Recently I upgraded my older robot vacuum for the new Narwal Freo X Plus. I was curious to try out the dual vacuum and mop feature. I have mostly tile and laminate flooring but in my living room, I have a Ruggable. I was curious to see how smart it was to tell my rug from my tile. It only slightly disappointed me.
Basic Features
The basic features of the Narwal Freo X Plus include:
- Industry-Leading 7800Pa Suction
- Zero Tangles Certified
- 7 Weeks of Dust Storage
- Tri-Laser Navigation and Obstacle Avoidance
- Vacuum and Mop in One Pass
- Silent Roller Brush
- Child-lock
- Task programming
Setting Up the Narwal Freo X Plus
My experience setting up the Narwal Freo X Plus was not stellar. It felt cumbersome and a little labor-intensive. Getting around the app was not as friendly as previous apps I’ve used and the mapping feature didn’t fully map my house. I’ve had to map it multiple times to get it to finally get all my spaces.
The app is user-friendly once setup is complete. The nicest feature is that you can schedule tasks so you can set and forget your floor chores. It’s great to be able to tell the Freo to do its thing on a cleaning schedule.
The actual device doesn’t have much setup to it other than installing a few pieces and filling it with water. The container that holds the water is kind of cute (can a vacuum be cute?) and has an easy to carry handle.
You get three mop pads so you can always have one on the device and one on standby while the other is being washed. It’s recommend that you change out the pad after each cleaning so it doesn’t get moldy or grow bacteria between sessions.
A Few of My Favorite Things
What I think is one of the cooler features in the Narwal Freo X Plus app is being able to set furniture, appliances, and pet areas that you want the Freo to skip over while cleaning. Not sure about your pets, but mine would rather the strange white hockey puck stay away from its domain.
Having the ability to tell it to avoid the “pet’s nest,” litter box, dining area, and bed is a nice feature to be sure.
Compared to our previous vacuum, this one is quiet enough that my pup doesn’t even realize it’s running half the time. He also doesn’t seem as bothered by it. It’s a relief to be able to clean the floors without him barking and trying to eat it the entire time (he’s small but has the attitude of a big dog).
When in wet mop mode, you can really see the four jets that pump water into the pad. It’s easy to see the water trail behind it, proving that it is in fact mopping. If you don’t like a wet floor after cleaning, you can set it to be less wet but still mop. It’s a personal preference thing.
It navigates the house fairly well and doesn’t run over things that it shouldn’t. It has trouble with cords, but what vacuum, robot or not, doesn’t? You can tell the sensors are finely tuned because of how well it will avoid everything from my dog walking around to casual foot traffic while it’s doing its thing.
The last thing I’d like to mention is that while cleaning, you can update your preferences on suction and how wet you want the mop to get. I like this because I typically want less water and more suction on my laminate flooring and more water and equal suction on my tile. You can program the specific settings for each room so that by default, it will go to those settings without you having to babysit it the entire time.
The Not So Great
Other than the setup and mapping being a bit cumbersome, I have two things I feel are worth mentioning.
If you have all tile or laminate, you will love this thing. However, if you have a lot of carpet, I’d suggest looking elsewhere. It just doesn’t have the suction to clean the carpet as well as it does the tile and laminate.
Finally, it has a problem going over my Ruggable. It can get on it eventually but it has to work super hard to do it (is it possible to feel bad for a robot vacuum?). I have to go back over the carpet and reset it to the pad because the Narwal will lift it up in spots where it went on and off.
Final Thoughts
Despite some of the caveats of the model, so far we are happy with it. The mopping feature works great on my floors and it’s nice to be able to see the difference in before and after a cleaning cycle. I wish the setup was a bit easier, but you only have to experience that once, so at least that’s good. My dog is happier with the reduction in noise coming from the intruder to his domain and that makes me happier (and have less of a headache).
You can purchase the Narwal Freo X Plus for $399 on Narwal’s website as well as Amazon.
Disclaimer: GeekDad received a review sample.
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