Robot vacuum cleaners are increasingly becoming a staple of the Australian household as the chore of mopping and vacuuming become a part of the manual labour past.
In a crowded market, Narwal aims to set itself apart from the rest, recently making its debut in Australia with the Freo X Ultra.
My partner and I road-tested the gadget recently in our one-bedroom apartment that features both floorboards and carpet.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today 
Junbin Zhang, Founder and CEO of Narwal Robotics, said that the innovative Freo X Ultra is designed to address common pain points when it comes to home cleaning.
“That’s why we’ve introduced features like the certified zero-tangling brush and an impressive 8,200pa suction power, alongside an innovative self-contained dust processing solution that takes station self-emptying to the next level,” he said.
“These advancements ensure users are completely freed from the burdens of dealing with hair tangles and dirt, empowering them to fully immerse themselves in personal time without worry.”
Here’s how we found it.
Set-up
Like many robot vacuums, getting the Freo X Ultra running is relatively straight-forward.
After plugging the base in, downloading an app and syncing them together, the vacuum will dash around the floor to map out obstacles.
The set-up is also customisable. The app will ask what kind of area it will be navigating, including whether there are stairs or pets and children around.
Provided you don’t have stairs, the mapping process will be easier since the vacuum doesn’t have to worry about sudden drops.
And if you do have pets or children, particularly the latter, the vacuum has a child-lock feature to ensure it’s not accidentally activated.
Day-to-day use
The sleek base station gives the Narwal Freo X Ultra a futuristic look that you might not get with other robovacs on the market.
The app that accompanies the cleaner is intuitive and relatively easy to use. On it, you can pull up a menu to manually adjust the vacuuming or mopping strength.
What sets the Narwal Freo X Ultra apart from the competition is the variable levels of strength of cleaning it’s capable of.
When vacuuming, it was able to gather dust and debris easily, but also able to collect larger pieces of mess.
Around edges and corners is where it excels, though, in large part thanks to stronger than usual suction power and side brushes.
We also found its ability to avoid objects good — with only cables and cords managing to trip up its laser scanning technology.
Transitioning from carpet to hardwood floors was also a breeze, with the mop able to clean up stains and anything sticky. We had it vacuum over the hardwood floors in our living area before returning over them for a mop.
Periodically, it would return to the base station to automatically have its mop brushes cleaned, before returning to its pre-set path.
This does extend the clean time, so it’s worth keeping in mind if you’re after a quick mop, but does also make for a more comprehensive clean overall.
Under the hood
The specifications on the robot vacuum are extensive.
Fan speeds reach 60,000 RPM and, with a U-shaped air duct design, it has a suction power of 8200 PA (Pascal rating, the metric used to measure power of suction).
Narwal says this makes it the most potent cleaner on the market.
You also don’t have to worry about it bumping into the furniture.
When you set it up, the vacuum makes a map of your home, surveying and remembering where bulky objects in your home are.
It also has laser object avoidance technology, with 360-degree scanning to circulate and optimise cleaning paths around the home. It includes smart no-go zones, and multi-floor mopping, voice control and child lock.
The cleaner has a smart base station, where it automatically returns to periodically throughout the cleaning cycle to clean the mopping cloth.
It includes touchscreen control on the base, which Narwal says is a first for the industry.
The Freo X Ultra also adapts depending on the weather, particularly when it comes to mopping.
It can add more water to ensure a deep clean, or reduce mop saturation to prevent water standing on hard floors, should it not be warm enough to dry quickly.
It’s also able to identify different floor types and apply the appropriate cleaning treatment, without damaging tiles or floorboards.
Should it have to switch from tiles to carpet, it’s able to lift the mop to avoid carpets getting wet, switching to a suction-only setting.
It has an intelligent matrix cleaning path, meaning it covers cleaning spots horizontally and vertically, ensuring deeper dust and hair is removed at every angle, even in long pile carpets.
Price tag
The Narwal Freo X Ultra is expensive. There’s no getting around that. The all-in-one cleaning machine will set you back a fair bit, with the Freo X Ultra with Auto Water Exchange System retailing for $2,498.
But if you have cash to splash on a robot vacuum that will cover all bases and clean extensively, then it’s an easy machine to recommend.
For more information and to shop the robo vacuum, head here.
