This Robot Vacuum Cleaner Has High-Quality Features at a Mid-Range Price
Robot vacuum cleaners these days are expected to do much more than just vacuum: they can map rooms, mop floors, respond to voice commands, empty themselves, detect pets and people, and avoid pet waste on the floor. Many of the above features are reserved for the most expensive flagship models , but they’re starting to trickle down to mid-range models as well. The Dreame L10s Plus was a good mid-range floor robot option, offering some of my favorite high-end features without letting the core function of vacuuming suffer. If you ignore the mop function on the Dreame L10s Plus Robot Vacuum and just use it as a competent vacuum with all the bells and whistles of many flagship models, you’ll probably be happy with the $549 price tag.
What you need to know about the Dreame brand
I was excited to test the L10s Plus because Dreame has an exceptional reputation for robot vacuum cleaners; However, each year the brand offers a large number of models that can be confusing and difficult to differentiate. For example, in addition to this L10s Plus model, there are L10 Pro, L10s Ultra, L10s Pro Gen and L20, the differences between which are only minor . By spending a little more money, you can get extra vacuum power or battery life, and maybe one additional feature improvement, such as AI-assisted obstacle recognition over traditional LiDAR. This model, the L10s Plus, offers a self-emptying tower for the vacuum cleaner (but not the mop), as well as two removable mop pads and a very small water reservoir on the robot itself.
High quality features
This was my first time using the Dreame app and I was pleased with how easy it was to connect the robot and connect it to Wi-Fi. The benefit of Dreame products is that this model works with all smart assistants and integrates easily into my Google Home setup. This means you can create automations involving your robot. Plan a run after dinner or in response to your dog coming through the doggy door. I was really impressed with the L10s Plus app: the mapping capabilities were as extensive as those on the most expensive robot vacuums I’ve tested. You can create rooms and zones by manipulating the map, combining and separating areas. The map created by LiDAR was impressively accurate after its first run. You can configure the operating parameters of the vacuum cleaner and the humidity of the mop, as well as the route the robot will take: quick or standard deep cleaning. The app gives you at-a-glance information on when to replace parts, as well as a range of control settings, including child lock and do not disturb schedules. In particular, I liked the possibility of remote control, as well as the beacon for finding the robot. Remote control has proven incredibly useful for finding robots lost under sofas without having to manually retrieve them.
Reliable performance when picking up small to medium-sized debris
As a vacuum cleaner, I really liked the way the Dreame works. While the L10s Plus isn’t as durable as the high-end models I’ve tested, I think the L10s Plus does a good job of picking up small to medium-sized debris without getting stuck. Dog toy lint is a problem, so you’ll have to clear it off the floor beforehand, but on at least one occasion, it was clear the L10s Plus picked up a coin or screw and kept cleaning. I did not understand the path that the Dream took across the floor; It wasn’t a back-and-forth motion or an S-shape, but that’s not unusual since many floor robots have unique algorithms that they follow. The L10s took up 95% of the floor, missing a few spots here and there, which I couldn’t find a reason for. Placing the robot at this location and then manually pressing the clear button allowed the robot to find and add this location to the map so that it would be recorded on subsequent runs. The L10s Plus was average in how close it could get to the walls in my house, meaning you’ll have to backtrack with a handheld or broom to reach the eaves, but that’s to be expected with all but the newest retractable floor robots . weapon. While this model worked well on tile and low-pile carpets, it actually did a great job on high-pile carpets and over low thresholds. The advantage of the L10s Plus is that it self-empties into the turret, and it did a good job of evacuating the entire chamber during the time I tested it. Many robots are talked about in terms of the power of the floor vacuum itself, but in my opinion, the power of the tower for emptying the waste container is equally important.
the mop is not worth it
Where things fall apart is the L10s Plus mop. There are many differences in how robot mops work: the top towers have reservoirs for clean and dirty water, and the tower fills the robot with clean water, then washes the mop and removes the dirty water. In some limited cases, mops work like a Swiffer: you attach a mop pad and the robot will drag it across the floor. Dreame L10s Plus occupies the golden mean. The robot itself has a (very) small water container, so you’ll have to refill it many times during one cleaning. The robot has two rotating mop pads similar to those I’ve seen on higher end models, and water will saturate the mop pads as the robot moves. The mop’s performance is really so-so, and I was annoyed by how often I had to stop the robot to refill the reservoir. In my opinion , spinning brushes weren’t as effective as mop pads at removing stains from the floor, and the combination of weak agitation and insufficient saturation meant that the cleaning process only removed wet debris. It may make sense to keep the mop tank filled in case you need to clean a spot quickly, but it’s not practical to consider using this mop on a regular basis.
It’s a good price if you think of it as just a vacuum cleaner.
Some of my favorite floor robot recommendations are models where some features should be ignored because other benefits outweigh them, such as the Switchbot K10+ , which is my favorite vacuum cleaner but a lousy mop. Overall, if you’re looking to spend under $600, I think the L10s Plus is a great value for getting a decent vacuum with some of those extra high-end features, even if you only use the mop occasionally for spot cleaning.