Do you have the cash to buy the master series from Dreame? Base it’s more compact but you need to connect it to water and plumbing. Have you considered building a cabinet to hide the base?
For a small home and a pretty clean one a mop exchange might work. But for a bigger home I would say it just smears the dirt from place a to the whole house. That’s why the base is needed. Even the rotary mops are not the best solution. I see the roller mop system better because it cleans the mop while washing the floors.
Personally I would totally recommend a full base system even with water and plumbing connections. It gives you total freedom. Hide everything in a closet and leave it do its job.
😂😂😂 you need a real robot, not a robot vacuum.
Those chairs make it hard for a robot vacuum to pass. My suggestion is to seek for something that can first pass through that narrow space and then a robot that can be easily scheduled to do cleaning. Of course good navigation is a must.
I’d first suggest new chairs or cleaning only when you can move the chairs.
I have the Dreame X40 and I still move the chairs because it takes ages to clean around 6x4 legs+ table legs. Overall cleaning is good if sidebrush is used to pull dirt from nearby legs.
X40 owner. I have a cat that sheds like crazy. No hair on floors but I do find on couch bed and any other item that is not for the robot. I also have my wife and daughter with long hair. Except the ends of the brush I have no tangles, or close to 0. Or maybe when brush is worn out, har tends to pile up in the cut area. If you have a dog with long fur than having a proper brush is mandatory. Dreame has the tricut brush - seems to be less preferable for tiles due to noise.
Obstacle avoidance is a hit and miss. My x40 will sometimes get over cords, try to eat toys (lego most of the time). For sure it's better to have it than to miss it but there is no clear advantage in real world i think
[Robot vacuum and mop comparison – Dreame](https://www.dreametech.com/pages/robot-vacuum-and-mop-comparison)
On the x40 the sink basin easily slides out and the detergent draw should remain accessible. So I would design it such that you can easily get to the whole front of the machine. My setup has that front exposed fully, but others have not had a problem leaving a narrow slot for just the robot to travel through
Three X40 masters. 2 a running, one as a hot spare. Love those things, they clean well and easy to work on once you get to understand how they come apart for deep cleaning.
The X50 Master has not been brought to the US market. Adding auto fill / auto drain to a standard model will not give you the same functionality plus the smaller footprint of the auto fill auto drain units allow them it to fit inside cabinets. The three Roborock RDS models all use a vibrating mop which I’m not crazy about, I prefer the spinning mops. I am keeping my fingers crossed that Dreame releases an X60 master or at least an X60 that natively supports auto fill auto drain for the US market in 2026. Or a roller mop Aqua 20 with auto fill auto drain functionality. For me it’s not just about convenience, I simply have too much floor space for a single base station to mop the floor plan on one tank of water. I use two X40 masters to mop 700 sq ft daily each. It also gives me redundancy if one unit goes down for some reason. Plus two robots finish in half the time that one robot takes. My wife is not interested in tripping over and listening to one robot clean for 3 hours. The auto fill auto drain vacuum robot is a niche market, it seems that plumbing water / drain lines is too much of a hassle for many consumers. Plus it’s added liability / support for the robo vacuum manufacturers. For me personally, auto fill auto drain is a game changer. I am a Dreame fan boy but if another manufacture releases a flag ship auto fill auto drain unit for 2026 I’m all ears.
I have a Dyson Gen5 with the green laser…luv it. I use it to inspect the floors like a mad man and also get into the places the robovacs can’t.. Cleaning the floors kind of turned into a hobby after I started running robovacs. At any rate I run two Dreame X40 masters parked at opposite ends of the house, the both launch at the same time 7 days a week at 11AM. One cleans half the house, the other cleans the other half. Vac and mop at the same time. Average run time is 70 min each. 90% wide-plank engineered hardwood. They both finish around the same time depending on what doors are open. The floors remain spotless and pass the green laser test perfectly. Two cats and a long hair wife.
