DREAMEL20 Ultra Robot Vacuum and Mop with Mop-Extend, Auto Mop Removal & Raising, Washing and Drying, 7000Pa Suction, Self-Emptying, Self-Refilling, AI Obstacle Avoidance

At the time of this review, the L20 had just been released so I figure they will fix some of the flaws with updates in the near future.I used to own old zig-zag random Roombas until about 2013 but gave up on them when I decided the the downsides were more hassle than they were worth. Random zig zagging and knocking into every thing was starting to cause wear on furniture and baseboards. Also, they tended to eat things up and get stuck a lot. Using virtual wall, which had to also be programmed, was a hassle.This thing is completely different and once dialed in has been outstanding. The idea that I could tell it to clean a single room or zone on the other side of the house and that it would just do it and not even have to worry that it would get lost or not finish is mind blowing. Even more so that I could do it from anywhere in the world and even watch it through it's camera.That said, it's no without it's flaws.My house is single story 3400 square feet. Mapping presented issues due to the size and limits on how far it will map from the starting point. The base station is in the kitchen, which is on one side of the house. When trying to map from the base station, it will only go a little over 120 feet before it hits a virtual limit and will not go any further. This left the master suite, the laundry room, and a bedroom all at the other end of the house unmapped. The only work around was to map from a starting point closer to the center but then you're not starting from the base station. One massive bug is that if you start mapping without it leaving the base station, it will basically go forever. I finally stopped it after 80 minutes and after it had visited the entire house at least 5 times. Eventually, it started having shifts in it's position which resulted in the nearly perfect map up to that point become distorted as walls it had previously mapped were now being drawn as obstacles and new walls were going up at an angel to the actual walls.Eventually I discovered that if I click "dock" after it's created a map and is revisiting everything it already did in detail, that I could manually save the "temporary map". After that, if I manually drove the L20 close enough to the dock and then pressed home on the dock, the robot would dock and add the missing dock location to the map. So after hours of messing with it, I was eventually able to get it mapped and docked.Another setup issue was not having water. I tried manual mop cleaning 5 times and no water would come out. What I eventually did to fix this was to fill the clean water tank to the literal top and prime the input tube by pouring water into it. That fixed it but this will cause a few reviewers to knock a star or two off.Other issues.If you close a door which we sometimes do when it's cleaning in bedrooms and we don't want the sound coming down the hallway into the living room, when it finishes, rather than stopping at the closed door and sending a message asking me to clear the obstruction so it can get home, it just starts randomly wandering in all of the rooms it can get to. It's not lost because the position in the map on the app is accurate to where it really is.Also, if you close a door and it's part of a room being cleaned, in this case the hallway and the hallway door closing off the bedrooms from the living room, the robot will just stop and say it was obstructed rather than cleaning up go the edge of the door. This is perplexing given that you could put a new obstacle in a room even at a wall and it will happily navigate around it and mark it as an obstacle, but not so with closed doors. The work around for this is to split the two rooms on either side of the door into entry ways about 1.5 feet wide and then merge those into an "entry" zone that the door sits in the middle of. However, I'd have to do this to every bedroom door adjoining the hallway if I want to clean just the hallway but have the doors closed. Currently I have to open all the doors to all the bedrooms if i want clean the hallway....except for the one that I created the entry zone for.It really needs to have a concept of doors. We should be able to mark doors on the map and it should understand when doors are open and closed.It doesn't know when its dustbin is full and will just pack it tight until it's too full to be emptied at the the dock. This happened the first few cleanings and I had to pull all of the dust out of the bins myself. Clearly this means admitting my floors were a mess. After the first complete cleaning, this hasn't been an issue since, but it seems they should be able to know when the bin is full and even more so, should be able to message you in the app if the dock isn't able to empty it. Seems like that could be a photo sensor so it knows when to go home to empty and when it fails to suck out the dust.Editing is clunky and not complete. When it builds the map, sometimes floor standing items become walls. I'd like to be able to edit the walls and mark the floor standing items for what they are.Carpet marking is awkward. It assumes carpets are parallel to the floor plan rather than at angles which a number of my short pile throw rugs are.Wish I could save zones since there are several high traffic areas near each other but in different adjoining rooms. I can set zones in these areas and take care of them more frequently without having to do entire rooms, but I have to set it up every time. I can't save a zone config.Some times rooms next to each other get the same color even though they are split and marked as their own rooms. Wish I could change the color.The robot will sometimes avoid areas for no apparent reason. No obstacles marked and nothing there at all. I can put zones around the missed spots and it will happily clean them even though it didn't the first time.Cleaning history shows marked obstacle icons, but you can't click on them and view the photos like you can in the live map. This is super frustrating if you've already started another cleaning cycle somewhere else.The scheduled patrol is interesting but useless since it doesn't appear you can auto record video for later review.Despite the flaws, it's light years ahead of the old zig zagging roombas.Edit: after living with it for over a week, have run into some annoying bugs.Floor direction is ignored for zone cleaning. If I pick a zone in a room that has wood floors where I set the direction horizontal or vertical in the settings for that floor type, the robot ignores the setting and cleans against the grooves.Similarly, if I pick an entire room and select 2x, the first pass will be along the floor direction as specified but the second pass will be perpendicular cleaning across the floor grooves...similar to the zone bug above.Another issue is that the robot will frequently avoid areas..some times small all the way to large even though nothing was there in mapping and nothing was there during cleaning. Sending it for another cleaning usually results in the ignored areas getting done but it's annoying and happens randomly in every room.Doing 3x passes in a smallish area with vacuuming and mopping results in the robot sucking up lots of water and basically destroying the HEPA filter. They should prevent this from happening when the area is small enough to force vacuuming first and then mopping second so there's no water on the floor during the vacuuming phase.

