DreameBot L20 Ultra: Your Floors Will Thank You

It automatically vacuums and mops without getting carpets wet

Key Features

• The DreameBot L20 Ultra vacuums and mops your floors using intelligent sensing to know the difference between carpet and washable surfaces.

• It does a fantastic job of keeping the dirt, dust, and pet hair handled.

• If there’s one thing that doesn’t make sense, it’s the need for a replaceable dirt bag.

If you struggle to keep your floors clean, this robot vacuum might be exactly what you’re looking for.

Let me set the stage for you: I have three dogs. And they’re shedders. And droolers. And generally speaking, dogs. That means that I spend a LOT of time trying to keep my floors clean and looking for solutions to make that job easier.

I’ll just say upfront I was skeptical that the DreameBot L20 Ultra would perform any better than other robot vacs I’ve tried… and I’ve tried a lot of them. But this one promised “advanced and powerful suction” to handle dirt, dust, hair, and other debris. And it mops automatically. If there’s any chance I could get the hours I spend vacuuming and mopping back, I’ll give it a try.

This Thing Is Built Like a Beast

I was surprised when the box for this vacuum was delivered. It was big. A lot bigger than I expected. And heavy. I wondered what in the world I got myself into. But the unboxing was super simple. There’s a main base station, the vacuum ramp which the robot rolls up to get inside the box, and the vacuum itself that needed a little simple assembly. In all, it took me about 10 minutes to unbox it and put everything together, and then another (maybe) 10 minutes to download and set up the app for the device.

One thing I was surprised about was that the vacuum had only one brush to scoop dust and hair toward the vacuum opening. Every other robot vacuum I’ve tried has two, and they still struggle to get the hair off my floor. Especially in corners and around edges. But at this point, I was committed to testing, so kept moving.

Internally, there’s a freshwater reservoir and a dirty water collection tank. You can hook this directly into a water line, but I chose to use the refillable tank, which is great. It holds a little more than a full gallon of water (4.5L), which can mop my 1600 square foot house (with three carpeted bedrooms and one area rug) three times before it needs to be refilled. The dirty water collection tank will hold almost the same amount of water, but it’s recommended that you empty it after each mop to prevent dirty water smells. To be honest, I’ve forgotten a couple of times and left the water overnight but never noticed a smell.

The vacuum itself looks like you would expect a robot to look, except it has two mop pads on it. But get this: The machine can automatically remove those pads if you choose to just vacuum and not mop. And it’s fairly solid with a 6,400 mAh battery that gives it enough juice to clean my house thoroughly without needing to recharge in the middle. And it’s only about 3.5 inches tall, which means it fits under most of my furniture, which, if you have pets, you know is a problem area.

But Does It Work?

Remember, I was pretty skeptical. I’ve tried several vacuums from several manufacturers, and even the ones that are supposed to be built for homes with pets have left me wanting, so when I started this thing up for the first time, I was certain I was about to be disappointed again. But I tried anyway.

The first step when you get the vacuum connected in the app is to map your home. I expected this to take a while. It did not. Less than 20 minutes after I started the mapping process, it was ready to roll. So, straight out of the gate, I set it to do a mop and vacuum combo.

You have options to set it up so the robot vacuums and mops on your preferred schedule. If you only want it to mop once a week but vacuum every day, it’ll do that. I chose to have it vacuum and mop every day.

Day 1, it worked like a charm (but they always do the first time). I was fascinated watching it first vacuum a section and then go back and mop it. And much to my delight, the 7,000Pa suction power was really effective at picking up dog hair on the hardwoods, carpets, and even around the corners and edges. When it was done, my floors looked like I’d done them myself. But I still wasn’t convinced.

Day 7: I’d been running the vacuum every single day, and it was doing a good job. But this is typically where the higher-end vacuums fail. They’ll work great for the first week, maybe even two weeks, but my floors are HARD on robot vacuums. I’ve never had one last more than a year, and they tend to lose effectiveness really fast. So, I let the vacuum do its job. The floors looked as great as the first day. But the tell is usually around the edges, in the corners, and on the carpets.

So, I did a little inspection. Nothing in the corners or edges. I ran my upright vacuum over the carpets… And while I did still pick up some debris, it was much less than with previous vacuums I’ve tested. And to be fair, I can vacuum with the upright and go back five minutes later and pick up more debris. So, I considered this a win. But I was still skeptical.

Day 30: I’ve been using this vacuum to vacuum and mop every single day for the last month. It still works as well as the day I took it out of the box. The one thing I thought was weird, though, is that this unit uses disposable dirt collection bags rather than a reusable dirt collection cup. It’s not that big of a deal. The replaceable 3.2L bags cost about $18 for three bags (on Amazon), and I’ve replaced my bag one time so far. It just seems strange to me that on such a high-end vacuum, you wouldn’t have a reusable dust cup.

While we’re here, let’s also talk about the mopping liquid. Dreametech uses its own mopping solution in these vacuums, and the replacement solution cartridge is about $16, but I’m a full month in on using the robovac daily, and I still have a little less than half a bottle. It’s an expense I can live with.

All the Ways to Connect

Setting up your DreameBot is relatively simple. Once you have the app installed, you scan a QR code on the bottom of your robot, connect to your wireless network, and the app does the rest. Once connected, you can use the app to control the robot, have it send you messages about cleaning status, and set up your cleaning routines and other options that are available.

One of the factors that drew me to the DreameBot L20 Ultra was the promise of smart home integration. I use Amazon Alexa pretty extensively in my house, and I wanted something that would work with Alexa. Also, while scheduling the robot to clean at the same time every day is an option with the DreameBot L20 Ultra, it’s not a feature I use because I work from home, so the time I choose to run it changes frequently.

The DreameBot L20 Ultra works with Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Getting connected to Alexa is as simple as enabling the skill in the Alexa app, then you have voice controls for turning your vacuum on and off. So far, I’ve had no issues with that aspect of it.

Final Impressions

Overall, I’m pretty impressed with the way this vacuum cleans, which I suppose just goes to show that sometimes, spending more means you get better results. At a whopping $1500, this is definitely a spendy home gadget, but just the fact that it can handle all the dog hair and drool my three beasts can throw at it makes it well worth it in my ledger. I mean, I’ve gotten an extra 14 hours back in my week. That’s priceless, right?

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