some tomato ketchup over my wooden floor and commanded the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro to go and clean it up, having set the mop moisture setting to medium. On initial evidence it did a fine job at removing the mess, though it did leave one small smear behind. However, on closer inspection in the right reflective lighting, I could clearly see some clear but slimy swirls on the floor which would invariably dry, leaving a tacky residue behind.

Had I not had the excellent Roborock F25 Ultra to hand to completely finish the job, I would have had to reach for the good old mop and bucket to fully remove all residue. This is no slight on the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro since all mopping robots of this nature behave the same way. You just need to choose your battles carefully.

Dock performance

While I don't mind the look of the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro's dock, it's not a patch on its stylish stablemates, the Roborock Saros 10 and 10R, which both come with black mirrored docks that meld into the background of any room. By contrast, this one is larger in appearance and much more noticeable.

From an operational point of view, the dock itself has proved faultless over the past few weeks with no anomalies to report. Yes, the bin emptying process is quite noisy but it's been powerful enough to always empty the robot's bins even when packed with dog hair. It has also washed and maintained the mops very well leaving no residue behind.

Is there anything negative to report about the dock? Well I'm not keen on the design of the dock's dust bag container, since its deep and narrow, downward-facing chamber entails having the dust bag hang and bend at the top where it connects with the inlet. When filled with detritus, the weight of it could feasibly cut off airflow into the bag. I should add that I haven't had any issue to date with the emptying process but I still maintain that it's an odd design that appears to go against simple physics. But what do I know?

• Performance score: 4 out of 5

Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro review: app

• Exceedingly comprehensive
• Well laid out
• Easy to use

The Roborock app is an essential companion that elevates the Qrevo Curv 2 Pro's overall cleaning experience from the moment you open it. Cleanly designed and intuitively laid out, this app makes both initial setup and day-to-day control extremely straightforward, whether you're a first-time robot vacuum owner or a seasoned user who requires a plethora of customization options.

Mapping is mostly accurate, with detailed floor plans that are highly editable, allowing you to label rooms, set no-go zones, define virtual walls and customize cleaning routines with surprising precision. Moreover, the ability to adjust suction power, mopping intensity and cleaning sequences on a per-room basis gives users a level of control that few competitors can match, Dreame notwithstanding.

The Roborock app also supports a raft of scheduling options, self-created routines and multi-level home management, making it easy to tailor cleaning to your lifestyle. Combined with its stable connectivity and regular firmware updates, this app feels genuinely mature and thoughtfully engineered. Which is why it's still my favorite robot app of all.

• App score: 4.5 out of 5

Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro review: scorecard

How I tested the Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Pro

With so many similarly-specced robot vacs on the market, it's becoming quite difficult to detect the differences between them. But in this day and age, specs mean nothing if the bot doesn't perform to the high standards that TechRadar's writers expect.

We always strive to get the best out of the products we review and always push them to the limits of their functionality. In this case I tested the robot vac on different floor types, watched it navigate a room, set up an obstacle course and put it to four performance tests – carpet vacuuming, hard floor vacuuming, general mopping and messy mopping. Half points out of five are then awarded for each category and averaged out for a final score. Five stars are only given to a product that unequivocally impresses on all fronts but four-stars products, too, are absolutely worth investigation.

Read more about how we test robot vacuum cleaners

• First reviewed February 2026

Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai: two-minute review

The Spot+Scrub Ai is a shot at robot vacuum redemption for Dyson, since it follows in the wake of two uninspiring attempts to take the fight to rivals like Eufy, Roborock and Dreame. During two months of testing, I found the Spot+Scrub Ai works well when tasked with a little-and-often approach to cleaning. It vacuums well, mostly avoids all manner of obstacles, mops to an acceptable level, and does a great job of cleaning itself – so much so, that after two months' use the mop still looked brand new.

This is all good news, and while the app is a little unintuitive at first – especially with regard to map creation and editing – it eventually makes sense, and its lack of adjustability is a welcome change compared to many rivals obsessed with pages of settings menus.

Up to 18,000 Pa of suction power is very acceptable if not market-leading, and the Dyson performed very well in my hard floor tests, smartly slowing its side brushes to avoid flicking food debris all over the kitchen.

But it wasn't perfect. It seemed to get lost during the setup process, frequently struggled to drive up the ramp into its dock, and once failed to properly empty its bin, causing an overflow and spillage. I also encountered an issue where the target cleaning function was repeatedly ignored, and I'd rather the dust bin of the docking station wasn't transparent, since it gives a constant view of dust, hair and crumbs to everyone in sight.

I anticipate that some of these issues can be fixed with software updates – and, if you create a daily or even twice-weekly schedule, I have no doubt the Dyson will diligently keep your house clean. But it falls short when tasked with deeper, targeted cleans, and while decent for a robot, the mop will always be beaten by a wet wipe and a bit of elbow grease.

That's the short version; read on for my full Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai review.

Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai review: price & availability

• List price: £1,049.99 / AU$1,999 / US TBC
• Available: UK / AU – US to follow
• Launched: February 2026

Dyson's latest attempt to crack the robotic vacuum market was announced in 2025 and went on sale at the end of January 2026. The UK price at launch is £1,049.99, but the US price hadn't been revealed at the time of writing. Given the way our currencies work these days, it'd be safe to assume a very similar figure, around the $1,100 mark. It launched in Australia in early February, with a list price of AU$1,999.

For that you get the robot itself, plus a docking station that houses a bagless dust bin, tanks for clean and dirty water, and a charger. A bottle of detergent is not included, which feels a bit mean given the instructions mention it during the setup process. You'll need to spend £19.99 / AU$38 on 500ml of Dyson's own, or source an alternative.

Four-figure price tags have quickly become the norm among high-end robotic vacuums and mops. So, while it might seem expensive if you're new to these products, the Spot+Scrub Ai doesn't punch your credit card with as much Dyson tax as the company's stick vacuums do.

Rival robots like the Narwal Flow and Eufy Omni S1 Pro cost more, at least at launch. Given the Dyson name, bagless design – meaning no spending on replacement bags – mopping features and AI smarts, it seems fairly priced. No word yet on how much replacement parts will cost.

• Value for money score: 4 out of 5

Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai specs

Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai review: design

• Bagless docking station, but bin is transparent
• Rotating roller mop with hot water mopping
• Both robot and dock on the larger side

Dyson products are as much about design as they are performance. The iconic clear plastic dustbins, bright colors, red highlights and a hint of the extraterrestrial give Dyson products a design language all of their own. Take the logo off, and its products are still instantly recognizable.

This is still broadly true of the Spot+Scrub Ai, but I can't help thinking Dyson's design team has phoned it in. The handy bagless design is here, which is genuinely useful since it means you'll never have to buy replacement bags for the docking station. There's also a nice bit of sci-fi going on with the bin lid, plus splashes of blue and red on the mopping unit and side brushes.

But that's it. The rest of the product is all rather generic, with little of the wow-factor Dyson loads into its other products with unbridled confidence. Aesthetics shouldn't matter too much, but Dyson products are supposed to be visually exciting and this just isn't.

There are practical issues here too. Clear plastic works well with a handheld stick vacuum, making it easy to see when the bin is full. The same logic applies here, but whereas stick vacuums tend to live in closets, under stairs and generally out of the way, the Spot+Scrub Ai will likely be on full display in your kitchen. I don't want to see the inside of a bin while eating breakfast, and would much rather other parts of the docking station were transparent instead.

It also isn't obvious at a glance which tank is the clean water and which is dirty. Does a filled-in purple circle on top mean clean, or is it the empty circle?

My last concern is its size. Many modern robotic vacuums are rather cumbersome, especially when paired with a dock with water tanks, but the Dyson is especially bulky. The dock measures 45.5cm high, 44cm wide and 50.8cm deep, while the robot is 11cm tall, 37cm long and 37.3cm wide. It's a little taller than some rivals, so you'll want to check the height against any furniture you want it to clean under before buying.

Thankfully, the rest of the Dyson's design is good. It feels well-made and is easy to set up and use. The robot itself has the usual pair of spinning side brushes for reaching into corners, and a roller brush underneath, plus a large mop that rotates and slides outwards by 1.57 in / 4cm to the side, helping it clean right up against the wall.

The roller mop uses water warmed to 140F / 60C and self-cleans as it goes, then gets cleaned again (and dried) when back at the base station. It's a comprehensive approach to mopping that promises to perform well.

The robot's own bin has a generous 3-liter capacity, and although Dyson doesn't say, the onboard water tank looks to be around 1.5 liters, and gets replenished from the base station during longer mopping tasks.

• Design score: 4 out of 5

Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai review: performance

• Clever automatic vacuuming adjustment but self-emptying can fail
• Thorough (if noisy) mop self-cleaning
• Good obstacle avoidance but some navigation problems

I used the Spot+Scrub Ai for a couple of months before writing this review, including over a busy holiday period with frequent cleans of the kitchen and lounge after hosting family, and vacuuming up Christmas tree needles. I wrote more about my initial impressions here, and while the Dyson failed to impress on day one, I grew to like it over the weeks to come.

It only once got stuck, having become caught on the power cable of some Christmas lights. This was an oversight on my behalf, and although the Dyson spent all day – literally hours while I was out, until its battery died – trying to break free, no damage was done to the lighting or the robot. Every other cleaning mission was completed successfully, and it also created a second map and cleaned the upstairs without any problem.

As ever with these robots, there's a concern that it'll get confused and start mopping the carpet, but thankfully it's smart enough not to do this. You can manually put restrictions in with the app, telling it not to mop or vacuum certain areas – although, unlike many premium bots with flat mop pads, the Spot+Scrub Ai can't lift its roller when traversing carpet after mopping, nor can it drop it off in the dock when it's not required.

Moving to TechRadar's specific robovac tests, and the Dyson didn't start well. Tasked with vacuuming a flour and crumb mix from a section of carpet, it drove to the target area and cleaned, but somehow entirely missed the debris. The path it drove covered barely half of the target area, for no apparent reason.

I tried twice more, and again it completely failed to clean up the crumb mix. Bafflingly, it appeared to actively avoid the dirt, driving around it as if it were an obstacle.

Exasperated, I tasked the Dyson with vacuuming the entire room instead. This worked fine, suggesting a fault with the target cleaning mode. The Quick and Quiet modes (recorded by a microphone at 61 dB and 63 dB, respectively) both did an okay job, but you're best either using Boost (71 dB) or Auto, where the robot works it all out for itself. This Dyson is among the loudest robovacs I've tested, with its drive motors noisier than others and even the Quiet mode being audible from a room or two away. Self-emptying into the dock is especially loud, at 81 dB.

The Spot+Scrub Ai's obstacle avoidance skills are decent, with it successfully avoiding items like sockets, slippers and USB cables placed in its way. It nudged my slipper a couple of times, and once got very close to the cable, but managed to avoid everything, clean around them, and return safely to base.

Performance was similar when I swapped the crumb mix for a scattering of dry oats, and on carpet the Dyson performed best when asked to clean the whole room in Auto mode. It mostly did a good job of picking up the oats from where I'd scattered them, but spilled some when turning around and driving over a door threshold. I don't mind a few dropped oats, but the Dyson performed poorly here, spreading the debris around far more than I'd hoped it would.

I later realized its internal bin was overflowing, and had failed to empty into the bagless bin of the dock, despite it being programmed to do so every 15 minutes. That 81 dB of suction sound after each clean didn't seem to have done much at all. I emptied the bin myself and found no cause for the blockage – just dust, oats and Christmas tree needles.

The robot also had a sizable amount of hair wrapped around its central roller brush, which needed removing with scissors. Other robovacs have anti-tangle designs to better prevent this, and it's worth mentioning this is a two-person household with no pets. Once cleaned up and properly emptied, it was back to top performance, using Auto mode to vacuum up almost all of the oats from my carpet.

I next switched to a hard kitchen floor. Here, the Spot+Scrub Ai seemed to spot where debris was and ramp up the suction over that area, clearing a section of the crumb mix with ease (with one pass of Auto mode). A few crumbs were flicked across the room, but the quality of clean was otherwise very impressive, and it adhered to the target cleaning zone this time. If only it had performed so well during the carpet cleaning earlier.

The oat test on hard floor was similarly successful, with the Dyson slowing down, diving carefully over the debris, upping its suction power and even slowing its rotating brushes right down to prevent oats being flicked all over the room – something many rivals are frequently guilty of.

It wasn't quite a perfect clean, since a few oats were still pushed outside of the target zone. But it did relatively well on what is often a tough test. As ever, setting the robot to vacuum a whole room delivers the best results.

Mopping

Finally, mopping. For this I smeared some ketchup on a wooden floor and let it dry for a couple of hours. The Dyson spends a few minutes preparing to mop – filling its water tank, washing the roller mop, warming up the water – and it's a pretty loud process, at about 71 dB.

The actual mopping process is quieter, between about 62 dB and 67 dB. The Dyson's mop reaches outwards to scrub right up against the walls, and it drives methodically over the target area. As per the 'Spot+Scrub' part of the name, one of this bot's USPs is that it's meant to detect spills on hard flooring and go back-and-forth over them until they're clear. I didn't notice it doing anything like this in my tests.

After my zone clean, some ketchup remained, so I cranked the settings up to maximum: water level three and two passes of the target zone. This removed more, but not all, of the ketchup. Ultimately, for a stain like this you're best off tackling it yourself with a damp cloth or wet wipe.

Afterwards, the robot drains its water tank and cleans the mop, which is also rather loud at 70 dB and lasts around five minutes before the mop is dried (44 dB). It's worth shouting out the effectiveness of this setup – even after two months of regular use, the mop still looked brand new.

As with all robotic vacuums and mops, the Dyson is best used for a little-and-often cleaning strategy. For weeks, it did a good job of keeping my house visibly clean. But when tasked with specific chores, it didn't perform as well as I'd hoped from the Dyson brand.

Lastly for performance, the Spot+Scrub Ai frequently struggled to drive back into its dock. I've no idea why, but it would sometimes try for a while, fail, then turn around a few times, try again, and eventually succeed. It's as if it can't quite manage the slope up to the dock, despite being on a perfectly flat floor.

• Performance score: 3.5 out of 5

Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai review: app

• Refreshing lack of adjustability
• Dyson product ads
• Could be more intuitive for map creation and edition

The app was one of my primary concerns during my initial test of the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai, but once I'd spent a few days with it I found it works well. It's still not the most intuitive menu system I've seen, especially with regard to map creation and editing, but I like that there aren't pages and pages of adjustable settings, as with some other robovacs.

There's a sense that Dyson trusts its robot to just get on with the job, and therefore doesn't ask if you'd like to adjust every parameter of how it functions. That said, I'd like more detail about spotted obstacles; these only appear as an orange cone on the map, but I'd prefer a better description of what the object is, or even a photograph. Dyson says the robot can identify 200 objects, so this could surely be possible.

Multiple maps can be created (one for each floor of your home), and you can tell the robot to avoid certain areas, or tell it to never mop or vacuum certain areas. Mostly, you'll want to leave it in Auto and have it clean entire rooms, or even floors, at a time.

I got into the habit of using the robot to clean our kitchen every evening, and vacuum the lounge and hallway at the weekend. This is where robovacs work at their best. Or, better yet, create a schedule and have the Dyson clean every day while you're out.

The app is also full of helpful videos to explain how everything works and how to clean, service and replace consumable parts. I like how the app shows the approximate life remaining of each part as a percentage, and how Dyson is transparent with the costs of every component. It'll let you buy replacements for just about everything, even including the docking station. Slightly annoying is how the app serves as an ad to show off unrelated Dyson products, like headphones and hair dryers.

• App score: 4 out of 5

Should you buy the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How I tested the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai

I set up the Dyson and used it as my only vacuum and mop for a couple of months. The test began by setting up the robot and having it create maps of both floors of my house, then using it to keep all carpets and hard floors clean.

I used the robot every couple of days across the Christmas period, then set about conducting TechRadar's standardized robovac tests to assess the performance of its vacuuming, mopping, navigation and self-cleaning abilities.

Read more about how we test robot vacuum cleaners

• First reviewed December 2025

Robot lawn mowers can be a major effort-saver, but there's a bit of a learning curve to getting started with one. I say this as someone who nearly had a breakdown when trying to test their first lawnbot (I'm happy to say that I've since mastered them). However, it looks like future owners might be able to skip the stressful stage altogether, thanks to the introduction of a new kind of navigation technology.

LiDAR-powered lawnbots were everywhere at CES – in fact, it's one of the hot tech trends for 2026. This light-based positioning system is already the standard in the best robot vacuums, and now it looks set to make its way beyond that market, too. I had a chance to chat to Tony Ho, vice president of business development for Segway Navimow, about this particular advancement and why it's such a big deal.

LiDAR works by shooting out beams of light, using time-of-flight sensors to measure how long these beams take to bounce back. Then, using that information, it figures out where objects are positioned, allowing it to build a 3D map of a space.

Segway Navimow has introduced the i2 LiDAR as a part of its new i2 compact lawnbot range, and it's far from the only robot mower brand following this approach. From the Roborock X1 LiDAR to the Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD (and various sibling models), to the Anthbot M5 LiDAR and the Ecovacs GOAT LiDAR, pretty much all of the major brands are exploring this option for navigation.

Why is lawnbot LiDAR such a big deal?

While LiDAR isn't perfect for every scenario (I'll get into its limitations below), it does have some major benefits. You won't need to find somewhere for an RTK station to live; you won't have to deal with your robot getting lost whenever there's a tree blocking the satellite signal; and you definitely won't need to lay any boundary wires. Since LiDAR generates its own light beams, it will work in the dark, too.

In some situations, you'll be able to unbox your new lawnbot, place it on the ground and it will be able to just work out its surroundings and start cutting. "The LiDAR itself essentially can map," explains Tony. "So [it'll] localize the robot, and also automatically map out the lawn." A few brands are marketing this as some variation on 'drop and mow', and it's undoubtedly appealing.

"LiDAR actually likes obstacles. It's like human beings – we look for landmarks, right? So, when we try to navigate, we say, 'Hey, that building is here, that tree is over there, therefore, I'm home', or something like that," says Tony. "It's a very similar concept when you drop the robot for the first time. It looks around for obstacles and uses that information to figure out where it is. Then, the next time it's in the same spot, it knows where it is. And after it knows where it is on the map, it can start doing path planning."

Removing this pain point from the setup process could have major implications for the market on a larger scale. Specifically, Tony thinks it could remove the barrier to entry that's stopping lawnbots from being widely adopted.

"Even though the product today is already quite easy to use, some people will say, 'Hey, I wanted this to be foolproof. Basically, I don't want to worry about this'," says Tony about the current setup process. "This LiDAR product will solve a lot of problems. Consumers will adopt [robot lawn mowers] quicker."

"LiDAR is perfect for smaller yards with obstacles," he continues. "We love [the i2 LiDAR]. It's literally worry-free."

LiDAR limitations

LiDAR isn't really suitable for use in large, open yards. "If you have a wide open space, the light beams have nothing to bounce off," says Tony (a rep tells me that you can actually get long-range LiDAR, but it's currently too expensive to be a workable solution in products such as this).

Thankfully, these kinds of obstacle-free areas are particularly well-suited to another navigation technology. "Once you're in open space, the best technology to use is satellites," continues Tony. That means that on lawnbots designed for larger areas – including the likes of the Segway Navimow X4 – you're more likely to see traditional satellite and RTK-based navigation.

In fact, many modern lawnbots will combine various different navigation technologies, so in situations where one fails, another can take over.

Part of the reason we're seeing (shorter-range) LiDAR in lawnbots now is that while previously it was very expensive, it's now starting to be manufactured more widely and therefore prices have come down.

There's a mix of two different types: mechanical LiDAR, where the module sits on top of the robot, beneath some kind of light protective casing; and "solid-state" LiDAR, where the LiDAR module is tucked into the body of the lawnbot. The mechanical option is more exposed and arguably more open to damage, but it does offer a 360-degree "view" of the area, which the solid-state version lacks. As to which works best for navigation, there's no clear answer yet – we'll need to get into testing and report back on this one.

Whichever prevails, it's certainly an exciting time for robot lawn mowers.

I've been testing robot vacuums professionally for nearly two years now, and during that time I've reviewed all kinds of different robovacs, from different brands and at different price points. There have been plenty of things that surprised me. Most of them have been positive – today's best robot vacuums are truly capable, impressive gadgets that can save you plenty of time and effort.

In the course of my professional testing, I've also attended plenty of briefings and received countless press releases, and I know the lines all the big robot vacuum brands are peddling. Some of them are valid, and others less so. Here are the three biggest lies robot vacuum brands are telling us, so you can temper your expectations before you invest.

#1. It's all about suction

Robot vacuum brands are currently engaged in a raging battle to have the highest suction specs. These are measured in Pascals (Pa), and things have gotten out of hand lately.

When I started testing robovacs, a low-end bot might have 2,000-4,000Pa of suction, while the fanciest and priciest models would have around 10,000Pa. Then, around the start of 2025, those specs suddenly doubled, and have been climbing at a dizzying pace ever since. Roborock's new flagship has 35,000Pa of suction, as does Dreame's latest addition.

The thing is, I didn't see cleaning prowess improving at the same rate. 10,00Pa was plenty for a really capable clean, and in fact I've tested robot vacuums with far lower suction specs that did an equally good job when it came to day-to-day cleaning, and seemed to pick up a similar amount of fluff, hair and dust from my floors.

It's natural to assume that the higher the suction spec, the better the robovac, but there are plenty of things that play into how well a bot cleans. The design of the roller, for one, and the accuracy of its navigation for another. Plus, remember the suction spec will be for the very highest cleaning setting, which probably isn't the one you'll typically be using.

2. They can identify any object – including cables

Claims around object recognition have also escalated of late. Modern bots can apparently spot and identify a dizzying array of potential obstacles, and then react appropriately for each one, every time they encounter it. Based on my testing, and that of my freelance writers, that's simply not true.

Height is one big stumbling block – if an object is below, say, an inch / 2.5cm in height, a robot vacuum simply won't spot it. I've never met a robot vac that didn't want to eat all my cables, no matter how much that bot cost.

In fact, no robot vacuum has achieved a perfect score in TechRadar's obstacle avoidance tests. I've tested plenty of bots that have meticulously circumnavigated that sock – even photographing it and correctly identifying it in the app – to then go on to drive straight into the shoe sitting a short way behind it. The next time, they might avoid the shoe but gobble down the sock.

It's still worth looking out for decent object avoidance, but adjust your expectations, especially when it comes to consistency in behavior. And to be perfectly clear, I'd never, ever trust any robot vacuum to avoid dog poop.

3. You'll never have to get your hands dirty

Today's premium robot vacuums have ever more advanced cleaning stations, which not only empty the dust from the small onboard bins and replenish any water tanks, but also clean the robot's mop pads (often with hot water, to cut through grease) and dry them off. Some can even clean themselves, too. The myth is that you'll essentially never have to get involved at all.

That's not true. A comprehensive clean station will lessen the amount of maintenance required, but it can't take care of everything. Grime will still build up in the base where the bot docks, and need wiping out and disinfecting from time to time. You'll still need to manually wash the mop pads on occasion to get them really clean (either in the washing machine or the sink, depending on the type). The side sweepers will still need removing, de-hairing and rinsing off, because grime will build up. These actions will help keep the robot performing well for as long as possible.

None of this is to put you off investing in a premium robot vacuum. There are tons more things that robot vacuums can do, and I wouldn't be without one. But it's important to know their limitations, to avoid disappointment.

I saw dozens of new robot vacuums at CES 2026, and many of them had particularly eye-catching features. There was a robot with actual legs for striding up and down stairs and over uneven terrain. There was a robot vacuum that could turn into a manual vacuum, and back again. There was even a robovac that could apparently help you find your lost keys. And that's alongside stair-climbing robovacs and this bot with an arm that can reach for detail tools, both first unveiled at IFA in September 2025.

While all those things are certainly impressive, most aren't quite market-ready yet, and some – dare I say it – might ultimately fall into the 'gimmick' category. In terms of robots that I'd actually want in my home, two new models stood out from the crowd.

They both come from major brands that have popped up time and time again in my best robot vacuum ranking. Both brands are known for making reliable, user-friendly, and effective cleaners that are elevated with the addition of innovative but also genuinely useful new features.

Here's why the Roborock Saros 20 and Dreame X60 are my hot tips for the best new robot vacuums of 2026.

Roborock Saros 20

The Saros 20 is the successor to the hugely popular Saros 10R. It keeps everything we loved about that older version, but introduces a couple of significant updates that help level it up. The main one is an upgraded 'AdaptiLift' system. This is essentially all the tech surrounding the little feet that can lift the robot up away from the ground.

The Saros 20 will be able to climb over even taller room thresholds than its predecessor. I saw it tackle a massive double step in the Roborock demo area at CES, and while it did come down with a bit of a bump, it was still impressive to behold. If you have high room thresholds in your home, this improvement could make all the difference.

There's a second trick related to the AdaptiLift feature: it can now hold the robot at a range of preset heights. This means it can hover at just the right height over a thick carpet or rug, cleaning it efficiently without getting stuck.

Beyond that are all the things that made the Saros 10R such a great all-rounder. There are dual, rotating mop pads, one of which is able to kick out to the side to get right up to the edges of rooms. The suction specs are strong, and there's the same anti-tangle roller that's so successful on other Roborock bots I've tested. Plus, I'd expect an intuitive app and generally excellent reliability and user-friendliness. Of all the Roborock bots launched at CES, the Saros 20 is my one to watch.

Dreame X60

Dreame is another of my favorite robot vacuum brands, consistently delivering reliable, effective, and user-friendly bots. Like Roborock, it was showcasing a few different models at CES, but the one that'll be most practical for most people is the X60.

This is the model built on the foundation of the outstanding Dreame X50, and again, there are some welcome tweaks and changes. The key update is that this bot has been on a diet – it's significantly shallower than its predecessor, and in fact might well be the thinnest robot vacuum on the market right now (it's about the same height as the Saros 20 above).

If you have a low-slung sofa, chances are this bot will now be able to venture under it and clear away all the dust bunnies that have built up since you last bothered to lift the sofa out and clean beneath it.

Another headline update here is that the cleaning station now uses hotter water to wash the mop pads. Much hotter. Boiling, in fact. The idea is that it'll cut right through any grease and grime so your mop pads are like-new by the time the robovac ventures out on another cleaning spree.

As with the Roborock Saros 20, there's also a retractable LiDAR puck (helping to keep the overall height down), and mini legs to vault it over tall room thresholds.

Pricing and availability

Both Roborock and Dreame are widely available in various countries, including the US, UK, and Australia, but not everything arrives at the same time.

At the time of writing, the Saros 20 is listed on the global Roborock site, but not available to preorder or buy.

