Review: Dreame X40 Ultra Robot Vacuum

Dreame doesn’t seem to be slowing down when it comes to creating the most feature packed robot vacuum. The new Dreame X40 Ultra is another example of Dreame’s improvements with every iteration of their robot vacuum. The X40 Ultra adds notable improvements to its side brush and suction power vs the recent X30 Ultra, and will retail for S$1,669 but will be cheaper with discounts from Lazada.

Comparisons with X30 Ultra

The base station of the X40 Ultra and X30 Ultra are very similar, but the robot vacuums have quite some differences. The camera placement and the way the fill light is shone are obvious differences, but the X40 Ultra also has new features such as liftable & extendable side brush, and a more powerful suction.

Design and build quality

The base station of the X40 Ultra shares similar design language from the L10s Pro Ultra Heat, where the solution tank and dust bag are kept at the mid-section. It also has an overall slim size with more curvatures, which is greatly appreciated for the space constrained HDB yard. The front of the base station features a fluted top with grey mid panel, all with a matte finish.

As for the robot vacuum, the design is pretty much what we expect from Dreame – clean, single coloured for a consistent and minimalistic look. Build quality is solid as well. One key difference on the X40 Ultra is its screwed on side brush, as opposed to previous models’ snap-on mechanism of installing it. This is because of the new ability of the side brush to lift and extendable. Apart from that, most of the design features remain the same. The front of the vacuum is lined with a rubber gasket to cushion any potential collision impact with your furniture. The mop pads are attached to the vacuum magnetically.

Accessing the dustbox of the X40 Ultra requires you to lift the flap on the top surface of robot vacuum.

Cleaning effectiveness and user experience

The foundation of the X40 Ultra is its LiDAR for navigation and AI + 3D structured light for obstacle avoidance. The obstacle avoidance is very accurate. As long as the obstacle as some height, the X40 Ultra is smart enough go around any obstacle on the floor. I rarely see the X40 Ultra colliding with any furniture and walls, though I do see it trying to climb the corners of my EverDesk Max table legs as well as going over thin wires on the floor. All the potential obstacles are shown in the mapping of the house so that it can plan the most efficient route for cleaning.

[NEW] Intelligent Edge Cleaning (MopExtend 3.0)

Well, this isn’t exactly new per se, because it debuted on the X30 Ultra/Master but it is one a key mopping upgrade from the previous generations of Dreame robot vacuums. The upgraded MopExtend 3.0 technology allows the mop pads to push further out to clean skirting edges and the narrow slits of kitchen cabinets. You can refer the demo done by X30 Ultra/Master below:

[NEW] SideReach: Liftable & Extendable Side Brush

The headline feature of the X40 Ultra is the ability of the side brush to lift up when mopping is being done, and also extend out to clean deeper just like the MopExtend 3.0. The lifting feature is actually a nice addition as the side brush which gets raised by around 10mm, now doesn’t get wet when mopping is performed.

The extendable side brush solves one of the limitations on older Dreame robot vacuums, which is the lack of effective cleaning at corners. The X40 Ultra is now able to sweep dust and dirt away from the tight corners which was previously hard to reach. You can check out the demo of it in the video above.

[Improved] 12,000 Pa suction power & Fill Light

X40 Ultra retains the ‘Fill Light’ feature, where it will automatically turn on the LED lights at the front whenever it senses the area its cleaning to be dark. The implementation of it is a little difference on the X40 Ultra. Instead of the usual two headlights, X40 Ultra employs a single LED light throwing out from the middle.

And when it comes to suction power, the X40 Ultra now maxes out at a whopping 12,000Pa which is close to a 45% increase from the already capable X30 Ultra/Master. 12,000Pa is market-leading and is highly appreciated when cleaning thick carpets. You can get the full suction power by enabling Max+ in the custom cleaning settings or just turn on ‘Carpet Boost’ and let the AI of the robot do its own thing.

