Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

By signing up, you agree to the our terms and our Privacy Policy agreement.

The Dreame Bot W10 Self-Cleaning Robot Vacuum and Mop does a great job of cleaning, but some of the device's descriptions are misleading. The entire unit is not self-cleaning -- only the mop function/accessories -- and the price is higher than its competitors.

When I was a kid, we divided up weekly household chores between my brother and me. One of those chores was vacuuming the entire house. This included our living room and three bedrooms. The kitchen and bathroom were linoleum and tile respectively so those areas had to be mopped instead of vacuumed. Those were separate chores. The ‘floor’ cleaning jobs were particularly taxing and my brother and I would try to avoid them at all costs.

This is one of the main reasons I’m so grateful to have robot vacuums now that I’m an adult. Our vacuums run through the house and pick up dirt, dust, and debris left behind from foot traffic. One thing our vacuums can’t do though is mop. That’s why I was excited to try out the Dreame Bot W10 Self-Cleaning Robot Vacuum and Mop.

The Dreame Bot W10 Self-Cleaning Robot Vacuum and Mop was originally released about a year ago in November 2021. It combines two cleaning functions into one machine and can clean carpeted and non-carpeted areas. In addition to cleaning flooring, the W10 can also clean itself, which ensures that your mopping pads are always in top-notch shape to do the cleaning.

“Combining mopping and vacuuming functions, W10 easily cleans dirt, dust, wet messes, and dried-on dirt. Picking up debris, cleaning up grime, or mopping up spills are tasks handled with ease by a single automatic cleaning robot.”

The cleaning machine contains a high-capacity battery that cleans up to 300 square meters on a single charge. The W10 returns to its charging based automatically when it’s done cleaning or when the battery is low. The vacuum updates maps up to 12x faster than previous models thanks to an upgraded LiDAR-based SLAM navigation system.

It maps rooms (even in the dark), creates systematic cleaning paths, and can store up to 3 different floor plans. With this advanced navigation, and a D-shaped design that ensures remarkable edge and corner cleaning, W10 effectively cleans homes from corner to corner.

The Dreame Bot W10 has a list price of $1,089 from dreametech.com. It is currently on sale for $929.99. It’s also sold on Amazon.

As you might guess from my introductory paragraph, the W10 is not my first robot vacuum. I have, in fact, been lucky enough to try out several different cleaning machines. Some are great replacements for traditional push vacuums while others fall short. The W10 is clearly in the former category. There are a few elements of this particular cleaning machine that I’m not a big fan of it, but it does do a good job cleaning.

The vacuum comes in a very large box along with its charging base/hub station. The first step in the process is to install the app on your phone and the side brush onto the vacuum. The app is Mi Home – Xiaomi Smart Home for iOS devices. I already had the app on my phone because I also use it for my Smartmi Standing Fan.

The app will scan for the device via Bluetooth and then it will connect to your WiFi network. You’ll be asked to name the device and then the app provides tips about how to make sure your home is set up best for the vacuum. This is essentially just telling the user to tidy up their home so that the vacuum doesn’t have a lot of stray items to maneuver around.

Finally, the app will provide a visual of how you should station the charging hub. This piece is massive and I’ve never really seen anything like it for a robot vacuum — even the ones with integrated mops. It’s recommended that you place the base in an ‘open location’ where both sides have at least 5cm of clearance.

Place the vacuum into the base so that it can charge to 100% before you use it the first time. Out of the box, the vacuum had a charge of 47%, which was shown on the display of the base station. During this time, you can also complete any firmware updates that might be needed.

As previously mentioned, this cleaning machine has two main functions — sweeping and mopping. I have used other dual-purpose robot floor cleaners and they have the same basic functionality. One big difference about the W10 is that it will self-clean its mop pads. That’s why it has such a large base station. The base station contains two tanks — one for clean water and one for waste. These tanks supply the mop as well as clean the pads after its use.

The things to remember about sweeping and mopping is that you have to manually remove or install the mopping pads on the device before and after each use. The pads are not meant to be used when you are using the vacuum on carpeted areas. I also want to call out that the manual mentions to only use the Dreame-brand multi-surface floor cleaner. Otherwise, the functions of the base may be affected.

This is a little problematic since none of the cleaner is included with the device. My experience with other floor cleaners that ‘require’ a specific type of cleaner is that a small bottle — usually one application — of the cleaning solution is included with the device. That’s not the case here. A single bottle of this cleaning solution is listed as $25.99 on dreametech.com.

First and foremost, I feel like the W10 does a good job cleaning. I also like some of the technical features that happen during the course of cleaning. For example, at one point, I had to pause the cleaning cycle and physically move the vacuum about a foot away from where it was paused. We were moving a chair and couldn’t wait for it to move out of the way on its own.

Once we were done moving the chair, I set the vacuum back where I picked it up from. I may have been an inch or so off, but it was very close to it’s last known location. I turned the cleaning cycle back on and the vacuum announced something about realignment. It moved away from its spot, turned around and returned to the exact spot it was paused at. Then it said, “cleaning resumed.” I thought that was very cool that the AI inside the device can detect that type of location problem.

I also thought the set-up process and app were easy to navigate. I was able to set no-go areas while the vacuum was cleaning, too. The vacuum would pause and restart when I saved a no-go area on the map. I did this a couple of times while it was making it first map because we’ve seen certain areas be problems for other vacuums in the past. The vacuum and app updated flawlessly and the communication between the two was always solid.

There are a few things that I’m not a big fan of. The box states that it’s a self-cleaning vacuum and mop. I don’t feel that’s exactly accurate because when you use the vacuum function, you have to manually empty the dustbin. I thought based off of the description of the device that the dustbin would empty into the waste bin in the base station.

I was surprised when after the first cleaning, the vacuum returned to the base station and I heard the prompt letting me know that the vacuum was charging — but I didn’t hear anything get removed from the vacuum. We actually have two other robot vacuums that do remove the waste from the dustbin when the vacuum returns to the base. So, I was expecting to hear a wind tunnel type noise when the vacuum was on charge but that wasn’t the case.

Another thing I didn’t like was that the vacuum doesn’t return to the base well when it’s on carpet. The first place I tried to place it was in our living room — on carpet. The vacuum could find the base station and would act as though it was going to enter its storage spot, but it couldn’t pick up enough speed/power to get up the ramp. I moved the base station to our dining room, which has linoleum as the flooring surface and the vacuum has been fine getting in and out.

I also don’t like that the vacuum is referred to as a “single automatic cleaning robot” and “combining mopping and vacuuming functions.” This isn’t exactly accurate either. Yes, the device detects when it is near carpet so it doesn’t venture into that area when it is in mopping mode, but other than that, the distinction between mopping and sweeping still has to be controlled by a human. You can’t leave the mopping pads on it and you have to tell it what mode to operate in. Therefore, it is not 100% automatic.

While the Dreame Bot W10 Self-Cleaning Robot Vacuum and Mop is a good cleaning machine, I think there are other options out there that offer similar functions for about 40% of the cost of the W10. I do like the self-cleaning feature for the mop pads because that is a hassle to deal with, but I don’t know if it’s worth the added expense — especially since the dust bin does not automatically empty.

For more information, visit dreametech.com, Facebook, and Twitter.

I am an experienced marketing professional and published novelist. I'm also an avid movie fan and Apple enthusiast. To read my novel, follow this link. Shattered [Kindle Edition]

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

By signing up, you agree to the our terms and our Privacy Policy agreement.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.