The X60 Max Ultra Complete is available for preorder in the US from dreametech.com, $1,359.99 with shipping from 10 Feb. At list price, it costs $1,699.99 (equivalent to around £1,260 / AU$2,525), but is currently discounted by $340, with various accessories bundled in.

We'll be getting both models tested out, and will have full reviews with you as soon as possible. In the meantime, I have spotted some big discounts on the older (but still outstanding) version of each bot, which are well worth checking out...

As TechRadar's Homes Editor for floorcare I've seen my fair share of unusual contraptions among the ranks of the best robot vacuums – but I've never seen anything quite like the xLean TR1. This is a robot vacuum that can also be used as a manual stick vacuum – and it can mop and vacuum in both modes.

The shapeshifting design isn't the only interesting thing about this gadget though: it's also kitted out with a 'self-evolving intelligence system' that means it learns your own cleaning techniques while it's being used in manual mode, and can then replicate them in robot mode.

I had a chance to check it out at CES 2026, and it's certainly an intriguing prospect (it's currently still in development, and not yet available to buy). When it's time to switch from robot to manual mode, the LiDAR puck on the top of the robovac will retract, leaving a hole that becomes a port into which a wand and handle slots. What was the robot vacuum then becomes the floorhead of the manual vacuum.

There are a small handful of robovac models, such as the Eufy E20, that have manual and robot components that share a dock, with the idea that if you have a robot vacuum, you'll then also need something handheld to clean stairs, furniture and the like. That's not the idea here, though, because in manual mode the cleaner is too bulky and heavy for use off the ground.

In fact, this looks like it's geared towards use on hard floors only. The mopping part is more sophisticated than you'd find on your average hybrid robot vacuum – it's more similar to the setup I'd expect from one of the best wet-and-dry manual vacuums. There are two roller mops rotating in opposite directions, with each being continually fed with clean water while the dirty stuff is siphoned off. The dock can clean both the robot and itself.

Learning opportunities

The option to use the xLean TR1 as a manual vacuum adds versatility for on-the-spot cleaning – with the added benefit of all the mechanics being included in the 'floorhead' section, which makes it feel lighter and easier to maneuver than if the weight and bulk were in the handle. However, it also plays an important role in feeding into the independent learning.

xLean says it uses something called 'Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF)' to evolve while it's being used in manual mode – picking up tips for things like obstacle avoidance, and how to free itself if it gets stuck. It also has a mildly terrifying-sounding 'Hunting Mode', where it'll scout your floor for hidden or neglected messes that need tackling. The ultimate aim is to deliver 'human-like' cleaning.

xLean launched in 2022, and has been developing this one product since then. So it isn't one of the big names in robot vacuums quite yet, but the specs included on the robot vacuum look solid – there's carpet detection, the ability to recognize 400+ objects, and 17,000Pa of suction.

As mentioned, this model is not yet available to buy, but I'll be watching with interest to see if it does eventually make it to market.

Dreame makes some of the best robot vacuums on the market, and I had a sneak peek of its newest flagship at CES 2026. The Dreame X60 Max Ultra Complete is available for preorder now in the US, and it boasts a number of big upgrades over its predecessor. Given that model scored a near-perfect 4.5 stars in our Dreame X50 review, I have very high hopes for this updated version.

The X50 is one of a few Dreame robot vacuums to be showcased at CES – other models include the Cyber10 Ultra, with an arm that can pick up different tools, and the Cyber X, which comes with a pod that'll enable it to climb up and down stairs. (In fact, these eye-catching bots weren't even the most headline-grabbling part of Dreame's showcase: the brand used CES to announce its expansion into a massive number of new tech categories – but that's a different story.)

However, the X60 is the flagship, and the option that's the most realistic choice for most people. Let's take a look at three big ways it improves on the X50...

1. It's much thinner

The headline feature that Dreame is focusing on is how thin the new bot is. Like its predecessor, the Dreame X60 Max has a top-mounted LiDAR puck that can retract until it's flush with the top of the robot. This happens when the robot senses it's entering a low-height space.

However, the X60 is significantly thinner than the X50 in the first place. With its puck retracted, it comes in at 3.13 inches / 7.95cm tall (in contrast, the older version came in at 3.5 inches / 8.9cm). That's down there with the shallowest robot vacuums on the market – in line with the likes of the Roborock Saros 10R, or possibly even a touch thinner.

Why is height important? It affects where the robot can and can't clean. It might, for instance, be the difference between the bot being able to vacuum under your sofa or not. That's a big benefit, because these inaccessible places will often collect dust, and are out of reach for manual vacuums too, unless you commit to a big furniture reshuffle.

2. It has scorching hot mop washing

Like most premium robot vacuums, the X60 has a dock that can clean the bot's mop pads. Here, Dreame has increased the temperature of the mop washing to a scorching 212F / 100C – boiling point. The idea is that it'll cut through any lingering grease and ensure your pads are squeaky clean before their next mopping session. In comparison, the X50 could clean up to 176F / 80C, which is still nice and hot.

3. It can vault itself over even taller thresholds

The X50 introduced Dreame's ProLeap system: tiny little feet that raise the bot up and enable it to cross steps up to 2.4 inches / 6cm in height. For the X60, that system has been improved, and the robovac can now manage obstacles of up to 3.47 inches / 8.8cm.

Like the thinner build, this improvement is all about expanding the number of places this bot can reach. If you have a particularly tall threshold, that could potentially make a room – or even a whole section of your home – inaccessible to the robot vacuum. That is, unless you take the time to lift it over the threshold manually each time, which somewhat negates the hands-off benefit of opting for a robovac in the first place. With the new ProLeap system, the X60 can roam free, bumping itself over steps and obstacles as it goes.

Big benefits

Those are the big, headline improvements, but there are plenty more tweaks and changes under the hood that could make a big difference to certain users. For example, the X60's dock has a dual-solution compartment that means it can dispense not only regular floor cleaner but also a specific solution designed to eliminate pet odors. The basics have also had a boost, with Dreame promising faster navigation and speedier responses, improved sensors that can detect things like pet hair and pale liquids, and more powerful suction.

At present, the X60 Max Ultra Complete is US-only – it's available for preorder from dreametech.com now, with shipping from 10 Feb. At list price it costs $1,699.99 (equivalent to around £1,260 / AU$2,525), but I suspect it won't regularly be sold at that price – the current 'super early bird' offer knocks $340 off, and bundles in accessories, cleaning solution and an extended warranty.

Dreame has a strong presence in the UK and Australia, and I anticipate the X60 making its way to both markets before long.

There were plenty of impressive lawnbots on show at CES 2026, but Segway Navimow's new flagship has a trick I didn't see anywhere else. It's all to do with how it handles tight turns, and I had a chance to grill a brand exec on exactly how it all works.

I spoke with Tony Ho, Vice President of Business Development for Segway Navimow, and he told me that some other lawnbots had a tendency to churn up the lawn when making a pivot (a common requirement, as most lawnbots these days will mow in straight, parallel lines, turning at the top of each row).

"When they turn, the wheels are rubbing against the grass. It kind of just kills the grass at the turning point," he explained.

For the new X4 series, Segway Navimow came up with a different strategy. "The X4 has this feature where it almost turns the wheels and does a crab walk. It's one of our inventions. Our engineers are so proud of that," he tells me. "We like to say, 'It's tough on the terrain, but it's very gentle on the grass.'"

The 'tough on terrain' part of that is important, too. The X4 was designed specifically with large and challenging yards – the kind that are common in North America – in mind.

Tony says the X4 is one of his favorites of the five new models the brand is launching in 2026. "It's a showcase of the best technology we have," he says. "I definitely have huge hopes for the X4 – we think it's going to make our year this year."

I tested this model's predecessor, and as you'll discover in my five-star Segway Navimow X3 review, I was seriously impressed. However, one thing that really stood out to me is that the design could not be more different. The X3 is one of the friendliest looking lawnbots around, whereas the X4 feels a whole lot meaner.

Tony admits that at first, he thought the look was "a little bit stupid". He explains that it's geared towards the section of the market that prefer a macho-looking gadgets. "It's partially, kind of targeting... people who love cars, as opposed to the cute type of robot," he explains.

Personal styling preferences aside, I'll be very interested to see how this model performs in the real world. The version I saw was US-only, and is available in two versions: the X430, which is designed for up to an acre and costs $2,499, and the X450 for up to 1.5 acres and costs $2,999. There will be a similar UK version joining the lineup at some point – watch this space.

Got a new robot vacuum but not quite sure where to start? I can help. I've tested many of the best robot vacuums on the market – and some of the worst – so I've done more than my fair share of setting up and using robovacs.

Let's say you've unboxed the bot, attached any side sweepers or mop pads that need to be attached, downloaded the app and connected your robot vacuum up to it. What now? Here are seven things to do to get started with your new automated home helper...

1. Do a mapping run (but tidy up first)

Once you've connected your robot vacuum up to its companion app, you'll typically be prompted to do a 'mapping run'. During this, the robot won't do any cleaning, but it'll explore its new surroundings and create a map. It'll do this by popping into each room, wandering about a bit, and then leaving.

To get your home ready for this, you want to open all the doors and tidy away any clutter on the floors. In fact, I tend to try and lift up anything that's not going to be a permanent fixture – so I'll pop dining chairs onto the table, for instance.

It is possible to skip this step and just launch straight in, asking the robovac to clean and map as it goes, but opting to map first means the bot can be more efficient when it comes to vacuuming. Plus, it typically won't take long at all – less than 10 minutes.

2. Edit the map

Once the robot has finished its mapping run, it'll come back with a rough map of the space it has just scouted. How accurate this is will vary from robovac to robovac, but it's rare even the most advanced model will get it perfect first time around.

You'll probably need to go in and add a name to each room – this is just to help you make sense of the map. It's useful for determining where the robot has been and where it has encountered issues. Plus, it makes it simpler for you to launch single-room cleans. You might also need to split or merge rooms or areas.

It might be the case that the robot vacuum includes areas that it won't actually be able to clean. For instance, when I map my home, the robot will include parts of the garden, which it can 'see' through full-height patio doors. If I map a floor that's not the ground floor, it will also include the stairs going down. Again, it can see it's a space that exists, even though its cliff sensors will (thankfully) prevent it from reaching it.

For areas like this, I'll add a virtual wall or no-go zone. This means the bot won't waste time banging up against the glass door, trying to clean the decking outside.

Again, nothing terrible will happen if you don't complete this step – it just makes your life easier and can help the robot be more efficient in what it's trying to do.

3. Launch a whole-floor vacuum

At this point, I tend to just crack on with a whole-floor clean. I send the robot vacuum off to vacuum everywhere, using its default settings. Everything will be off the floor from the mapping run, so it should be able to achieve a nice, thorough clean.

During this run, I will be able to identify any problem areas where the robot might get stuck or lost, or any places where it can't currently reach. I can then make adjustments where possible to solve the problems.

I can also get an idea of the robot vacuum's navigation capabilities. More advanced robot vacuums will learn as they go, so even if the navigation is a little dodgy at this point, it'll get smarter the more you use it. Typically, I find most robot vacuums these days do a good job of finding their way about, though.

4. Explore the mopping

Most modern robot vacuums can mop as well as vacuuming, and early on I like to explore the bot's mopping capabilities. Setups vary considerably from robot to robot. On a basic option like the Dreame D9 Max Gen 2, you'll have to fill the water tank and attach the mop pad, carry the robot vacuum to the room you want mopping, close the door and ask it to mop. If the robot can't sense carpet, or if there are hard floor areas you don't want mopping, you'll want to set no-mop zones in your app.

More advanced options will be able to sense carpet and lift their mop pads up to avoid getting it damp. They'll also have a dock that refills the onboard water tank for them, so you won't need to do that bit manually. If I have a hi-tech model like this, I'll just include mopping as part of the first whole-floor clean.

Typically, you'll have the option to just vacuum and mop simultaneously, or vacuum then mop. I'll always go for the last option, so any dust and debris is clear before the water enters the picture.

5. Create a schedule

Once I've done my initial, exploratory cleans, I'll set up a schedule for cleaning going forward. The majority of robot vacuums have this option. The beauty of a robot vacuum is that it can operate autonomously, with very little input required from you. I'll ask it to clean two or three times a week, at times when I know I'm going to be out. As part of that, I might include one 'deep' clean, on higher intensity settings.

It is possible for a robot vacuum to clean at night. Almost all modern robot vacuums use LiDAR as their primary navigation technology, and this doesn't rely on the space being lit (many bots supplement this with headlamps to allow their object-detecting cameras to work in a dark room, too). If your bedrooms are near the areas being vacuumed, you might want to avoid this option, because the noise of cleaning may disturb your sleep.

6. Tweak settings

As you get acquainted with your robot vacuum, you'll notice things you might want to be a bit different. On a fancier robot vacuum, you'll likely be able to tweak almost anything, from how much water the bot uses for mopping to how often it'll auto-empty its dust cups, so dig into the app and have a look around.

If you find your robot vacuum is regularly running into things you don't want it to, look for a 'pet mode' in the settings – this will generally increase the sensitivity of the bot's object avoidance. If you're not sure what your options are, here are more settings you might want to change on your robot vacuum.

7. Map other floors

At time of writing, stair-climbing is out of a robot vacuum's capabilities. That doesn't have to mean your robovac is bound to a single floor, though. Pretty much all companion apps will enable you to map multiple levels – you'll just have to commit to carrying your bot to the new floor, and back again once it's finished cleaning.

Lack of access to the dock is the only other potential sticking point. It's rare that a robovac would need to recharge or empty its dust cup half-way through cleaning a floor, but it is possible it could run out of water if it's doing a lot of mopping.

To supplement my scheduled clean of the floor with the dock, I'll often map other floors in my home. I'll then just carry the robot up to do a clean every now and then – it's still less effort than going around with a stick vacuum.

Roborock announced a few new robot vacuums at CES 2026, including one that has leggy stilts that mean it can just lift itself up and walk over any kind of uneven terrain. But the one that I suspect is going to win out on the general market is the Saros 20 – the successor to the outstanding Roborock Saros 10R. The 10R was one of the best robot vacuums we tested in 2025, but the 20 looks even better.

At the risk of confusing everyone, both versions also have sister models: the Saros 10, and the new Saros 20 Sonic (the slight shift in naming is the result of some copyright complications, I am told). The key distinguishing feature is the mop pad type – the 10R and 20 both have dual, spinning mop pads, whereas the 10 and 20 Sonic have a D-shaped pad. A Roborock rep shared with me that it has found the dual spinning mop pad style the most popular by some margin, so it tracks that the Saros 20 will be the one to watch of the new additions.

All clear? Great! Let's take a look at the Saros 20's 3 coolest upgrades...

1. It can hover above your carpet

The big news is that the Saros 20 has a new version of Roborock's AdaptiLift feature. This is essentially all the tech surrounding the little feet that boost the robot vacuum over tall thresholds. On the upgraded version, not only can the robot conquer even taller steps (it can manage single steps up to 1.77in / 4.5cm in height, or a double step totaling 3.34in / 8.5cm), it also uses the feet to improve its cleaning performance on thick carpet.

Once turned on in the app, the Saros 20 has a feature that enables it to hover at exactly the right height to effectively clean a deep-pile carpet without getting stuck. It has eight different height options, and the robot will intelligently choose the right one for the thickness of the carpet it's dealing with. Roborock says it can cope with a pile of up to 1.18 in / 3cm.

2. It will be able to swap its mop pads

This one isn't quite here yet, but is on its way: the Saros 20 will be able to switch between different mop pads for different areas of the home. Like its predecessor, the 20 has two circular, spinning mop pads that attach magnetically.

However, Roborock is now introducing multiple pad types for different scenarios, and a dock that can automatically dispense the correct pair of pads for the situation. The bot will be able to automatically drop off its old pads and pick up a new pair as required, for an effective clean with no cross-contamination between areas.

This isn't a new idea – Dreame launched a mop-swapping dock in September 2025 (read our full Dreame Matrix10 Ultra review for more info), and the Roborock version looks essentially the same.

At CES Roborock was showing a version of the mechanism with a transparent front, but not the actual final dock. A rep informed me that the Saros 20 mop-swap-dock is at the fine-tuning stage of development, and although it won't launch with the Saros 20, it hopefully won't be too far behind.

3. The dock won't show your grubby fingerprints

The Saros 10R came with a glossy mirrored dock that I love the look of. However, I will concede that it's not the most practical choice for busy households – the shiny finish shows up smears and fingerprints particularly badly. It makes sense, then, that Roborock has opted for a less glam but more functional finish on the dock for the Saros 20. It's just matte black plastic, but promises to be far more fingerprint-friendly than its predecessor.

There are further tweaks and upgrades under the hood. Notably, the suction has had another boost – the Saros 20 can deliver a ridiculous 35,000Pa of power, compared to 20,000Pa on the Saros 10R. And on top of the upgrades, you're still getting all the best bits of the excellent 10R, from automatic brush and mop lifting (depending on floor type) to hot water mop pad washing and warm air drying.

The Roborock Saros 20 will begin its international rollout this year. Exact dates and pricing are TBC, and I'll have a full review with you as soon as possible.

Dreame began life as a robot vacuum brand, before going on to add other air-focused appliances like manual vacuums and hair dryers to its roster. It's only been around since 2017/18, but in that time it has established itself as a major player in these markets – it features prominently in both my best cordless vacuum and best robot vacuum rankings.

So I was excited to see what Dreame would be showcasing at CES 2026. I was expecting a new robot vacuum, perhaps some innovative air purifiers. What I was not expecting was for Dreame to announce its entry into literally every corner of the home. I'm not exaggerating – if you can think of a home appliance, Dreame now has one in its lineup.

It has a TV, soundbars, a projector, a surround sound speaker setup. There's a Dreame action camera, smart rings, smart glasses and a smartwatch. It has smart lights in all shapes and sizes. It has security cameras, smart locks and motion sensors.

There are fridges, a dishwasher, a microwave and a selection of ovens. There are air fryers, coffee machines, and a stand mixer. It has a washing machine, tumble dryer, and steamer. There's a chainsaw and a hedge trimmer, electric toothbrushes, razors, IPL machines and an LED face mask.

It's still at prototype stage, but there was even a car sitting incongruously on the Dreame stand.

The vision, according to the press release, is to evolve from "a standalone smart device brand to a comprehensive provider of connected lifestyles with an ecosystem now covering the home, garden, outdoors, and on the move". The tagline it's going with is "All dreams in one Dreame", which makes no sense at all.

Too far, too soon?

I've tested a number of Dreame gadgets, and have almost always been impressed, but I'm wary of this latest expansion. It all just seems too fast and too wide-reaching for it to have been done with the required care and expertise. The difficulty I've had in getting any information about the individual products I was most interested in hasn't reassured me any further.

Previously, Dreame's category expansions have made sense. There's crossover between the mechanics of a vacuum cleaner and a hair dryer, for instance. I can see how a brand that knows its way around a robot vacuum could also make a great lawnbot.

But I'm struggling to see how those skills might translate into coffee machines or TVs – both categories that are highly specific, and which require specialist knowledge and skills to excel in. The same goes for things like smartwatches and action cameras.

Of course, I haven't tested any of the new gadgets yet – I've only seen them displayed and demoed, which isn't a reliable way to judge any product. The proof will be in the testing, and I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

Dreame makes some of the best robot vacuums around, and I've just had a sneak peek of its newest flagship at CES 2026. It looks amazing. Its called the Dreame X60 Max Ultra Complete, and it comes with all the bells and whistles I'd expect from this brand.

But I'm struggling a little bit to get too excited about it. Part of that is because Dreame has set the bar so high. We absolutely loved this robovac's predecessor – the X50 Ultra. The X60 has many of the same headline features, albeit with tweaks and improvements.

I'm talking: a navigation puck that can retreat so it's flush with the top of the robot when it senses it's entering a low-height space; little stilts that boost the bot up and over tall room thresholds; a dock that can wash the mop pads with hot water, and dry them off too.

Go shorty

Where the X60 is significantly different to its predecessor is in its height. Dreame has shrunk this guy right down, and now claims it's the "industry's thinnest robot vacuum". Coming in at just 3.13in / 7.95cm tall (compared to 3.5in / 8.9cm for the X50), that might well be true.

It's certainly right at the sveltest end of the market, which is great news if you want it to be able to sneak under low furniture. But it's only a hair shorter than the best Roborock has to offer – I measured the Roborock Saros 10 at 3.1in / 8cm, and that's rounded to 1 decimal place, so there's really nothing in it.

What other improvements can you expect over the older X50? Perhaps the most notable changes are in the dock. Dreame has boosted the temperature of the mop cleaning to a whopping 212°F / 100°C, i.e. boiling point. That feels a little extreme to me, although I guess it will truly get everything squeaky clean.

Dreame has targeted pet-owners with an unusual two-part detergent dispenser that contains not just your regular cleaning fluid but also a specialized one for eliminating pet odors.

The X60 Max Ultra Complete's navigation system has been improved, and threshold-crossing limit raised. The 'Dirt Detection' mode can now apparently spy – and respond to – less obvious messes like pet hair and pale liquids. Of course, suction power has had a further boost too.

I'm excited to see how these upgrades perform in a real-world scenario when we get our hands on a model to test.

The new bot will have a list price of $1,699.99 (approx £1,265 / AU$2,540 – although actual UK and AU pricing are TBC, along with availability and launch dates.). I suspect it won't typically be sold at that price. Preorders are now open in the US, with discounts already available.

TechRadar will be extensively covering this year's CES, and will bring you all of the big announcements as they happen. Head over to our CES 2026 news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything from wireless TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI. You can also ask us a question about the show in our CES 2026 live Q&A and we’ll do our best to answer it.

And don’t forget to follow us on TikTok and WhatsApp for the latest from the CES show floor!

CES 2026 is well underway now, and the TechRadar team has been on the show floor – and in the many private briefing rooms dotted all over Las Vegas – to see what the most important, most innovative, and most fun gadgets coming your way in 2026 will be.

We've had our experts all over the big launches as well as the smaller stuff tucked away at the back of the halls, and we've chosen our 25 favorite products of the show. We're covering a wide gamut of consumer tech here, so make yourself a coffee and dig into what we loved, and why it stood out to us.

Want to watch along and see more of the tech we loved at CES? Check out the video below!

Best phone

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

• A phone that really turns into a tablet
• Impressive camera system, too
• Read more: I finally tried the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold and couldn't believe my eyes

We finally got to try Samsung's first double-folding phone (it may be called the TriFold, but there are two hinges…), and we called it a "remarkable feat of engineering that offers the potential of truly pocketable big-screen tablet productivity". When folded, it isn’t meaningfully thicker than regular phones, and it has a 6.5-inch screen… but then it becomes 10-inch tablet – so truly tablet-sized – in an instant when you fold its two sides out.

It's not just a one-trick pony, though – the TriFold has five cameras in total, to make sure it can deliver all the flexibility you want from a modern phone. There's Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy customized powerful processor, and a generous 5,600mAh battery. It's the clear stand-out among CES's phones this year.

Best earbuds

Shokz OpenFit Pro

• Shokz' first open earbuds with active 'noise reduction'
• Great fit and sound quality
• Read more: I’ve worn the all-new Shokz open earbuds for 4 days and the ‘noise reduction’ is so good, I forget they’re open-ear

The best open earbuds have become incredibly popular, but Shokz has making them for longer than most, and the new OpenFit Pro proves that it's good to be the veteran. Crucially, these are the company's first with active noise cancellation – even though Shokz doesn't want to call it that, because not having an in-ear seal means it's not quite as effective as what people think of for ANC. No, this is 'noise reduction'.

Well, we've tested them, and actually the noise reduction is as good as a lot of ANC earbuds. It's really effective, and paired with impressive sound and high levels of comfort, these are really impressive.

Best stereo speakers

Cambridge L/R Series

• 3 sizes of wireless stereo bookshelf speakers with huge power
• Dedicated bass drivers with passive radiators
• Read more: Cambridge has unveiled three active bookshelf speakers at CES and it’s not hard to see the KEF resemblance

British hi-fi company Cambridge launched its first wireless stereo speakers, and despite being modest in size, they are huge in sound. There are three sizes – the L/R X is the biggest, the L/R M is the medium, and the L/R S is the small – and it's amazing how much oomph they provide.

We heard the L/R X going hard, and the bass is enough to shake the room, despite not being that big. A big down-firing woofer and dual passive bass radiators get it to this point, delivering an amazingly full sound, with tons of detail and finesse to it as well. And they're great-looking, too.

Best Bluetooth speaker

Fender Audio Elie 6

• 3-way speaker system in a small body produces great sound
• Connections for guitars and mics, and great wireless options
• Read more: Fender just released new wireless headphones and Bluetooth speakers

Fender Audio launched two speakers and a pair of headphones at CES, and all are interesting in various ways, but during our ears-on time it was the Elie 6 that really impressed us. It's a pretty small unit, but it packs in a tweeter, full-range speaker and down-firing bass driver, meaning the sound is amazingly full and impactful – especially in stereo mode, with two units connected wirelessly.

They have interesting features, too – a combined XLR and 1/4-inch port for connecting a mic or guitar directly, and even two wireless buttons for a specific connectivity feature Fender is planning to work with wireless mics. We like the design too, with a solid carry handle.

Best headphones

TDM Neo

• Headphones that 'twist' to become a portable speaker
• 200-hour battery life in headphones mode

We love seeing something totally new at CES. The TDM Neo work like a regular pair of on-ear wireless headphones. You put them on, you enjoy some nice bassy music. But when you take them off, you can twist the flexible headband and connect the earcups together magnetically, to form a small round device. As soon as you do this, they start playing music out loud, as a Bluetooth speaker.

They have two sets of audio drivers to make this happen: one for headphones mode, and a more powerful set for speaker mode. And they're really thoughtfully designed – the headband hinges attach to each other when you twist, so you know you've done it correctly, but then they become a flat surface you can stand the speaker on.

If you prefer, you can also change the behavior so that when you twist, they pause instead of auto-switching to speaker mode. And because the speaker mode requires more power, they have huge batteries, and can deliver a colossal 200 hours of life in headphones mode.

Best toy

Lego Smart Play

• A classic Lego brick, now with sound and light magic
• All the tech is under the hood – no screens required

At first glance, Lego’s Smart Brick looks like a regular 2x4 Lego brick. Aside from a transparent top, you’d never know it’s any different. But bring a Smart Minifigure close, and that's where the magic starts to happen. If Darth Vader approaches, the Imperial March starts up. Move R2-D2 nearby and you’re greeted with frantic boops and flashes of blue light. Same goes for a Smart Tag to identify what the Lego build is – say, an X-Wing or Tie Fighter.

All of this is powered by a custom chip hidden inside the brick, along with sensors, a gyroscope, non-invasive microphones, and a sound synthesizer. Together, they let the Smart Brick understand what’s around it and respond with the right sounds and lighting effects, without adding a screen or changing the core Lego experience. For now, it’s limited to a handful of Star Wars sets, but it’s a smart, confident foundation – one that enhances play rather than distracting from it.

