The Narwal Freo x Ultra is a powerful and effective vacuum and mop combo at its lowest price ever during Prime Day

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After years of roommates, I recently moved into my own apartment. It's the perfect mix of hardwood, tile, and carpet, an ideal testing ground for a robotic vacuum and mop. 

I've long relied on Swiffers and, occasionally the best wet-dry vacuum if I really wanted to give my floors a good clean. I've previously had a pretty top-of-the-line robot vacuum with excellent obstacle avoidance, but it fell short of mopping. My main concerns with mopping vacuums were that I would need to be nearby to change out the dirty mop pads, they wouldn't interact well with my carpets, or they just wouldn't mop very effectively. 

Fortunately, robot vacuums have grown more sophisticated, and the Narwal Freo x Ultra is designed to address all the pain points I've experienced with previous mopping robots. It's a dynamite combination vacuum that lets me mop and vacuum without having to lift a finger and features a self-cleaning base with heated drying, dirt detection technology, scrubbing mop pads that raise for carpets, and powerful cleaning performance. 

Here, I'll detail my experiences, and where it stands among the best robot vacuums. 

Setup and design

The setup of most robot vacuums with bases, including the Narwal, is pretty simple. 

The robot and base are neatly packaged in styrofoam with a plastic bag around the vacuum. To set up the vacuum, I simply had to add on the side brushes. The mopping pads were already installed. Once plugged in, I downloaded the app and proceeded to sync the Narwal to my WiFi to go through the setup and mapping process. 

It came half-charged, which was more than enough battery life to let it map my floorplan. The first floor plan it created after an exploratory run was pretty basic, but let me identify rooms. There's also a feature to add furniture and denote various floor types in the app (whether you choose tile or wood affects mopping pressure and how much water is applied). Adding furniture to my map didn't seem to influence what the robot avoided or shimmied under, but I was also able to set no-go zones for areas I wanted the robot to completely avoid.

Like many modern-day robot vacuums, the Freo has a base. However, I was surprised to find that the all-in-one base station serves primarily for self-cleaning and holding the robot's mopping components, like the dirty water and clean water tanks and cleaning solution. For vacuuming, the dustbin sits onboard the robot and does not empty into the base. Instead, the robot's lid easily lifts off to reveal the dustbin, which holds a disposable 1-liter bag with a filter attached. It also comes with a plastic reusable dustbin container you can use instead of buying dust bag replacements. 

The robot vacuum uses lidar SLAM technology to create a 360-degree view of your space and can even create a 3D floor plan. Three sensors — front, edge, and radar positioning — help it know where it is within your space. The Narwal cleans in a matrix style, starting with the outer edges of a room and cleaning inwards. When it detects carpets, the mop can lift 12 millimeters off the floor to avoid getting your rugs wet. This feature is pretty nifty and found on other premium-build models from Roborock and Ecovacs, whereas some lesser-priced combo vacuums require you to swap out parts for mopping and vacuuming together.

The base, though quite large, has a sleek white design that looks modern and, unlike other models I've seen, is not a complete eyesore. There's also a small LCD screen on top of the lid, but I found its symbols and color lights finicky. There were simply too many settings to learn every color and symbol combination, and pressing the go button would set off cleaning the entire floor plan. It's much easier to use the app to control the robot. The lid lifts up to reveal two large clean and dirty water tanks. Tucked into the crevice of the clean water tank is a spot to pop in the included floor cleaner. The vacuum shimmies itself into its slot in the front. There's a removable plastic tray that it hovers over, which is where it injects water to clean the mopping pads. 

Our review of the Narwal Freo x Ultra robot vacuum

Ease of use

A robot vacuum and mop is supposed to make my life easier and, for the most part, I trusted the Narwal to roam my space unaccompanied. The Narwal moves about my home with purpose, and pretty efficiently, too. When it's running, it's also so quiet. I have no issue working alongside it in the same room. I measured it at 53 decibels, which is about the level of a conversation. 

