Christmas mess? This robot vacuum trick is a game-changer

It’s been a huge year for robot vacuums, with hundreds of models introducing new features, smart capabilities extending down to lower-priced models, category innovator iRobot losing its grip amid a flood of Chinese brands, and mopping models pushing us towards a future where every home may have a robot system hooked to its plumbing like a washing machine.

But although we’ve seen gimmicks like robotic arms and rudimentary stair-climbing in the past year, perhaps the biggest innovation that’s actually ready for practical use has been mop rollers. Recently, I’ve tested the first mop roller models from two major brands — Dreame and Ecovacs — and found them unmatched for cleaning up wet spills and dirty hard floors.

Dreame’s first mop roller robot is great at cleaning up wet spills.

Previously, most mopping robots have had a pair of circular pads that spin and press down as the machine drives around. This is pretty good for maintaining a clean floor, but actually rather poor for cleaning up spills. The mop pads don’t absorb much liquid, and the stuff they do pick up can spread around on your floor until the robot drives all the way back to its home base to clean its mop pads. Rollers, by comparison, are more hygienic and can actually remove wet spills.

The exact method differs by robot, but in both the machines I’ve tested it’s more or less the same. You’ve got a base station with two tanks — one full of clean water and one empty — but the robot itself has two tanks inside as well. It fills up on water, then when it’s mopping the roller spins and gets soaked with clean water, while dirty water is squeegeed off and stored in the second tank. So even if it’s cleaning up a wet mess, the roller stays clean. Eventually when the robot returns home it empties the dust from its bin into the base’s bag, the dirty water into the empty tank, and it grabs more water and power if it needs to keep going.

The Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller and the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni are similar in many other ways too. They’re both premium models that go for around $2500, they both have rollers that can extend out to the side to get into corners, they both have heating elements for hot water washing and hot air drying, they both automatically mix detergent into their water, and they both promise around three months of vaccing before you need to change the filter bag. But they do also each have their pros and cons.

For the Ecovacs, one potential issue is moving the roller over carpet. You can set it to vac with a dry roller, but if you have carpet or rugs between hard floors it will need to cross with a wet one at some point. It will lift the roller around a centimetre, so if you have even floors and very short carpet you may be fine, but I noticed it left my carpets a little damp.

The Ecovacs has a slightly superior base station, with great self-cleaning.

The Dreame avoids this problem with a plastic shield that covers the roller when it’s not in use. Even if it was mopping the hallway and then needed to cross my loungeroom to mop the kitchen, there was no chance of my loungeroom carpet getting wet.

Another downside for the Evocacs is a lack of climbing ability. Like many recent Dreames the Aqua10 has little mechanical feet and a lifting chassis that lets it step up and over transitions of eight centimetres, which is a must-have feature for a robot to be able to travel across my whole house without assistance. Ecovacs says the Deebot can make it up thresholds of two centimetres.

But a mark against the Dreame is that it lacks a proper way to wash its own baseboard. Even though you buy one of these things because you don’t want to be constantly cleaning, you do have to give them a once-over every month or so, since the water they pull from hard floors is surprisingly rank. Both robots will need you to clean their on-board tanks and the roller. But while Ecovacs claims its mop-washing area can go five months without needing to be cleaned, the Dreame’s had obvious water stains after two weeks, meaning a little more regular maintenance. I’ve also seen online user reviews claiming water eventually leaked out of the Dreame’s washboard and onto their floors, but I watched the review unit carefully over two weeks and certainly didn’t have that problem.

Loading

Finally, and your mileage may vary depending on the layout of your house, I do think the Ecovacs has an edge when it comes to navigation. Both robots were quick and efficient in mapping my house, but the Dreame would occasionally appear to get lost on its way from place to place. It’s always entertaining when a slight change in the environment causes a robot to spin around in circles trying to work out the best approach, but it borders on annoying if you just need it to get to the kitchen real quick and it behaves as if it’s never done it before. Do be clear, the Dreame always got there in the end, but the Ecovacs seemed smarter and more decisive.

Overall if I was tossing up between these two vacuums for my home I would have to go for the Dreame, because its climbing ability and retractable mop cover lets it do the whole house without needing to be lifted and without the risk of getting the carpet wet. But both robots show the advantage of rollers over spinning mop pads.

Most Viewed in Technology

Loading