Best OLED TV

LG W6 Wallpaper TV

• LG's best OLED panel, in a super-thin 9.9mm body
• Uses a wireless connections box to keep it aesthetically pure
• Read more: LG announces new OLED TVs at CES

The LG W6 is a stunner in more ways than one. It uses LG's most advanced OLED panel – the new Primary RGB Tandem 2.0 also used in the LG G6 – but in a design that's just 9.9mm thick. It's also totally uniform, meaning it can be as invisible on the wall as pretty much any TV can be these days. In the image above, you can see how well it blends in using a photo of the wall behind it. To help this minimalism, it uses a wireless connections box that's capable of full-quality 4K HDR pictures, but without the tangle of cables running to the TV.

It looks like it'll be a fantastic TV, thanks to the panel and LG's latest-gen image processing, and should only cost a little more than the G6 does. That means you'll be getting something super-impressive and premium at a still-realistic price.

Best RGB TV

Samsung R95H

• Stunningly rich color and fantastic contrast
• Available in realistic sizes, and shown in an amazing 130-inch model
• Read more: Samsung's enormous micro-RGB TV is coming to smaller screen sizes, and it borrows one great feature from Samsung OLED TVs

CES has been dominated by RGB TVs this year. These are basically mini-LED TVs with a new more colorful backlight behind the pixels, meaning they offer a greater range of colors, and can be even brighter. Having seen them in action, our pick of the bunch is the Samsung R95H. It looks so lush and colorful, with impressively inky black tones, and Samsung's anti-reflective screen ensuring you can see everything, without distractions.

More than that, this is a TV available in realistic sizes – Samsung showed off 75-inch and 85-inch versions, but overall its RGB TVs will come in sizes starting from 55 inches – while still feeling cutting edge. However, for good measure, Samsung also showed an amazing 130-inch version of this TV.

Best Mini-LED TV

TCL X11L SQD MiniLED

• A twist on traditional QLED mini-LED TV tech
• Astoundingly bright, with 20,000 dimming zones
• Read more: TCL launches next-gen SQD mini-LED TV at CES – the ‘best TV in the market’ for 2026

TCL has put a fascinating twist on its flagship TV here. It uses more traditional mini-LED tech rather than RGB mini-LED – but only sort of. TCL is employing a single-color mini-LED backlight, but has applied a layer of 'Super Quantum Dots' (the SQD part) directly over the top, which filter the color before – rather than after – it reaches the LCD layer.

This means it kind of works like an RGB TV, but TCL says this approach means it can pack in way more LEDs. It can produce 10,000 nits of brightness and 20,000 dimming zones for probably the best contrast we've ever seen from a mini-LED TV. Based on early impressions, this is the closest we've seen to mini-LED beating the blooming problem completely.

Best projector

Hisense PX4-Pro

• Ultra short throw laser 4K projector with amazing brightness and color
• Up to 200 inches projected with the device just inches from the wall
• Read more: Hisense unveils two 4K laser projectors — a 300-inch beast with huge brightness, plus the sequel to the best ultra short throw projector

The PX4-Pro is the follow-up to the projector we rate as the best ultra short throw projector overall right now, so we were excited to take a look, and it lived up to our expectations. Its picture looks beautifully bright with a good light-rejecting screen – closer than ever to TV brightness – and eye-grabbingly rich color.

But it can now project up to 200 inches in size still from right near the wall, while maintaining immersive brightness and color depth, and all still in the same size of projector package. CES is full of projectors this year, but this one popped for us.

Best soundbar

LG Sound Suite H7

• The world's first Dolby Atmos FlexConnect soundbar
• A powerful all-in-one, and you can add more speakers in any position
• Read more: LG’s 2026 TVs and soundbars get the Dolby Atmos FlexConnect treatment

Dolby Atmos FlexConnect is a really interesting technology that means you can place home theater speakers wherever is convenient for your room, and the system will configure their sound to create immersive spatial audio, even if they're not in the 'ideal' spot.

LG's Sound Suite H7 is the first soundbar to include the tech, delivering 9.1.6 channels of Dolby Atmos sound on its own. However, you can add a sub and satellite speakers that are positioned anywhere in the room, and the soundbar will automatically optimize them and create the ideal immersive system. It sounds amazing, and the freedom of placement is a game-changer.

Best smartwatch

Pebble Round 2

• The original smartwatch returns!
• E-paper screen means a week of battery life
• Read more: Pebble unveils Pebble Round 2 — and fixes all the original's major pitfalls

Pebble holds a strong place in the heart of tech lovers – it was the first smartwatch that really took, and now it's back with its coolest model yet. Pebble Round 2 is a sleeker, rounder watch, and using a color e-paper helps it deliver a week of battery life per charge.

Naturally, it does some fitness and sleep tracking, and there's a big range of apps and watch faces, thanks to the ongoing commitment to having open source software on the Pebble range.

Best fitness tracker

Noise Luna Band

• A screenless health-tracking band
• No subscription needed – a rarity these days

We've enjoyed the Luna Ring models, and now the brand has the Luna Band. It's a Whoop-like fitness tracker, meaning there's no distracting screen. It doesn't really feel like tech, and that's a good thing – you just live your life, and the Luna Band will offer helpful updates on your diet, workouts, sleep, mood and more. You can use your voice to tell it what meal you ate, to log your workouts, or how you're feeling – and then you can review them later on the app. The one downside is that this function uses Apple's Siri, which means it's iPhone-only for now.

Perhaps the best part is that it doesn't require a subscription on top of the device cost to do all this – people are tired of being nickel-and-dimed, and so the Luna Band looks like it'll help you stay zen in more ways than one.

Best exercise tech

Merach W60 Walking Pad

• "Treadmill-grade engineering" for a low price
• Auto-incline or manual incline options

Walking pads are getting more and more popular, especially for people who work from home and want to get some exercise in during the work day. Merach's new model promises to help you do this more easily and reliably than ever. We love the promise of "treadmill-grade engineering" for a super-sturdy feel, and Merach says it will have a 2,000km warranty.

It's available in two options: one with an auto-incline feature, and one where you'll have to manually set an incline. There's also RGB lighting and Bluetooth speakers built in, if you want to set a mood. Starting from just $299 for the manual version and $329 for the auto-incline version, this really looks like it could be the new standout walking pad on the market.

Best wellness innovation

Nuralogix Longevity Mirror

• A smart mirror that can detect blood flow in your face to give health insights
• Everything from physiological age to mental health

This smart mirror has cameras built in that combine with an AI algorithm to work out a surprising amount of health data just from your face. It's not looking at your features – it's detecting blood-flow patterns, which it can make a variety of sophisticated estimations from.

These include your heart-rate, your physiological age (as in, is your body working as well as it should for your 'real' age?) and your mental health. It appears to be pretty accurate based on early testing – it seems like an incredibly clever system.

Best laptop

Dell XPS 14

• Smart new design with usability improvements
• Intel's new Core Ultra 3 chips inside
• Read more: Hands on: Dell XPS 14 2026 and XPS 16 2026

Without question, the most exciting laptop of CES 2026 was the Dell XPS 14. While many a reviewer and tech journalist is praising the return of the XPS brand itself, what matters most – in our opinion – is the redesign of the laptop. The last Dell XPS 14 and 2025's Dell 14 Premium (the short-lived successor to the XPS 14) were both fantastic laptops that were hamstrung by some major design flaws; namely, the virtual function keys and ‘invisible’ trackpad that turned out to be an accessibility nightmare.

Those have now been fixed with a new design that is also thinner and more modern-looking than its predecessors. And with the new Intel Core Ultra series 3 chips, it’s even more powerful and better equipped to take on the Apple MacBook Air for the 'thin and light' laptop crown.

Best gaming laptop

Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable

• A 16-inch display that expands to a 24-inch display
• The flexible OLED screen literally rolls out like a scroll
• Read more: Lenovo officially unveils the rumored Legion Pro Rollable gaming laptop with expanding screen

The Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable, previously rumored but officially unveiled at CES 2026, is easily one of the most intriguing gaming laptops we’ve ever seen. Its screen expands horizontally from a 16-inch display to 21.5 inches, then once more to a 23.8-inch panel at max extension – all from a quick keyboard shortcut.

The Legion Pro Rollable is an exciting prospect for PC gamers who travel often and want desk-like levels of screen space without attempting to cram a massive laptop into their bag. Gaming aside, it also brings benefits to everyday browsing and productivity, giving you more space to organize windows at the click of a button. It’s only a proof of concept at the moment, but we'll be following it closely to see if the Legion Pro Rollable hits mainstream production.

Best computing innovation

Core Ultra series 3

• Excellent performance in thin-and-light laptops
• Particularly impressive GPU means great gaming on ultrabooks
• Read more: The Intel Core Ultra series 3 processors look impressive enough, but the Arc B390 iGPU is the real game-changer here

We’ve been waiting for the Intel Core Ultra series 3 for several months now, having seen pre-launch builds of Intel Panther Lake last year. Now the Core Ultra series 3 has launched, every laptop we’ve tried with the new chips just reinforces how well Intel has stuck the landing on this release.

This is especially true when it comes to the graphics performance of the higher-end 12 Xe core Arc B390 iGPU, which delivers high-quality 1080p PC gaming on an ultrabook – no other chipmaker even comes close in 2026. If you’re looking to upgrade to a premium thin and light Windows laptop, there’s little reason to buy anything other than a laptop with an Intel Core Ultra series 3.

Best action camera

Dreame Leaptic Cube

• Tiny modular 8K action camera
• Clip to a screen module, or just a battery

Dreame is best known for its vacuum and cleaning tech, but it used CES 2026 to announce its entry into a ton of other product categories. And one of the coolest things we saw at the show was this tiny action camera. The core here is a really small action cam with up to 8K recording, or 4K in HDR if you prefer.

But the clever part is its modular design. It has a little docking system, and Dreame showed it running into two modes: one with a clip-on battery, keeping the whole thing at a small size; and one with a touchscreen module that's larger. You can imagine all the possibilities for accessories from here, all enabling smart extra functions, not just attaching dumbly.

Best gaming accessory

Razer Project Madison

• The ultimate immersive gaming chair
• Surround speakers, haptic feedback and RGB lights all react to games

Razer has decided to throw every kind of immersive gaming chair tech into one product here. This chair uses sight, sound and touch to create something totally enveloping, taking features from Razer's products including the Freyja haptic gaming cushion and Clio headrest speakers.

This chair has speakers behind your head, which combine with front speakers to create a true 5.1 or 7.1 surround system. It has lights that react to compatible games, creating the feeling that events are happening around you, not just on the screen. And the built-in haptics deliver sensations and impacts during play. It looks like the best way to get truly lost in a game.

Best gaming innovation

Neurable / HyperX headset concept and priming software

• A brain-reading gaming headset to improve your performance
• Helps you lower reaction times and improve accuracy
• Read more: I tried a prototype brain-scanning headset designed to make you better at Valorant — and it actually works

Brain-scanning company Neurable has worked on headphones that can scan your brain activity using EEGs to help you focus and prevent burnout in the past. Now it's bringing these ideas to gaming headsets, in a collaboration with HyperX – but the focus is on improving your focus and performance in games.

We tried it out, and it really makes a difference. Using a 'priming' exercise before playing, where you have to focus your mind to shrink a cloud of dots down to nothing, we improved accuracy by a few percentage points, and the company's research has shown it can reduce reaction time by around 40 milliseconds. For esports players, this is a big deal, and the software can track your focus and cognitive load levels while playing, to potentially help with coaching and to prevent tilting.

Best robot mower

Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD

• Offers ±1 cm positioning precision via an upgraded LiDAR, RTK and Vision navigation system
• Can make decisions almost instantly with a 10 TOPS AI chip
• Read more: I just watched Mammotion's new flagship lawnbot scale an astroturf mountain, and it was mesmerizing

There were a lot of incredible robot lawn mowers on show at CES this year, but the one that really stood out to us was the Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD. It builds on the success of the excellent LUBA 2 AWD that precedes it, and is one of the most all-round capable lawnbots we've seen.

At the heart of the design is an upgraded 'Tri-Fusion' navigation system, where the bot will switch between LiDAR, RTK GPS and AI Vision depending on what's most appropriate for the situation. That means it's unlikely ever to get itself lost – the brand promises positioning accuracy to ±1 cm. Mammotion has also upgraded the processing system with a powerful AI chip that can handle 10 trillion operations per second, meaning it can make smart mowing decisions almost instantly.

Best robot vacuum

Roborock Saros Rover

• It's a robovac with actual, proper legs
• It can climb stairs, duck and dive, and even hop
• Read more: I saw Roborock's new robot vacuum with legs, and it promises to make no-go zones a thing of the past

This one is still in the middle of development, but is so cool already – and, admittedly, a little weird. This robot vacuum uses two extended legs that make it look like a Star Wars droid to get around your house more easily. Having articulated legs means it can climb stairs – including spiral staircases – cleaning them as it goes.

In fact, stairs are just the start. Roborock says the Rover is designed to be able to tackle any kind of terrain or home layout, no matter how awkward. Think of it like a 4x4 for cleaning.

It has some fancy object avoidance tech that means it can duck and dive, weave and jump, remaining completely stable throughout. We're not sure exactly what this is for, but it sure is impressive to watch. This maybe the most that a robovac has looked like a pet – it's got personality, it's useful, and we love it.

Best haircare tech

L'Oréal Light Straight +

• A straightener that uses infrared light tech to straighten effectively at lower temperatures
• Avoids the high temperatures that damage hair
• Read more: L'Oréal exec on why its new glass, infrared-powered hair straightener is so exciting

This innovative hair straightener promises to be three times faster at straightening hair, and yet will leave hair twice as smooth as regular plate straighteners do. And at the same time, it can do this at a lower temperature – always under 320°F / 160°C, compared to 365°F / 185°C for typical models. High temperatures break down hair, so reduction is a long-term good for your hair's health.

We got to try them out on – and this has been the first time we've ever used this phrase – human demo hair, and they certainly seemed to work incredibly well. This could be a huge change for a long-running industry, and that's what CES is all about.

Best smart light

IKEA Varmblixt LED Lamp

• It's a glowing, color-changing donut
• Works with IKEA's smart hub, or a Matter home system
• Read more: IKEA just revealed a new donut-shaped smart light – and it'll look sweet on your tables or walls

Sometimes, you've just got acknowledge when something is charming as hell, and that's what we're talking about with the new IKEA Varmblixt. It's a revamp of an ultra-popular lamp IKEA launched in 2022, but this new version is all about the color options, using an array of LEDs to create a beautiful soft toroidal glow.

It can be controlled with a remote, or you can connect it to IKEA's Dirigea home hub, but it also works with any Matter-ready smart home control option.

• Roborock Saros 20 Sonic has a wide, flat mop pad that vibrates and applies downward pressure
• Uniquely, it can kick out to the side for complete coverage
• Pressure and water can be adjusted independently

The Saros 20 Sonic is one of a number of new Roborock robot vacuums I've been able to check out at CES 2026. It's an upgraded version of the popular Saros 10, and while it might not have the immediate wow-factor of the Rover, which has actual legs, it still made me do a double-take when I saw it in action.

The reason is the mopping system. Rather than two spinning discs or a roller, it features a flat, D-shaped pad that extends almost entirely from edge-to-edge, giving an impressively wide mopping area.

More than that, it can kick out to one side when it senses the edge of a room, getting right up to the edge. As far as I'm aware this is the only robovac with this style of mop pad that can do this trick – D-shaped pads are always fixed in place.

Unlike other robot vacuum mop methods, there's no gap or border the mop pad won't reach. It promises a clean that's both efficient and precise.

The pad has its own independent motor that delivers 4,000 sonic vibrations per minute) as it mops and applies up to 14N of downward pressure (1.75x that of previous Roborock bots) to break down and remove dried-on dirt. An automatic dispenser ensures cleaning fluid is diluted evenly.

You're also granted plenty of control over the mopping. You can adjust the water flow and vibration intensity independently, which is good news for – for example – those with water-sensitive hard flooring in need of a clean.

Rock around the dock

An upgraded 'RockDock' base will also take care of pretty much all the maintenance for you. It'll clean the pad with 212°F / 100°C hot water to remove grease and remove bacteria, then use 131°F / 55°C hot air to dry the mop. Actually, it'll also dry the dock base and internal dust bag, to remove any risk of mold or odors.

Cleverly, the dock can also clean the pad on its own when it's been dropped off in the dock when the rest of the bot is off on a vacuum-only run. This helps save time.

The Saros 20 Sonic is being launched alongside a sister model, the Saros 20 (an upgraded Roborock Saros 10R). The Saros 20 is similar, but has a different navigation system than the Sonic, and uses the popular dual spinning mop pad style rather than this D-shaped option. Both have a very innovative approach to cleaning thick carpet.

Rolling on

If you would prefer a roller mop, there's now one of those in the lineup too. It's installed on the Qrevo Curv 2 Flow, and again it's extra-wide for complete mopping coverage. Like most similar robovacs on the market, the roller is fed continually with clean water as it rolls around, while the dirty water is siphoned off using a scraper.

In theory, this makes it a more hygienic type of robo-mop, because the dirt is removed during the floor-cleaning process and not just when the bot returns to its dock.

Where this model stands out is in the thoroughness of the self-clean cycle. The cleaning tray fully soaks the roller and scrubs it in clockwise and anti-clockwise direction to get it as clean as possible.

The dock uses hot water to clean the mop pads (at 167°F / 75°C it's not quite as hot as the Saros 20 Sonic's system, although should still do a good job of cutting through grease). It dries it using warm air.

The Saros 20, Saros 20 Sonic and Qrevo Curv Flow 2 will begin their international rollout this year, with pricing to be confirmed. Expect the Qrevo Curv Flow 2 to be slightly cheaper than the flagship Saros bots.

The Flow 2 is a new robovac from Narwal that has a neat trick for forgetful or messy people: it'll use its AI-powered object recognition to detect and log the objects it finds as it cleans.

This means you can use it to locate lost belongings, like keys or a wallet. You just check the cleaning list to help you find it. Provided it's lurking somewhere on the floor, that is – if you left it in a coat pocket or it's fallen down the side of the sofa, you're on your own.

I saw a Flow 2 in action at CES 2026, and although I wasn't able to try these capabilities out in person, I was impressed with the design and especially the styling on the new-look base station.

Wallet-hunting isn't the only trick the Flow 2 has up its sleeve. This is one of three 'modes' you can explore (you don't need to select a mode before cleaning; it can do all these things at any time).

In Pet mode, the robot vacuum will automatically detect the areas your pet frequents and pay extra attention to them when it comes to cleaning. It can also hunt out your pet for a video call, and even interact with it using a selection of animal noises. Assuming the sound of disembodied barking or miaowing won't send your pet into a frenzy, that is.

In Baby care mode, it'll drop to a quieter suction mode, and avoid cleaning play mats so there's no danger of contamination. Finally, it can detect and log dropped toys, reminding you to clear them away (I suspect this one won't be welcome for everyone).

The Flow 2 is due to go on sale in the US in April.

TechRadar will be extensively covering this year's CES, and will bring you all of the big announcements as they happen. Head over to our CES 2026 news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything from wireless TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI. You can also ask us a question about the show in our CES 2026 live Q&A and we’ll do our best to answer it.

And don’t forget to follow us on TikTok and WhatsApp for the latest from the CES show floor!

Traditionally, robot vacuums (and manual vacuums, for that matter) tend to struggle to clean thick carpets and rugs. The tall fibers, combined with upward suction, is a recipe for getting stuck. It's slightly ironic, because that's exactly the kind of flooring that would really benefit from a thorough vacuum.

In two of its new launches – the Saros 20 and Saros 20 Sonic – Roborock has come up with a solution. And ingeniously, it uses a feature that was originally designed to solve a completely different kind of problem.

Let me back up a bit. Like a number of last year's best robot vacuums, the new Saros 20 bots have little feet that extend to help lift them over small steps or tall room thresholds. They're a little less flashy than the long stilts that feature on the Roborock Rover, but they serve a useful purpose.

On this 3.0 version of the 'AdaptiLift' feature, and it can boost the Saros 20 over single steps up to 1.77in / 4.5cm in height, or a double step totaling 3.34in / 8.5cm.

The new Saros 20 bots feature the 3.0 version of the AdaptiLift Chassis, and this iteration has a further trick up its sleeve. It can also lift the robot vacuum to one of eight different preset heights, and keep it there, level, as it cleans. That means if it encounters your ultra-chunky bedroom rug, it can hover itself at just the right height to clean it, without getting bogged down in the fibers.

In the demo area, I saw the Saros 20 Sonic pause in front of a thick carpet edge, then meticulously lift itself to the right height to traverse it. When the flooring swapped to a deeper pile, it bumped itself up a bit further in response. The movements were smooth and accurate, and the robot remained level throughout the cleaning part of the process. Impressive stuff.

A little less impressive, in my opinion, was the stair-climbing part. Roborock says the 3.0 version of Adaptilift has added stability, to raise and lower the robot gently rather so as not to risk damaging it, but in the demo space it did come up and down with quite a crash.

In the robot's defense, the steps were at the maximum height it can manage, and on the taller side fro what you might typically find in someone's home.

I'm excited to see how these perform in practice – a full review will follow when I get my hands on one to test out properly.

• The Roborock Saros Rover is a robot vacuum with long legs that move independently
• The bot can hop, turn quickly, and tackle all kinds of uneven flooring, including stairs
• It's a real product that's still in development, with the prototype being showcased at CES 2026

We've seen a handful number of robot vacuums with 'legs' appear in the past year or so, but Roborock's new Saros Rover makes the likes of the Dreame X50 Ultra look downright stunted, thanks to hinged stilt-like legs that can operate independently.

I've just seen a prototype at CES 2026, and it's quite something to behold. TechRadar's Editor-at-large Lance Ulanoff was treated to a demo yesterday and had this to say:

"In person, the Rover is impressive. It's larger than a traditional robot vacuum, but not so much that it wouldn't fit in your living room. I watched it methodically and carefully approach a staircase and then extend its robot legs and mount the initial step. It can be even turn on a step to cover the full width. I was more surprised at how agile it is on the ground. It can rock, jump and appear almost playful."

What exactly are those legs for? Roborock says the possibilities are almost limitless. While both Dreame and Eufy have stair-climbing bots in the works, they look and operate very differently to the Saros Rover – not least because the stair climbing part is a separate module to the robovac itself.

Roborock says the Saros Rover will be able to tackle not just straight staircases but any kind – including spiral. And unlike other bots on the market, it'll clean each step as it goes, so you won't have to go around with a stick vacuum later.

It'll also be able to tackle uneven or sloped terrain in general, so not just hopping over taller-than-usual room thresholds, but navigating genuinely multi-level homes.

Beyond that, Roborock says the Saros Rover can "imitate human mobility". So it can execute small jumps, stop suddenly, and turn and duck with agility, all while keeping the main body of the robovac level.

I saw a video of two Roborock engineers pelting one with tennis balls as the Rover tried to avoid them. I'm not entirely sure what purpose this will serve – unless we're about to see our first all-robovac dodgeball team – but I am excited to find out.

The version at CES is a prototype, and as Lance notes: "It was clear that it's not finished; engineers appeared to spend a lot of time debugging and getting the routines to work just right" – but Roborock insists it will be a real product, that will make it to market.

I tested last year's arm-equipped Roborock Saros Z70, and I think that might have gone on sale a touch too soon, so I'm pleased to see the brand taking its time with this one. I'll be watching with interest.

Following years of financial struggles, iRobot – the brand behind the first commercially successful robot vacuum, Roomba – has been taken over by Chinese contract manufacturing company Picea.

Shortly after the news broke, company co-founder Helen Greiner said in an interview with Bloomberg that she found it "bizarre" there hadn't been a big public outcry that iRobot's data and information "will belong to a Chinese company" [quote at 7.50].

When I caught up with iRobot's current CEO Gary Cohen after news of the deal broke, he told me that would not be happening. "We protect the data. The data is staying on our servers in the US. Our servers are protected in the US. Our European data stays in the US. The data is protected, it's encrypted," he explained.

I was assured Helen's statement wasn't in line with the reality of the situation, and how iRobot – or other similar kinds of companies – handled customer data. "Nobody's going to break into the data. But more importantly, the data is sitting on the Amazon servers, and it's going to be protected, and it's not going to leave the US."

Cohen directed me towards the security statements posted on the company website (I couldn't access the US policy at the time of writing, but the UK policy was available to read), and assured me that customers could easily delete their names from iRobot's roster if they wanted to.

"We protect their data. It's all encrypted, and that's how we run the business," he told me. "We are the most secure of anybody, and we actually have won awards because of our ability to protect the data, to protect [against] breaches, but more importantly, to protect the data in terms of where it's housed."

No change

A further statement sent to me from iRobot on the topic reads: "There have been no changes made to how iRobot collects, maintains, stores, or uses personal information in connection with the reorganization transaction, and we do not expect any such changes. Any updates to our existing data processing or security activities will always be made in accordance with our online Privacy Policy (found here) and applicable laws."

Cohen also confirmed to me that current Roomba owners didn't need to worry about product and app support for their robovacs, and that it would be "business as usual" in the immediate wake of the takeover. Beyond that, he's feeling very optimistic about iRobot's future with Picea. Watch this space.

In mid-December we learned that iRobot – the company behind the iconic robot vacuum brand Roomba – was being taken over by contract manufacturing company Picea, as a result of years of financial struggles.

I caught up with iRobot CEO Gary Cohen shortly after the news broke, to find out what this meant for the brand. He confirmed that in the short term it would be business as usual (including continuing to support the current line of bots), but beyond that, Cohen – who was brought in to help get iRobot back on track in May 2024 – has big plans for the robovac veteran.

Here are 4 things that could be heading our way from iRobot…

1. Technophobe-friendly robot vacuums

Cohen describes how, when opening a Roomba box, he gets "PTSD": "It's not a consumer-friendly experience. It's like I'm scared of connecting it – is it going to connect to the Wi-Fi? What is 2.4 gigahertz versus 5? Why can't these things just seamlessly get set up so I don't have to worry about it?"

The iRobot teams are working on reducing these pain points and, as a result, making robot vacuums more accessible to more people. In fact, Cohen thinks ignoring consumer needs was one of the big mistakes that ultimately contributed to iRobot ending up in this situation.

This is in contrast to the rest of the market, which seems to be geared entirely towards adding more features and increasing robot vacuum specs. While Cohen concedes that iRobot is "never going to win feature wars with competitors", he also thinks this isn't the right approach when the robot vacuum category only has 20% market penetration.

"We have to grow the category. That's how we're going to grow our business," he says. "It just has to work, right? And if it works, people will get into the category more."

2. Robot vacuums for smaller spaces

Beyond improving basic usability, Cohen also wants to tackle different consumer segments. Right now, the trend is for ever-bigger docks that take care of all kinds of maintenance tasks for you. Those have their place – there are a number of excellent examples in my best robot vacuum ranking – but they aren't right for every customer.