Like with any robot vacuum, I still needed to make sure my space was clear of random shoes, dog toys, and charging cords before cleaning. For the most part, if it sensed an obstacle, it would clean up to it, but not try to mow it over. It did run over my pile of cords but did not try to suction them up or pull them along, and didn't get tangled. It also easily navigated across thresholds and had no trouble moving under low spaces like my couch or bed. 

The Narwal Freo app

Within the app, you can denote floor types and define and choose which spaces to clean. The robot can vacuum and mop simultaneously, vacuum then mop, vacuum only, and mop only. You can also customize the number of times it cleans a space, the suction power (quiet, normal, strong, or super powerful), mopping humidity (low, normal, wet) coverage (standard or meticulous), and how often the mop returns to the base to be cleaned. Then, there's also FREO Mind, which is an intelligent assistant that detects heavily soiled areas, creates an efficient cleaning route, and even adjusts mopping humidity according to the weather. Once you set a cycle, the robot will show you the path it's cleaned in real time and create a time log of its work. The app also lets you set schedules and see cleaning history. 

The app also offers settings for the cleaning base: you can control drying intensity (silent, strong, or smart), whether you want cleaning solution or dustbin bacterial control (a vacuum cleaning cycle that compresses the debris and limits odors), and the status of accessories like the dust bag or water tanks. 

You can also create multiple maps for multi-level homes, and sync up the robot to Google Assistant and Alexa. While the app is largely robust and helpful, it does feel like I need to click into a lot of different places to adjust settings, such as how often the mop is washed or suction power (though all these features are customizable). 

Mopping performance 

Where the Narwal shines is its mopping performance. It uses a rotating scrubbing action that adjusts pressure based on floor type. Most of the time, I'd run the robot in vacuum and mop mode. The trusty little scrubbers left my floors nice and polished. It could sense particularly dirty floors and give them extra attention. 

I spread orange juice, pasta sauce, BBQ sauce, coffee, honey, and dirt on my tile floor, letting each dry so the stains were set in. The juice, coffee, and dirt were wiped up on the initial passes. It went back for the pasta sauce, where I'd say 95% of it was picked up. It struggled with a clump of BBQ sauce and left a little sticky residue from the honey. I even trusted it to clean up a targeted pet accident — all wiped up, of course, I just wanted an extra layer of sanitization. In all, solid performance, though I did notice it struggled to clean any stains set into the grout because of the uneven surface of the floor. 

Most single-room mopping tasks take the robot as little as 20 minutes. However, the first time I chose to run the vacuum on the AI Narwal Freo Mind mode that adjusts cleaning based on the dirt detected, it took almost 3.5 hours to mop and vacuum my kitchen and living space, and it did a full pass of my study four times. During this long clean the battery life lasted a full three hours before needing to charge and resumed cleaning two hours later. It also stopped to wash the mop eight times, and it actually drained the clean water tank, which also required my attention. 

Vacuuming performance 

The Narwal has some pretty powerful specs when it comes to vacuuming, with up to 8,200pa suction power. The robot had no trouble picking up flour, rice, or hair on both carpet and hard floors. It seemed to spit the rice forward a bit but was efficient enough at eventually getting it all up. On the carpet, it left neat little lines of where it had traveled. I couldn't resist taking my Dyson Gen5detect to the hard floor to compare what dust had been taken up on vacuum-only mode… and while the robot got the visible particles, it still left some dust specks, which I was able to see with the light on my Dyson. Leftover debris was much less noticeable when I used the combined vacuum and mop setting. Even though the vacuum does have mop-lifting capabilities, I err on the side of caution and choose to customize my cleaning run to vacuum my carpeted bedroom first, then vacuum and mop the main living area; or do separate runs by day.  

I set my wool area rug in my living room as a no-go when running a mopping cycle. While vacuuming, the robot struggled on the fringe and displaced the corners of the rug before maneuvering onto the main body and continuing on.  