*See 10 day UPDATE below.I have five indoor dogs, one (Belgian Malinois) of which is a heavy shredder periodically. Currently, we have snow accumulation in my area (Tennessee). So hair and wet paw tracks are an issue. I have trained my dogs to the “wet feet” command. Upon entering from outside during wet weather periods, I would state “wet feet” and they would sit and wait for me to clean/wipe their feet/paws. Further, the amount of grit and debris carried in from outside in their paws (x 4 per dog) is unbelievable! When you have as many dogs as I do, this can wreak havoc on your back; and especially at my age of 64 years. lol. So, between the grit, wet/muddy tracks, and hair-you spend much time and effort cleaning multiple times throughout each day-wiping feet, sweeping/vacuuming, mopping.Since acquiring this robot, if it’s terribly nasty-wet outside, I still do the “wet feet“ drill, but only if it’s excessively nasty out. My guys come inside onto an absorbent rug, then go about their way. Dried tracks on the floor are no longer a problem. I have scheduled robot cleanings twice per day-(1) midday vacuuming and light mopping in rooms where dogs are, and (2), all rooms vacuuming and mopping at the end of the day (approx 9 pm) when dogs are inside/gone to bed for the night. Then I also have a deep cleaning scheduled for all rooms once per week at 9 pm.The setup and app is not convoluted at all. I suggest you just take the time to review the app and familiarize yourself with it-setup your schedules based on your needs, then setup any shortcuts you might need in the interim of routine schedules. Initially, it seems overwhelming, but it’s really not.I currently have one shortcut set for “pet tracks” and if my guys have tracked and it isn’t in close proximity of my scheduled cleaning time(s), I activate this shortcut and it does a quick vacuuming and mopping of the rooms where my dogs are allowed and have tracked wet/muddy prints. You can setup shortcuts based on your needs per room/zone. The options and pros are voluminous and I’m still learning and adjusting as I go.What I don’t like at all is the cleaning solution situation. You can only use the specified solution per Dreame-and I’m mostly ok with that EXCEPT it is out of stock-everywhere. Another and equally important thing, you have to replace the entire solution container when you run out. There’s no refilling of the container. I find that to be unfortunate in the amount of plastic accumulated and trashed in the environment with each empty container, and most assuredly, more expensive. The solution container should be one capable of being refilled. I’m tempted to remove one star for this, but the robot in and off itself truly deserves 5 stars. That said, SHAME ON DREAME for their (1), failure in their cleaning solution design not being environmentally friendly, and (2), failure to have the cleaning solution available and in stock. If you’re going to design it so only your cleaning solution can be used-then ensure it’s available to your customers for goodness sake! Dreame really dropped the ball, holistically, with the cleaning solution situation.Absent my gripe about the cleaning solution situation- is this robot worth it? It is expensive, by all means; but yes! It is absolutely worth it. It’s been a real back-saving and quality of life improvement for me.PS. In advance, please forgive any typos as I did this review on my phone with autocorrect, which typically has a mind if it’s own.*UPDATE *Almost two weeks into using this robot daily, at a minimum-my life is soooo much easier and my floors are clean. As I have five dogs and it’s wet, winter weather here in Tennessee, I have tweaked the scheduled cleanings due to the nasty wet weather right nite-regular cleanings five days per week and deep cleanings two days per week. I continue to use the shortcut for pet tracks intermittently, for wet tracked paws. I haven’t had my Bissell multi-surface floor cleaner out one time since. Now, does this robot clean deeply like I would? No. But it’s pretty dang close. There’s a few spots in my house it can’t get to such as under my sofa, under the coffee table, my pedestal dining table feet…those are things which will have to be moved under any circumstances to clean underneath. That’s ok.Since this robot was so expensive, I did purchase the 2-year extended warranty for added peace of mind. I was really on the fence with this robot and one of the Roborock’s (7+) and ended up going with this one. No regrets thus far…At all.