"With my team, I've visited small apartments in Japan, where 500 square feet is a typical apartment size," he recalls. "Well, they're not putting these multifunctional cleaning devices in the middle of a foyer in a Japanese apartment. So what type of product do you have to develop to grow the category? And by the way, that insight travels to Europe, to large cities, to the US and to dorms."

3. More innovative robot vacuums

In recent years, iRobot has lagged behind the competition when it comes to innovation, but Cohen says it's not due to a lack of technology or imagination. "There isn't one thing that shows up at CES that I didn't find in our cupboard when I joined the company. There's no end of ideas," he emphasizes.

The problem has been figuring out how to get the ideas into products effectively. "Our challenge was – before [the failed Amazon merger], but especially during the Amazon pendency period – we weren't able to commercialize a lot of the great ideas that the prior team had developed," Cohen continues. "My goal, separate from being consumer-driven, is to help commercialize some of these great ideas."

On this front, new owner Picea will be helpful – and not just because it brings plenty of new patents to the table (Cohen puts the number at over 1,000, in addition to the 1,000-plus that iRobot had in the first place). "When you have a manufacturing partner, you can design to manufacture," says Cohen. "We'll be able to bring innovative ideas to consumers better and faster than even our competitors."

4. Robots that aren't vacuums

Officially, Cohen is saying "nothing" about what iRobot is launching in the immediate future. However, he's more than happy to drop some quite specific hints.

"We have to be more than just robotic cleaning devices for vacuums and mops," he says. "There's plenty of room outside in your lawn for robots. There are plenty of places in your pool or your windows for robots." He explains that, in fact, moving beyond robovacs was the plan even before he joined, but that they just struggled to execute.

"That's how we're going to grow the category and take advantage of the brand, and Picea has the desire and the capability to join us on that journey." I'll be watching with interest.

Robotic vacuum cleaners and mops are the sort of gadget that seemed like pure science fiction just a generation ago. A self-driving robot dutifully scrubbing at your kitchen floor, then vacuuming the living room and returning to base to empty itself – even a time traveler already comfortable with the internet and email would struggle to get their head around it.

I've been testing robotic vacuums and mops for years now, and tried out my first one a full decade ago. In that time I've seen huge change – and massive price increases too, it must be said. And yet, despite the considerable intelligence and cleaning performance of today's best robot vacuums, there are still plenty of opportunities for improvement. Here's what I'd like to see in 2026…

1. A simpler app experience

I don't want my vacuum cleaner to have a more complex menu system than my car. That isn't to say I want to return to the app-free robovacs of old, with nothing but an "On" button and an uncanny ability to ram every wall, baseboard and table leg.

But I don't want pages and pages of adjustability either. Victims of unrelenting feature-creep, many robovac apps have turned into a bloated mess. Some are littered with questionable translation and desperately need a copywriter, while others confuse configurability with clutter.

Would you like the robot to wash its mop every 19 minutes, or perhaps every 23 minutes? Should it dry the mops for two, three or four hours? I'd rather the manufacturer tell me what's best and be done with it. Better still, use a sensor and get the bot to work it out for itself.

Keep the configurability if you must, but please give me the option to hide it all and just tap a big "Clean" button instead.

2. More reliable obstacle avoidance

This is, quite literally, a hit-and-miss topic among the robotic vacuums I've tested in 2025. Seemingly regardless of price, some dodge obstacles with balletic precision while others get tangled up in cables, push chairs around as if expecting guests, and snack on discarded shoes like a hungry Labrador.

Joking aside, it's frustrating to see even four-figure vacuums bash into doors, walls and baseboards, seemingly feeling their way around instead of using their clever LiDAR sensors and AI-driven vision tech. I'm hoping for smarter, more confident navigation from robovacs in 2026, and an improved ability to clean around obstacles and work their way out of dead-ends.

3. Edge and corner cleaning that actually works

Spinning side brushes began sprouting from robotic vacuums years ago, but in my experience this now-commonplace setup is flawed. When they're not busy flicking food all over the kitchen floor, they're spinning furiously but often failing to properly reach into corners.

Some manufacturers have fitted motorized arms for extra reach, and others have created nifty folding brushes that extend themselves mechanically to be more effective, but ultimately, a circular robot just isn't built to clean a 90-degree corner.

D-shaped robots have gone some way to fixing this, but my wish for 2026 is for this to be combined with a more effective side brush design. An extendable arm that reaches further would help, or how about an articulating nozzle to deliver suction right where it's needed?

4. Bagless as standard

The bagless design of my Dyson Cyclone V10 stick vacuum feels like second-nature. So much so that I've repeatedly forgotten to check on the bag inside the charging station of my Eufy X10 robot. Why can't the self-cleaning stations of robotic vacuums also use a bagless design? Yes, the manufacturers might lose some cash from selling proprietary bags – about £20 ($27) for 10 last time I checked – but Dyson seems to manage just fine without that particular revenue stream.

For 2026 I'd like to see more robotic vacuums switch to a bagless design for their charge stations. They can still earn ongoing revenue from selling mopping pads, brushes, rollers, detergent and all the other replaceable parts, but going bagless would make for a more seamless user experience.

5. The confidence to tackle raised thresholds

Before moving house, the most common issue I had when testing robotic vacuums was their inability to drive over raised doorway thresholds. I'm not asking them to clamber out into the garden, but just a half-inch difference in height between the exposed Victorian floorboards of a lounge and vinyl floor of a kitchen can prove too much for even the most expensive robots.

In newer homes with level floors it's less of a concern. But for 2026 I want to see robovacs more confidently approach raised thresholds. I've seen some models fail, then reverse and try again with more speed, or at a more favorable angle. This sort of intelligence should be commonplace, along with an ability to dial up the motor torque when there's an uneven floor to clear.

6. The ability to climb stairs (finally)

Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic with this one, but in 2025 we saw Eufy, Dreame and Mova all demonstrate stair-climbing prototypes. Yes, they look like they've escaped from an episode of Black Mirror, but the ability to clean multiple levels is a total game-changer – if anyone can actually bring the tech to market.

I hope 2026 will see commercial versions of these robots go on sale. And, while they'll doubtless be expensive – and almost certainly accompanied by myriad hilarious fail compilations on social media – robots capable of climbing stairs could attract a lot of new customers. I imagine these would work best with two base stations, one on each floor, to more conveniently empty the bin, clean the mops and charge the battery.

As for cleaning the actual stairs? That'll surely be the reason we're told to upgrade to Gen 2.0.

7. Intelligent off-peak charging

This one should be easy. We're used to programming our electric cars to charge at night when electricity is much cheaper, so why can't robotic vacuums do the same? You could unplug the base station every morning, I suppose, but that's not ideal.

For 2026 I'd like to see the option to program a robovac so that it holds off charging its battery until my low-cost electricity tariff has kicked in. The robot itself could still function as normal during the day, but the base station then waits to charge the battery until night time. There could be a manual override for when you need more battery charge during the day – or for when the robot's dust bin needs emptying – but every little helps.

A repeated loss of connection must rank among the most annoying faults of any smart home device – and this is especially true with robotic vacuum cleaners.

Without a connection to the internet, your smartphone or their base station, even the best robot vacuums will have trouble working. They'll either fail to follow your pre-set cleaning schedule, ignore commands from your phone, or even go on strike while out on a cleaning mission.

Thankfully, if your robovac keeps losing connection there are a few simple ways to get it working again. Since there are so many models from a wide range of manufacturers, I can't provide specific instructions for every robot. But most work in a broadly similar way, so this article should provide all the connectivity help you're looking for.

#1. Check the basics

Before we dig too deeply into settings menus and learn all about the differences between two types of Wi-Fi frequency, let's cover the basics.

It sounds obvious, but have you checked that the robot's charging dock is plugged in and has power? You should also check any notifications or status lights on the dock and robot itself. Are they red, indicating an issue, or are they the usual color (often green or white)? My Eufy X10 uses a red light to indicate all manner of issues, from connectivity to a full bin or a leaky water supply.

Next, is your phone on the same Wi-Fi network as the robot? Have you recently changed your Wi-Fi network settings, bought a new router or installed networking equipment like a Wi-Fi extender or mesh network? All of these could be the cause of your robot's connectivity issues.

#2. Reboot and reset Wi-Fi

Robotic vacuums usually have a physical way of performing a quick reboot or, if required, a more thorough reset. There's often a way to quickly reset the robot's Wi-Fi connection too – this is typically done by pressing and holding two of the buttons on the robot itself for a few seconds. These are usually the two most prominent buttons on the top of the robot (or indeed, the only two), and they're often labeled something like Home, Start, Pause or Wi-Fi.

For several models from Eufy and Dreame, it's the Spot Clean and Recharge buttons that you'll need to press and hold. For Roborock models it's the Self-Clean and Charge Mode buttons, while Roombas reset their Wi-Fi with a press of the Home, Spot and Clean buttons together.

Hold the relevant buttons until you hear a beep or a voice prompt that tells you the Wi-Fi connection has been reset. Next, open the smartphone app and follow the prompts to reconnect the robot to your Wi-Fi network. Don't worry about losing any data, as once it's reconnected the robot's name, settings and cleaning map should all reappear as before.

Other robots, like my Eufy X10, have a pinhole button beneath their top cover. Lift the lid, then use a suitable tool to press and hold the button for a few seconds. This should force a reboot without the robot losing any data.

#3. Check your software is up to date

App developers like to push out frequent software updates, so it's worth checking that yours is fully up to date. Head to your phone's app store, run all updates, then go into the robovac's own app and check for new firmware updates there too.

Firmware updates tend to be less frequent, but often take longer to perform than a quick app refresh. Naturally, if you're having connectivity issues then updating the robot's firmware – or even checking if there's an update available – might not be possible. Try a reboot and/or a Wi-Fi reset first, then if that works you can look at checking the app and firmware are up to date.

Force-closing then reopening the app can also help, along with rebooting your phone and deleting then reinstalling the app. Basically, you want to give the robot every opportunity to establish a fresh connection without going down the nuclear, factory-reset route unless you absolutely have to.

#4. Move the dock to a new location

A steady connection relies on a clear line of communication between your Wi-Fi router and the robotic vacuum's charge station. If the connection is patchy, try relocating the dock so it gets a stronger, more consistent wireless signal.

Also be conscious of large metal objects or appliances, like your refrigerator, boiler and washing machine or dishwasher, as these can interfere with Wi-Fi connectivity. If you have a large home, try completing the initial setup (or troubleshooting reset) of the robot with it on the same floor as the router.

If this isn't convenient, try boosting your Wi-Fi coverage with a mesh network or signal booster.

#5. Check which Wi-Fi band you're using

Most robotic vacuums only connect to 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi networks. If your router is only operating at 5 GHz, the robovac simply won't work.

Ideally, you should configure your router to run a dual-band Wi-Fi network, where devices will connect with either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz depending on their compatibility. If you're seeing connectivity issues, try disabling the 5 GHz band, at least temporarily, and see if that fixes the problem. If the robot now connects, then try creating two separate networks, with different names to indicate their operating frequency, and connect the vacuum to the one running at 2.4 GHz.

#6. Perform a factory reset

If nothing else works, your last option before seeking outside help is a factory reset. This will remove your cleaning map and schedule, and return the robot to like-new condition. After a factory reset, you'll have to set the robot up again, add it to your Wi-Fi network, create a new map of your home and reconfigure preferences.

This process varies a little by brand. Some models can be factory-reset by holding the Start and Home buttons for up to 15 seconds, until there's a beep or voice confirmation. Confusingly, this is sometimes the same action as a Wi-Fi reset, but with a factory reset requiring the buttons to be held down for longer.

Ecovacs Deebot owners can perform a factory reset by opening the lid of their robot, locating the pinhole button (which is sometimes under a rubber plug) and pressing it for five seconds. For Roborock models, press and hold the Home button, then simultaneously use a tool to press the pinhole reset button.

Many Roomba robots can be factory reset from the app. But if connection issues prevent this approach, press and hold the Home button for five seconds, then you'll be told to do that again to perform a factory reset. For iRobot's Roomba J Series, press the Home, Spot Clean and Clean buttons for seven seconds, then press the Clean button twice to confirm.

I can't list every reset procedure here. So if you decide a clean-slate factory reset is the only option left, dig out the instructions that came with your robotic vacuum, or head to the manufacturer's website and look for guidance on exactly what button combination to use. Alternatively, if it's an intermittent problem and you manage to connect via the app, go to the settings menu and remove the robot from your system. This usually acts as a factory reset, with the robot now ready to be added afresh.

Eufy E25 Omni: two-minute review

Hybrid robot vacuum-and-mops have come a long way in the last few years, and the Eufy E25 Omni is the latest example of bots that are capable of tackling both tasks to a high standard. I tested one for two weeks to see how it compares to the rest of the best robot vacuums on the market, and I was generally very impressed.

The E25 Omni offered solid performance in my vacuuming tests and was especially efficient at clearing fine dust. However, despite the squared-off shape and dual side sweepers, the edge cleaning wasn't the best. The AI-based automatic adjustment failed to recognize my spillage and bump up mop settings to clear it, but with manual tweaking to Max mode, this bot delivered some of the best mopping I've seen.

Navigation was reliable, as was obstacle avoidance. However, the E25 Omni proved a little fussy when it came to the initial mapping stages – I had to clear my floors to achieve a complete map. Meanwhile, the app is intuitive to use and offers a range of ways to operate the robot, including scheduled cleans, zone cleaning and the ability to change the intensity of vacuuming or mopping.

At full price it's expensive, but regular deals take the price down and deliver better value for money. That's the short version; read on for my full Eufy E25 Omni review.

Eufy E25 Omni review: price & availability

• List price: $1299.99 / £849 / AU$1799.95
• Launched: May 2025
• Availability: Worldwide

Officially, the E25 Omni is a premium robot vacuum, costing $1299.99 / £849 / AU$1799.95 at sticker price. However, you shouldn't read too much into that list price – the manufacturer offers regular, steep discounts and the Amazon price history shows it is rarely full price. With an average price of around US$750 it's still not cheap, but it does compare well with equivalent flagship hybrids like the Roborock Qrevo Curv or the Ecovacs Deebot X11 Omnicyclone.

In terms of value for money, the E25 is a very good robot vacuum and it does a lot to justify its high price point. However, it's worth considering the ongoing costs too. Replacement dust bags and floor cleaning solution are available from Eufy, with dust bags costing US$16.99 for 3 and the solution $20.99 a bottle. Third party dust bags are available for cheaper, although I can't confirm their compatibility.

• Value for money score: 4 out of 5

Eufy E25 Omni specs

Eufy E25 Omni review: design

• Rounded square with two side sweepers, spit main roller and roller mop
• Relatively compact dock takes care of a range of maintenance tasks
• Dock has a useful transparent water tank

The Eufy E25 is a rounded square robot vacuum with a raised nodule housing the LiDAR for navigation. Flip it over and you'll find a roller that's equipped with bristles and rubbery fins, and is split in the middle to try and combat hair tangling, plus two spinning side sweepers. The main central suction are is really quite small in proportion to the size of the robot.

There's also a tube-shaped mop, which applies downward pressure to dislodge dirt. It's fed with clean water as it rolls around, while the dirty stuff is constantly siphoned off.

The all-black design is minimalistic – which, for a functional product is definitely preferable to trying to do something a bit more eccentric. It is able to fit under objects 4.4in / 11.18cm off the ground, and through gaps of 12.83in / 32.58cm wide.

The dock is pretty inoffensive looking, and compared with some hybrids vac-mop options, feels relatively small. It's all black, with a view to blending into its surroundings, which is definitely a plus in my view. In terms of functions, it'll take care of emptying the bot's onboard dustbin, washing its mop pads and drying them with hot air, draining the onboard dirty water tank and refilling it with clean water, and dispensing detergent.

The water tank is transparent, so you can visually see when it is starting to run low. This feature is surprisingly rare, but useful. There's also a white ring light, which will turn red if either water tank isn't correctly installed.

The fact that the robot sits on a ramp outside the body of the dock, rather than slotting inside, helps keep the dock size down. As with most robot vacuum docks, you're technically meant to leave a wide margin of clear space all around (1.6ft / 0.49m either side and 4.9ft / 1.49m in front), but experienced owners will know it's possible to get away with far less than this.

• Design score: 4 out of 5

Eufy E25 Omni review: performance

• Strong obstacle avoidance but initial mapping can be hit-and-miss
• Tendency to return to dock mid-clean, extending overall task time
• Solid vacuuming and excellent mopping on the highest settings

It was fairly straightforward to get the Eufy E25 Omni set up, although I found the mapping task less forgiving than some rival models. Specifically, it's worth ensuring all obstacles are out of the way before attempting mapping.

You can control the E25 through the Eufy companion app or a smart home system. Both methods are fairly straightforward, although I found starting a specific room clean could be a bit hit-and-miss when I tested it using Amazon's Alexa. It would sometimes work, even with rooms where I'd used custom names, but half the time it would just start a whole house clean – a major hazard in a household like mine when another room's floor may be littered with Lego.

In terms of navigation, I found coverage of the rooms was good, with E25 taking a systematic path that didn't leave any patches uncleaned. It also did a good job of detecting different floor surfaces, reliably lifting the mop when it reached carpet to ensure it didn't get it damp, and upping the suction intensity on deeper carpet.

When given a cleaning task the E25 returned to its dock periodically to empty the dust container, clean the mops and recharge the battery. This did extend cleaning times a bit, but for an area of around 700 sq ft with mixed floor material, it generally took an 1hr 30mins, or a little bit under, to complete the clean.

Vacuuming performance

I ran a series of dedicated tests to access the Eufy E25's vacuuming performance of both fine dust (a mix of flour and cookie crumbs) and chunkier particles (dry rice). On hard floors I found it vacuumed fine particles well, picking up all the material in my test in one pass.

It didn't do as well with larger debris, with the side brushes pushing a few grains of rice into areas where the robot had already cleaned. It did eventually manage to pick up almost everything, though. On mid-pile carpet the E25 performed perfectly, picking up both fine and chunky debris in a single zone clean, although on higher pile it did leave a few grains of rice.

Like many robot vacuums, cleaning performance around the edges of rooms isn't great. (It's this that really keeps it from being a vacuum that could fully replace a manual – as well as it not being able to vacuum stairs.) In my tests, the E25 worked its way around walls and objects but didn't get close enough for a really thorough edge clean.

Even on the highest vacuuming intensity I round this robot relatively quiet, although the auto-empty function in the dock is louder as the dock sucks the dust from the small onboard bin.

Mopping performance

On first look the mopping performance wasn't great. It did well at clearing a fresh liquid spill, leaving no more water on the surface than regular mopping would, but it struggled with tougher dirt. To test this, I smeared a small amount of ketchup on a hard floor and left it to dry.

I then sent the bot out to mop, leaving it to use its own AI features to work out which mop setting to use. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to make a dent in the dried up ketchup at all. For a second pass, I toggled the settings manually to the highest mop mode, and during this run the robot did seem to identify the stain and focus on it. It took a few passes but eventually managed to remove it completely.

While the Eufy E25 omni does lose some points for needing a manual tweak of the settings, this is still some of the best mopping performance I have seen from a robot vacuum-mop.

Object avoidance

I also ran tests to assess how accurate the Eufy E25's object avoidance was. Here it performed very well, not only spotting and avoiding the objects I'd laid out, but even identifying them on the map and correctly labelling them as a power cable, a shoe and clothing (in the case of the sock). It managed to repeat this flawlessly twice in testing. However, in everyday use it did on occasion drag a charging cable around a room, so I'd still recommend keeping these out of reach as much as possible before starting a clean.

Maintenance

Cleaning and maintenance of the robot itself is low-effort. Like most robot vacuums, it will auto-empty dust from the small onboard bin into a larger bag within the dock. Emptying the dirty water tank is straightforward – it's easy to lift it out of the dock and unclip the top lid.

This robot's side sweeper brushes are angled to prevent hair tangling, and even after extended use I didn't have to remove any manually. If you do need to clean the main brushroll, the cage is easily removed and both halves of the roller can be popped out slightly to help you get at anything stuck inside.

The only part of the setup that needed a bit of attention was the part of the dock where the mop is cleaned. I found debris could collect here, although it was cleared easily enough using a regular vacuum with a crevice tool, or a brush.

• Performance score: 4 out of 5

Eufy E25 Omni review: app

• Simple setup and easy to use, with an editable, 3D map
• Can store multiple maps for different floors
• Naming inconsistency can cause confusion

The Eufy Clean app is easy to use and offers clear instructions to pair to the device and start mapping. Once you've completed mapping you are given a 3D map you can rotate, tilt and edit to divide, merge and rename rooms. From this you can then start cleaning either individual rooms or square zones that are defined on the map.

Using these zones you can isolate specific parts of a room, such as around a dining table for a quick post-dinner clean. If these are cleans you are going to be doing often you can also use the 'Common' section to define these regular tasks to make them easy to start or schedule.

When choosing an area you can define different features of the clean or leave it to the AI agent to select the best option for the room type and floor material. Options include cleaning intensity, water level, suction power and whether you want the robot to make 1 or 2 passes of the area.

As well as using the app to launch a clean, you can also schedule cleans, either as a one-off or a recurring event. Scheduled cleans can be set to whole home, specific rooms or scenarios. My only tiny gripe is that these 'scenarios' are the common tasks mentioned above, and it would be clearer if Eufy used a consistent name for the function in the app.

If you want to use the robot over multiple floors, you can also save multiple maps within the app. Just bear in mind you'll have to carry the robot up and down the stairs – potentially multiple times, because this robot likes to return to its dock to empty, clean its mop and top up its battery mid-clean.

The Eufy E25 Omni integrates with smart home systems and is compatible with the Matter standard so will work with Amazon Alexa, Google Home and Apple's Siri.

You can set 'Do not disturb' periods where the robot won't clean. If it's halfway through a clean when one of these kicks in, it will return to the dock, and resume once the designated quiet time has passed. If you are planning on having the base station in a bedroom it is worth considering that even during 'Do not disturb' hours the dock will continue to dry the mop, which is just about audible, although no more than a low-level hum.

• App score: 4 out of 5

Should you buy the Eufy E25 Omni?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How I tested the Eufy E25 Omni

I tested the E25 over two floors of my home with mixed surfaces for a period of a few months. I performed specific tests to assess how well it picked up fine particles and larger debris on hard floors, low pile and high pile carpet. I also tested mopping performance on hard floors, testing how well it dealt with a dried ketchup stain and a fresh spill.

The robot was put through two obstacle avoidance tests and I tested the custom tasks and scheduling functions, as well as how well it worked with smart home integrations by operating it through Alexa to start whole home and zone cleans.

Read more about how we test robot vacuum cleaners

• First reviewed December 2025

Of all the reviews I've tackled in 2025, Dyson's new robotic vacuum cleaner arrived with the greatest air of excitement. No, really. I love my Dyson stick vacuum, was disappointed to discover how poorly Dyson's last robovac reviewed, and I'm a sucker for a good old-fashioned redemption story.

It's called, rather clumsily, the Spot+Scrub Ai. This is Dyson's attempt to redeem itself in the robovac world, by sprinkling a bit of the bagless, semi-transparent, cyclone tech magic that's made the British-Singaporean firm so successful in the posh vacuum space.

You'll have to hold tight for my full review, but my first impressions of the new bot are good. The disappointing 360 Vis Nav of 2023 failed to trouble TechRadar's best robot vacuum ranking. Despite possessing a sky-high price tag, it was purely a vacuum, with no mopping function and no self-emptying capabilities.

The Spot+Scrub Ai comes out firing on all cylinders with both of those functions present and correct. It's got a clever, roller-style mop that's fed by an onboard water tank, and a base station that charges the battery, cleans and dries the mop, and uses Dyson's cyclone technology to empty the robot's dust bin.

Pleasingly, the base station is bagless – something that's surprisingly rare in the robovac space. Instead of buying new bags every few months, and trying to work out what sort and size of bag the robot needs, you simply lift the dust collector out and empty it into a bin, as you would any other Dyson stick vac.

I'd rather the contents of the bin weren't visible through a clear plastic window, as if to display to visitors just how dirty my carpets were before they arrived, but I accept it's a design trait that echoes the rest of the Dyson aesthetic. I'd also like Dyson to include some mopping detergent in the box. Adding some to the water tank is one of the first instructions, yet it's sold separately for £19.99. For a £1,050 vacuum (US and AU price TBC) that feels a bit mean.

A bit of a dis-app-ointment

The setup process is simple enough, and especially so if you've used any other robotic vacuum cleaner. However, so far I've found the app a little disappointing – for a premium, tech-first firm like Dyson I'd expected better. It isn't unstable, nor is it full of the poorly translated English seen in rival vacuum apps, but it isn't particularly logical either, and I had issues editing my map after the bot failed to identify some doorways on its initial mapping run.

For a robovac that apparently possesses artificial intelligence smart enough to identify over 190 objects and substances – best not to dwell on the latter – failing to spot a doorway, even when there's a threshold and a change from wood flooring to carpet, is disappointing. Perhaps I'm being picky, but anyone spending four figures on a robovac has every right to be. And in any case, rival vacuums I've tested do a much better job of mapping doorways and even labeling rooms based on their contents.

A couple of other app issues, I'm afraid. The robot adds orange traffic cone icons to the map after a clean, but they're not labeled and tapping them does nothing. Has it spotted a sock, a stray USB cable or a mouse? I'll never know. Rivals at least try to guess, and some even attach a photo, though they often resemble evidence from a Netflix crime documentary.

Also, despite spending time labeling the map – lounge, kitchen, hallway, toilet, etc – these tags are frustratingly missing on the screen for telling the robot where to clean, and are instead assigned a number. My kitchen and living room have the same icon, for some reason, and since I live in a predictably symmetrical newbuild house, it isn't immediately obvious which is which. Always best to double-check, or I'll worry that the Dyson will try to mop the lounge carpet instead of the kitchen.

My first impressions of the app aren't great, but I'll overlook these if the rest of the robot lives up to expectations – and, after a couple of cleans, the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai seems pretty smart. It navigates well – something its predecessor struggled with – and I think it looks good, as far as these things go. I also like the bagless design and I'm particularly keen to see how well it mops. Given its roller design, ability to reach into corners, and use of warm water to clean itself, I have high hopes – plus it claims to use AI to spot dirt and scrub at those bits more aggressively, which will be interesting to test over the holiday period.

iRobot's Roomba was once the biggest name in robot vacuums – so big that some still use it as a synonym for the whole product category. So what happened to the company to cause it to fall from its lofty perch to the point where it was forced to file for bankruptcy, saved from oblivion thanks to a takeover by Chinese contract manufacturer Picea?