Customised carpet cleaning (feat. Mops Raise 10.5mm)

Carpets are quite common in houses these days and Dreame has provided five settings to choose from when cleaning with carpets around. Since the mop pads of the X30 Ultra can be deposited at the base station, you can choose to completely remove to mops pads to be 100% that your carpets stay dry. The five settings are below:

1. Mops removal: Removes the mop pads entirely
2. Mops raising: Lift mop pads up to 10.5mm (suitable for low-pile carpets)
3. Carpet avoidance: Robot will avoid the carpet during cleaning
4. Carpet boost: Robot will increase suction to vacuum once
5. Intensive carpet cleaning: Robot will vacuum twice at reduced speed

Mops pads can be raised up to 10.5mm, so it will largely be more suitable for low-pile carpets. Unfortunately, the settings that you choose are global for all carpets. So if you have a mix of low or high-pile carpets it will use the same settings across. What I’d like to see in the future via an app update is the ability to set different carpet cleaning settings from the different carpets that the mapping identifies.

Maintenance and automation

One of the best things of owning the Dreame X40 Ultra is the low amount of maintenance required. Many of the manual tasks are now automated thanks to hardware upgrades of the base station. The list of things that are done automatically are listed below. With the X40 Ultra, the most you’d have to do is to replace/empty the dust bag after 75 days.

1. Automatic dust collection
2. Automatic mop pad cleaning with hot water
3. Automatic mop pad drying with warm air
4. Automatic water refilling
5. Automatic water draining (with Water Hookup kit)
6. Automatic cleaning solution refilling
7. Automatic washboard cleaning

[NEW] Auto Washboard cleaning

This is also another feature that debuted on the X30 Ultra/Master. The base station of the Dreame X40 Ultra also features a hardware upgrade that gives it a pair of wiper blades at the washboard clear to help clean the surface of the washboard. It’s still recommended that you use the cleaning brush to scrub away any stubborn dirt and then use the cleaning function to aid you.

Water hookup kit – Auto refilling and drainage

For a truly automated cleaning experience, I’d recommend getting the water hookup kit as the draining of the dirty water after mopping is done automatically. Clearing the dirty water tank manually can get a little troublesome at times, as you have clear it timely if not risk having bad smells. Clean water is also topped up manually. That’s a total of two less things to do, and being a person who loves convenience – this is greatly appreciated.

Dreamehome app features

You will need to download the Dreamehome app to setup the X40 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.

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 furniture choices from the app – there needs to be more choices such as a study desk.

During the mapping, the X40 Ultra is also able to identify obstacles and will place it on the mapping of the house. For areas that you do not require 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 X40 Ultra from falling off a staircase. You can setup multi-floor maps as well.

Cleaning presets, customisation, and scheduling

The UI of the app with the X40 Ultra is slightly new, but other than that features when choosing a cleaning task remains the same. There are three main selection of clean: (1) All, (2) Room, or (3) Zone. 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 X40 Ultra will navigate to the zone and start cleaning. Alternatively, you can also order the X40 Ultra to clean specific rooms as well.

As for the cleaning settings, you can rely on the CleanGenius AI to choose the cleaning settings for you – it will identify room types and recommends the most suitable cleaning strategy. Or if you want more control, you can for Custom mode. You can setup customised cleaning settings so that X40 Ultra does exactly what you want it to do. You can choose from four different cleaning modes.

• Vacuum only
• Mop only
• Vacuum & mop at the same time
• Mop after vacuuming

There is also an option to setup customised room cleaning type, but it doesn’t seem to have the mop after vacuuming preset available in the options. I hope this is some Dreame will add in software updates in the future.

Lastly, you can convert all these customised settings into a schedule. You can use either a customised cleaning format which you have setup or rely on CleanGenius.

Camera monitoring mode

Another useful feature is the camera monitoring mode. In this mode, you can remotely control the movement of the X40 Ultra like a drone, 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. For privacy protection, the X40 Ultra will have a voice prompt to announce that the camera monitoring is active.

Conclusion

It’s fascinating to see how Dreame can keep pushing out improvements on their robot vacuum to make it better than their last iteration. With two headline features of (1) liftable & extendable side brush, and (2) 12,000Pa powerful suction, the Dreame X40 Ultra becomes an even more complete robot vacuum that will clean more effectively than its predecessors. At the price of S$1,669, Dreame X40 Ultra is pricey. But if you feel that you don’t need all the latest features, the older ‘L-series’ models such as the L10s Pro Ultra Heat or the L20 Ultra can do a very solid job as well. But those who want the best of the best, the Dreame X40 Ultra is what you are looking for.