Dreame X60 Max Ultra Complete Review: $1,700 Worth of Robot Vacuum Problems

And its app is as cluttered as its name.

I swear, almost every robot vacuum in the world right now feels like it’s designed just to check boxes—user experience be damned. How that manifests changes from one vacuum to the next: they might be obnoxiously loud, with a stinky dock; or maybe they’re laden with features that sound good on paper but suck (not in the good way) in practice.

The Dreame X60 Max Ultra Complete (yes, that’s really the full name) isn’t the worst of its kind, and in fact, it’s closer to good than its sibling, the Aqua10 Ultra Roller I recently reviewed. It’s got flashy-yet-functional moving robotic parts that help it get under and over where many other robot vacuums just can’t. And, with the right settings and conditions, it can do a great job vacuuming or mopping.

But the X60 still falls flat in a lot of ways that make it hard to justify paying $1,700 to own one. Depending on how you configure it, the robot can fail to vacuum at all while leaving wet carpet in its wake, for instance. It can be noisy, wasteful of water, and susceptible to getting lost. And a lot of that only happens when you try to use its fanciest-sounding features. Turn them on, the monkey’s paw curls, and a crappy compromise ensues.

2.5

Dreame X60 Max Ultra Complete

The Dreame X60 Max Ultra Complete is way-too-pricey robot vacuum that feels incomplete, despite its name.

Pros

Fits under most furniture

Vacuums and mops well with the right settings

Manages scheduled cleans well

Self-cleaning dock not too loud or stinky

Cons

Way too expensive

Drags wet mop pads across thick carpets

Slow

Wastes a lot of water when mopping

Cluttered app

See at Amazon

The X60 is a svelte, disc-shaped robot vacuum that stands just 3.12 inches tall, or 0.38 inches shorter than the X50 before it. Like the X50, the X60’s laser distance sensor (LDS) array can sink so that it’s flush with its body, letting it go places my Eufy RoboVac L35 Hybrid, which is only a hair taller if you don’t count its sensor cluster, can’t fit. Apart from the sensor array, the top also features a magnetically attached cover that hides the robot’s removable dustbin.

Other returning robotic bits include its side brush, which extends into corners, and dual mop pads, one of which swings out to mop edges. Tucked under the X60 are two stubby Wizard of Oz Wheeler legs that raise the X60’s front end up let it drive up to and, in a very seal-like fashion, waddle or flop over room transition strips, or clamber up very tiny steps that are up to 1.77 inches high.

See X60 Max Ultra Complete at Amazon

[Dreame X60 Max Ultra Complete Review 2]

© Wes Davis / Gizmodo

Also underneath are the X60’s dual rubber rollers, which never got tangled on hair or string or anything, just as advertised, although they did get jammed up by one of my kid’s socks, once. Dual cameras and a light in front for object recognition and navigation round out what is a very feature-packed robot vacuum.

As for performance, that’s a mixed bag. The X60 is definitely good at what it does, but there’s a disharmony about this robot vacuum that makes it feel like it’s worse than it is. For example: I was initially very impressed with the X60’s vacuuming performance, especially after my experience with the Aqua10 Ultra Roller. It consistently picked up nearly every robot vacuum-sized piece of debris it encountered, from dead leaves and scraps of paper to grains of rice and chunks of dried mud tracked in from outside. I dumped a tablespoon of sugar on the floor, and it left more than either the Matic or Eufy Omni E28, but still did a decent job. So I was confused, later, when its vacuum performance nose-dived and it stopped collecting even the lowest-lift debris throughout my home. Then I realized it was because I had turned on a feature that lifts the entire X60 chassis, ideally so it won’t drag its soggy ass across carpets when it’s been mopping.

[Dreame X60 Max Ultra Complete Review 8]

© Wes Davis / Gizmodo

The trouble with the chassis lift feature is that it doesn’t distinguish between thick carpets and very low rugs like the runner in my kitchen, and with the robot lifted, it becomes a terrible vacuum on all but the thickest carpets. At one point during testing, the X60 even stayed lifted on my hard flooring, although when I tested again nine days later, it didn’t do that, so hopefully, that was a one-time thing. To be fair, a Dreame representative told me that the chassis lift feature is intended for “long-pile carpets,” and that suction would reduce on lower ones. Unfortunately, the mop pads still dragged across the thick carpet in my hallway, which happened to be the only one where it still had enough suction to actually vacuum.

Ultimately, you’re better off turning on a feature that leaves the mop pads behind for vacuum-only jobs, but that doesn’t really help if the robot has to cross a carpet or rug to get to moppable floor. Is it a big deal to pick the X60 up and carry it to the room you want mopped? Not really. But I don’t want to do that with a $1,700 robot vacuum.

It’s a shame, because the X60 is mostly a very good mopping robot. I was really impressed when it fully cleared the sidewalk salt residue that builds up in our entryway, a result of walks we go on to keep the Winter Madness at bay. But when I sent it after a tablespoon or so of ketchup that I squirted on my dining room floor, it got about half of it up and smeared the rest across a larger area. (In fairness, only the Matic has passed that test for me—other robot vacuums have gotten closer, but each failed in one way or another.) Ketchup aside, though, the X60 left my floors with a nice, streak-free sheen.

Wayfinding is a struggle

[Dreame X60 Max Ultra Complete Review 3]

© Wes Davis / Gizmodo

I’m a little mean when it comes to testing the navigation skills of robots. I fully acknowledge that none of them can truly handle the chaos of a human household inhabited by one person with diagnosed ADHD (that’s me, I’m the problem!), one who suspects they have it, and one that is a child. So when I’m reviewing a robot vacuum, I try to approximate the lengths I would actually go to to make sure the floor is clear for the robot. Some nights, I’m diligent about this, even checking under our sofa and chairs, that sort of thing. Different nights, I half-ass it. On others, I don’t bother at all—I want to know how well a robot does in ideal circumstances, and also how easy it is to trip it up.

What I found is that the X60 doesn’t seem to work in a house like mine. It’s a relatively small, cramped house with effectively no long stretches of bare wall. Even when I left things as tidy as possible, I found the robot stranded somewhere more often than not, with an error message in the app indicating it couldn’t get to its dock. That was always during its nightly cleans, though—it hardly ever happened when I tested during the day. Maybe it’s because during the day, I could see what tripped it up. Something like a dining room chair that’s too close to the dock or a pet that needs shooing away. (My three animals are very used to robot vacuums, and have a very “no, you move” attitude when they approach.)

[...]

Original source