I caught up with iRobot CEO Gary Cohen a few days after news of the takeover broke to discuss what went wrong. Cohen is a relatively new addition to the iRobot team, having been drafted in around 18 months ago to help get the company back on track, and he's adamant that the company's woes can't be placed entirely at the door of tariff chaos or failed Amazon deals, as some have suggested, although neither of those things helped the situation.

An expensive approach

iRobot co-founder and previous CEO Colin Angle has called the Picea takeover "profoundly disappointing" and "avoidable", blaming the collapse of a potential Amazon acquisition, which was nixed by regulators, for the position iRobot eventually found itself in (you can read his statement to TechRadar here.)

Cohen, however, feels the issues began well before that acquisition was even on the horizon.

"The Amazon deal was a big setback for the company, but there were many years of issues that led up to the situation we're in, and it's important to highlight those without denigrating the prior team," he told me. "My predecessor was a visionary, and he was brilliant, and […] his vision of connected homes and camera-based vision technology was great, but we couldn't execute against it.

"When I joined back in May 2024 it was apparent to me, and to some of the folks that I had assigned to help me do this restructuring, that we needed to change the way we were doing business," Cohen told me.

Cohen recalls how he inherited high fixed-cost contracts and "over-engineered" products. He explains that at that point all the tooling, engineering and purchasing was happening in the US, with only the final manufacture taking place overseas. It made for a very expensive process.

The bold decision was made to axe the entire legacy product line and replace it, and under Cohen the company also adopted a more integrated (and cost-effective) relationship with its manufacturer – which at this point was the same Picea Robotics that now owns iRobot.

Under the previous model, the contract manufacturer was basically drafted in right at the end to be the 'screwdriver' that just assembled the product. The new approach saw iRobot defining the specs it wanted, but with Picea getting more involved with "engineering development, tooling, purchasing and even testing".

It wasn't enough to save iRobot from being sold, but it put the company on a more cost-effective trajectory, and saw it establish a close working relationship with Picea.

High cost, low satisfaction

High costs were only part of the issue. "We were not competitive in the marketplace," continues Cohen. "Our cost of goods was too high. The products were hard to make, but also, importantly, we weren't delighting consumers."

Cohen says if he'd been involved with the company at an earlier point, he would have prioritized customer needs. "At the time when iRobot was facing some of its competitive challenges, I would have taken the competition more seriously, and I would have set up a consumer framework model," he tells me.

"So as an example, consumers wanted these combination mops and vacuums. The iRobot team at the time said, 'No, we're going to develop the best mop and the best vacuum.' Which was great from a technical standpoint, but consumers didn't go there. So [iRobot] lost an opportunity in the marketplace because they weren't close enough to the consumer, or didn't bother to listen to the consumer."

iRobot was similarly behind the curve when it came to developing a multifunctional dock – one that didn't just empty the bot's small onboard dustbin, but could also do things like refilling its water tank and even washing and drying its mop pads. It released its first attempt in 2024 – the Roomba Combo 10 Max – but by Cohen's own admission it "wasn't the best, most competitive product".

"So [at that time] we're losing market share in Europe because we're not participating. And those are all strategic decisions that were made several years ago."

Tariff turmoil

Of course, external factors did also play their part. Cohen had been trying to sell iRobot in the first half of 2025, but big changes to US tariff policy generated too much uncertainty for potential buyers.

"It really curtailed our pipeline of options, because there were many companies that were interested in us that had tariff exposure, and they said, 'Well, this is too much uncertainty. We can't buy a company right now.'" Cohen recalls. "We did finally get one company that was really interested in buying us, but they couldn't come to terms with our primary lender at the time, which was Carlyle. And so that deal fell apart in October."

Cohen had to quickly pivot to try and save the company. "Chapter Seven [liquidation bankruptcy] was not something I really wanted to have happen," he told me. "I had too much invested in the company and the employees, and so we went to Picea and said would you be interested in buying the company? And that's how it materialized."

So what does the future look like now, under Picea's stewardship? In terms of immediate effects, Cohen says it's "business as usual", with previously developed products already being showcased to European retailers now, for launch in spring 2026.

Longer term, he's feeling positive that this will turn things around, with a new, consumer-first approach, and one that focuses on making robot vacuums accessible to a wider audience. We'll be watching with interest.

Last week, we learned that Roomba maker iRobot had been taken over by Chinese contract manufacturing company Picea, as part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy process. The news has caused concern among owners of Roomba vacuums, with uncertainty over product support and whether warranties will be honored.

I spoke with iRobot CEO Gary Cohen about what the future holds for the company's products, and for its customers – and he assured me they've got nothing to worry about.

"It's business as usual," Cohen told me. "The app is working, the warranties are going to be honored." The initial press release concerning the takeover said no immediate disruption was anticipated, and when I pressed him on whether long-term app and product support would continue, Cohen confirmed that was "correct".

"It [Roombas ceasing to work] was never going to happen, but it's not happening now," he added. "Now that we have a path forward, the app will continue, the products will continue... We'll have firmware updates on the products, which is one of the benefits of this category – we're constantly putting software updates in the marketplace. So those will continue."

A smooth transition

Once the brand behind some of the best robot vacuums on the market, in recent years iRobot had begun to lag behind the competition. But Cohen is feeling positive about what the deal means for the future of the brand. He confirmed to me that iRobot and Picea have already been developing new products and accessories, and we'll be seeing the first launches as soon as spring (in the US and UK) 2026.

Part of the reason the transition should be relatively smooth is that Picea had already been working with iRobot for some time. The collaboration began before the failed Amazon acquisition in 2024, and Picea was involved when iRobot discontinued all its legacy products and replaced them with a completely new lineup earlier this year.

In fact, that lineup still hasn't been entirely rolled out. Given that not all the products have been a roaring success (the iRobot Roomba 205 DustCompactor earned an underwhelming two stars in our review), I was also interested to know if iRobot would be continuing with that lineup. Cohen confirmed that the plans are to continue to upgrade the current models, but also bring in new ones to keep up with the wider market.

"The European market has a very fast [product release] cycle, and we're already on that gerbil wheel," he added. "But we also have to have products that are stable. So I think you'll see lineups that maybe have added features to them that either replace or live alongside [the current options]."

Cohen is mainly keen, however, to continue with the brand's 'customer-first' approach rather than getting involved in an arms race towards ever-longer feature lists and ever-higher specs, as seems to be the focus in the wider market. Whatever happens, I'll be watching with interest.

Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra: two-minute review

The Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra is a feature-packed combination robot vacuum and mop, paired with a comprehensive base station. In theory, it should deliver an almost completely hands-off cleaning experience; everything you could want from one of the best robot vacuums. However, the performance was somewhat mixed during testing.

Narwal Robotics has been around since 2016, with a primary focus on developing innovative robot vacuums. The Freo Z10 Ultra is the latest flagship model of the Z-series lineup. It's an updated version of the Freo Z Ultra, which offered impressive mopping but struggled with carpets. The Z10 Ultra delivers higher suction power (18,000Pa) and adds edge-reaching technology to the mops. For a slightly more affordable option, there's the Freo Z10.

I tested the Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra over a couple of weeks, and when it comes to everyday vacuuming tasks, I was impressed. It did a solid job of clearing most particles – including dog fur, pine needles, and excessive amounts of crumbs – from both hard flooring and carpet in my home. However, edge vacuuming wasn't a strong suit (which was especially apparent under my kitchen cabinets) and it also struggled to clear larger spillages, even when using the highest suction level.

Mopping on the Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra was up there with the best I've seen. There's no water tank on the robot itself; instead, the two triangular, microfiber mops are loaded with hot water and detergent at the base before being sent out to clean. Admittedly, this made the cleaning longer and required the water tank to be refilled more often, but the results were worth it.

Beyond consistently mopping up mud puddles left by my dog and small food spills, the mops successfully cleaned a large, dried ketchup spill when using the wettest mopping level. With the Freo Z10 Ultra's edge-reaching technology, the mops even extended right up against walls, getting into places other robots often miss. The dock's mop maintenance features also worked extremely well.

I was equally impressed with the Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra's navigation and obstacle avoidance. Dual AI cameras and a LiDAR sensor enable it to avoid furniture, cables, shoes, and other clutter.

Unfortunately, the Freo Z10 Ultra is far from the most reliable bot to control. On many occasions, I would send the robot to complete a task, and it would either skip entire selected rooms or roll out of the base and return without doing anything at all. A "smart" AI cleaning mode, which should adjust cleaning settings based on dirt levels and floor type, only exacerbated the problems.

No matter which settings I used, I couldn't get the bot to auto-empty consistently. I suspect this issue is to do with a unique feature where both the onboard dustbin and the dust bag in the dock are dried to prevent bacterial growth. I'd argue this feature is unnecessary in the first place.

The Narwal Freo app isn't the most intuitive, either, due to the excessive number of settings and customizations. I've tested numerous robot vacuums, and still had to resort to Reddit on several occasions to figure out how to adjust certain settings, such as getting the robot to do basic things like vacuum carpets.

Clearly, not everything on the Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra is perfect, but when I got it to do what I wanted, the results were very solid. If you have the patience and experience, this robot vacuum is great for larger homes with average cleaning needs. Some flaws could even be overlooked if you're able to snag it on sale, which it often is.

Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra review: price & availability

• List price: $1,299.99 / £1,299 / AU $2,499
• Launch date: September 2025
• Availability: Widely, including US, UK, and Australia

The Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra launched in September 2025. It's available in the US, UK, and Australia, with a list price of $1,299.99, £1,299, or AU$2,499. While the initial price tag might seem eye-watering, I've never seen this robot vacuum available for full price, at least in the US. In fact, it's often $400 or more off. Unfortunately, I haven't seen these deals in the UK or Australia. Chances are good you'll find decent savings during seasonal sales like Black Friday or Amazon Prime Day.

Even with a discount, the Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra sits on the premium end of the robot vacuum market. However, with features including dual AI cameras and mops equipped with edge-reaching technology, plus a base station that self-empties and hot water washes the mops, its price aligns with other higher-end robot vacuums. Based on the feature list it seems like solid value for your money, but unfortunately not all those special features behave as they should in practice.

Beyond the robot vacuum, base station, and a couple of replacement parts that come in the box, Narwal also offers the option to purchase the "Advance Kit". For an additional $259.99, you'll receive all the accessories needed to use this vacuum for years, including an extra main brush roller, side brushes, mopping pads, floor detergent, dust bags, and more. It's not cheap, but buying these items separately can add up quickly, too (just two mopping pads will set you back $20, while the kit comes with six). The UK and Australia offer similar accessory packs for £119.99 or AU$399.99, respectively.

• Value for money score: 3.5 out of 5

Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra specs

Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra review: design

• Stylish but bulky base station with a wide range of features
• Spinning mop pads deliver up to 8N of pressure and extend to reach edges
• Anti-hair wrap technology on the main brush and side brushes

Like most robot vacuums with an auto-cleaning base station, the Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra arrived in a massive box that weighed over 44lbs (20kg); it's best to have an extra set of hands to help get it inside.

After lifting out all the box's contents, including the bulky base station, which had handles to make life easier, I found that there were absolutely no instructions aside from the plentiful stickers on the different components. I've set up my fair share of robot vacuums before, so it's second nature to me, but for those new to robot vacuums, it was a glaring omission. You can find instructions online, but it's still not ideal.

The lack of instructions aside, the setup was fairly straightforward. All I had to do was install the side brushes, add the included detergent for the mops, fill the clean water tank, and connect to Wi-Fi. Also, be sure to remove the cover on the front camera sensor of the robot vacuum. I missed this step, and as a result my floor map on the app wouldn't save. I eventually resorted to Reddit to figure out the problem. Again, physical instructions would've prevented this problem.

Robot design

Once I had everything together, I was impressed with how well this bot blended into my room. Most robovacs / docks come in white or black, but this model is a stylish gray. This was a nice change of pace and it happened to perfectly match the walls in the room.

The circular design is typical of most robot vacuums, while on top is your traditional LiDAR puck, which spins inside its casing to help with mapping. Unfortunately, that sensor makes the robot vacuum a little too tall to fit under lower furniture, something other robot vacuums have addressed – models like the Roborock Qrevo Slim and Dreame X50 Ultra have retractable pucks that tuck in when the bot enters low-height areas. Within Narwal's own range, the higher-end Narwal Flow has its LiDAR module mounted within the body of the robot rather than sitting on top.

Other sensors include dual 136-degree cameras with dual AI chips, located at the front of the robot. These cameras also take pictures of obstacles or can be used to scan your space, similar to a security camera. The bot also comes kitted out with a bright light that automatically activates for navigation and obstacle avoidance in darker spaces. There's a further sensor on the side for even more assistance in navigating spaces.

Flip the robovac over and you'll find the main roller, with rubber fins and short bristles suitable for both carpets and hard flooring. This also incorporates anti-hair wrap technology – given that I have a fluffy Keeshond constantly leaving clumps of hair around, this is a huge boon. The side brushes also feature detangling technology and have more movement than typical side brushes.

However, the most notable feature is the two triangular microfiber mops that velcro on. These mops spin at 180RPM, applying up to 8N of mopping pressure, and can also extend out to get into corners, edges, and hard-to-reach places.

Controls on the robot vacuum are minimal: on the top you'll find Start/stop and Return to dock buttons. Voice control can also be used to manage cleaning – Alexa, Siri, and Google Home are all supported. But like all robovacs, you'll probably be mainly controlling it using the Narwal app.

An easily liftable magnetic cover hides the onboard dustbin. This is an average size for robot vacuums and can easily be removed for manual emptying if required. Rather unusually, it features a special insert to separate wet and dry debris.

Also unusual is the fact that this robot vacuum doesn't have a water tank on board. Instead, the mops are loaded up with warm, soapy water at the base station, and a consistent amount of water is spread about the floor during the cleaning.

Base station design

Moving on to the base station. This is large, occupying a considerable amount of space, but I loved the space gray finish and soft, rounded edges. A special ionized water feature bubbles and illuminates a little bar when cleaning the mops, adding a nice space-age touch.

The Freo Z10 Ultra base station is packed with features. On top is a flip-to-open hinged lid featuring a tiny LCD that allows you to send the vacuum out without using your phone. It can turn the AI-powered "Freo Mind" mode on/off, recall, start/stop, and start mop washing/drying. However, I reviewed the Narwal Freo in 2023, and that older model's touchscreen was easier to use and allowed you to do far more. I was disappointed by the downgrade, but it's still a unique feature that I've only ever found on Narwal's robots.

Once you open that lid, the clean and dirty water tanks with handles are revealed and simple to take out for filling or emptying. Around front is an easy-to-remove magnetic cover that reveals the dust bag and detergent mopping solution (you can still use the mops without the detergent installed).

In the bottom compartment, where the robot vacuum resides and charges, is a mop washing station. AI detects the type of dirt on the mop and cleans it at different temperatures. After cleaning the mops, hot air drying helps prevent bacterial growth. Another unique feature is pre-drying, where the vacuum's dustbin content is dried before being emptied into the dust bag in the base station, preventing odors and bacterial growth. The dust bag in the dock can also be dried. It's a cool addition, but not a feature that I personally care about (or even think about) when it comes to my robot vacuums.

• Design score: 4 out of 5

Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra review: performance

• Sold vacuuming for everyday use, but struggles with large spills
• Excellent mopping but uses a lot of water
• Doesn't reliably follow instructions, and "smart" features make things worse

Similar to just about every robot vacuum I've tested, you must start by mapping your space. That means connecting to the Narwal Freo app and Wi-Fi. The app guided me through the connection process, and although it failed to connect on the first attempt, the robot was ready to proceed after the second try.

I sent it out to create a map of my space, and it took about 10 minutes. However, upon return, the map wouldn't save. It appeared to navigate my space with ease, avoiding furniture, obstacles, and even a step into the family room. I did the process over and over again. Eventually, resorting to a handful of problem-solving techniques, like restarting it, changing base station positions, and more.

Little did I know that a cover over the dual cameras with AI chips would prevent the map from saving. After finally coming to this realization (with some research help from Reddit), the robot vacuum went out for a final time; it took about 15 minutes, and the map was finally saved.

I was impressed by how accurate the map was. While it didn't divide all the rooms perfectly, almost every space in the lower floor of my home was included, noting some furniture, obstacles, and even floor types. It missed a small bathroom, but I believe that was due to a fluffy rug blocking its path. The family room was also not included, as a step down was required to access it. Luckily, you can save multiple maps, so in addition to the lower level, I created maps of the upper level of my home and the family room. To clean these spaces, I had to move the robot vacuum to a specified starting point since the base station was inaccessible.

I learned the hard way about an extremely frustrating setting regarding the maps: you must adjust settings to vacuum on carpeting and rugs. I failed to do this, and the robot would literally just go over the carpet or rugs during vacuuming tasks without vacuuming them. Even massive area rugs and the carpet that covers nearly the entirety of the upstairs would be ignored during vacuuming. I had to go through and individually change the settings on all the rugs and carpets on the app's map to actually get them vacuumed. This is not something I've experienced with any other robot vacuum.

The Narwal Freo app has a menu of different cleaning options: Mop, Vacuum, Mop & vacuum, or Mop then vacuum. With each of those cleaning options, it's possible to select a specific mode. "Freo Mind" intelligently adjusts the cleaning parameters based on the floor type and dirt levels, while "Customize" allows you to fine-tune suction levels, mopping water levels, coverage precision, and more myself. You can either select rooms or highlight zones for the robot to clean.

Navigation and obstacle avoidance

During my average, everyday cleanings, the Narwal Z10 Ultra easily navigated my space. The lower level of my house consists of hardwood, tile, and laminate flooring, along with numerous medium-pile rugs, as my dog is afraid to walk on hard flooring.

Even on rugs that were accidentally lifted, the robot managed to move around the obstacle and continue the task. Rescuing was only required a couple of times, which is impressive given the clutter in my home. The map on the app even noted the obstacles encountered during a cleaning, taking pictures of items in the way. I have shots of shoes, cables, and a few hilarious candids of my dog being a little too curious.

I also ran a special test for object avoidance. During these, the vacuum successfully went around a sock, but then managed to vacuum up a shoelace and a charging cable simultaneously, despite having already noted these obstacles on the map. I'm not sure what happened, and I was disappointed by the results.

This test was likely a fluke. I never had a problem during my regular cleaning tasks, during which the bot successfully avoided multiple shoes, cables, and a whole host of other items. The Freo Z10 Ultra also navigated around larger furniture and bigger obstacles like a champ.

In fact, my only real complaint about the obstacle avoidance was that it was sometimes a little too meticulous. Specifically, I had an issue with mopping around rugs. The robot consistently lifted its mops when going over a rug and never got any rugs wet, but it also left a large, unmopped margin around the perimeter of each rug. If two rugs were situated close together, it wouldn't mop the area between them at all.

Also, the robot struggled to detect when a rug had been removed. So even when I wanted it to mop an area where the rug used to be, it would still skip that spot and leave it uncleaned.

Mopping performance

Aside from being over-zealous about avoiding rugs, in general the mopping performance was surprisingly good, and especially effective when it came to tackling cleaning edges and corners. The lack of edge mopping was a notable issue on the Narwal Freo Z Ultra that TechRadar reviewed in 2024. However, the new extension feature managed to get into those harder-to-reach places, such as under kitchen cabinets.

Due to the lack of an on-robot water tank, the robot would frequently return to the base station for mop cleaning, adding to the total cleaning time. Luckily, the vacuum had an impressive battery runtime; it lasted nearly 2.5 hours before reaching 15% power and needing to return to the base station to recharge. That was plenty of time to vacuum & mop the bottom floor of my house. Recharging back to 100% only took about 3 hours, which is far faster than other robot vacuums I've tested.

The mops really had their work cut out for them, too. During my review period it was snowy where I live in western New York, and my dog was constantly traipsing mud and snowballs all around the house. The mops easily picked up the muddy spots and wet puddles left in her wake. It also had no trouble tackling everyday messes including coffee drips, dried yogurt, and other smaller food spills. When emptying the dirty water tank on the robot, I could see just how well the mops were doing their job.

I also put the mops through more intensive testing. I poured a big puddle of water on the tile in my corridor, and sent the robot out to 'Vacuum & mop' that exact zone using the Freo Mind mode. Unfortunately, the robot didn't detect the water and simply ran right through the puddle, failing to activate the mops and instead spreading the water all around.

Sending the robot out to just 'Mop' rather yielded much better results, as the water was spread evenly around the floor, allowing the puddle to dry faster than it would have done. However, this wouldn't be ideal if the spillage had been, say, milk rather than water.

For a second test of the mops, I spread ketchup on the kitchen laminate and allowed it to dry. Using the Freo Mind and 'Mop' settings, I sent the vacuum out to clean up. While Freo Mind mode is meant to detect messes, analyze dirty water at the base station, and adjust accordingly, it didn't seem to notice the ketchup, mopping up only a small amount before calling it quits and returning to the base station after just one pass.

I sent the robot out a second time, but this time I used 'Customize' mode rather than Freo Mind, and selected the highest mopping level – 'Wet mopping'. The result was significantly better. Almost all the ketchup was removed in the first pass-through, while the second pass got the rest of the ketchup off the floor.

Vacuuming performance

After I'd figured out how to get the bot to actually clean my rugs, the Freo Z10 Ultra's everyday vacuuming performance was generally great. It did a solid job of clearing most light debris, such as dog hair, crumbs, and pine needles, from both hard floors and medium-pile rugs. Not every speck of dirt was gone every time, but it definitely performed better than some other robot vacuums I've tested.

The main brush and side brushes feature anti-tangle technology, and it worked wonderfully. All the brushes had virtually zero hair wrap at the end of my testing period. That's a huge feat considering my dog and my own long hair.

It's not quite perfect, though. When traversing rugs on its way back to the base station, the Freo Z10 Ultra would occasionally spit out some of the debris it'd just cleaned.

I also found it wasn't amazing at vacuuming the edges of rooms, especially around the kitchen cabinets, where the robot was just a little too tall to fit under the overhang. Those spots were still littered with crumbs and debris even after multiple cleanings.

Just like the mops, I performed more intensive testing of the vacuum functionality. One test used a mix of ground-up biscuits and flour to represent dust and fine particles, and another used oats to represent larger debris. I spread the messes out in a one-meter area of the hard floor and on medium-pile carpet, setting each area as a 'zone' for the vacuum to clean using the app.

The vacuum struggled to pick up the biscuit and fine particle mess from the hard floor. At the lowest setting, 'Quiet', it picked up about half, and spread the rest of the mess around, causing it to end up well beyond my outlined cleaning area. Even with three passes using the highest setting ('Vortex'), the mess wasn't completely removed. That's not great – you don't need much suction to clean hard flooring.

Luckily, the robot vacuum's performance with oats on hard flooring was much better – even in 'Quiet' mode, it picked up almost all the oats. I noticed that the side brushes weren't moving, which helped keep the mess contained. However, the smaller, dust-like oat particles weren't as easily cleaned up. Still, after deploying the most powerful suction level, nearly everything was cleared up.

These same tests yielded similar results on carpeted floor, except here the fine biscuit and flour mixture ended up ingrained into the rug. The side brushes also kicked the oats around more than they had on hard flooring, which was a surprise.

In the end, I had to grab my upright vacuum to clean up the mess on both types of floors. While these test results might not seem ideal, a robot vacuum would rarely be required to vacuum up such a concentrated level of debris. When it came to general vacuuming performance, I still found it to be above average for robot vacuums, particularly when cleaning rugs and carpeting.

Dock performance

When it comes to maintenance, upkeep is effortless. The base station washes and hot dries the mop to prevent bacteria and odor. Even after a couple of weeks of use, the mopping pads had no odor and looked almost as good as new. Just note that this base station appeared to guzzle water, and I regularly had to empty the dirty water tank and top up clean water.

Like many robovacs, the Freo Z10 Ultra has the ability to auto-empty its onboard bin into a larger bag in the dock (which should hold around 120 days' worth of dust). To start with, I used the "Smart empty" mode where the robot should figure out when it needs to empty itself.

However, in practice the bot didn't always empty when it needed to. In fact, even after toggling settings in the app so it would empty after every clean, it remained hit-or-miss whether the auto-empty would kick in.

This could be due to the – in my opinion, unnecessary – dustbin/bag drying and disinfecting happening in the base station. Bacterial growth has never even been a concern when using robot vacuums, and this disinfecting process took more than five hours to complete. At least when the self-emptying did happen, it worked efficiently, with all the contents of the onboard bin being removed.

Smart feature performance

Overall, I've found the Freo Z10 Ultra's 'smart' features to be more of a hindrance than a help. Beyond the not-so-smart auto-emptying, the Freo Mind mode would often lead to entire rooms or zones being skipped during cleaning, even when I specifically selected to have these spaces mopped and/or vacuumed. I also found that bigger messes didn't get the extra attention required, even though this mode is designed specifically for that situation.

Even without Freo Mind mode activated, the vacuum would sometimes fail to complete tasks. On multiple occasions, I sent the vacuum to clean a room, and it would only clean a small area before returning and claiming the "task completed". Sometimes, it would just roll out of the base station and immediately return. It was extremely frustrating to deal with.

Not all the added features were flops. I appreciated the video mode that lets you use those dual AI cameras like a security camera. The robot vacuum can be controlled similarly to a remote control car, traversing your space, and allowing you to spy on your home. It was great for checking in on my dog when I was out of the house.

Noise levels

As someone sensitive to noise, I found the sound levels on the robot vacuum to be tolerable, averaging 60dB when vacuuming and mopping. It's significantly quieter than an upright vacuum, sounding more like a wall unit air conditioner. However, the base station's emptying is much louder and always surprised me when it happened, reaching nearly 80 dB. Luckily, when drying/cleaning the mops and dustbin/bag, the base station was extremely quiet, blending with other house noises.

• Performance score: 3 out of 5

Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra review: app

• Ample customization options can be overwhelming
• Some basic features are hard to find, even for an experienced user
• Saves multiple, easy-to-edit maps for multi-story homes

The Narwal Freo app has a lot to offer, but it isn't as intuitive as I would've liked. I found all the different functions, features, and customizations overwhelming – and I imagine even more so for robovac novices. Even after several years of testing robot vacuums, I still had to resort to Reddit to figure out how to change certain settings (like carpeting vacuuming) – some features are buried deep within the app and easy to miss.

As I noted, the combination of a LiDAR scanner and AI cameras on the vacuum created a decently accurate map of my space. Within the app, it's easy to merge rooms, split rooms, rename rooms, update floor material, set no-go zones, and more. Other furniture, rugs, and obstacles can be marked, but it's hard to get the position of these items 100% accurate – and not really necessary. A 3D map is available, but I've never found these maps useful. I also saved multiple maps for different levels of my home, a huge boon for those in multi-story houses.

Adjustments to cleaning parameters, such as suction level, mopping humidity, coverage precision, and the number of passes, are all fairly straightforward. Theoretically, the Freo Mind mode should take care of making those decisions for you, but in testing, this mode didn't perform as expected, and I found manual selection was by far the best option.