I will explain a few reasons why I prefer to run vac and mop simultaneously but everyone’s use case is different. I always vac and mop at the same time and have zero issues. I run two X40 Masters at the same time and each one covers its half of the home. It’s primarily Engineered hardwood and maybe 15% carpet. 2 Cats and one Yorkie but no kids, two adults. Each robot is averaging around 750 sq ft daily depending on what doors are open. They start around 11AM and generally finish everything up after an hour and a half. I pick up all 9 dining room chairs once a week and do daily spot cleaning with a Dyson Gen5 in areas the robots can’t get too. I generally do not need to do any additional hand mopping.
First of all, if I were to vacuum and mop separately the daily cleaning cycle would increase from 1.5 hours to 3 hours. My wife and I primarily work from home. Listening to two robots clean for 3 hours each day is a little much. Second, the wear and tear on a robot will increase significantly. You’re basically cutting the useful life of the robot in half. After one year of runtime I am currently about 440,000 sq ft of total cleaning area. Each robot consumes about half of its battery on a 700 sq ft cleaning cycle. A separate vac / mop cycle in my home can also push the robot into a ‘return to base to charge’ scenario further increasing the cleaning time.
To put this in perspective, after some math, each robot is averaging approximately 11.1 miles/month or 131-139 miles per/year.
That distance would double if I switched to a separate vac then mop cycle.
I roughly expect the robots to last 2 years at this pace. Anything over this to me is a bonus. Both robots seem to be doing quite well after about one year of continuous use. The first X40 has been in service for roughly 12 months, the second X40 about 4 months.
My weekly maintence routine is basically cleaning the hair out of the brush, rollers and wheels. Blowing the hopper filter out with compressed air and swapping in fresh mops.
Monthly I will deep clean the robot and base station. Everything on the robot is thoroughly cleaned and wiped down. I will clean the brush and hopper in the sink. The base station tray gets cleaned in the sink as well. Consumables replaced as needed, fresh mops again. I will replace the filter bag monthly. I find of all the consumables replacing the hopper filter and filter bag frequently has the biggest impact on overall robot cleaning performance. I do run my water and vac settings in the mid range. I return to the base for cleaning as frequently as possible.
There are additional filters inside of the X40 that are not easily serviced without additional robot disassembly. I do a full disassembly of the robot annually.
These robots have made a big difference on our quality of life but they are not miracle workers. You need to keep a close eye on them. Sending a new robot out on a house that is not heavily deep cleaned is asking for problems.
This is correct for the majority of reviewers. They just dont have the ability to use them all daily. One of them , I think vacuum wars, weights amazon reviews in their overall rating they probably use AI and dont read all of them. They are not a reviewer I liked very well. I feel they are biased and are overlooking brands that excel over the ones they prefer. Sort of the turn consumer reports took.
To the OP, I searched amazon reviews by key words to find issues that were important to me. I searched and watched a loooot of youtubes. The popular reviewers can still be biased by getting free machines. Ive been watching Just a Dad reviews as he is purchasing his all himself and uses the ones he likes in his home for several months. He has reviewed a lot of models and will cover base and vac maintenance and cleaning on some and more detail on app functionality. Then when I think I found the model I want then I look for more reviews by other reviewers.
I was interested in the Dreame x40 and the Mova p50 and wanted to know what the exact differences were, after a lot of searching I finally found a German reviewer that compared them both. The wheel quality issue on the P50 has been resolved. The most important criteria for me is, mapping /app functionality and small object avoidance. That removed all machines that use Ecovacs app which was a lot.
As far as what model I would choose if not going with the flat spinning mops it would be the Eufy E25. At first I was put off by the proprietary cartridge, however from what I found, it doesn’t monitor if its full. It lasts a long time and if necessary can be added to the clean water. A lot of mops dont add the solution to the vacuum, its only used for washing the pads. Their accessories are less expensive as well. The drippy waste water tank lid on the vac has been resolved and new ones will be sent to owners in a few weeks.
I learned a lot by watching videos lots of videos. It really depends on what you feel is important. The vacuum wars spreadsheet in this post is helpful. Their comparison link is helpful.
For value priced with good object avoidance, good app and overall good function.
I don't know how these price out where you are.
Dreame x40
Eufy e25 - best mopping
Mova P50 - Not good if you have wide grout lines
Dreame L40 - not the best object avoidance but good enough.
