Review: Dreame X30 Ultra Robot Vacuum and Mop

Do robots dream of a perfectly vacuumed floor? Probably not, but Dreame's X30 Ultra has me enjoying clean floors without lifting a finger. We first saw the hybrid robot vacuum mop at CES 2024, where it made an impression thanks to its self-removing mop pads and the flex arm for corners and edges. Since we're big robot vacuum fans around here, I put it to the test on my cat-hair-and-baby snack-littered floors.

After a few weeks of letting X30 Ultra take over vacuuming duty (and mopping my floors for the first time in … too long), I found it's a great all-around hybrid robot vacuum that doesn't let complicated table legs or high-pile rugs slow it down. The ability to ditch the damp mop pads is fantastic. It's on the pricey side, though, so you really have to need its standout features to make it worthy of the investment.

Mop It and Drop It

Photograph: Nena Farrell

The exciting thing about the X30 Ultra is the fact that it can drop the mop pads. Combination vacuums and mops are great, but dragging the damn mop pads around can make your carpet damp, too. The X30 Ultra solves this by dropping the pads when it senses it's in a room with only carpet, and reinstalling them when it returns to the base.

It's not a default thing—you have to go into the settings and select the option to have mop pads removed if it senses carpet, or else it'll keep them on. Like many other robot vacuums, you can adjust the cleaning settings in the menu (like if you want it to mop first then vacuum or vice versa) and change the order of rooms the X30 Ultra will clean in your home, called the cleaning sequence.

But unlike many other robot vacuums, you can also see what order the robot vac will go based on the numbers it assigns each room on the map, and you can reorganize the sequence in the cleaning settings under the in-app map. I had the two linoleum areas of my home first, so the X30 Ultra started cleaning with mopping, then returned to the base to vacuum everywhere else.

Photograph: Nena Farrell

It did a fine job mopping my linoleum floors, and it did double back around the area rather than just mop once and walk (well, roll) away. The floors were a touch damp immediately afterward, then quickly dried. The X30 Ultra also sensed my large kitchen mat and saved it for last after raising up the mop pads, before it moved on to the next room.

Raising up the mop pads is the X30's default mode for any carpet if you haven't set up the vacuum to remove the pads when it senses a carpeted area. I left them on for my first few tests, and noticed a slightly damp sensation on my fairly low-pile cheap carpet (fellow renters, you know what carpet I have). It certainly wasn't overly wet and went away quickly, but it was much nicer to have the mop pads fully removed.

Cleaning the majority of my house, mopping and all, took a little more than an hour for about 800 square feet. It still had 66 percent of the battery left after doing so, so it could easily do much larger floors and still have battery to space.

Alerts From Base

Photograph: Nena Farrell

After any cleaning, you'll be prompted to remove dirty mop water. The X30 Ultra is self-emptying and refilling, using two tanks that you can reach at the top of the base station. The clear one is for clean water and the dark one is for dirty water. You'll get both an app notification and a verbal reminder from the talking base station (yes, it talks) to tell you to empty the dirty water. The base station will also say aloud when cleaning begins and ends, and when mop pads are being removed or cleaned.

The loudest things you'll hear, though, are the self-emptying bins. The first time I used it, my husband asked, “Was that a freaking airplane?” after hearing the loud air suction to drain water from the X30 Ultra into its base. It sounds like a plane prepping for takeoff, but it's removing both dirty water and dry dust from the robot vac in one swoop, so it's worth it. Just don't run it while anyone's sleeping nearby.

Photograph: Nena Farrell

Below the two water canteens, you'll also find the dust bin and a cleaning solution spot, where you can add Dreame's proprietary cleaning solution. This section has its own pop-off lower door, and you'll find a small refillable container for the solution and the reusable dust bag. The dust bag is a 3.2-liter bag that Dreame says can store your dust for up to 75 days.

The base also hummed for a while after cleaning, which I couldn't hear unless I was close to it. My toddler, however, will tell you that was his least favorite feature if he knew how to communicate beyond the word “No!” and whimpering in fear of the humming base.

Cartographer in Training

Photograph: Nena Farrell

Mapping went fine, but mirrors and glass doors had a tendency to confuse it; for example, my son's bedroom is shown as one of the largest rooms thanks to the mirrored doors, and the backyard patio, which the vacuum couldn't even get to, was labeled as the living room. A rogue chair also caused it to mark a corner of the dining room as an entirely separate room.

You can create room dividers in open layouts to better separate seating and dining areas, and drop in furniture to tell it what to expect in certain spaces. The in-app AI also tried to add furniture during some of the mapping, but it wasn't accurate.

The 2D map is the main one that you'll edit and see detailed info for, but you can also look at it in 3D. The 3D map version was hilarious, since many random objects were shown visually as a toilet (including the X30 Ultra's own base station); I didn't find it nearly as useful as the 2D.

Editing the map within the app wasn't as intuitive as I would have liked, but once I got the hang of the tools, it was easy enough to customize it with room labels, separation for more targeted cleaning, and types of flooring. In the map you'll also see an option for zones, where you can draw a zone box for specific area cleaning.

Get in Swirl Formation

Photograph: Nena Farrell

The X30 Ultra did a good job moving around all kinds of objects and from various carpet and flooring heights. It even managed to navigate through the tricky legs of my toddler's high chair and my vintage dining table's C-shaped legs. It had a little trouble figuring out my living room rug, though; I ended up using zones to focus on my rug so it could vacuum in a timely fashion. Otherwise, it was constantly on a mission to get into the smallest crevices it could, bless its little digital soul.

The robot did fine vacuuming up things like Cheerios, cat food, and cat litter, but it never got 100 percent of it. That's pretty normal with robot vacuums, but a little disappointing given how high the price tag is. For example, it doesn't do edges as well as you might expect; there was still a little litter on the edges of the hall, which is what the flex arm promised to fix.

Overall, it's a pretty great hybrid robot vacuum and mop, and I love being able to leave the damp mop pads off my carpet. But it's a steep price tag for the removable mop pad and that flex arm, which didn't even work that well. You'd have to really want those to make the vacuum worth it (or have a massive home that requires the X30's long battery life). Otherwise, the rest of these features can be found in cheaper vacuums.