It's possible to create cleaning schedules or provide shortcuts on the main homepage. I loved setting the cleaning sequence of rooms or specific zones to be cleaned – I could ask it to target the areas my dog likes to hang out in while we're out, and then focus on rooms like the study or dining room. During cleaning, the map on the app shows real-time updates of where the vacuum is in the cleaning process and notes obstacles in its path (with photos). It's even possible to receive phone notifications. Cleans are logged so you can check out the full cleaning history.

If you're looking for smart home integration, Siri, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa are all supported. The app features a dedicated 'Third-Party Controls' section to set the robot vacuum to respond to voice commands. There are plenty of other settings too, including accessory management, base station adjustments, and a 'Family with pets' toggle for extra caution when navigating, and that's just scratching the surface.

• App score: 3.5 out of 5

Should you buy the Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How I tested the Narwal Freo Z10 Ultra

I tested the Narwal Freo Z10 in my family home for just over two weeks during the holiday season. It's a two-story home with a sunken family room and almost fully carpeted upstairs. Most of the testing was conducted on the bottom floor, which consists of hardwood floors, vinyl, tile, and tons of medium-pile rugs. A fluffy Keeshond also resides here, leading to excess amounts of fur, debris, and snow in my home.

Beyond sending the robovac out to do everyday vacuuming and mopping tasks, I put it through more rigorous tests. For the vacuum, I spread oats and a flour/biscuit in a one-meter area on both hard flooring and carpet, observing the pickup at different suction levels. To test the mops, I spread a generous amount of ketchup on the floor, letting it dry before sending the robot out to clean. I also observed the mop's ability to pick up a bigger water spill. As for obstacle avoidance, I placed a small charging cable, a floor-matching sock, and a sneaker in a room to observe how well the vacuum navigated around them.

I also experimented with the Narwal Freo app, adjusting settings on both the robot and base station. A decibel meter app on my phone was used to measure noise levels.

Read more about how we test robot vacuum cleaners

• First reviewed December 2025

We learned earlier this week that iRobot, the company behind Roomba, had been taken over by a Chinese contract manufacturing company, Picea, following years of financial struggles. The deal has led to plenty of negative press, but when I spoke to the company's CEO, Gary Cohen, he assured me the future for iRobot was far brighter than the headlines would have us believe.

"I'm feeling great. This is good news for us. This sets iRobot on a new path, a new beginning – a reboot, as many of our employees have been saying," he says. "Just from a process standpoint, this transaction fixes our balance sheet. It helps us out. It protects a lot of stakeholders, and for me, importantly, it's kept a brand alive. We've saved 500 jobs."

Cohen was brought in to save the struggling iRobot in May 2024, following a high-profile failed acquisition by Amazon. Without a buyer, it would have been curtains for the brand that was so instrumental in shaping the robot vacuum market. He explains that the deal means iRobot has been able to keep its headquarters in Bedford, Massachusetts, alongside its innovation team and international teams worldwide.

Although not a widely known name, Picea Robotics is no mysterious interloper, either, but a company that iRobot has had close dealings with over the past year. Cohen tells me how it was first assigned as one of iRobot's contract manufacturers just before the Amazon deal fell through.

"So fast forward to when I joined. We made a decision to totally get rid of our legacy product lines in one year, and we chose Picea as the partner to do that. We still kept our innovation engine. We designed the specs that we wanted to have in the marketplace, but then Picea did more of the engineering development, tooling, purchasing and even testing," he recalls.

As part of that reboot, Picea even introduced some new features of its own, which were developed in conjunction with iRobot.

The new lineup is still in the process of being rolled out, and it must be said the new models haven't been an overwhelming success so far. Still, Picea's work on the project was enough to convince Cohen of Picea's potential as a partner.

It wasn't the first company to try to purchase iRobot, but early deal attempts were derailed by US tariff turmoil in the Spring. Then, when a serious potential buyout eventually fell apart in October, Cohen had to find a new way to save the company.

"Chapter Seven [liquidation bankruptcy] was not something I really wanted to have happen. I had too much invested in the company and the employees, and so we went to Picea and said, 'Would you be interested in buying the company?' And that's how it materialized," he explains.

"So this isn't a story about being taken over by a Chinese company. This is a story of a partner kind of saving a company, and a partner that we have a really good experience with."

Looking forward

The final deal is a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, in which the struggling company can continue operations while reorganizing its finances. Under this agreement, Picea will "receive 100% of the equity interests in the Company," as described in a statement from iRobot.

Day-to-day, Cohen explains that the deal means what were two separate sides of the business will be more smoothly integrated, and insists the teams are "actually excited" at the prospect of a more connected setup.

The original iRobot has already been developing its 2026 lineup with Picea before the takeover, and the results will be launching in the spring.

Cohen tells me that Picea is a relatively new company, but has doubled its size in the past three or so years, and is already a key player in contact manufacturing for robot vacuums. He asserts that they "bring a lot to the party," not just in manufacturing but also on the technical side of things.

"By partnering with them, we have over 1,000 patents. Collectively, we'll be able to put the best brains together from a technical standpoint," he says. "I look at them as more than a contract manufacturer. They've got some brilliant software robotic scientists. We do as well. So by partnering with them, we'll be able to bring innovative ideas to consumers better and faster than even our competitors. They bring to us a get-to-market-faster, lower-cost structure, but also a lot of innovative ideas."

Dreame Aqua10 Ultra: Two-minute review

Innovation in the world of robot vacuum cleaners is evolving by leaps and bounds – you only have to look at the Dreame Matrix10 Ultra and the Ecovacs Deebot X11 OmniCyclone to see how far we’ve come. While the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra isn’t so groundbreaking, it still boasts industry-leading vacuum suction (30,000Pa) and features I’ve not seen anywhere else – like all brushes getting raised when mopping and the mop getting covered when rolling over a carpet. In fact, this is Dreame’s first robovac to get a roller mop.

While these unique features are welcome additions, the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra shines where it matters the most – cleaning floors. I’ve previously said the same thing in my Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni review, but this Dreame does a better job of vacuuming carpets.

I wouldn’t put too much stock in that 30,000Pa of suction as that spec doesn’t always translate to 100% hair pickup on very dirty carpets, but I’d say it gets close – 98% to 99% – which is much better than most other robovacs I’ve tested. Edge cleaning on carpets, though, is a little disappointing in comparison, but this isn’t unique to Dreame – most side brushes don’t have stiff bristles to sweep up embedded hair, fur and fibres along room edges of wall-to-wall carpets, and suction power isn’t distributed evenly across the entire length of the central bar brush. In fact, even my Dyson V15s Detect Submarine finds it hard to get right to the edge where carpet meets wall – unless I use the crevice tool.

Hard-floor cleaning, however, is 100% pickup of all visible dirt and debris. Importantly, there's very little scattering of larger debris as the side brush is raised when it senses excessive dirt. And mopping by the roller results in perfect stain removal, no matter how old and deep-seated it is. I love that it dries the dust bag after each cleaning run, which means it can safely go over a little wet area and suck up some moisture, although I would still hesitate to send it over a large wet spill.

Mobility is fantastic, with extremely silent wheels, although the raising mechanism can be heard and the robot dropping back to its normal position after crossing a threshold sounds like something is breaking. And despite some teething issues when I first set it up, I found its navigation abilities quite efficient. I will admit, however, that it does occasionally clean one spot repeatedly even though it’s not excessively dirty, and that eats into its battery life.

Battery use is also affected slightly by the fact that its suction kicks in as soon as the robot exits its dock, so it’s using up precious power even before it gets to its starting point. In my tests, the battery would drop by 1% to 2% depending on which room I would send it to before it began its task. This isn’t a deal breaker for some homes, but it may not finish cleaning larger spaces in one go.

Another minor complaint I have is the app. As nice as it looks, it takes a little getting used to and, even for someone like me who has ample experience with robovacs, I struggled to find some necessary settings (in my case, carpet-cleaning options). Again, not a deal breaker – and I’m yet to meet a robot vacuum with the perfect app (Roborock comes close) – but a touch of streamlining would make it a lot easier to use, especially if you’re going to shell out a four-figure sum on the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra.

Dreame Aqua10 Ultra review: Price & availability

• List price: $1,599 / £1,299 / AU$2,999
• Released date: November 2025
• Available in most major markets, including the US, UK and Australia

With a suggested retail price of $1,599 / £1,299 / AU$2,999, there’s no denying that the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra sits firmly in the premium robovac space, although it’s not as expensive as the $1,999.99 / £1,399 / AU$3,499 mop-swapping Dreame Matrix10 Ultra. It’s still a flagship model and has features to justify its high asking price but, if clean floors is what you’re after, you can get something a little cheaper and not compromise on what’s important.

Case in point is the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni: it performs wonderfully well although, like most robovacs, its app leaves much to be desired, and you get flagship cleaning for $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$2,499 at full price. Given how often robot vacuums get discounted, this Deebot can be had for around the $800 / £800 / AU$1,500 mark, if not cheaper. I suspect the Aqua10 Ultra will also see a similar treatment during major sales, but its full price stings a little.

In comparison, the Ecovacs Deebot X11 OmniCyclone brings some cutting-edge tech to the table – fast charging and an agentic AI helper to name just a couple – and does away entirely with the replaceable dust bag. It costs $1,499 / £1,199 / AU$2,999 and potentially offers better value for larger homes.

Dreame, however, is known for pricing its robot vacuums quite high – the X50 Ultra Complete, which uses traditional mop pads instead of a roller and doesn’t have all the fancy features of the Aqua10 Ultra, has a list price of $1,699 / £1,299 / AU$2,999.

• Value score: 3.5 / 5

Dreame Aqua10 Ultra review: Specs

Dreame Aqua10 Ultra review: Design

• First Dreame robovac to get a roller mop
• Boasts step-vaulting feet and a retractable navigation turret
• Boxy and classy dock design with dual-detergent dispenser drawer

The moment I took the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra out of its box, my first thought was, “It looks like a large Marshall speaker!”. If you aren’t familiar with this speaker brand, they’re quite boxy and most of the models I know about have a black finish. This is in no way a complaint; it’s my brain making connections I didn’t expect it to – and I love the look. It’s very classic, with clean lines and metallic accents that ooze ‘premium-ness’. Somehow even the green light around the main control button of the robot while it's charging makes it look fabulous rather than garish.

There are a lot of thoughtful design elements here other than the looks, like soft rubber washers that make it easy to remove the dock cover, a dual detergent dispenser drawer and a retractable navigation puck on the top of the robot. It even comes with a brush to clean the wash tray, which I’ve even used to scrub the dirty-water tank.

Robot design

Sticking with the usual round robot, the Aqua10 Ultra isn’t all that different from many of its premium competitors, with a sleek look – a black robot in my case – that’s enhanced by a retracting navigation puck. When docked, the puck stays lowered and has a ring of green light when it’s moving up or down, or when it’s charging – but is unlit when fully topped up and on standby.

The top of the puck is brass coloured and houses the main controls. It looks like a single button that’s divided in two, with one half to power the robot up or down, while the other half is to send it back to its dock (home button).

Around the puck is a fully removable lid, under which you’ll find a dust box which, strangely, is a lot smaller than I’ve seen in competing models. It’s just 220ml and while it’s not affected my cleaning routines, I suspect it will be emptying itself a lot more frequently in homes with pets.

Under the lid is also the Wi-Fi indicator light and the all-important QR code to get you set up with the companion app. Watch out for how much you handle the robot, though, because it’s highly prone to picking up fingerprint smudges that aren’t easy to wipe off (I’m fussy, what can I say?).

The front of the robot, as with all others like it, is the camera window that houses not one, but two AI cameras with HD quality that, Dreame says, allows it to capture a 3D image of the robot's surroundings. A side sensor window is also visible towards the end of the bumper.

The undercarriage is where all the action is and here’s where the Aqua10 Ultra differs from many of its competitors. Firstly, it has a dual-brush system for better cleaning on carpets and hard floors alike without hair tangles.

Second, it’s the first Dreame robot vacuum to get a roller mop and here too there’s been some innovation. The roller is made from slightly more bristly fibres than fluff or microfibre to allow it to get into cracks or grouting to ‘scrub’ as it passes over hard floors. It also has a fluffer that spins in the opposite direction to the roller to keep the fibres, well, fluffed so it’s effective at all times.

Importantly, this is the first robovac I’ve tested that actually has a cover for the roller that engages automatically when it senses a carpet. I couldn’t even see the cover when it was doing a mop and went over my living room rug, but no part of my colorful carpet was damp, something I’ve experienced with other robot vacuum cleaners. The roller also extends to clean along edges, although it does miss corners like pretty much every other robovac I’ve tested.

Like its X50 Ultra and Matrix10 Ultra siblings, the Aqua10 also gets the ProLeap system that allows the robot to traverse shallow steps – it can climb 4cm in one step, and another 4cm in a second step if it needs to. It’s no stair climber though, this only helps it get across higher thresholds that some other robots would have trouble with. At setup, the app will even ask you if you want it to use one ‘foot’ at a time, like a human, or raise both feet and roll over.

I’ve gotten to a point where I wish robovac makers would use stiffer bristles for the side brush because I’ve seen them all struggle to push dirt when moving over carpets, although they work very well on hard floors. It’s the same here – stiffer bristles on my fully carpeted bedroom would have been fabulous. This isn’t a complaint, more a wish for the next iteration.

Dock design

I was sent a black unit for this review, although I’ve seen pictures of a white model too. Either way, the base station for the Aqua10 Ultra looks darn good. Sharp corners and clean lines are reminiscent of mid-Century architectural aesthetics and, as I’ve said before, I get Marshall speaker vibes. And that’s a compliment – I love it!

A lot of thought has gone into the various parts of the base station too. For example, I love that the front cover that hides the dust bag and detergent dispenser is tight thanks to a rubber washer around it, but it comes off and slips on smoothly – no harsh clicks or excessive elbow grease needed as I’ve experienced with other such models that make me feel like I’m about to break something.

I have to mention the dispenser here before moving on. It has two slots for different solutions (there’s a bottle of detergent and pet odor neutralizer in the box – color-coded so you know which goes in what slot), so you could switch up your detergent use if you wish, but the grip to pull the dispenser out of the base station is designed for right-handed people. That’s not to say left-handers can’t remove it, it will just need a little wrist twisting.

Above this slot is the covered hatch for the two water tanks, while below is the housing for the robot itself. Inside, the wash tray can be removed for cleaning as necessary and you’ll find a brush in the box to aid with that. In fact, I found the brush to be handy in scrubbing out the dirty-water tank when I’ve forgetfully let a little ecosystem grow inside it.

Handily, the rear of the base station has a niche for your fingers when you need to move it to another location, plus cable management that is missing from some robovacs I’ve previously reviewed.

• Design score: 5 / 5

Dreame Aqua10 Ultra review: Performance

• Arguably the best vacuuming and mopping I’ve experienced with a robovac
• 100ºC/212ºF roller mop washing
• Mostly good navigation and battery life, but it could be better

Getting the Aqua10 Ultra connected to my phone and set up for mapping barely took any time. Before the map creation, though, I allowed the robot to charge fully while I tried to get familiar with the app.

Mapping took no more than seven minutes in the test space for this review, which was a one-bedroom apartment of about 40sqm/430sq ft area. It has mixed flooring, with wall-to-wall carpeting in the bedroom and two types of tile flooring everywhere else. The map was accurate for the most part, but I merged and divided a couple of rooms to delineate the open-plan space.

One thing I loved about the initial mapping process was that I didn’t hear the robot at all. Other such models I’ve tested, I’ve at least heard the wheels – here, not a sound. Wheels are well oiled and very smooth, at least on the tiles in my test space.

I then had some teething issues with the Aqua10 Ultra in that my very first task for it was a single-room clean, which it refused to do. I kept getting a ‘destination not found’ error. Even after a full reset and remapping, the issue didn’t go away. I later got it to do a full-home clean (what Dreame calls “global cleaning” in the app) and everything worked a charm after that, even custom routines or single-room cleans.

Vacuuming tests

Dreame lists the suction power at an industry-leading 30,000Pa, but don’t get taken in by that number – a few factors go into how well a robot vacuum can suck up hair, dirt and debris, including airflow through the inside of the bot. That said, the Aqua10 Ultra doesn’t disappoint.

I don’t think I’ve been better impressed by any other robovac as much as I’ve been by this Dreame. I made sure there was a lot of hair embedded into the carpet fibers of the bedroom before its first real test and it did a fantastic job on its Intense setting (there is a Max suction too). On hard floors, Standard is more than enough for regular cleaning tasks, although I would recommend switching it up to Intense if you’re trying to clean up a relatively dirty section of tile or wood.

The Aqua10 Ultra is a rare robovac that also managed to get bits of dirt out of grout too. I tested this by sprinkling some tea from a bag into spaces between tiles in my kitchen and not a speck of black was visible on the white background after it was done on its Intense suction setting. Other premium models I’ve tested have struggled with this task.

Another vacuuming feature I love is the raising of the side brush. This happens every time the robot senses a very dirty area with larger pieces of debris (oats in testing) to prevent scattering. And that translates to 100% pickup across the entire area.

The only time I used Max suction power was when I allowed dust and hair to collect on the bedroom carpet over three weeks and pickup was about 98%, with only the edges suffering from a not-so-good vacuuming. The reason that edge cleaning on the carpet suffers is not unique to Dreame, it’s all robovacs – the bristles of the side brush just aren’t stiff enough to push all hair and debris within carpet fibers along room edges towards the central brushes.

I tried the lowest suction setting (Quiet) only once and I wasn’t particularly impressed – it might be fine if your floors are cleaned daily and you don’t have pets or kids.

Mopping tests

Mopping is probably what the Aqua10 Ultra was truly designed to do and it does it very well. Not only is the roller continually washed with fresh water as it’s mopping, but you also get two choices of pressure the roller can apply on floors. The latter might seem like a good thing on paper but, to be honest, Light pressure is fine for daily mopping when the floors are relatively clean. I would think Normal pressure is what most users would need on a regular basis.

With water levels set to high (level 27) to suit the kind of tiles in my test space, I found the Aqua10 Ultra was capable of tackling most dried stains. Dusty footprints are very easy for it to remove, but it also managed to get rid of spilt-and-dried tea. It even got rid of an unidentified caked-in stain close to my living room rug that my previous robot vacuum wasn’t able to mop up.

For the first time when testing a robovac I felt comfortable sending it to mop up a small wet spill – and that’s only because Dreame promised that the central and side brushes would be raised. Sure enough, a few drops of water weren’t an issue and any moisture that got sucked into the onboard dust box and, hence, into the dust bag, isn’t going to be an issue as the bag in the dock is dried after every single vacuum or mop-after-vacuum session is complete.

Admittedly this test is based on small spills, like a few drops of water on the bathroom floor or a tiny bit of milk on the kitchen tiles, but I’ve previously avoided sending any robovac over something wet, no matter how small. That being said, I’d still be very hesitant to get the Aqua10 Ultra to clean a larger wet spill as I’d worry about the filter inside the onboard dust box.

If you’ve got mixed flooring, you can choose what action the robot takes when mopping – avoid carpets altogether, raise the roller mop or cross without cleaning. I had the Aqua10 Ultra set to mop-raise at all times and, the best part, the roller has its own cover that automatically engages as soon as it senses a carpet.

I’ve never been able to see the cover engage, but I’ve had no damp patches on my carpets, not even the edges or corners where other robovacs would be too slow to raise mops.

Mopping can be done with detergents and a small bottle ships in the box to get you started. Dreame doesn’t specify that the floor cleaner needs to be proprietary, but I’d err on the side of caution and purchase what the brand recommends to avoid damaging the internal mechanisms and voiding warranty.

Dock performance

The standout feature here is the dust-bag drying, which you will need to toggle on in the app under Dock Settings. When switched on, the dock will dry the dust bag with warm air after every cleaning session. This prevents odors building or an ecosystem growing inside if moisture gets trapped when the robot vacuums over a few drops of water or any other small spill.

That's not all, though, because the Aqua10 Ultra also looks after the roller well by washing it at 100ºC / 212ºF. That's as good as sterilization and eliminates any odors, washes out stains and gets the roller ready for its next clean. This feature is optional and, if you don't have pets, you could just have the roller cleaned with warm water, sterilizing it every once in a while. The usual hot-air drying takes place to make sure the roller is dried between uses.

The first time I used the Aqua10 Ultra, though, I thought it was using a lot of water, but from the second mopping run onwards, water use has been quite efficient and I didn't need to constantly ensure the clean-water tank was topped up. The only thing that needs doing is ensuring the dirty-water tank is cleaned frequently or you will have nasty odors to contend with. However, not only does the tank have a tight lid, but there's another lid (not hermetically sealed, though) between you and the bad smells. You still wouldn't want to leave dirty water in there for long.

The Aqua10 Ultra dock also allows you to ensure the wash tray is cleaned thoroughly. This is done via the app to start, wherein clean water is poured over the washboard and excess moisture is removed from the roller. The robot will then exit the dock so you can use the provided brush to scrub the tray – just click on finished button on the app when you're done and the dock will take care of the drying once the bot is nestled back in.

Long story short, dock functionality is just as good as the robot's cleaning.

Obstacle avoidance & navigation

Not only does the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra clean well, but its obstacle avoidance is superb. Every robot vacuum I’ve tested until now has gotten thin charging cables entangled with the central bar brush – not so here. Even when unfurled (lying stretched out on the floor), the Aqua10 Ultra’s sensors can spot a cable and it just cleans right along the side without trying to roll over it (as pictured below).

I have one area in my living room where most robovacs get confused – a narrow section of hard floor edged by a wall on one side, a carpet on the other, plus a couch and a slim-legged chair to add to confusing textures. Not only did the Aqua10 Ultra navigate around the legs of the chair well, but it also managed to ensure the strip of hard floor was cleaned each time without the mop rolling over the rug.

The automatic 4cm raising of the robot, however, is a little temperamental. Even with a threshold marked in the app – which should tell the robot to rise, step over and carry on – I found the Aqua10 Ultra didn’t often register the threshold and would try to navigate it as any other low-rise obstacle, trying to find the best way over it. When it did rise automatically on its wheels, it was a fun sight to see.

Overall, navigation is great, although I have to note that I had teething issues. Immediately after setup, I wanted to test the robot’s functionality in just one room and it just couldn’t “find the designated area”. A full reset and remapping didn’t fix the problem either. However, it worked just fine if I opted to do a full-house clean (what Dreame calls a “global” cleaning), after which choosing a single room or a zone was fine.

Battery life

Running on a 6,400mAh battery, which is quite standard these days, the Aqua10 Ultra should, on paper, give you upwards of 200 minutes of cleaning. In reality, that’s not going to be the case as most users won’t be running it on its lowest settings to conserve battery life.

In my testing, I found battery use inefficient during its first few runs where the drain was quite significant – dropping from full to 40% on Intense vacuuming after running for 30 minutes. That improved to falling to 62% on the same setting for the same duration as I used the bot more.

Depending on what kind of custom cleaning routine you choose, it’s possible an average one-bedroom home could be cleaned without needing additional time at the mains, but larger homes will definitely have a full-house cleaning interrupted due to battery drain. This is more so if you have mixed flooring as the robot automatically increases suction on carpets.

One small issue that Dreame could consider fixing is not getting the suction to start as soon as the bot leaves the base station. I found that a minimum of 1% battery would always drain before it reached its starting point. That might not seem like much, but that clocks up when it needs to empty its dust box regularly during a single vacuuming session. And unlike the Ecovacs Deebot X11 OmniCyclone, it doesn’t have fast charging to top up a little while its mop is being washed.

• Performance score: 4.5 / 5

Dreame Aqua10 Ultra review: App and voice control

• Nicely designed app, but some setting options are unclear
• Custom routines have limitations
• Voice control is easy, but has limited functionality

The Dreame companion app in its current form isn’t bad at all – in fact, it’s one of the more appealing apps, with perhaps just Roborock outdoing it. However, it took me a while to wrap my head around the app as right from the get go I found no option to start the mapping process. A bit of playing around with it solved that problem, and the resulting map was accurate and I found it easy to edit.

What I love about the editing process is that I could manually add thresholds, something I’ve not seen on any other robot vacuum app – although I will admit that didn’t work as I expected it to (the bot sometimes didn’t even realize it needed to raise itself). In fact, the map adds room names intelligently as it’s being created, but it doesn’t always get it right.

Dreame gives you a heck of a lot of control over the cleaning routines, like adjusting cleaning parameters such as suction strength or mop water flow rates on a per-room basis, while scheduling, remote control and notifications help keep cleaning convenient. This is the first time I’ve seen a robovac brand offer extensive control over the ‘intelligent’ automatic mode – I could choose my own suction and water levels here, while all other brands use machine learning to set these automatically. Dreame calls this the CleanGenius mode.

It took me a while to figure out how to set up custom Shortcut routines, like Bedroom Clean, or Daily Clean. Even then, I had to ensure I'd saved and tapped on any tick icons or it didn't save anything. Roborock and Ecovacs, on the other hand, have made setting up custom routines a lot simpler.

I also couldn’t figure out why none of the carpets in my test space were getting vacuumed as they’re set to be ‘avoided’ by default and the app doesn’t make that clear – even when you choose to vacuum carpets first. These are little things, but small changes could make the app a lot more streamlined and easier to navigate.

I've also noticed that the Dreame app is slower to respond compared to some other brands I’ve tested – it’s just a few seconds of lag between choosing a clean and the robot exiting the dock, but I’ve seen other brands work a little quicker.

Smart home integration with Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant is available, but the Dreame voice assistant is quite quick to respond if you wake it up. The voice commands you give it are limited in nature, like telling it to start a saved Shortcut or returning to the dock, but it’s an excellent hands-free experience. There’s even Matter support on board for future smart home integration if you ever set up a central hub.

• App & voice control score: 4 / 5

Should I buy the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Dreame Aqua10 Ultra review: Also consider

How I tested the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra

For this review, I used the Aqua10 Ultra for a period of five weeks, running it on mixed flooring an average of twice a week (there were times when I ran it about four times in a day for various tests).

I initially had issues with the robot unable to navigate to its designated area, but that issue was solved after it did a full-home clean. The test space, as mentioned earlier in this review, was a small one-bedroom apartment with carpet in the bedroom and tiles everywhere else.

I spent quite a lot of time trying to understand the app, but once things were set up as I wished them to be, running the Aqua10 Ultra was easy. I performed full-home cleans, custom routines, single-room cleans, even zone cleaning for some tests. I used the shower divider in the bathroom to test its ProLeap system to clear thresholds.

I also used the provided detergent and odor neutralizer in the dock.

I put the Aqua10 Ultra through TechRadar's usual tests for vacuuming and mopping (using oats and tea from a bag for the former, and a dollop of chutney for the latter). I also conducted our standard obstacle avoidance test, but paid special attention to how it handles cables as Dreame does advertize it to be excellent.

