Robot Vacuum Showdown: Narwal Freo Z10 vs 3i S10 Ultra vs Roborock Saros 10R

This Robot Mop and Vacuum Is Expensive but Worth Every Penny

Summary Extremely quiet, efficient navigation and cleaning surpass expectations. Long-lasting battery allows cleaning large areas on a single charge. Intuitive app provides many functions and allows map customization. I've never been the type to shell out hundreds of dollars for a robot vacuum. It just never seemed worth it. The Narwal Freo Z10 has changed my mind completely. Never before have I been so impressed with a robot vacuum -- it's efficient, it's reliable, and it's constantly surpassing my expectations. Narwal Freo Z10 10 / 10 $770 $1100 Save $330 This combination robot vacuum and mop is mostly self-reliant, capable of cleaning hundreds of square feet on a single charge while navigating efficiently, quietly, and cleaning and wetting its mop pads without human aid. Pros & Cons Extremely quiet, can easily be ignored even in the same room Long-lasting battery allows cleaning of large areas in a single charge Intuitive app provide many functions and allows map customization Excellent object detection allows cleaning extremely close to obstacles Self-maintaining means the product is mostly self-reliant and needs little human input Base station is very tall and can be visually obtrusive Robot occasionally misses hair around the edges of carpets $770 at narwal See Our Process How We Test and Review Products at How-To Geek We go hands-on with every product to ensure it's worth your time and money. Posts Price and Availability You can get the Narwal Freo Z10 in any color you want... as long as it's white. For a regular price of $1100 from Narwal's official website, it'd be nice to have some color options, but it is what it is. There are no specific accessories included in your purchase, though Narwal does currently have a deal running until May 4th in which you can get a coupon that bumps down the price by $330 and includes a free accessories pack. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what exactly is in that accessory pack since Narwal itself hasn't shared that information, but it appears to be extra parts like mopping pads, brushes, and detergent canisters. Presumably, you'll be able to buy these accessories on their own at a later date. This deal is limited in both time and supply, so if you're interested, you'll need to take advantage as soon as possible. Specifications Brand Narwal Price $1100 Compatible Devices Android, Apple Connectivity Bluetooth, Wi-Fi Integrations Alexa, Google, Siri Battery Life 5+ Hours Mopping Area Based on Water Tank Capacity（m²） 1,100+ square feet Dust Bag Capacity（L） 2.5L Cleaning Modes Vacuum, Mop, Vacuum Then Mop, Vacuum and Mop Tangle Detection Yes Suction Power 15,000 Pa Mop Yes Brushes Yes Feature highlights Mopping function, AI controlled, Self-Cleaning Base station dimensions 16.5 x 18 x 11 Inches Robot Dimensions 13.5 x 13.5 x 3.5 Inches Mop lifting 12mm Mop Washing Yes, Automatic Noise Variable, Mops at 55db Integrated Voice Assistant Prompt Yes Expand Excellent Performance and Robust Features The Narwal Freo Z10 is honestly the best robot vacuum I've ever had the pleasure of using. This thing has every feature you could possibly want, and it executes those features well. For starters, the Z10 is both a vacuum and a mop, and it can perform either function alone, one after the other, or at the same time. This gives you a lot of freedom in determining how it cleans your house, limiting it to only what you need or making the whole process much quicker. Along the way, the Z10 will maintain itself completely without your help -- it will return to its base station to empty its dust container, refill on water and detergent for the mops, and clean those mops as needed, to ensure it's not scrubbing your floors with filth. It does all of this without any input from you, meaning you can set it and forget it even to clean incredibly large areas, such as the over 2,000 square feet of flooring that I tested it on personally. That's a pretty large space, and it took the Z10 quite a solid 20 minutes to map it all out, though that was mostly due to furniture, some odd room placement, and some windows that stretched down to the floor. Admittedly, those windows were the only problem for the mapping, as the Z10 constantly tried to scan the area beyond them, thinking they were rooms. This was no big deal in the long run, for reasons I'll explain later. The house I tested the Z10 in was large, had both wooden flooring and carpet, included accessible stairs and a lot of nooks and crannies, and is also home to people with long hair and two dogs that shed the equivalent weight of a chihuahua seemingly every day. The Z10 excelled in absolutely everything related to these problems. This little guy is incredibly thorough. Its sensor is very sensitive, allowing it to clean right up against every object in its way and reach under counter overhangs with ease. It's also precise enough to clean right up against the lip of my stairs without actually falling down them. When there is a section of the floor it can't reach directly, the Z10 can actually extend the mopping pads outward to get into that cranny. It also uses a thorough matrix pattern to ensure it covers every inch of your floor and is capable of identifying areas that are still dirty and need a second or even a third visit, without you having to instruct it at all. It's capable of detecting the difference between carpet and hard floors, and will actively raise the mops to avoid touching the carpet with them. The Z10 is advertised as being tangle-proof, and that's... not entirely true. Nothing is really foolproof, but the Z10 does get pretty close. I've been using it for about two weeks, and