This new self-cleaning robot vacuum can even wipe down your baseboards

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• The Narwal Freo Z Ultra will be available for purchase on October 8 for $1,500. However, early bird benefits and discounts can now be accessed on the company’s website.
• Narwal’s new flagship robot vacuum and mop has a self-cleaning function, baseboard cleaning, AI-enabled obstacle avoidance, a quiet performance, and even a pet-friendly mode.
• While it performs very well at cleaning and reaching corners, its roller brush often gets stuck on objects around the floor, demonstrating a lack of obstacle-avoidance features.

Narwal just announced the Freo Z Ultra during IFA 2024. This is the company’s new flagship robot vacuum and mop, with a large dock that encloses a self-cleaning system and the strongest suction power Narwal has ever made. 

The Narwal Freo Z Ultra features a 12,000Pa suction power, which works great on hard floors and carpets, yet it’s pretty quiet compared to other robot vacuums. I’ve tested many robot vacuums, and this is one of the quietest I’ve ever tried. It moves swiftly across my floors and is so quiet while running in Normal suction that I sometimes don’t even hear it and forget it’s cleaning, which is a big plus. 

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One of my favorite things is to test robot vacuums and watch them explore my house in search of unnoticed dust bunnies burrowing under furniture and lurking in corners. However, many robot vacuums don’t effectively reach into corners and edges, as their side brush often kicks debris around rather than directs it toward the vacuum’s nozzle. The new Narwal Freo Z Ultra impressed me with its thoroughness in every corner of my home.

The Freo Z Ultra is so effective at edge-cleaning that it also has a fuzzy module that you can install to have the robot dust off baseboards as it goes along. Of course, the fuzzy module is a big hit with my kids, especially because the robot has three spares, which my children call puppies. The module is pretty effective, though it’s worth remembering it’s just a duster, so you can’t expect it to wipe baseboards down or reach most top edges.

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This robot also features EdgeSwing, which adjusts the robot’s cleaning angle to twist along walls and baseboards, making the baseboard module even more effective.

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The cleaning performance left me wanting. The robot does a good job maintaining clean floors with its powerful suction and mop, but I wish the mop was more effective at removing dry stains, like mud and smudges. I’ve tested other robots that successfully tackle these stains, so I also expected this flagship’s mopping feature to tackle them. 

The Freo Z Ultra has an automatic power-off feature, which turns off the robot when the charging station is unplugged for a while. Many robot vacuums exit the base station when the charging station loses power, but the Freo Z Ultra robot remains docked and then shuts down to maintain battery life. 

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Aside from not tripping over a robot vacuum during a power outage, I like this feature because I sometimes unplug the dock to plug something in and then forget to put it back until I need to run the robot vacuum. When this happens, I simply plug the dock back in, and the robot turns on and has enough battery to clean my house.

As far as looks go, this may be the heaviest and bulkiest robot vacuum I’ve ever tested. The box was about 47lbs, and the robot’s dock is substantial, so it’s not one to blend in. It looks like a small appliance (which it technically is) that would fit into a laundry room. 

ZDNET’s buying advice

The Narwal Freo Z Ultra is a great robot vacuum for homes with mostly hard floors and for people searching for a vacuum that can quietly maintain their floors between deeper cleans. It successfully tackled pet hair in my house and even has a pet-friendly mode to avoid areas with sleeping pets.

I wouldn’t recommend the Freo Z Ultra for homes with very young kids who often leave small toys and obstacles on the floor since it is prone to sucking up items that are too large for its roller brush. On one occasion, it tried to suck up a fork that my toddler dropped in the dining room that I missed and loudly dragged it around my hardwood floors. Thankfully, it didn’t make big scratches, but I expected to find chicken-scratched floors when I realized what happened.

Regarding value for money, the Narwal Freo Z Ultra is expensive at $1,500. It has a self-emptying dustbin and hot water self-washing mop pads and can go up to 120 days before replacing the bag. 

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