Who these days doesn’t love a good robot vac? I know I do, especially when I don’t have time to do some light cleaning, I’m glad that at least my floors are being tended to. I’ve been a robot vac user for more than a year now and through that time, I’ve looked at a good handful of them. While most of them have been generally good, there’s always a couple things here and there about them that keep them from being 100% amazing. Whether it be odd programing or lack of certain features, there hasn’t been one yet that has been absolutely perfect. So continuing on with my quest to find the perfect robot vacuum, I am now looking at the new Dreame Bot W10 be Dreame Technology. The Dreme Bot W10 is a vacuum mop combo robot with the ability to self clean its mopping pads to prevent mold and bad smells.
That’s seems to be the most unique feature on the Dreame Bot W10. That’s important because in order to stand out in this crowded field of robot vacuums, you need something that differentiates yourself from the others, on top of all the other features users come to expect now from a quality robot vacuum. So while the Dreame Bot W10 offers a lot of what you’d want, such as vacuuming, mopping, edge cleaning, a companion smart app, and full mapping of your rooms, it also features the ability to clean its own mopping mechanisms so prevent gross odors and mold.
DESIGN
Let’s start with the design first as it is different from the others I have looked at. Instead of a completely round body, the Dreame Bot W10 features a “D” like body where two of the edges are more squared off. This is at the front. It’s shaped like this because Dreame says that this allows the vacuum to clean corners better than a completely round vacuum can. I would probably have to agree with that. The front is the squared off part while the rear is the rounded part.
Other than the shape, a lot of the design is typical high end robot vacuum. The front has a “crash bar” sensor that will tell it when it bumps into objects. What I like about this one too is that it uses LDS Laser Radar to completely map your rooms and it does it quickly. I prefer this type or sensor over something like camera ones because these seem to be a lot more accurate at positioning and mapping. At the front of the robot vacuum, there’s also a sensor that is used to help return it back to the charging base.
The top has a cover you can lift up to expose the dust bin, which you will need to empty out every so often when it becomes full.
If we move to the bottom, you’ll see that it is very similar to other vacs. There the main vacuum unit and the little spinning brush at the corner to help filter dirt into the vacuum. These are pretty standard. What is different though is the mopping mechanism. While most other mops I’ve seen have just been a pad of some sorts attached to a canister that can be filled with water, the Dreame Bot W10 instead has two mopping pads that rotate for deep cleaning.
Lastly, let’s talk about the giant charging base. This thing is big and looks like a small garbage can. The Dreame Bot W10 docks at the bottom of it and the top has a lid you can open. Inside the charging base, you’ll find two large plastic tanks. The tank on the right is used to fresh water while the tank on the left will be filled with dirty waste water. These two tanks are primarily used for the mopping feature where the Dreame Bot W10 will collect fresh water from the charging base and when it’s done some cleaning, deposit dirty water back into it. It does all of this automatically. The bottom of the charging base also has these scrubbing grooves that allow the robot vacuum to self clean the mopping pads as well.
EXPERIENCE
Let’s talk about a few really quick things. First of all, mapping your rooms with the Dreame Bot W10 is incredibly easy and incredibly fast. In fact, this thing is the fastest so far when it comes to mapping. All the other vacuums I looked at in the past required mapping while cleaning which sometimes would turn up errors because the vacuum would either get stuck on something or just flip out because it didn’t know where it was. The Dreame Bot W10 however has a quick mapping setting where the robot vacuum will just explore your room with no cleaning. The LDR Laser Radar does a quick sweep through each room and after a few minutes, it’s done. That too me was very impressive.
After all the rooms are mapped out, you can use the Mi Home app and view all your rooms. What’s neat here is that you can actually edit these rooms and either combine rooms or split rooms. After which, you can name each room so that later if you want to only clean certain rooms, you can. It’s actually very intuitive and the app makes it easy to use.Other features include being able to set virtual walls so if you have stairs for instance, you can tell the robot not to go there, or if you have certain parts of the house you don’t want it going, you can set “no-go” zones. Again, very easy to do.
When it comes to cleaning, you can set different cleaning modes. There’s mopping only, sweeping and mopping, and if you take the mop pads off, sweeping only. You can also set the suction strength vacuum as well as the wetness of the mop pads. Speaking of power settings, the Dreame Bot W10 can also adjust power based on whether or not it encounters carpet.
While sweeping and vacuuming is pretty standard, it’s the mopping that I’m really impressed with here and it’s what makes the Dream Bot W10 stand out. You see, you fill a tank in the charging base with clean water and the leave the dump tank empty. The robot goes back and forth to the base to get clean water and dumps out the dirty water. Dirty water accumulates in the dump tank and at the end of it all, you’re left with a tank of nasty water sitting in tank instead of in your robot. Not only that, the charging base will also self clean your mopping pads too. This keeps the whole system very clean. The only thing you have to do it dump out the dirty water by removing the dump tank. Once in a while you might have to clean it if it starts to smell.
While we’re mentioning the charging base, I should point out that it is a very good base. The W10 fits in it snugly and the base itself is quiet sturdy and heavy. I also like the top display that is on it that tells you how much charge your Dreame Bot W10 has.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Out of all the robot vacuums I’ve tested, the Dreame Bot W10 is by far my favorite. Despite the fact that it doesn’t have a self emptying bin like another model I tested had, I think the mopping features on this one are much better. Plus with a self emptying bin, there’s the extra costs of having to buy disposal bags each time, which can add up in the end. To me, it’s not a big deal because emptying the dust bin manually is not that hard.
So with that said, I love everything about this robot vacuum. It’s fast, the app works very well and is easy to use, and the mapping features on this are some of the best I’ve encountered. I believe Dreame Technology has a real winner here with the Dreame Bot W10 and as far as I’m concerned, it now has a permanent place in my home.
