Rating: 4/5
Robot vacuum cleaners are an easy option for users at home for daily brooming and mopping activities. There’s no shortage of them in the market these days. From super expensive ones to rather modest options.
Dreame
, a well-known brand for making a wide range of vacuum cleaners, has launched its latest offering -- F9 Pro -- that costs Rs 24,999.
It’s a 2-in-1 robot vacuum cleaner that does vacuuming and mopping in a single go. Other features are 2500pa of suction power, built-in LiDAR for mapping and navigation, a 3200mAh battery and fast mapping. Moreover, it is also compatible with Google Assistant and Alexa.
Can it replace your house help? That’s the question we will try to answer in our review.
Unboxing and setup
The packaging is straightforward. Opening the box reveals the vacuum cleaner itself. Remove it and you’ll find the small rotating broom the mop pac and the water tank along with the charging dock.
Putting all the attachments in place is a simple affair. All you need to do is follow the clear instructions placed on the machine itself and you are all set for the next step -- pairing and mapping.
For pairing, the Dreame app is required and is available on both Play Store and
App Store
. Download the app, log in. The app detects the vacuum cleaner instantly and the pairing process is smooth and fast. No hassle there.
Moving on to the mapping part, there is where you need to be a little patient. F9 Pro supports fast mapping, but depending on the size of the house, it may take a while. For instance, we tested it in a 1800 square feet flat and it took around 15 minutes to map the entire house.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind here. First and foremost, F9 Pro supports multi-floor mapping, so, if you happen to live in a duplex or a villa, then it can map, mop and vacuum everything with one map.
Also, to map the house better, you need to organise things a little, so the F9 Pro can manoeuvre freely and map things perfectly.
For us, the mapping was precise and accurate to our understanding. Once the map was generated, we were quite satisfied with it. Also, once the mapping is done, it automatically returns to the charging dock. Also, if for some reason, it gets stuck, it resumes back to where it was after the disaster management.
Design
The design of the F9 Pro is like a regular robot vacuum cleaner. The overall silhouette is circular with a LiDAR sensor at the top and the front for better mapping and object detection. Also, at the top, there are two buttons, one for starting the cleaning process and another one for sending it back to the charging station.
There’s a 570ml dust box placed underneath the top flap, and the 230-litre water tank gets attached at the bottom along with the mopping pad. The bottom also has the rolling V-brush for collecting the dust, an extended main brush and two wheels to take this robot vacuum cleaner places.
The overall height of the vacuum cleaner is adequate and it allows it to manoeuvre across different areas like underneath the TV unit, table, etc without scraping the top or sides. The brush placement is good and it does a good job of collecting the dust from the surrounding and pushing it towards the suction area.
The important part to know here is everything is detachable from the main brush to the roller brush, mop and tank. This makes the F9 Pro a pretty versatile offering as everything is replaceable. This also ensures the longevity of the vacuum cleaner and this is something essential for products like this.
Vacuum and mopping performance
It’s a vacuum cleaner and a mop. And, it does what’s expected of it. But, some things need to be told. For instance, the suction capacity, despite being 2500Pa, is sufficient enough for daily cleaning needs. It works well on all kinds of surfaces too. For instance, we used it indoors on tiles, outdoors on the marble surface as well as slightly rough surfaces, and the F9 Pro worked its way through all of them. The good thing is that it can go over floor mats, and small partitions between the doors and the wheel’s rugged setup makes it good for all types of surfaces.
We also used the F9 Pro to clean our rug and floor mats and the performance is good enough, it cleaned the carpet pretty well.
There are multiple cleaning modes -- Quick and
Deep
clean mode. The Quick mode is ideal for daily vacuuming of the surfaces and deep cleaning is for once in a week when you need to clean each and for that spot-less cleaning.
Moreover, the extended brush does a good job at capturing the corners as well. However, at times due to design constraints and space constraints, a few corners were left untouched and that’s something one needs to keep in mind.
Talking about the detection and prevention of objects, tables, and things, the onboard LiDAR sensor is responsive enough and if you haven’t moved things around drastically in your house, it won’t hit things too hard. But, we noticed that it occasionally hits things around. However, its course correction is quick and it gets back on track in no time.
Coming to the mopping part of the F9 Pro, the functionality is useful and there are three mopping modes --
All three modes work fine and a single tank manages to clean the house multiple times. All you need to do is clean the mop and put it back again manually. Which is fine considering the price of the vacuum cleaner.
Also, there’s a vacuum and mop combined function and we are really impressed with it. The F9 Pro automatically detects the surface and cleans accordingly.
The only limitation is that you can’t put anything other than water in the tank. So, if you are looking to use any floor cleaner, you’ll have to spray it manually and then run the F9 Pro to mop the house.
Cleaning performance
Cleaning is another important aspect of a vacuum cleaner. First and foremost, the water tank is easy to remove along with the dust collector. Also, the bottom roller can be removed easily. However, it does collect and tangle the hair and other similar items and that’s something that gets a little complicated to clean. Other than this, everything is simple and easy to access, clean and put back together for the next vacuum and mop cycle. Also, we noticed that if you run the F9 Pro daily, the dust collector is big enough to last for almost a week which is a good thing.
Now, like any other vacuum cleaner, some components of the F9 Pro also go through some wear and tear and eventually require a replacement. This includes HEPA filters, brushes, mopping pads, etc. The good part is that the app notifies when these things require a replacement and lets users keep a check on the current status of these components.
Smart integration and battery life
It’s a Wi-Fi-enabled robot vacuum cleaner and if anything is smart, it has to offer some sort of integration with voice assistant devices like Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. The F9 Pro is compatible with both of them and works without any issues. You can simply give it a command to clean a particular area or the entire house. Schedule a cleaning session and even create routines like we did for our kitchen where we set up a situation where no motion is detected in the kitchen at around 11 am, then vacuum and mop the kitchen. Pretty handy for home cooks who are a little messy while cooking.
Also, the app is pretty simple and has a clean user interface. The functions are well laid out and we faced no issues while using it.
Coming to the battery life of the F9 Pro, the onboard 3200mAh battery is good enough for a 3bhk house in regular cleaning mode. However, for deep cleaning, it lasts for around 70 per cent of the area. That said, the F9 Pro also comes with a resume function which allows it to return to the charging dock once it is out of juice, recharge and resume back the cleaning process.
Verdict
Dreame Dreambot F9 Pro
robot vacuum cleaner, priced at Rs 24,999, presents a compelling case as a house help without tantrums. Its 2-in-1 functionality, and efficient vacuuming, and mopping capabilities make it a versatile and affordable home cleaning solution. Despite occasional limitations in corner cleaning, the device's design, detachable components, and smart integration with voice assistants contribute to its user-friendly appeal.
With good battery life and a resume function for uninterrupted cleaning, the F9 Pro stands as a reliable and efficient alternative to traditional house help at an attractive price.
English (US) ·