Robot vacuums help save you time and effort needed to clean your floors, but they typically require regular maintenance when mopping features are added. They might not clean as well at the edges given their round shape as well. Enter the new Dreame L20 Ultra which adds new technologies to truly make cleaning detailed and highly automated. The Dreame L20 Ultra retails for S$1,799 but from 25 Aug to 27 Aug, stand to enjoy an early promo price of S$1,599 and get a free Dreame Hair Gleam hairdryer worth S$165!
Unboxing
Inside the box, you’ll find the following items:
- Dreame L20 Ultra Robot Vacuum
- Base station
- Base station ramp
- Side brush
- Power cord
- Cleaning tool (stored inside the base station)
- Dirt bag x2 (stored in the dust tank)
- Main brush (pre-installed)
- Mop pad x2 (pre-installed)
- Mop pod holder x2
- Cleaning solution
- User manual & quick start guide
- Dust box filter (pre-installed)
Design and build quality
The Dreame L20 Ultra robot vacuum along with its base station, currently comes in one colour, which is a dark grey/black colour in a matte finish. The design of the base station is one of the nicest I’ve seen for a robot vacuum so far. It opts for a squarish design with slight curves on the edges to soften the look, complemented by fluted panel front plate with golden trimmings to give it contemporary design.
The Dreame L20 Ultra will surely fit into most interior designs styles. There are three touch-based controls located on the top for quick access. If you’re short of space, do note that the base station is actually quite sizeable, measuring roughly 61cm * 43cm * 27cm (H * W * D). And if you include the base station ramp, then the depth increases to 48cm. Do take note to see if you have enough space at home.
As for build quality, the Dreame L20 Ultra robot vacuum feels very solid. It has a removable faceplate to access the dust box filter. The front of the vacuum has a thin rubber trimming located at the bottom to protect both the vacuum and your furniture, while also implementing a suspension gasket system to cushion any collision impact. You also have three physical buttons on the vacuum itself. The mop pads are attached to the vacuum magnetically.
Cleaning effectiveness and user experience
I realised that the Dreame L20 Ultra barely collides into the any furniture or gets stuck on any obstacles I placed to block its path. This is likely due to the camera along with 3D structured light technology in the Dreame L20 Ultra, where it will go around it. It works well for large obstacles like a dustbin or legs of a table, but can still knock into smaller obstacles like wires.
As for navigation, the Dreame L20 Ultra uses LIDAR and in areas where is it an unobstructed path, the Dreame L20 Ultra moves in straight up-down movement. When it came to the living rom, it was a tricky place to vacuum as it has a many things scattered around such as coffee table, sofa, and dining table all quite closely placed with each other. Dreame L20 Ultra did well in manoeuvring around such tight areas, resulting in curve based movements. However, this meant it took a slightly longer time that expected to complete the cleaning task.
7,000 Pa suction power
One of the key upgrades of the Dreame L20 Ultra is its 7,000 Pa maximum suction power, representing a 32% increase in power compared to the L10s Ultra. This extra power is meant for vacuuming carpets, and the app has a setting called ‘Carpet Boost’ where the vacuum will use maximum suction power when it detects carpet. Alternatively, you can set the suction power in ‘Custom Cleaning’ settings.
The 7,000 Pa suction power is strong enough to remove most of the debris trapped on my living room carpet. At 7,000 Pa, the noise is quite loud, reminiscent of traditional vacuum cleaners. You can choose up to 4 different suction settings – (1) Quiet, (2) Standard, (3) Strong, and (4) Turbo. ‘Standard’ setting is usually enough to rid my house floor of any dirt.
Dreame L20 Ultra also has a feature called ‘Fill Light’ where it will automatically turn on the headlights whenever it encounters a dark corner in the house.
Mopping smart features
Unlike the Tapo RV30 Plus where you have to manually attach/remove the mod pads, the Dreame L20 Ultra mod pads can be attached or removed automatically by the base station. If the task is vacuuming, it will release the mop pads and keep it at the base station while the vacuum goes out to vacuum.
Intelligent Edge Cleaning
Robot vacuums are not as good as cleaning edges of walls or built-in furniture because their round body won’t line up against these edges. Thankfully, the Dreame L20 Ultra comes with several edge sensors on its body, and uses what Dreame call its MopExtend technology to push out the dual mop pads such that it can get within 2mm of baseboards for thorough cleaning.
During my time of testing, the Dreame L20 Ultra was able to detect where edges were and extend out the mop pads accordingly to perform cleaning. You can take a look at the below video to get a better understanding of how it works.
Mop Removal
Dreame L20 Ultra offers three options to deal with carpets as part of its customised carpet cleaning strategy.
- Carpet avoidance: Robot will avoid the carpet during cleaning
- Carpet adaptation: Robot will only vacuum the carpet during cleaning
- Remove mop pad before cleaning carpet: Robot will first clean the non-carpet area in mopping mode, return to base station to remove mop pads, then clean the carpet
If you choose “Carpet adaptation” like me, Dreame L20 Ultra is able to lift the mop pads up by 10.5mm which is good enough for low-pile carpets or rugs. If you use high-pile rugs then the last option of removing mop pads first should be the most ideal option.