If you need something cheaper you might research the Dreame x30. I havent really researched the lower priced models because object avoidance wasnt as good. All I know is what I learned searching for my vacuum. Look at the chart in this post to narrow things down.
Dreame x40 is a better machine than the L40. Stop shopping by one reviewers preferences and watch you tubes and read reviews. That expensive Roborock isnt the end all be all.
If object avoidance isn’t critical the L40 is adequate with its one camera. If you have access to Eufy the object avoidance on the e25 and 28 has tested good. I cant remember how it is on their S1. It uses a different sensor for that function. The Mova P50 is comparable to the X40.
I focused mainly on very good object avoidance. I dont remember who the runners up were. I gave up entirely on ecovacs due to their app being reported regularly here as having issues with a lot of me too follow up comments.
I would scour YouTube for any reviews that compare the avoidance of the roborock and L40.
Robot vacs do not suck up the pee, they only mop it. There might be some brand out there that does. I havent researched it yet.
Any mop system is going to turn into a cat pee odor amplifier especially if not maintained daily. Cat pee is also corrosive. As far as robot vac mops, you want one that has good AI, picks up the vac brush rollers when mopping and has a mop only function. I would go with round mop pads vs a roller. Less to destinkify. Extra pads can be found cheap so they can be washed frequently. Not sure the rollers can go in the washer.
I dont have the cat pee issue currently. I am interested in vacs with good detection. The Mova P50 pro ultra and Dreame x40 have those features. Im sure there are others, I ruled out ecovacs due to continual app issues and the AI on the roborock of similar cost to the ones I mentioned dont have as good of AI detection. Enzymes are you friend as far as removing the musk odor. The area needs to be saturated completely and dry completely for the enzymes to work on the odor. If they are specifically marking it will be slightly oily. In the cats sub there are lots of recommendations for cleaning solutions.
The Dreame and Mova currently have the ability to access the camera and drive to the area to look. Or look around for your pet etc.
You might be able to get by without good AI by choosing one that has a mop only that you can send to mop only around the couch regularly.
That said, I rescue cats, I hate to know of people suffering in this situation. If you dont want my advice you dont need to read further. I have had some cats with peeing in the wrong place issues. If its behavioral speutering them early is important, getting it done later can help a lot. Anxiety meds can do wonders. Make sure it isnt a health issue. Ive had several cats with bladder crystals start avoiding the box due to pain. I have a girl now that has her own private box because she wont share. She just tells me, like a dog, that she needs in the bathroom. She will even wake me up if needed.
If they arent speutered or have visited a vet for this. Spend the $700 on that first before getting a vac that may or may not do the job well. I had an early bissel corded vac mop and cleaning the pee odor out of it was a bigger pain than wiping it up.
You have to get rid of the odors completely or they will go back to the same spot. That is a challenge. I had to toss a couch once. It was in an unused room and it was too late.
I have a Dreame x40, 4 cats and because of my knee had not vacuumed for longer than I care to admit. The robot dustbin evacuated flawlessly including the clumping clay cat litter. I expect to have to clean a bit out but it was completely empty.
It also has enough power on turbo to suck up a half size paper towel. It avoids cat toys. I have a pile of fresh cat barf Im going to observe the avoidance on later today. lol
Im running the regulator rubber roller even though I ended up with 2 hair cutting rollers, and have had no hair tangling or balling up issues. I have had to wash the filter already. I have a spare. Not complaining just saying that they can get clogged in a couple weeks depending on level ofdust.
If you have tile floors with wide grout lines, I currently dont recommend a Dreame or Mova. They tend to break the front wheel on them. Bad batch of wheels.
Reviews and comparisons on youtube as well. Focus on what is important to you. For me it was object avoidance and reliable mapping and app function. Features vs cost. Neither of those would have been on my list, but they might be fine for you. Their apps are fine, I have a Dreame x40. The object avoidance would be the issue for me.
There are tons of different features across the board. I started researching after seeing the one at Costco. Its missing some features I was looking for. The roborocks seem to be overpriced for their lack of features and poor obstacle avoidance in the low end models. You can do better with a Dreame dollar for dollar.
