Xiaomi Dreame Bot Z10 Pro   €699

The idea of robot home help is a compelling one. Imagine being able to outsource all the tasks you hate, from vacuuming and mopping, to cleaning the windows and cutting the grass, as you want it, when you want it, and all you have to do is some routine maintenance every now and again. Not only do you save yourself time, but those tasks are more likely to be performed more regularly, because the robot will just take care of it.

The reality is a little less idyllic. The robots get the job done, but it’s not with a complete hands-off approach. The vacuum cleaners can’t deal with stairs, or with corners, for that matter. I’ve lost track of the number of times that I’ve had to rescue various robots from stray cables or socks, or the bottom of the kitchen stools. And as yet, no one has really come up with a good robot replacement for ironing – at least not one that is financially realistic for the average person, and doesn’t involve standing at the device feeding it the clothes in a nice, neat fashion.

But I live in hope. So when the Dreame Bot Z10 Pro arrived, I was keen to see what it could do. It vacuums. It mops. It even empties itself, negating the need for you to fiddle around with the small dustbin every time it does a swoop of the floors. It was already looking like a better proposition than some others that have crossed this desk.

Dreame Bot is backed by Chinese tech company Xiaomi, and manufactures a range of smart home devices under its own brand. The Dreame Bot Z10 Pro is just one of those devices, but it certainly leaves an impression.

It looks like every other standard robot vacuum out there, adopting the usual disc shape. It also has a small raised area on the top of the cleaner that houses the Lidar sensor.

While that may stop it from getting under your sofa, it’s a sacrifice you might be okay with making, given that it houses the Lidar sensor. That sensor allows the vacuum to map your home in real-time, so if you are prone to moving the furniture around for example, the Dreame Bot will spot it and adapt. It’s quite impressive to watch, and better than watching the robot aimlessly bash into things as it bumbles its way around the room.

As it maps your home, it sends information to the Xiaomi Home app so you can create maps, assign rooms and sort out schedules. You can have the Dreame Bot mop the entire floorplan of your home, assign it to do a specific room, or group rooms together as zones. The days of having to put in place extras devices to block the robot from certain rooms are a distant memory.

You don’t need the app for the basic functions though. There are three buttons on the top of the vacuum that allow you to start cleaning, spot clean or send it back to the dock.

If you want it to mop, you’ll have to clip on the water tank and included mop pad. This is where the individual rooms and zones will really come into their own; you don’t want to mop the livingroom carpet, nor do you want to have to keep going back to the robot to clip and unclip the tank. The app will allow you to control the water flow, so you don’t soak the floor.

One caveat though: you can’t use detergent on the water tank. It’s plain water, or nothing at all.

When the clean-up is finished or the battery needs a charge, the Z10 Pro will wind its way back to the charging station. If you’ve set it to auto-empty, the robot will automatically empty the dust bin into the changeable bag inside the pedestal (it involves suction, and it’s noisy, although quite quick), leaving your robot clear for the next go around.

The vacuum has strong suction too, at 4,000Pa and should pick up most of the crud on your floor. It may not do extremely small particles – I found some dust particles on hard floors that were invisible to the naked eye – but it picked up the worst that two small children could throw at it and certainly kept the dust levels to a minimum too.

In short, it became an important part of our household, and almost like an overworked member of the family after a while.

There are some catches of course. The mopping function is similar to wiping a damp rag over the floor rather than a good attempt at a clean with a regular mop. The vacuum won’t suck up all the dust your regular cleaner would, and it might not get as far into the corners as you’d like. And the emptying function sounds like it’s a jet engine about to take off, so best avoided early in the morning or late at night when you are bound to disturb sleeping members of the family.

But it’s enough to keep the daily grime in check, which is all most of us are looking for, until you can get around the place with a vacuum cleaner and mop yourself. It just means you don’t have to do it quite as often.

The good

If you are looking for something to keep the dirt level down on a daily basis, the Z10 Pro is for you. The mopping function may not be spectacular, but it is good enough for what we needed, and the ability to control the water flow via the app meant it didn’t leak everywhere. We rarely removed the water tank, letting the robot vacuum and mop in one session.

The internal dust bag on the charging pedestal can hold weeks worth of dust and dirt, so that won’t require regular emptying either.

The not so good

The Dream Bot Z10 Pro is great, but it comes at a price. The Z10 Pro is at the more premium end of things.

The pedestal takes up quite a bit of space too, so account for that if you are planning to buy one.

The rest

The Lidar sensor is handy for constantly changing maps. And the whole set-up can be voice controlled, if you want to link it to your smart home accounts.

The verdict

A good all-rounder with the added advantage of emptying itself.