Maintenance
One of key features of the Dreame L20 Ultra is its ease of maintenance. For starters, you have auto-empty feature so once the Dreame L20 Ultra finishes vacuuming, it will empty the contents from the vacuum to the dust bag in the base station. The dust bag should be good to use for ~75 days.
Simply fill the clean water tank and insert cleaning solution in the middle, you’ll have a largely fuss free cleaning experience with the Dreame L20 Ultra. When a mopping task is activated, the Dreame L20 Ultra automatically takes clean water and cleaning solution. And once the mopping task is complete, dirty water is automatically flushed out into the dirty water tank. As for the mops pads, they will be washed and automatically hot air dried to prevent any odour. It takes about 2 hours to dry the mop pads.
Water hookup kit – Auto refilling and drainage
Everything is automatic so far except for two tasks – emptying out the dirty water tank, and refilling the clean water tank. I don’t think you should keep the dirty water in the tank even if there is still space as it can lead to foul smells. For a truly automated experience, you can consider getting the Water Hookup Kit for the Dreame L20 Ultra. the Water Hookup Kit will automatically refill the vacuum with clean water and empty the dirty water tank as it connects directly to the inlet and outlet water pipes of your house. This is truly a game-changer in the robot vacuum scene as it makes cleaning with robot vacuum truly automated.
Do ensure you check that your house is compatible with the installation of the water hookup kit by referencing the image above. If you do get the Water Hookup kit, the only maintenance work you have to do is to clean the washboard every month so that it is not so dirty. The washboard is also detachable from the base station. This means that you can easily rinse the whole washboard under the tap rather than bending down to clean if it is fixed at the base station.
Dreamehome app features
You will need to download the Dreamehome app to setup the Dreame L20 Ultra. Once the app is download, simply scan the QR code under the faceplate of the vacuum and you should be directed to connect the robot vacuum to Wi-Fi.
Mapping and room management
The first thing you’d need to do is to map out your house, which should take 5 to 10 minutes. Once the mapping is complete, Dreame automatically sections the map into different rooms. You can edit the map by dividing and merging different areas, rename or give it a room name. There is also a 3D map which offers a nice visualisation when you start adding a limited range of furniture from the app, but that’s about it – nothing really useful at this point.
During the mapping, the Dreame L20 Ultra is also able to identify obstacles and will place it on the mapping of the house.
No-Go Zones & Virtual Walls
For areas that you do not require the Dreame L20 Ultra to perform cleaning such as toilet, you can set virtual walls or no-go zones so that it will prevent from entering the area.
This would be especially helpful for large houses with more than one storey to prevent the Dreame L20 Ultra from falling down a staircase. You can setup multi-floor maps as well.
Camera monitoring mode
An interesting feature is the camera monitoring mode on the Dreame L20 Ultra. In this mode, you can remotely control the movement of the Dreame L20 Ultra and see in real time where it is heading.
You also instruct the robot vacuum to go to a specific point in your house by tapping a marked point on the map. When this mode is activated, Dreame L20 Ultra will have a voice prompt to announce that the camera monitoring is active.
Cleaning presets – All / Zone cleaning / Room cleaning
Whether or not you are deciding to clean the whole house or selected zones/rooms, you can setup customised cleaning settings so that Dreame L20 Ultra does exactly what you want it to do. You can choose from four different cleaning modes (though I wouldn’t recommend using the ‘Vacuuming and Mopping’ mode as it would likely mop up dirt at the same time).
If you simply want to clean a particular part of your house, you can opt for Zone cleaning by drawing a zone on the map. After which the Dreame L20 Ultra will navigate to the zone and start cleaning. Alternatively, you can also order the Dreame L20 Ultra to clean specific rooms as well. All of which can be performed with customised cleaning settings.
Scheduled cleaning
Lastly, you can convert all these customised settings into a schedule. You can use either a customised cleaning format which you’d setup or rely on CleanGenius. CleanGenius is Dreame’s advanced dirt detection technology that identifies how dirty the floor is and can smartly perform re-mopping to ensure the clean.
Voice Assistant integrated
Dreame L20 Ultra can be controlled via your voice through Google Home or Alexa. For Apple users, Dreame offers support for Siri shortcuts so you have some way of integrating it into your smart home ecosystem.
Battery life
The Dreame L20 Ultra is equipped with a 6,400mAh battery which can last 260 minutes of cleaning in Quiet Mode.
Conclusion
The L20 Ultra is Dreame’s most advanced robot vacuum yet, and new features that make mopping on a robot vacuum way more effective and convenient. Overall, I’m pleased with how the Dreame L20 Ultra can improve the quality of living at home by making dreaded tasks pretty much automated. At S$1,799 it is a flagship priced product so if you truly value to ability to perform automated mopping then the Dreame L20 Ultra is a strong contender.
From 25 Aug to 27 Aug, stand to enjoy an early promo price of S$1,599 and get a free Dreame Hair Gleam hairdryer worth S$165!