Ecovacs app is unstable, people are reporting function issues with the bot and poor customer service. They have several brands under their name so research before buying one.
My x40 does surprisingly well on edge my single rug that is in the cat litter path. I still have to run a regular vac up under the edge because the litter works its way under the rug edges. I do it once a week using a cordless stick vac. I dont have the patience to wait for the vac to do its thing with the rug rolled under. It takes 5 min to do it myself.
In the litter room I have a litter mat next to a regular throw rug. It does ok here but I also understand the limitations of bot vacs.
Keep in mind that when the Dreame and likely others have their mop pads on and are on carpet or traveling they raise their backside higher than the specified height. Mine got stuck because of this. Totally my own doing. lol
To get my Dreame x40 under a cabinet that brushes the top of its its lidar at just under 4” I have to turn off all avoidance add 3 curtain icons and not use genius mode. It still pitches a fit.
It was cheaper for me to swap out the legs than to buy the X50 with retractable Lidar.
I found some 1” spacers for sofas on amazon. They were too wide for my cabinet legs. Might be an option for you.
I bought my Dreame x40 by calling the Dreame Arcadia, CA location. I didnt want to deal with Amazons drama if there was an issue.
I havent had an issue. Handles multiple cats hair and my long hair. I am really impressed with how well it evacuates the waste bin.
I dont think its auto empty either.
I have a Dreame x40 and just tell it to leave the mops in the dock. It runs fine with no mop water. That said, I didnt want a mop but I use it quite a bit now. It helps to keep the fine dust down. I have floors that you cant tell if they need or have been mopped. lol
You wont find both. I gave up looking. Vac with no mop have mediocre object avoidance. Some of the dreame like the x40 will leave the mops at the base and vac only. Thats what I opted for. I plan on letting it mop. I got over it after getting more info from reviews and videos about the mopping options.
Roborock avoidance is poor unless you have one of the super expensive ones. There are mops in better price ranges that outperform the Roborock dollar for dollar. You are buying a brand. The review scoring is heavily weighted on cleaning including mopping. Watch videos from a wide variety of sources.
I got my Dreame x40 shipped to me by calling the brick and mortar location in Arcadia CA. I am so over having issues with Amazon on big $$ purchases. Their L40 is a good buy as well. With prime being over deals wont be that sweet on the good stuff.
As far as improved massively, depends on the brand. This was me, I hated my shark and wanted better without mopping because I felt like it was a foolish option. Ive changed my mind. There is a whole new world outside there. My highest priority is object avoidance and extensive control within the app. They all can vac decently.
Post pics and a video of how well the obstacle avoidance is working offline. Im curious how defined you can set up the map. Those two things are why I got the x40.
My Dreame x40 with collusion avoidance mode will for sure keep it off the baseboards. Its pretty good at avoiding with that mode off however I dont have quarter round at the bottom.
We have the DreamX40 vacuum and mop. This one might be overkill if you dont have a big home but for us it has a been a game changer and just overall helpful in keeping everything clean.
if you have the money i def recommend the x40 if not you can always get the smaller version L40 which is just as good tbh
Quick answer: Yes
Explanation: Whilst spinning mops were more of a "it maintains a clean floor reasonably well" deal. The rollers are a "I can clean the entire house properly without you doing anything" deal.
Some will argue they are worse with dried on stains, which I guess is true, but reality is, with my Aqua 10 has rarely seen a stain which it did not remove on the first pass. Anything from like dirty shoe footprints to oil from cooking it picked up in one pass. (If that botters you, you can just quickly spray the dirty stains with some water before it passes over it, so it is a bit soaked I guess, but in my experience the X40 also had problems with such stains).
Now lastly maintenance. And honestly, this is the main issue, right now we are using first gen rollers, which the manufacturers didn't really take time to consider how the products themselves would be cleaned. I found that having it vacuum, and then vacuum and mop was the best way to prevent any debris entering the mopping system, so no need to clean it every week, rather every 2 weeks maybe.
Top Robot Vacuums on Reddit
1
Roborock
Qrevo S
82% positive of 260 users
Reliable, great mopping (lifts pads), but poor cable avoidance.
dny3l