it's only gotten tangled to the point of being inoperable once, when it snatched up a loose cord I had lying on the floor. There have been times when a huge wad of hair or even some leaves got stuck in the roller brush, but it didn't actually stop the Z10 from working. Finally, this robot is extremely quiet. So quiet that I've turned it on to clean around the house while I'm sleeping and haven't heard a single thing. You can be in the same room as it while it's working and completely forget it's even there. Compared to some other robot vacuums I've used in the past, which can be heard from across the house, the silent operation of the Z10 is one of the most awesome things about it. The only bad thing about the Narwal Freo Z10 is the size of the base station, which is the size of an ottoman. But it is a mop and it's got to keep the water somewhere, so the size is a given. Even compared to other Narwal robot vacuums in the Freo lineup, the Z10 really shines overall. A Multi-Functional App and Simple Maintenance You can use the Z10's basic features from the base station, pressing buttons or using a voice assistant like Siri to command it. But the Narwal app is the much better option, giving you a huge array of useful features to control the Z10. With it, you can save several maps of your home, customize those apps with furniture and carpet markers or even the direction of the paneling for wooden floors, and dictate which sections of the maps to clean. You can also schedule the Z10 to clean at certain times, get an estimate on the remaining lifetime of its individual parts, track its tasking progress, set modes and parameters, get notifications about any problems, and much more. All of these features are included in an intuitive package that's easy to navigate -- a few minutes is all you need to figure out pretty much everything, and there's a search feature if you need to find a certain setting. The app lets you know when certain parts or accessories need to be replaced, and actually replacing them is quite easy. The brushes, canisters and containers are all easy to access and remove on both the robot and the base station, and there are even little stickers in relevant locations with simple diagrams showing you how to do this if need be. You do not need anything other than your bare hands to access almost every accessory of the Z10. Should You Buy the Narwal Freo Z10? I'm not going to lie, $1100 is a hefty price tag. But the Narewal Freo Z10 is genuinely worth it, in my opinion. It's actually cheaper than a lot of mop-vacuum hybrids offering similar features. The exact value of the Z10 really depends on the type of space you need it to clean. If you have a whole lot of space, with various floor types and lots of clutter, the Z10 is an amazing robot that can clean everything efficiently and without your help 99% of the time. If you have a much smaller space to clean, the Z10 might be too expensive for the level of service and productivity you need. But I can genuinely say that the Narwal Freo Z10 really does have the features, convenience, reliability, and cleaning efficiency to be worth the $1100 price tag. Narwal Freo Z10 10 / 10 $770 $1100 Save $330 This combination robot vacuum and mop is mostly self-reliant, capable of cleaning hundreds of square feet on a single charge while navigating efficiently, quietly, and cleaning and wetting its mop pads without human aid. $770 at narwal

Which Is Better: The 3i S10 Ultra Robot Vacuum vs. the Roborock Saros 10R

on the right, the Saros tower is sleek and looks expensive. The S10 Ultra on the left escaped from the set of Back to the Future II. Credit: Amanda Blum Robot vacuum towers are a pain worth living with -- they're large but spare you the manual labor of emptying and cleaning out your robot every day or two. That said, some towers make the living easier, and on this point, Roborock has the upper hand. While Roborock towers are always sleek and modern, the Saros 10R tower is a genuinely beautiful piece of work. With a clean, mirrored face and metal accents, the tower can be tucked between furniture or under a coffee table. By comparison, the 3i S10 tower is pretty showy. Weighing 50 pounds without water, cleaner or a robot in it, it's massive, with a futuristic design that literally glows. What it lacks in subtlety, however, it makes up for in function. While the Roborock has decent-sized clean and dirty water tanks on board, the 3i doesn't have a dirty water tank at all: it recycles water on board through a distillation process, and generates water from the air via dehumidifying. Both towers have a slot on board for cleaning fluid, and both did an excellent job suctioning out all dry debris into the vacuum bag and cleaning the mop pads with hot water. While I'd personally favor never having to change the water in the robot tower, this truly is form vs. function. You want to like the aesthetics of the things in hyour home, and the S10 is ... a lot to live with. I'd understand someone favoring the Roborock tower. Let's call it a wash. I've installed almost 40 robot vacuums over the years, and there's almost nothing different about how they get installed. While I thought the directions on the 3i were not great and the illustrations led me to install the cleaner upside down, ultimately, both robots were installed and paired in the app in under 10 minutes. Where these robots differ is in the app, where they share many functions, buried in tabs, accordions, submenus and pages. It would be fair to say each app has a learning curve, and I'd likely learn the location of functions in the 3i app eventually. Even so, I think Roborock is a cleaner experience. Things felt unnecessarily buried in the 3i app. I noted in my review that I was once able to find the button to tell