DREAME L40s Ultra CE Robot Vacuum and Mop Combo with Self-Emptying Dock, 13,000Pa Suction, Mop Self-Cleaning and Auto-Raising, Ultrasonic Carpet Sensing, Ideal for Pet Hair, Carpet and Hard Floors

By far the best robot vacuum we’ve ever had.
It took a while to dial in the settings on the app and I’m still making small adjustments.It does go through water a lot faster then expected. I have to refill the fresh water about every other day.Thats really my only slight negative. Everything else about this is amazing.To those who have problems with it going in circles when it gets on carpet, I had the same problem. Once I set up a carpet zone in the app then it behaved. I think it got confused since originally I had set up my the app as having laminate throughout the house. I assumed that it would automatically know the difference but after I set up the carpet zones in the app and gave it instructions it worked perfect.Our laminate floors have never been cleaner. The mop function is probably the best thing about this and that’s saying something.My wife was skeptical but she says this actually does as good a job as hand mopping. I’m not exaggerating. It doesn’t even leave streaks. Our dogs have free run of the house and with a doggy door they’re in and out all day tracking in dirt. I have the smart clean feature turned on and it mops every night, sometimes twice.The object avoidance so far has been nearly perfect. It did try to suck up a black charging cable but it was on dark colored carpet so I’m not surprised it didn’t recognize it.Our carpet rug has high pile so the mop heads did slightly touch it but that’s an easy fix by just having the robot vacuum first while leaving the mop heads at the base then mopping after.We have 2 other entry rugs with shag carpet that this really dosnt like. The side brush got twisted up in it last night and I thought it had destroyed it but I was able to untangle it without problems.I love this mop.I spent a week researching before purchasing. I watched several videos on YouTube and narrowed down the features that I wanted before making my decision.I found this when it was on sell for under $500. I don’t believe you need to spend a lot of money (over $1000) to get a good vacuum any more.This is our 3rd robot vacuum and I’m excited to see how for the technologies come in just a few short years. If you wait until these high end flagship vacuums have been out for while, you can pick them up at a steal. This was cheaper then the shark mop vac we bought from Costco a few years ago and the upgrade in technology is mind blowing.We also have had fun with the find the pet function on this. When we were at a family party the other night, I turned on the front facing camera on the app, then set it to free roam around the house searching for our pet until it located them. My Mom and Sister were blown away.I did purchase separately, the 3 year warranty. I figure if it goes out after 3 years then the technology will be to the point where I’m ready to upgrade anyway. Very happy so far and I feel like I made the right choise.Update: this morning the vacuum was stuck on the shag rug placed by one of the exterior doors. It had a completely dead battery. I had to pick it up and manually put it back on the charger. A few hours later I looked in the app and my vacuum had sent me a message. It read, “the Dreame mop vacuum has gotten stuck on this carpet several times, may I recommend that we turn it into a no-go zone?”It had the settings button under neath the text so I clicked it and it had already mapped out a no-go zone around that rug that I just needed to agree to. Wow.

Probably the best mid-tier robot vacuum in late 2025/early 2026
The world of these robotic vacuums is horribly confusing. Maybe even on purpose. The mid-tier robots (such as this Dreame L40 Ultra) is littered with so many options, and the prices vary so wildly, it is nearly impossible to feel like you’ve gotten a reasonable deal.This particular robot was variously priced from $800 to $400 over the space of just a couple of months. When I got it, which was outside of a Prime-Day sale, it was about $480.I watched dozens and dozens of hours of comparison and performance videos and real-world tests, as well as asking AI and making my own chart of features vs price. I landed on this mode for my house. (Look up “Just a Dad” on YT for his reviews).If I were doing this again, I’d probably opt for something with a bit higher suction power than 11k Pa. But 11k does fine.The app is just OK, but is probably on par with the others. Object recognition and avoidance is pretty good but it will not avoid some wires/cables or floor mats. It doesn’t always detect carpet really well.What I like is the mapping/sensing/avoidance capability, the mopping, and heated mop washing and drying. I’ve almost never had it get lost or stuck somewhere unless it got tangled up in a cable… in that case, if you have a problematic area, you just tell the app to avoid that area as a no-go zone.These units work best if they run every day or two. Don’t expect a single run to be like a cleaning service. And it won’t get under/around everything — this is for daily use and you’ll still need to clean more deeply from time to time by hand.Anyway, it does a great job. It SOMETIMES gets confused about thresholds and will spend a ton of time trying to get over them, and sometimes it gets over them no problem. It has a lot of strategies to get over thresholds and I’ve never had one get “stuck,” though I’ve wanted to help him when he is struggling!It does require maintenance. I have had to manually clean out the on-board dirt receptacle when it has sucked up a bottle cap or something that blocked it from emptying at the dock. You have to put in water and empty the dirty water frequently.A NOTE ABOUT WATER: add a few tablespoons of isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) either 70% or 90% to the clean water, and maybe a drop or two of dish soap (no more). This will make the floor dry faster and also keep the dirty water tank from growing anything that smells horrible. I have yet to have a bad smell at all from the dirty water and I’ve left water in there for days and days before.If I could, I’d get the kit (do they make one for this robot?) to fill and empty water to the utilities. But alas, I’m too lazy for that, and am not really set up for it.