Maintenance

Perhaps, the best part of this robot vacuum is how little I have to do. I can run a cycle when I'm out and not worry about the wet parts sitting. Immediately following a cleaning session, the robot starts a heated drying cycle, heating to 104 degrees Fahrenheit to dry the mop heads and eliminate bacteria and odors. It's quiet, and I barely notice it happening, but it does take a long time, either three or five hours, depending on the drying setting. After a vacuuming cycle, the robot will also run an optional 45-minute disinfecting cycle that works to compress the collected dust and stop odors. I haven't noticed any hair or much dust get stuck in the brush roll, but some clumpier dried dust is caked on. I attribute this to the drying cycle. Some long strands of my own hair did wrap around the side brushes, but it wasn't difficult to pull off. 

At first, I was concerned I would miss the auto-empty feature you find in most robot vacuums these days. Instead, the collected dirt stays onboard. Narwal says the vacuum can hold up to seven weeks of dirt, which is achieved by the aforementioned dirt compression feature, meaning I can go weeks at a time before having to empty the bin. It's definitely quieter, a welcome improvement from the jet-engine sounds that come from the iRobot and Shark vacs I've tried that have auto-emptying bases.

About once a week, I'll stop to empty the dirty mop water, the app tells me when the clean water tank is low (it'll also stop running) or the dirty water tank is full. The Narwal also does a decent job of containing any smells from sitting water. About every two or three weeks, I'll pull out the mop tray base to rinse off the collected dirt and dust that accumulates. All the pieces are modular and pretty easy to clean. 

Cons to consider

Reiterating some of the pain points I mentioned above, the Narwal struggled to clean corners. It was also just OK at cleaning edges. By comparison, our team found that the square-shaped Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni was able to position itself closer for superior edge and corner cleaning. Additionally, while it was capable of cleaning my carpets, the Narwal struggled over the fringe edges and pulled up the corners of the rug.  

I also thought the drying cycle seemed to take a really long time. Though it wasn't disruptive, it activated as soon as the mopping cycle was run and stayed on for several hours, regardless of whether I spot-cleaned my kitchen or mopped the whole house. Since I prefer to run the carpeted areas separately, I have to remember to do these areas first or wait until the mopping components are dry. The reusable bin also doesn't seem to have a sensor to tell you when the dustbin is full, so you'll want to check it periodically. I haven't filled the bin just yet on my own, however, a testament to its large size.

There are also some recurring costs to consider: $30 for a replacement bottle of the cleaning solution, $20 for three dust bag replacements, and $20 for new mop pads. 

What are your alternatives?

Narwal also offers the Freo x Plus, its entry-level unit that can carry up to seven weeks of debris on board. It skips out on the fancy base and self-cleaning features and has slightly less suction power, but still offers the same smart navigation and mop-lifting features for a reasonable $400. 

There's also the Narwal Freo, which the x Ultra essentially replaces. It has a smaller dustbin, and about three times less suction power than the Ultra. They share an MSRP, but the original Freo is frequently found on sale.

If you're looking for other fully-automatic combo robot vacuums, the Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni shines with its vacuuming and mopping performance. It has similar features, with the addition of a video manager that lets you see the perspective of the robot cleaning and a compartment in the cleaning base that debris automatically empties into. The Roborock Q Revo is a good midrange option with heated drying, but lesser suction abilities and a lower mop lifting clearance than the Narwal. 

The bottom line 

The Narwal Freo x Ultra is an extremely capable robot and has made cleaning a very hand-off experience. I've previously been reluctant to use mopping robots because of the maintenance and wet parts, but this model's smart design minimizes the upkeep involved in switching between vacuuming and mopping. It's fully lessened my reliance on normal vacuuming while also making my cleaning more regular. With an MSRP of $1,399, there's no avoiding that this is an expensive robot vacuum, but it managed to eliminate most of the pain points I've had with robot vacuums. My highest compliment: I can't wait to keep using it for long-term testing.