As you've probably already read, the Aqua10 Ultra passed all its tests with flying colors, and my complaints were mostly minor.

Read more about how we test vacuum cleaners

[First reviewed December 2025]

• iRobot has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
• There should be no immediate disruption for Roomba owners
• A new owner, Picea Robotics, is taking over

We knew iRobot was in trouble, and the smart vacuum maker has now officially filed for bankruptcy. However, operations will continue under Chinese manufacturer Picea Robotics – a company that had already been building Roombas for iRobot.

According to the BBC, the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing was necessary in the face of increasing competition and hefty tariffs being placed on devices imported into the US. Currently, most iRobot smart vacuums are shipped to the US from Vietnam.

As for what this might mean for your Roomba, iRobot says there should be no immediate changes to product support, supply chain production, or the mobile apps that accompany the smart home hardware. For the time being at least, you'll be able to keep using your intelligent vacuum cleaner around the home.

iRobot started out in defense and space technology in 1990, before launching its first Roomba vacuum in 2002. After a pandemic-driven spike in demand, the company was valued at $3.56bn in 2021, but that valuation is now down to around $140m.

After we published, Colin Angle, iRobot co-founder and former iRobot CEO, sent us this comment:

"For more than 35 years, iRobot led the consumer robotics industry and created a category that brought robots into millions of homes. Today’s outcome is profoundly disappointing—and it was avoidable. This is nothing short of a tragedy for consumers, the robotics industry, and America’s innovation economy. Regulatory opposition to the Amazon–iRobot acquisition removed the most viable path for a pioneering American robotics company to scale and compete globally. This moment should be a warning: when regulators ignore the realities of global competition, they don’t protect innovation—they weaken it. As AI and robotics accelerate worldwide, the United States needs a coherent Physical AI strategy, not policies that make it harder for breakthrough companies to survive and grow here at home.”

What we know about Picea Robotics

Picea Robotics is headquartered in the city of Shenzhen in southern China, and isn't new to the smart home scene: as well as previously manufacturing devices for iRobot, it also has partnerships with Shark and Anker (which has the Eufy smart home brand).

Also known as 3irobotix, Picea Robotics has previously launched its own range of smart vacuum cleaners too, as well as having a variety of interest in other types of technology – including robotics hardware, as The Verge reports.

The new owners of the iRobot brand certainly aren't newcomers: the overall Picea Group has been around since 2016, and currently employs more than 600 research and development staff, and 5,000 manufacturing staff. It should know what it's doing – but at this early stage it's hard to predict exactly what it will do with iRobot.

iRobot says the move will lead to "long-term growth and innovation", and that the brand will emerge stronger from the bankruptcy process. It will also return to being a private company under the ownership of Picea Robotics.

Updated 12-15-2025 4:40 PM ET with a statement from Colin Angle.

Dreame Matrix10 Ultra: two-minute review

Dreame Technologies is fast making a name for itself by producing a big range of robot vacuums, from affordable options through to high-end bots like the Dreame Ultra X40 I reviewed last year, which, until now, was the smartest robovac I had tested.

The Matrix10 Ultra is the latest model from Dreame and brings new features, as well as much better intelligence and obstacle tracking than lesser bots. It’s a premium tier robovac, so not an overly affordable option, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still good value.

Like most higher end robovacs, the Matrix10 Ultra handles both vacuuming and mopping and comes with a base station that empties the robovac’s dustbin, dispenses water + cleaning fluids for the mops, and cleans the mopping system.

It stands out, however, with a unique multi-set mop pad system, a 4.2cm step climbing ability, automatic dispensing of three different floor-cleaning fluids, a wide array of sensors, plus the ability to recognise over 240 objects using its cameras.

That all sounds complex, but getting the Matrix10 Ultra up and running was relatively simple – unpack it, plug it in, connect to the app and follow the prompts. Within 10 minutes it was mapping my home, and within 20 minutes I had it cleaning up the endless dog fur shed by my Great Dane.

The Dreame bot is especially great at identifying and avoiding obstacles like shoes or cables and can even recognise your pets and give them space when cleaning. In my four weeks of testing, it didn’t make a single mistake or get stuck, whereas other bots had a tendency to occasionally try to chomp an electrical cable or suck up something that would jam the brushes or clog the intake.

Back at the start of the year when testing the Dreame X40 Ultra, I found the app a little clunky at times, with minor niggles like inconsistent navigation gestures and a convoluted layout to reach certain settings. While it’s not perfect, I am happy to report that the app is now much more refined, and the Dreame team has done a great job of polishing it to the point expected in this price range.

The Matrix10 has a CleanGenius mode that lets the robovac use its own smarts to work out what cleaning is needed, then it vacuums, mops and even goes back over areas when it decides an extra pass is warranted. The results are good overall, but I found it could be a little too eager on my polished wooden floors, and wanted to mop them more often than the once-a-week routine I think they actually require.

In the end, my favoured setup was a scheduled daily vacuum and a separate mop run once a week. I also set up app shortcuts for specific scenarios, like an extra vacuum or mop near the front or back door if my dog walks in with muddy paws.

The Matrix10 Ultra also includes features specifically for edge and corner handling, including a side brush that can extend to sweep up harder to reach debris, or clean under the edge of low furniture. It pairs that with dual spinning mop pads, with one pad able to protrude further out when extra coverage is needed up to and under edges.

A unique feature of the Matrix10 is the inclusion of three pairs of mops that can be used to clean different areas of the home, to avoid cross contamination. For example, I used one pair for general cleaning, one pair for kitchen cleaning, and one pair for bathroom cleaning. This doesn’t require any extra effort on my behalf, as the base station automatically changes the mop pads, as well as cleans and dries them.

The mop pads also attach magnetically, so the bot can leave them at the base station before it moves onto carpet, which reduces the risk of dragging damp pads over rugs or spreading leftover mop water where it doesn’t belong.

After four weeks of daily use (and multiple times a day in many cases, as my Great Dane does a great job of adding mess), I can’t fault the Matrix10’s vacuuming ability and I found that it performed equally well across hard floors, carpet and rugs. Plus, the extendable side brush did a great job of getting into corners while sweeping debris away from skirting boards and wall edges.

The spinning, extendable mop pads were just as effective, and in my weekly mop sessions, that gave a clean finish while also scrubbing off the kind of sticky spills that usually mean breaking out an old scrubbing sponge or mop.

Back at the base station, the Matrix10 washes the mop pads with hot water, then uses hot air to dry them, which means no odours build up. Wear items like the mop pads, filters and corner brush also held up well in my use, and there's no sign that you’ll need to frequently buy replacements.

The Matrix10 also has a big focus on being able to interact well with pets in your home, and the many objects it can detect include pet droppings. While my dog is house trained, I can confirm it really does work, and the robovac will identify and avoid any pet accidents, meaning you won’t have to experience coming home to a bunch of smeared mess and a robovac that needs a bath. The Matrix10 can also detect wet patches (from human spills or pet accidents) so it won’t spread or vacuum over any puddles it encounters.

Another key feature of the Matrix10 is the ability to climb a 4.2cm step, with up to 8cm of height for a double step as long as the gap between the two is larger than 4cm. It’s not just steps either and the robovac can climb over other small obstacles – I found I could even send it in to mop inside my shower if I wanted. This is a game changer for homes with minor obstacles that will stop a lesser bot, and means there is no need for little ramps to help it get between areas.

One of my main complaints with the X40 Ultra was the base station piping and suction, as it was weak enough to often get clogged, and not fully fill the vacuum bag. The good news is that Dreame has completely fixed this problem, and I didn’t have a single issue with the base station emptying the robovac. Amazingly, they have managed this while also making it significantly quieter, and better at containing any vacuum bag smells.

It has to be said – the Matrix10 Ultra is not cheap. In fact, it’s one of the more expensive models on the market, but when you compare the actual technology and features on offer, the overall value is excellent.

Dreame Matrix10 Ultra review: Price and availability

• How much does it cost? Starting from $1,999 / £1,399 / AU$3,499
• When is it available? Available to buy now
• Where can you get it? You can get it in the US, UK, and Australia

The Dreame Matrix10 Ultra was announced in August 2025 and can be bought directly from the Dreame website in most regions, as well as from major retailers or marketplaces like Amazon. For this review, I will mostly be focusing on Australian pricing.

At the time of writing, it’s new enough that availability is still a touch limited in Australia. It has an asking price of AU$3,499 and is new enough that there haven't been any notable discounts, and at times has been sold out.

Of course, like any robovac, using the Matrix10 Ultra will incur ongoing costs – especially the non-reusable dust bags – but more on that later.

If you don’t need all the features offered by the Matrix10 Ultra, or have a simple home layout with few obstacles, then premium alternatives like the Dreame X50 Ultra, or the X40 Ultra are worth looking at. There are slightly cheaper models too, from the Dreame L40 and Dreame L20 Ultra, through to the Dreame L10s Ultra or D10 Plus.

• Value score: 4 / 5

Dreame Matrix10 Ultra: Specifications

Dreame Matrix10 Ultra review: Design and features

• 3 pairs of changeable mop pads
• Base station with auto empty and mop clean
• 4.2cm step climbing ability

Despite a bunch of innovative features, the Matrix10 Ultra has a fairly standard design overall – a normal round robovac form factor paired up with a base station that handles charging, dustbin emptying, floor-cleaner dispensing, mop changing, mop washing and drying – and it holds the containers for clean and dirty mop water.

In the box, you get the robovac itself, the base station, three dust bags (with one already installed in the base station) and 12 mop pads in total, with six preinstalled on the mop pad holders. Along with that there’s 1 litre of floor cleaning liquid, a small 200 ml bottle of pet odour reducing solution, a 200 ml bottle of wood floor care solution and a spare side brush.

Setting up the Matrix10 is very easy – the base station needs the ramp attached, but otherwise, it’s ready to go once plugged in and charged. After installing the app, you scan a QR code on the robovac, and it walks you through the rest of the process in just a few minutes.

The base station is about the same height as similar models (58.9 cm / 23-inches), but a bit wider (42cm / 16.5-inches) and deeper (46cm / 18-inches) than many. Still, it fits into a smallish space (I had it next to the couch as it made a handy side table) as it only needs 5cm (2 inches) of clearance on each side. The dust bag and floor cleaner dispenser are tucked away under a big swing out door on the front of the base station, while the mop water is changed via a hatch on the top.

For those who prefer to place it under a bench, you can still slide it out easily enough and Dreame has an optional kit that plumbs the base station into a fresh-water supply and a waste-water outlet, making mop water changes fully automatic – though it’s not yet available to buy in Australia.

For those who want to integrate the robovac into a kitchen or laundry, this is a very handy extra and greatly reduces the amount of ongoing maintenance needed.

The Matrix10 sports a bevy of sensors to help navigate your home, spot areas that need an extra clean, and avoid any pets or places where it could get stuck.

At the front, the bot has an AI HD camera and an AI IR camera, along with 3D Dual-Line Laser sensors and an LED auxiliary light, so it can still pick out obstacles in a dark room. Underneath there’s a carpet sensor and downward-facing cliff sensors for spotting steps and drops. An edge sensor helps it run close to walls and along edges, while the retractable VersaLift sensor on top takes care of mapping and navigation. Dreame says the whole system can recognise 240+ types of objects, including troublemakers like cables that can snag the brushes.

The Matrix10 Ultra gives you five suction levels: Quiet, Standard, Turbo, Max and Max+, with Dreame rating the latter at up to 30,000Pa. The catch is that Max+ only shows up for a one-off clean and you can’t use it in a schedule or in a customised shortcut run. This means the full advertised suction isn’t what you will actually use most of the time.

On the cleaning hardware side, the robovac can extend its side brush to reach into corners, track along edges and poke under the lip of low furniture. It can also lift that brush by 10mm, to avoid smearing liquids it spots.

The Matrix10 includes three pairs of mop pads, which it can automatically change and then use for cleaning in specific areas. The bot can also leave the mop pads in the base station when vacuuming, which means no mop contamination or dampness is possible when vacuuming thick carpets. It can also lift the pads when vacuuming carpet, but the clearance is 10.5mm, so on thicker rugs or deeper pile carpet, leaving the pads behind at the base station is an even safer option.

The right-hand mop pad is extendable too, letting the Matrix10 Ultra clean closer to corners, scrub along the kickboards of kitchen cabinets and even get under the edge of low appliances. For example, it does a great job of cleaning under the front edge of my fridge, where I’d normally have to open the freezer door and clean the floor by hand if doing it myself.

The Matrix10 includes voice control using the phrase “Ok Dreame”, and can be integrated into your existing third-party voice assistants like Google Home, Siri and Alexa. There is also an option where you can ask it to “come here and clean” and it will locate you and clean that area. For those with existing smart home setups, the Matrix can be integrated into most systems, and it supports the Matter standard.

Another key feature is the ability to climb small steps, which is handy in many homes, and avoids the need for robovac ramps. Dreame calls this the ProLeap obstacle system and it lets the bot climb single steps and lips up to 42 mm and handle double layer thresholds up to 80 mm. It’s designed to easily clear things like door trims, raised transitions between hard floors and thick rugs, and avoid getting stuck.

The Matrix10 also uses a retractable lidar tower that, when lowered, reduces the height of the bot by 22mm. This helps it free itself if it does catch under low furniture, or it can proactively lower it to allow cleaning under otherwise inaccessible areas.

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

Dreame Matrix10 Ultra review: Performance

• Quieter than expected
• Excellent obstacle recognition
• Excellent debris pickup

Overall, I found the Matrix10 Ultra was very thorough with both vacuuming and mopping. Outside of grabbing the odd larger bit of debris by hand, and doing an occasional spot clean, I didn’t really need to do any extra work myself.

There’s also a CleanGenius mode that lets the robovac set the cleaning parameters for you. In my use though, it liked mopping far too often, so I ended up setting scheduled runs and using app shortcuts instead to customise a cleaning routine that suited my home and preferences.

The Matrix10 Ultra isn’t especially fast, and during my testing, it took between 2 and 2.5 minutes per square metre when vacuuming, and a little more than that to mop. You can reduce that slightly if you turn off the option for it to be very careful, and don’t mind the occasional boop into something if it gets too close. In my testing, the Matrix10 didn’t leave any marks on furniture or walls, even when occasionally nosing into them, so this is a good option to disable for normal use.

Of course, the bot can vacuum and mop at the same time if needed, which allows for a much faster cleaning run. I preferred to have it vac first then mop though, as the extra time taken has no impact for me, as it is done during the day when no one is home but a sleeping dog.

You can also change it to a quicker mode, which is about 30% faster to do the clean, but coverage drops by 15%. This is especially handy if you want it to do a quick cleanup while you are home.

The 6,400mAh battery is rated for up to 220 minutes of vacuuming and mopping in the low suction strength Quiet mode. For just vacuuming, Dreame quotes 205 m² (2207.85 ft²) of area, also using quiet mode. This is less than older models like the Dreame X40 Ultra, but without specific data on the power levels on different modes, a direct comparison is not really possible.

What I can compare is my own testing, and in general, the Matrix10 actually used less power than the X40 Ultra to cover the same area, while also being quieter and giving a slightly better clean.

In terms of my specific run times, the Matrix10 Ultra vacuumed my small 80m² two-bedroom home at standard suction, then completed a full mop, and it still had over 60% of the battery capacity left. Based on that result, I’d expect it to easily handle homes up to 200m² per charge in typical use. Note as well that the battery charge rate is up by 30% compared to older models, so for larger homes, the Matrix10 will simply stop to quick-charge, then continue on cleaning.

• Overall performance score: 4.5 / 5

Mapping and obstacle avoidance

After setup, the Matrix10 created a very accurate map of my home and I didn’t have to make any adjustments in the app – though I did give rooms my own specific names. I also added a few boundaries to keep it out of particular areas.

When vacuuming, the array of sensors and cameras does a great job of spotting obstacles on the floor, and it’s especially careful to stay clear of anything that might cause a tangle – like shoelaces or cords. You need to turn it on in the menu, but the bot records a picture (viewable in the app) of any obstacle it encounters, making it easy to move it before the next clean. After a few cleans, you quickly get a feel for the items it’s avoiding, and can tidy them up if needed.

For example, I noticed it gave the cable of my floor fan a wide berth, so I repositioned the cord so the robovac would vacuum in close around the base of the fan, as dog hair tended to collect there.

The Matrix10 Ultra has the smarts to recognise your pets (in my case, typically just the paws of my Great Dane galloping past) and will keep clear if it spots them snoozing. It records a few pictures of any interactions – viewable in the cleaning log via the app – so you can see how your pet reacts to the vacuum.

You can also designate specific zones for the robovac to stay out of, like around a pet's bed or feeding area. Even more importantly, the robovac can recognise any pet droppings and will steer well clear when cleaning. Thankfully, my dog hasn’t made any of that type of mess inside, so I faked a test using food, and the Matrix10 Ultra had no trouble identifying the fake droppings and kept well clear.

Like many Great Danes, mine does sometimes create a lot of slobber – especially after drinking on a hot day. One time he left a line of slobber through the kitchen (a common occurrence!) so I ran a test vacuum. The Matrix10 had no problems spotting the slobber trail and carefully vacuumed around it. I then of course sent it back in to mop that up, and contemplated if I needed to reserve one set of mop pads just for dog slobber.

Using the app, you can also stream live video from the robovac’s main camera while it’s working, or take over and remotely steer it – though this can be a bit laggy. You can also command the bot to navigate to a specific spot in your home, use it to have a two-way conversation, or even have it automatically search for your pets and snap a picture.

Impressively, the robovac never got stuck in my four weeks of testing. I will report back after longer term use, as it will likely get stuck at some point due to a mistake on my behalf. But so far, it’s very impressive, and lesser bots I have tested get stuck once a week or so.

As a comparison, the Dreame X40 Ultra I tested only got stuck twice in three months of testing – and both times were my fault. The first time was because it half-ingested a USB-C cable I had knocked down next to the base station, and the second was from vacuuming up a loose tile in my (very old) bathroom. In both cases, no damage was caused, as the bot knew it was stuck and waited patiently until freed.

Overall, the Matrix10 Ultra did an amazing job of navigating my home and had no problem cleaning around always-changing obstacles – big and small – left in its way. It’s a great choice for anyone with a busy, complex home, or if you don’t want to have to worry about picking every last thing up from the floor before cleaning.

It’s hard to overstate how much of a strength obstacle recognition is for Dreame. The X40 Ultra I reviewed earlier in the year is currently getting an extended battle test in a family member's delightfully chaotic home with multiple dogs and energetic young children. Other robovacs they have tried easily became stuck or clogged on a near daily basis, but the X40’s ability to recognise and dodge objects on the floor means it rarely has an issue.

• Mapping and obstacle avoidance score: 4.5 / 5

Vacuuming

I tested the Matrix10 on polished wooden floors, as well as tiles and rugs. Aside from vacuuming every day (and sometimes more) over four weeks, I also performed a number of specific tests to gauge how effective the robovac is at cleaning up a variety of spills and debris types. I used flour, sand, rice, oats, dry dog food, and some dry leaves – scattered in a corner on hard floors and then on a short-pile rug.

On both carpet and hard floors, the Matrix10 picked up 95% or more of the flour, rice, oats and leaves in a single pass and the debris was almost always completely gone after a second go. Dry dog food was pulled up in one pass, while sand needed three passes before it was fully collected.

The Matrix10 Ultra’s side brush also spins relatively slowly, which meant in my tests it rarely flicked debris away from the main brush underneath. I also found it generally detected and avoided items larger than roughly 10mm x 10mm, since those can wedge behind the brush and cause a clog to build up.

Generally speaking, I found that the standard vacuum level works just fine for picking up pet fur, dust, and light debris on hard floors – but it’s best cranked up to Turbo or Max for carpets (and Max+ if you have a really tough area). The higher suction modes also do best if cleaning up sand, heavier dirt, or chunkier debris, but even the normal level does a great job of reducing grit to the point you don’t notice it with bare feet on polished wood floors.

So in my use case, a daily vacuum in the standard mode with a single pass captured almost all the lighter debris (like dog fur, bits of leaf matter, fluff etc.), but may leave a small amount of heavier debris like sand behind. This isn’t much of a problem, as you can customise scheduled cleans on a room-by-room basis to accommodate different needs. For example, after a trip to the dog beach, an extra pass at Max by the front door helped ensure any lingering sand was captured.

The Matrix10 is remarkably quiet – much more so than any other robovac I have tested or seen. It’s a huge improvement over the X40 Ultra, which itself was quieter than most. I have included a full comparison table below, but it’s gone from noticeable and mildly intrusive if you are watching TV, to being easy to ignore completely.

I’m a light sleeper, so as a test, I scheduled a few days of vacuum runs just before my morning alarm was set to go off. On the normal standard or quiet vacuum setting, the Matrix10 could vacuum on the other side of a door without waking me, which was impressive. On the X40, much of the noise came from the motors and gearboxes when the bot was driving (a very noticeable whirr), but on the Matrix10, this is much reduced, helping make it much quieter when moving around.

For the base station, the sound levels are also much lower. It’s still not completely quiet, so having it empty or wash mop pads in the same room as you are trying to relax is best avoided. But it’s not loud enough to impact most TV watching, for example – another noticeable improvement on the X40 Ultra.

To make the comparison simpler, I have included the Matrix10 vs the X40 Ultra results below in table form.

My home has two people who shed a lot of long hair, so the bot’s ability to handle this is important. The Matrix10 is rated for hair up to 50cm (and mine is longer than that) but overall it did a great job – not perfect, but good enough that hair removal maintenance is very minor. The main double brush stayed completely hair free, and the overall design avoided hair getting sucked into and trapped deeper in the rotating mechanisms.

The front wheel and side drive wheels (including the step climbing legs) didn't pick up any hair at all. Compared to the X40 Ultra, which didn't pick up much hair, the Matrix10 is almost perfect. Interestingly, despite a seemingly very similar design, the one exception is the side brush – it actually collected slightly more hair than the X40 Ultra. Not enough to negatively impact maintenance (and removing it takes less than 30 seconds), but noticeably more.

This may be from changes in the vacuuming environment, or from slight changes in the design, and I will be tracking this during my longer term testing to see if the differences can be narrowed down.

• Vacuuming score: 4.5 / 5

Mopping

I’m not someone who mops too often if doing it manually (my wood floors are already brown!), and once a week suffices for robovac assists. I also find it useful to turn on an extra mopping schedule during wet weather so the areas near the front and back doors get a bit of extra attention to avoid build-up from muddy shoes and paws.

The Matrix10 Ultra can extend its right mop pad, which I found made a noticeable difference along skirting boards and around tight edges (where a handheld mop often misses or can’t easily reach) compared to a bot with fixed mop pads. It also doses cleaning solution automatically, and I tested a plain water mop vs one with cleaning solution, and no surprise, the latter gets rid of a lot more grime.

For a more direct stress test, I poured two soy sauce spills on a mix of tile and timber flooring, leaving one to dry, then spread wasabi paste and sticky honey over the same area. The fresh soy came off in one pass. The dried soy was very nearly gone after one pass, but ultimately needed two passes to get the last little bit and feel properly squeaky clean. The wasabi paste and honey were both gone after the first mopping pass, but a second got rid of a slight lingering sticky feel. This is a bit better than the X40 Ultra on the same tests, showing the Dreame team is steadily improving their robovacs over time.

The Matrix10 washed the mop pads between each targeted clean, or used different pads depending on your setup, so there was no cross contamination. The pads are built for scrubbing rather than sponging up spills, so the bot isn’t designed to clean up a huge spill and it is best at ongoing cleanup of smaller messes, like if food accidentally drips some sauce.

I liked the three mop pad set auto changer, as it feels a bit more hygienic to keep one set of pads for scrubbing the bathroom and another for the living room or bedroom. That said, it may be overkill for many people – especially considering how well the base station washes and dries the mop pads.

One minor issue I noticed on the X40 Ultra that I have not seen on the Matrix10 is a small amount of iron rich magnetic dirt getting stuck to the mop pad magnets. It may be that this issue will show up in longer term testing, but slight design tweaks do appear to have reduced the magnets’ ability to collect iron rich dirt.

• Mopping score: 4.5 / 5

Base station performance

Dreame says the base station's 3.2L dust bag can last up to 100 days between changes, although real-world that will vary a lot depending on pets, carpets and how much dust your home tends to build up. The robot itself has a 310mL dust box and will head back to the base station to auto-empty when the bin is full, plus you can change the auto-empty frequency in the app if you want it emptying more often during a clean.

In my X40 Ultra review, one of my main complaints was the suction of the base station that often left the robovac partially emptied. It also didn’t suck debris to the back of the base station dust bag, making it fill up to the point it clogged at the mouth of the bag. This wasn’t helped by my dog’s short but stiff hair, but overall the problem contributed a lot to the total maintenance needed.

Thankfully, the Dreame boffins have completely solved this in the Matrix10’s base station. Not only is the suction much more powerful, it's also quieter. It also has improvements such as ramping the auto-empty vacuum suction up and down more than once – a trick other robovac companies like Ecovacs use to help make sure any potential clogs don't jam in place.

The result is that the Matrix10 was fully emptied every time in my testing, even when clearing up a lot of debris like leaf litter tracked in by my dog. It also sucked everything firmly to the back of the dust bag, meaning it holds more and lasts much longer before it needs to be changed. The base station is also better at telling when the dust bag needs to be changed when it does get full. This means my biggest complaint about the X40 Ultra is solved, and I can happily recommend the Matrix10 to anyone with dogs – even ones that shed long fur.

The Matrix10 also uses warm air to dry the dust bag and robovac’s dust box, to help avoid any lingering dampness potentially causing odours to build up. Compared to the X40 Ultra without this feature, I found it most noticeable for dog fur. For example, in wet weather (with damp air) when the base station auto empty would run, I sometimes noticed a mild wet dog smell from all the fur in the dust bag. With the Matrix10, I have not experienced this at all.

The mop-washing system worked well in my testing, with a small, but noticeable amount of noise as the only drawback. The base station heats water and feeds it into the wash tray, then circulates it across the mop pads while the robot spins the pads against plastic scrubbers to knock loose grime. That dirty water is then sucked up and added to the dirty-water tank. Afterwards, the station dries the pads and the wash area with warm air, which helps avoid odours forming.

Now, the sound level is pretty quiet overall, but I found the wash cycle itself quite noticeable, especially when the pumps kicked in. The drying step was much quieter, but the fan still produced a soft whirring sound (only audible in a very quiet room) for a few hours.

The base station also has a base station self-clean mode, and Dreame says: “the self-cleaning process lasts approximately 248 seconds”. I broke out the stopwatch, and yes, the time is accurate. The self clean is quite effective, and while I didn’t have much debris built up in the mop wash tray, it flushed it out well.