the tower to empty the robot a second time, but was never able to find it again. That's because the button is only available when the robot is docked. I'm sure an engineer thought this made perfect sense, but it's confusing and frustrating to not see all your options in routine, recognizable places. Roborock has arranged the functions in more user-friendly places, but they've also produced a lot more robots and have years of user experience to rely on. The 10R has two features I find indispensable: Pin and Go, and Remote Control. Pin and Go lets you set a pin on the map, the robot immediately goes there in the most direct route, and cleans around the pin. You don't have to set a zone (which are never very accurate). Remote control allows you to direct the robot from wherever it is; the best use is to rescue your robot when it's stuck under your couch or other furniture, so you don't have to get on the floor and try to fish it out. The S10 has neither of these features, and I missed them. The 3i app is perfectly usable; there's nothing about the experience that would turn you off from the S10 altogether. But side by side, I favor the Roborock experience. The function commands are closer to the surface in the app. The Saros 10R has a huge distinction from other modern robots: It doesn't use LiDAR (a common robot navigation technology that measures light distance) at all. It relies solely on cameras and AI. The S10 Ultra uses both. Since the 10R is the only robot I've tested without LiDAR, it's hard to know what is unique to losing LiDAR vs just being a feature of the 10R. What impressed me about the 10R, immediately, was how quickly it mapped the entire house (it took only seconds) and how the robot seemed willing to get into tighter spaces than previous robots were. I naively suggested this might be due to the AI being great, and LiDAR being less great. I was delighted when the S10, with LiDAR and AI on board, went into the same exact spaces. Again, previous robots weren't willing to try and fit into tight, dark spaces, but both robots here were. Where the rubber (or robot) meets the road is the vacuuming power. In the realm of vacuuming, I look for three kinds of debris removal: microdebris like dust; medium-sized debris like rice or cereal; and macro debris like pet toy fluff or clothing tags. Most people have a reasonable amount of dust and small detritus on the floor, but parents of humans and animals alike will have a lot of macro debris as well. This is the stuff that challenges robots (all vacuums, actually) the most. Debris may get stuck in the roller, or the tower may have a hard time suctioning it out of the robot. While the 10R performed to the standard I expect from Roborock premium robots, the 3i handily surpassed every robot vacuum I have ever tested, and did it conclusively. There was almost no debris, no matter how large or small, that didn't get caught by the twin floor sweeps, which deliver detritus efficiently to the robot roller. Large pieces of mulch (like small twigs), paper receipts, hair ties: The 3i S10 ate them all up without so much as a soft rattle and went on its way. Again, this isn't to say that the 10R is a dud. It performed fine, but not as well as the 3i. The 10R has the same frailties as most robot vacuums, where AI tells it to go around dog toy fluff. A piece of mulch will get caught in the rollers and bring everything to a halt. The new split roller design of the Saros line definitely helped the 10R get caught on less than say, the Roborock Curv. But it still left a lot of large debris on the floor, and when it tried to suck it up, it often got stuck in the rollers, requiring human intervention. The extending arm of the 10R does help get debris out from corner of walls, from under thresholds and whatever furniture sits on the ground. The 10R has a fantastically high suction power, at 20,000 Pa, and the vacuum will very competently suck whatever it rolls over off the floor. Still, this wasn't a close call. The 3i is a ridiculously capable vacuum, and if you're looking for the vacuum that you won't need to sweep ahead of time for, this is it. The 10R and S10 take completely different approaches to washing the floor. The 10R uses the popular twin spinning mop heads on the back of the robot; the S10 Ultra uses a singular, long mop brush. Both extend from under the robot to reach walls, although the twin mop heads on the 10R are certainly more flexible. They can extend on three sides, whereas the singular mop brush on the S10 Ultra extends only on the right side, as the robot rolls alongside a wall. I'd like to say this difference matters, but it didn't, in my experience. The 3i has a slight advantage here in hardware: Many jets of water clean the mop brush constantly, even while working on the ground. The Roborock has no such functionality -- it gets a deep, hot clean when it returns to the dock. I'd like to say this had an effect, but it was purely theoretical. I saw no difference in how clean the floor got. For both mops, the results were largely the same: Any wet surface liquids were easily cleaned up. Most stains were picked up, by either robot. They both tackled muddy paw prints with aplomb. Both were able to get close to walls. However, neither robot was able to get the truly ground-in grime off the tile floor. That's not to either robots' discredit; I've yet to encounter a robot mop that could. In either case, i found the tower did a great job cleaning the mop after service. Both mops emerged looking fluffy, clean and new. Both robots did a completely acceptable "everyday" mop job on the floor, regardless of whether it was tile or hardwood. You're still going to need to keep a mop around to dig in on ground in grime, but either robot will handle a lot of light work for you.