• Base station performance score: 5 / 5

Dreame Matrix10 Ultra review: App and control

• Deep customisation options
• Easy access to features
• The app is sometimes laggy

You can control cleaning basics for the Matrix10 Ultra using the buttons on top of the bot itself, such as triggering a clean, pausing it, or sending it back to the base station. But the app is key for normal day-to-day use and is needed for all the deeper customisation and accessing specific features, or options like viewing the cleaning history.

When testing the X40 Ultra, I was often mildly frustrated with the app, and found that many useful settings were buried in multiple layers of menus, or that navigation gestures were inconsistent. You also got locked out of the settings when the robovac was in operation. It just didn’t feel quite like a premium experience to match the premium price tag of the robovac.

Again, a lot of work has been put into the app since then, and it’s now much improved. Settings like Scheduled cleans are easily accessible straight from the main menu and navigation is much cleaner and more intuitive. You also no longer get locked out of changing settings (like scheduled cleans) when the bot is cleaning.

It's not perfect, but it does now feel quite polished, and shows commitment to improving the user experience.

In my four weeks of testing, the Matrix10 Ultra never failed to start a scheduled clean or failed to respond to the app. Occasionally it took slightly longer than normal to load the data like cleaning results, but generally it was very fast.

While the voice control does work fine, I found that 99% of my control needs were either only available through the app (like changes to scheduled cleans), or simply just easier via the app. Likewise, it was much faster to trigger an area clean on the map in the app than use the “come to me” voice control mode for spot cleaning.

Like the X40 Ultra, the Matrix10 needs a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network. I didn’t have any trouble connecting it to my standard auto band steering mesh network (like you can find in our best mesh Wi-Fi systems). In comparison, the X40 Ultra was most stable when using a dedicated 2.4GHz network.

The Dreamehome now takes things even further, with a Wi-Fi signal strength map. It identifies where it thinks the router is based on signal strength, and overlays signal strength on your existing home map. This is very handy as it gives a quick, easy visual indicator as to where there might be signal strength issues.

The Dreamehome app has more features and settings than I can reasonably cover here, but I will go over some of my favourites.

In the app you can set the bot to limit charge to 80%, which will help improve battery longevity by reducing the time it spends sitting at maximum charge, where the higher voltage results in faster battery wear.

You can also set times for the robovac to charge, which for those with time of day metering (or solar panels producing power during the day), means you can charge at the cheapest time. Sure, the savings are under AU$10 a year, but it also requires zero ongoing effort.

The app also has options for easily sharing control of the robovac to others, making it simple to have multiple people able to control it. There is even the option to submit feature ideas or issues directly via the app.

I also appreciate the pet care options, like setting Pet Activity keep out zones, doing pet monitoring, specific pet related cleaning controls (like extra frequent dust bin empties) and the Pet Moments feature that captures pics of your pet (in my case, the passing paws of a Great Dane) if the robovac spots them during cleaning.

While I am very impressed with the Dreamehome app, it’s not perfect. Occasionally I find it a bit laggy and options like the cleaning history take a while to open. I also noticed the wrong tooltip info in the Accessory Usage menu, where for Omnidirectional Wheel it says “Clean the washboard as needed” but when clicked, still has the full wheel cleaning info. I submitted this via the suggestion feature, and I will report back on how long it takes to get fixed.

Beyond these very minor quibbles, I have to say the Dreamehome app is the most polished and fully featured robovac app I have tested. And just as importantly, I am confident the Dreame team will continue to improve the experience over time.

• App score: 4.5 / 5

Dreame Matrix10 Ultra review: Consumables and maintenance

The Matrix10 Ultra comes with everything you need to get started right away, and the supplies will last through your first few months at least. You get three dust bags (one already installed in the base station) plus 1 litre of floor cleaning liquid, a little 200ml bottle of pet odour reducing solution and 200ml of wood floor care solution. You also get the 12 mop pads (6 come preinstalled on the mop pad holders) and a spare side brush.

Slightly frustratingly, at the time of writing, the Dreame Australia website does not have the Matrix10 listed on the accessories page. The accessories page itself is also not very easy to use, and does not let you select a model to just show what accessories are available for it – instead you have to browse and read multiple descriptions looking for whatever model you have.

The good news is the dust bags are the same 3.2 litre ones used by the other premium Dreame robovacs, including the L and X Series. A three pack costs AU$39.95, which is not excessive, but also adds up over time. You can get third party bags from retailers like Amazon, but when I tested some on the X40 Ultra, they were mostly not as good as the official bags.

The Dreame app keeps track of each cleaning session and provides an estimated remaining life (in hours) for the consumables and wearing parts. The estimates generally seem quite conservative, and I expect many parts – like the main brush – will last longer than rated and need less frequent changing than expected.

Maintenance for the Matrix10 Ultra is fairly simple and took me about 10 minutes over a month. It’s not messy or difficult to do and mostly involves giving the robovac a check-over, dusting off the sensors, and removing any trapped hair if needed. The latter involves removing the side brush and simply sliding the wrapped hair off – I didn’t have to cut any free during my testing.

Extrapolating my four weeks of testing to a full year, and using the remaining life estimates in the Dreame app, the Matrix10 Ultra consumables include 3 to 4 dust bags, one filter, one side brush, one main brush, a container of floor cleaner, and one set of replacement mop pads.

There’s no direct way to buy all this in a kit, or easily just get the individual bits, but the costs are around AU$150 to AU$200 a year. That said, based on wear levels so far, I fully expect it to last longer, so costs will be about half that. Still, I will wait until I have a couple more months of long term testing done then report back with more specific figures.

While using the official Dreame accessories is recommended, there are third-party consumables available from online retailers like eBay and Amazon. I tested some when reviewing the X40 Ultra and some of the leftover bags are also compatible with the Matrix10.

The best of the options are nearly identical to the official Dreame parts, while the worst are of very poor quality and simply won’t work well. Still, until Dreame offers more affordable bulk packs of dust bags, it’s hard to pass on third-party alternatives – provided you can find the good-quality ones.

• Consumables and maintenance score: 4 / 5

Should I Buy the Dreame Matrix10 Ultra?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

Not sold on the Dreame Matrix10 Ultra? Below are a few alternatives that are worth considering.

How I tested the Dreame Matrix10 Ultra

• I used the Matrix10 Ultra as my main vacuum cleaner for a month
• My testing space included hard floors and carpet
• I performed specific grain-size and wet-spill tests

I used the Dreame Matrix10 Ultra daily for a month in a home with a dog and two adults, and will continue long term testing and update this review with any new findings.

I tested the Matrix10 Ultra on polished wooden floors, tiles, carpet, and medium-pile rugs. The weather during the test period included both wet and dry conditions. I started with an initial deep clean, followed by ongoing daily vacuuming, with mopping once or twice a week – plus extra spot cleans as needed. I tested both the automatic CleanGenius mode and customised cleans using schedules and shortcuts.

I documented cleaning performance over the testing period and conducted a range of specific tests with different debris sizes to further gauge vacuuming ability. I also tested dry and wet spills to evaluate the mopping prowess. Additionally, I strategically placed debris – including fur, leaves and hair – in problem areas such as corners to assess the robovac’s effectiveness in daily use.

During my testing period, I also performed maintenance tasks such as changing the base station vacuum bag (though notably it was only full after all the extra vacuum tests I did), and manually cleaned the mop cleaning system in the base station, plus performed the full range of spot checks.

Read more about how we test

I've tested robot vacuums of all shapes, sizes and price-points, and with all kinds of specs. But how much suction do you really need in a robot vacuum, and what kind of specs should you look for?

Robot vacuum suction is measured in Pascals (Pa). The cheapest robot vacuums on the market might have in the region of 3,000Pa of suction. In the mid-range, you're looking at around 5,000-9,000Pa. Until recently, the absolute highest suction spec you'd find anywhere was 10,000Pa.

Over the past 12 months or so, though, that number has skyrocketed. A number of brands kicked off 2025 with flagship models that had 20,000Pa of suction, and the most recent models have more like 30,000Pa. Coincidentally, as the author of TechRadar's best robot vacuum guide and tester of some of these new models, I haven't seen a 2x or 3x jump in cleaning performance, but I'll get more into that in a second.

What's the minimum suction spec you should look for? I think around 5,000Pa, or 6,000Pa if you're looking for something for pet hair. Of course, that won't guarantee great cleaning, but you risk disappointment if you go any lower.

I've tested multiple, very capable robot vacuums with around that level of suction. And the good news is that because brands are getting silly with their specs these days, there are great deals to be had on models that don't look quite as impressive on paper.

But as I've hinted at already, beyond that level, I think the exact number of Pascals a robot vacuum has is far from the most important thing about it. Here are 3 reasons why you shouldn't put too such stock in a robovac's suction specs...

1. Quoted specs are for the top-powered mode

As with all vacuums the suction specs quoted will be for the highest powered mode. Now, if you've got a basic robot vacuum that only has three or four suction levels, you might err towards the higher options, but generally speaking the top mode isn't the one that most people will be using most of the time. That's especially true if your vacuum has numerous options and the highest is something like 'Super Max Ultra TURBO+', and clearly designed only for use in extreme cases.

Now, this isn't such an issue with robotic options as it is with cordless vacuums, where a key reason for avoiding the suckiest settings is that they tend to drain battery fast. If a robovac is about to run out of juice, it'll trundle back to its dock to recharge, then resume its task. There will be minimal disruption to you... unless you're in a time crunch, of course.

Note however that a general rule for cordless vacuums is that the top, top suction modes are designed to be used sparingly rather than as a default. Overuse could lead to the battery aging more quickly.

2. Higher specs don't always mean better cleaning

In my experience, it's not always the case that robot vacuums with the highest Pascals of suction are the best cleaners. And it's certainly not true that a bot with, say, 16,000Pa will clean twice as well as one with 8,000Pa. Based on my experiences, the difference in cleaning clout is especially marginal as you get into the really high suction specs (10,000Pa or more).

The Roborock Q5 Pro+ has only 5,000Pa of suction but it sailed through our TechRadar cleaning tests, garnering high praise from my reviewer (who has tested some of the highest-specced bots on the market). It's one of the best cheap robot vacuums around. The Roborock Saros Z70 has 22,000Pa of suction and also did great in our suction tests, but it still didn't manage to pick everything up.

There are multiple other factors that play into how well a robovac cleans. The design and width of the roller / suction intake is a key element, but aspects like accurate navigation and a great side-sweeper are also vital. It's no good dishing out epic levels of suction but only on half the floor space.

3. Robovacs just aren't built for deep cleans

My take is that regardless of how much suction power you pack into a robot vacuum, it's still just not the tool to pick for a truly deep clean. For that, you need one of the best cordless vacuums – or if you really want to bring out the big guns, a corded upright.

Robovacs are best suited to little-and-often cleans. They can trundle out multiple times a week – or daily, if you prefer – and help you stay on top of your cleaning so the dust never gets a chance to build up. And all that is with next-to-no time or effort required from you. This is where robot vacuums shine. And based on that, I'm not sure the current obsession with suction specs is where robovac makers should be focusing their efforts.

Investing in one of the best robot vacuums can revolutionize your cleaning routine. They're perfect for taking care of regular vacuuming (and increasingly, mopping too) with next-to-no effort from you, and you can set them to run when you're out of the house, for minimal disruption.

The market ranges from ultra-simple to extremely capable, with price tags to match, so it's important to pick the right one for your needs. I'm here to help with that. TechRadar's testers have been reviewing robot vacuums since 2015, and we've tested nearly 100 different models in total. I've used our in-depth reviews to compare different models and put together this ranking.

Right now, the best robot vacuum on the market is the Roborock Qrevo Curv (#1). On test, this robot vacuum delivered superb suction and excellent mopping, as well as being ultra-reliable and easy to use. If you're on a tighter budget, consider the simpler but still very capable Roborock Q7 M5 (#3). Alternatively, read on for a range of options for different needs and budgets. And if you want to supplement your robovac with a manual model for stairs and deep cleans, head to our guide to the best cordless vacuum cleaners.

Today's best robot vacuums – as tested by experts

The best robot vacuum for most people

The best robot vacuum for most people is the Roborock Qrevo Curv. This hybrid robot vacuum-and-mop offers outstanding vacuuming, and its 18,500Pa of power soared through all our suction tests, proving more than a match for our reviewer's pet hair-covered carpets.

Navigation is excellent, and the Qrevo Curv can also be relied upon to identify and avoid obstacles as required, meaning you can leave it to do its own thing without having to worry about it getting stuck or trying to suction up something it shouldn't. On test, we also found it was great at hoisting itself over tall thresholds.

The mopping is a cut above average, and the space-age looking curvy dock takes care of many maintenance tasks, including refilling the bot's onboard tank and washing and drying its mop pads. (You will need to supplement this with the occasional deeper clean, but that's unavoidable.)

An easy-to-use app offers you plenty of precise control, should you want it. Plus, you can use it for advanced functions such as a Pet Patrol mode, where you can ask the bot to find your furry friends while you're out, and even let you talk to them via the onboard mic and speaker.

That level of smarts means a high price tag, but because this bot has been succeeded by newer, even fancier models, deals are increasingly common these days. It's still a bit of an investment, but well worth it if you can afford it. If you're looking for a truly autonomous cleaning solution, the Roborock Qrevo Curv will deliver.

Read our full Roborock Qrevo Curv review

The best budget robot vacuum

If you don't have tons of cash to splash and are happy with something relatively simple, the Roborock Q7 M5 is the best budget robot vacuum I've tested. For a very affordable price (with further discounts cropping up regularly) it delivers capable cleaning – including the kind of suction specs I'd expect to see on a much pricier bot.

It performed well in our vacuuming tests, sucking up debris large and small, and tackling pet hair with enthusiasm. Its mapping and navigation are accurate, and it meticulously trundled over the entire floor space. However, it wasn't amazing at cleaning right up to the edges of rooms – fancier robovacs have extending side brushes for this, whereas the Q7 M5's is fixed.

The mop setup is fine, if a little on the wet side. We were pleasantly surprised with how effectively it cleared a dried ketchup smear in our tests. You can switch the mopping on and off without having to remove the whole mop pad (as is the case on some budget robovacs), but do note that the Q7 M5 can't lift its mop when traversing carpet.

Overall, the build quality felt very robust. We especially liked the generously sized dust cup and water tank, and the big, bouncy wheels that help it tackle uneven flooring and taller room thresholds. We tested the regular Q7 M5, which has a compact, charge-only dock that's ideal if you have a smaller home with no space for a bulky dock.

While 10,000Pa isn't especially impressive in the modern robot vacuum market, it's pretty good for a budget model. Even so, you might want to take a look at a more powerful model, such as the Roborock Saros 10, if your home has a lot of deep carpets to tackle. But if you're on a budget, the Q7 M5 is a top choice, which offers excellent value and impressive real-world performance.

Read our full Roborock Q7 M5 review

The best premium robot vacuum

If you're looking for a high-tech option (or you just want something that's excellent at cleaning and reach places other robots can't) the check out the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete. This bot has a range of cool features, including tiny legs that raise it up to propel it over tall thresholds, and a navigation puck that can retract until it's flush to the robot's top surface. That means it can reach rooms that might have been off-limits to other bots, and clean in low-height spaces like under the sofa.

A handful of other premium robot vacuums offer similar features, but this Dreame bot offers perhaps the most complete package on the market right now, and it's bolstered by excellent cleaning performance too. On test, it offered thorough vacuuming and superb mopping. Our tester was especially impressed with how well it cleaned the edges of rooms, on account of its extending side brush and mop pad are to thank for this. Considering that edge cleaning is one of the most common flaws we find when testing robot vacs such as the Roborock Q7 M5, that's a win.

The dock is the does-it-all type that does everything from emptying dust to refilling the water tanks, as well as cleaning the mop pads with hot water. There's even UV light treatment to keep everything extra-hygienic.

All that tech comes at a price, and this bot will be out of many people's budgets, though. It's also Dreame's flagship model, which means discounts are rare. If you're looking for a premium model that truly does it all, look no further.

Read our full Dreame X50 Ultra Complete review

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The best robot vacuum for pet hair

If you have shedding pets, especially combined with a decent amount of carpet, the Dreame L40 Ultra will be the best robot vacuum for you. This bot was put through its paces in a home filled with furry four-legged friends, and really rose to the challenge. In our tests, we found that it pulled huge volumes of hair from carpet, and handled hard floors extremely well, too. We had no issues with the hair clogging the self-empty mechanism, and a larger-than-usual dock dustbin means you won't need to replace the dust bags too frequently.

The mopping is also a cut above average. On test, we found the rotating pads very effective – great news if you're regularly dealing with muddy pawprints. The robot will leave its mop pads in its dock when they're not needed, or raise them when moving off hard floor to help you avoid damp carpets, too.

The does-it-all dock will take care of emptying the bot's dustbin, refilling its water tank, dispensing cleaning fluid, and cleaning and drying its mop pads. Operation couldn't be easier: our tester found the app easy to use, with useful customization options. Mapping is fast and accurate, and object avoidance is solid, too.

This isn't a cheap bot, but it regularly attracts hefty discounts now that Dreame has brought out fancier, newer models such as the Dreame X50 above. If you want to see how it compares to other pet-friendly options, head to our general roundup of the best robot vacuums for pet hair.

Read our full Dreame L40 Ultra review

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The best robot vacuum for carpet

The Roborock Saros 10 is the best robot vacuum for cleaning lots of carpet, thanks to incredible suction specs and a well-designed roller to gently agitate the fibers (without getting tangled with hair). It also offers strong mopping and has the ability to raise or drop off mop pads in the dock when they're not needed, so your carpets won't get damp.

It's one of two robot vacuums in this guide (alongside the Dreame at #6) to have a LiDAR puck that can retract to clean in limited-height spaces. That sounds like a minor thing, but if it's the difference between the bot being able to get into the dusty depths beneath your sofa, and just skirting around its perimeter, it's well worth it. It can also make its way over tall room thresholds, although not quite as tall as the ones the Dreame X50 can.

This bot sailed through our vacuuming tests and also had no trouble pulling large volumes of dog hair from carpeted floors. The mopping is also solid – an especially good choice if you have floors that are sensitive to moisture but still need an occasional damp clean, because it offers fine control over water levels. An extra mini side mop helps with cleaning right up to the edges of rooms. However, if you're looking for a deeper scrub, I'd seek out a bot with dual rotating mop pads such as the Roborock Qrevo Curv, rather than the fixed, D-shaped one found here.

As well as looking extremely stylish when compared to the wider market, the dock here is comprehensive and will take care of a lot of maintenance tasks for you. It can charge the bot in double-quick time, as well as emptying dust, dispensing detergent, washing the mops with hot water, and drying them with warm air.

Price-wise the Saros 10 is premium, but worth it for the quality, features and performance. As newer Roborocks have come out, we've started to see strong discounts at peak sale times.

Read our full Roborock Saros 10 review

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The best robot vacuum for hard floors

The Eureka J20 is the best robot vacuum for hard floors, thanks to a game-changing new 'RollRenew' mop style. With most robovacs, mopping is a bit of an afterthought, but that's not the case here. The mop pad is mounted onto a roller (think: tank track), and as it rotates around, the dirty liquid is siphoned off and clean water is sprayed on. That helps ensure a hygienic and effective mopping session – the mop won't simply spread messes around further as it tries to clean them.

On test, we found it did a fantastic job of clearing spillages. We were also impressed with the comprehensive docking station, which helps ease the burden of the maintenance tasks involved with mopping robot vacuums. It'll drain the dirty water tank, refill the clean one, and wash and dry the mop pads. Elsewhere, vacuuming is very good, especially on higher suction levels, and the mapping and obstacle avoidance is reliable too.

On the downside, the battery life is rather short on higher-powered modes (which will be required for most people's needs). That might not be an issue if you're cleaning on one floor, as the bot will just return to its dock to recharge as required, but it becomes more annoying if you're using it on multiple floors.

Price-wise, it's not cheap – although we couldn't fault the build quality or engineering, and these kinds of do-it-all docks do always come at a price. But if you have lots of hard floors and mopping is your priority, it's worth the investment.

Read our full Eureka J20 robot vacuum review

The best robot vacuum for obstacle avoidance

What sets the Narwal Flow 2 apart is its advanced AI cleaning system. The robot spots and focuses on dirtier areas, adapting its cleaning pattern mid-run. In our testing, it doubled back to re-mop an entryway after detecting extra grime, all without intervention, delivering the kind of hands-off performance premium buyers expect. Its obstacle avoidance was top-tier, and it even identifies obstacle types in the Narwal app.

The Flow 2 combines powerful suction with exceptional mopping, boasting 30,000 Pa suction power – more than our top pick, the Roborock Qrevo Curv. The dock system is a highlight in its own right. With a 120-day dust bag capacity, it minimizes the need for manual emptying, so you can set it up and forget about it for months

In our tests, the Flow 2 picked up 98% of coffee grounds from carpet. And when it comes to mopping, the roller mop applies 12N of downward pressure and, like our top pick for hard floors, supplies its roller attachment with a constant flow of clean water instead of spinning dirty pads around your floors.

The downsides: in a 1,600-square-foot home, a full cleaning run took three hours, and while the battery was sufficient, it could require a top-up for even larger spaces. While its suction is not to be faulted, we did note that it lacked some of the edge cleaning prowess of alternatives like the Dreame X50 Ultra.

Read our full Narwal Flow 2 review

The best all-in-one robot vacuum

The Ecovacs Deebot T30S Combo is the best all-in-one robot vacuum solution. While its suction is a little low at 11,000Pa – matching the cheaper picks in this guide – the specs stood up in real-world testing. Our tester also found it could tackle the edges of rooms remarkably well, and its mopping is excellent too.

Most people with robot vacuums need to supplement them with a manual vacuum – even if your robovac is great at corners and edges, it still won't be able to tackle stairs or upholstery. Ecovacs has taken the effort out of that by bundling a mini handheld vacuum in with the T30S Combo (and if you get the Complete version, there's a full stick vacuum thrown in!) for supplementary cleaning. At 3L, the onboard dustbin capacity is larger than usual, meaning it you'll need to replace the bags less often.

As you'd expect at this price, this robot vacuum not short on features, including its own voice assistant. It can launched via the tap of a foot (although on test this didn't always work reliably), the base station will wash and dry the mop pads, the dust cups of the robovac and the handheld vac will auto-empty when docked, and the mapping is outstanding.

The companion app works extremely well – our tester was especially impressed that it automatically partitioned the rooms into their own spaces. In terms of performance, we had almost no issues with this robot vacuum at all – if it's in your budget, it's worth the investment.

Read our full Ecovacs Deebot T30S Combo review

Specs comparison

Tested by

All the robot vacuums in this ranking have been rigorously tested, either by one of the TechRadar Homes team or an experienced reviewer. Meet some of the expert reviewers who tested the robovacs that feature in this guide.

Alternatives to consider

If none of the robot vacuums above take your fancy, here are some other models worth considering. These robovacs all scored highly on test, but just didn't quite make our main guide.

Frequently asked questions

How to choose the best robot vacuum for you

New robot vacuums are being released at an alarming rate, and it can be difficult to tell one from another. Below is my quick guide to how to choose the right model for you – if you want more information, you'll find it in my in-depth robot vacuum buying advice article.

Suction power

Up until a few years ago, the highest suction level you'd see on a robot vacuum would be around 10,000Pa. However, today's top-specced bots can generate upwards of 18,000Pa — in some cases, as high as 30,000, which is capable of pulling up deep-rooted pet hair from the plushest of carpets.

In the mid-range price bracket today, expect 6,000-9,000Pa of suction. Lower than 6,000Pa is what I'd expect in a budget-friendly model.

Vac or mop-vac?

Many of today's best robot vacuums are also able to mop floors. This can be useful if you have a mix of hard floors and carpet, but be aware that robovac mopping tends not to clean as well as good old manual mopping. Dual, rotating circular disc mop pads tend to deliver a more effective clean than semicircular mop pads, in my experience, and the new breed of roller mop is a step up again.

Dock type

The cheapest robovacs will only have a dock for charging. Pricier models incorporate self-emptying of the onboard dustbin, and draining/refilling of the onboard water tanks. The very fanciest models offer automatic mop pad cleaning, and detergent dispensing for the mopping fluid. Onboard dustbins tend to be small, so if you're dealing with lots of dust or hair then I'd recommend prioritizing a self-empty dock. However, be aware that the more functions you add, the bigger the dock will be – the ones with water tanks can be pretty massive.

Cleaning features

Beyond suction power, there are lots of design aspects that will affect how well your robovac cleans, including edge cleaning features, pet-friendly features, and features geared towards tackling hair.

Historically, robovacs aren't great at cleaning up to the edges of rooms, but today's best robot vacuums add spinning side brushes designed to flick debris into the robot's suction path. Combo models might also have mops that can kick out from the side of the vacuum to get closer to the sides of rooms.

Pet owners might want to look for a model that is able to recognize their pet and either avoid it (if it's spooked by the addition of a sentient appliance to the household) or seek it out to check up on it while you're out of the house. If your pet isn't reliably house trained, beware: even bots with advanced object recognition can struggle with objects under, say, 2 inches in height. I'd never trust any robovac to avoid pet poop, even those with promises that specifically focus on pet mess.

If you have long hair, or live with someone who does, you might want to consider a robot vacuum with features geared towards ensuring it doesn't end up tangled all around the brushrolls. Some brands will address this by tapering their brushrolls or breaking them in the middle, with the aim of quickly directing hair towards the bin inlet. Dreame even has an alternative brushroll attachment that has little blades to chop up hair so it can be more easily managed.

How we tested these robot vacuums

A new robot vacuum can be a significant investment, so to ensure you end up with the right one for you, each model here has been tested either by myself or one of my regular, experienced freelance reviewers.

We test out models from a wide range of brands, including the likes of iRobot Roomba, Dreame, Shark and Roborock, as well as Eufy, Ecovacs, Narwal and Proscenic. We cover options for different budgets, rather than only testing the latest-and-greatest models (which, after all, will be overkill for many shoppers).

Our reviews are underpinned by specific, standardized tests. Here's a rundown of our review process.

Suction tests
We test fine dirt pickup by sprinkling a mix of flour and cookie crumbs on the floor, and large debris pickup using oats. We look at whether there's any remnants left after a single pass from the robot vacuum, and if it catches them on a second run. We repeat these tests for both hard floor and carpet.

Mopping tests
If the robot vacuum has a mop function, we see how it copes with fresh liquid spillages as well as dried-on, sticky messes. To test this, we smear a tiny bit of ketchup on the floor and leave it to dry, and also spill a bit of soy sauce, then task the robot with a spot clean. We'll also look at how the robot tackles the issue of switching between vacuuming and mopping – will it reliably detect floor type, and pick up its mop pad when moving from hard floor onto carpet, for example?

Mapping tests
When we first get the robot set up, we'll see how long it takes to create a map of the home, and how accurate that map is. For subsequent runs, we'll keep an eye on how the robot navigates the space; if takes a logical route through the house, if it repeats already-clean areas, and so on.