In the depths of the pandemic, I bought an iRobot Roomba j7 vacuum. At the time, it was one of the nicer models iRobot offered, but it was expensive. It did a passable job in areas with few obstacles, but it filled up fast, had a hard time positioning itself on its base and frequently got clogged with debris, requiring me to partially disassemble and clean it regularly. The experience was bad enough that I’d written off robot vacuums as nice-to-have appliances that weren’t a great value.
So, when Narwal contacted me to see if I wanted to test its new Freo X10 Pro, I was hesitant at first. However, I’d seen a couple of glowing early reviews online, so I thought I’d see if the passage of time had been good to robo-vacuums, and boy has it. The Narwal Freo X10 Pro is not only an excellent vacuum cleaner, but a mopping champ, too.
For context, I live in a three-story condo, which isn’t ideal for robot vacuums. For the past two months or so, the Freo X10 Pro has been stationed in my kitchen tucked away in a nook next to my refrigerator on the second floor. I picked that spot because the second floor is our main living space where we spend most of our time, and as a result, it’s the floor that needs cleaning most often.
To use the vacuum on the first or third floors, the Freo X10 Pro needs to be carried up or downstairs. The vacuum’s app handles that just fine because it can store up to four maps. And, although Narwal’s device is heavier than my old Roomba, it’s not difficult to move between floors. In fact, I look forward to it because the Narwal talks, announcing that it is suspended in the air whenever I pick it up, which makes me laugh every single time.
As a practical matter, though, I’ve found that I only move the Narwal to another floor for vacuuming, not mopping. That’s because the Freo X10 Pro needs to return to its base station frequently to clean its mopping pads. That’s not a big deal when it’s on the same floor as its base station. However, if I carry the Narwal to the third floor, I need to fetch it for a second floor self-cleaning five or six times during a mopping session, which is a hassle. In contrast, vacuuming can be done in one shot, which is a much better experience.
The Narwal uses LiDAR to navigate around your home. During setup, it drives around your home mapping obstacles, which didn’t take long. Vacuuming the roughly 500 square feet of vacuumable space on our second floor takes about 70 minutes, while mopping takes close to 90. That’s faster than our old Roomba could navigate the same space and it finishes the task using only about 30% of its battery life, allowing me to vacuum or mop multiple floors on one charge.
The faceplate of the Narwal’s base station is magnetic, providing access to the bag that collects the dirt it vacuums up.
At the end of a vacuuming run, the Freo X10 Pro returns to its base station, and while it charges, the dirt it collected is sucked into a bag in the base station, which Narwal says will last 120 days before needing to be replaced. When the bag fills up, you throw it out and replace it with a fresh one, which after two months I haven’t had to do yet.
The more frequent maintenance task is filling the Narwal’s tank with clean water and emptying the dirty water tank after a mopping run. The tanks hold about three mopping runs worth of water, but I typically empty and rinse the dirty water tank every time the Freo X10 Pro is finished mopping. The clean water tank uses little tablets that dissolve in the water to help it clean, which are sold separately. I got a box of 24 on Amazon that should last 4-5 months, but Narwal should throw at least a few in the box with the robot.
Overall, I’ve been impressed with the Freo X10 Pro’s cleaning power. Its 11,000 Pa of suction and 8N of mop pressure don’t mean much to me, but what I can say is that using the Freo X10 Pro to vacuum once per week and vacuum and mop a second day of the week has kept our house clean. The Freo X10 Pro won’t magically reach areas that are narrower than it, which means you’ll still need to do a little manual vacuuming. However, the Narwal does a meticulous job criss-crossing the areas it can reach, deftly navigating around furniture and across rugs and hardwood floors.
The Freo X10 Pro’s mop works well, too, lifting up and out of the way when it’s not in use. I was curious how wet the robot would leave our floors, and while you can see dampness in its wake, the water evaporates quickly. However, because it takes so many trips up and down the stairs to mop our other floors, I’ve found that it’s more convenient to mop those floors manually myself.
About the only area where the Roomba j7 has a slight leg up on the Narwal is with electrical cords and charging cables. That may come down to the difference between a camera-driven vacuum and one that navigates by LiDAR, but whatever the case, I do need to make sure there aren’t charging cables in the way of the Freo X10 Pro more than I ever had to with the Roomba. The Freo X10 Pro also has trouble with our rather lightweight bath mats, but that was true of the Roomba too, and they’re easily moved when it’s time to clean.
Another nice feature of the Freo X10 Pro is that it’s relatively quiet; at least compared to our old Roomba. I can still hear the Freo X10 Pro from other parts of the house, but it doesn’t knock into furniture loudly or rumble across the floor the way the Roomba did.
Like other robot vacuums, the Narwal is controlled using an app or the buttons on the robot itself. There’s a lot going on in Narwal’s app, which can be a little confusing at first. As a practical matter, though, once I had it map our home and set up a vacuuming and mopping schedule, I haven’t used the app much. It sends me push notifications when a cleaning session is completed and when the robot gets stuck somewhere, which happens occasionally. That said, you can use the app to tweak your cleaning routines, track the wear on replaceable parts, and more if you want.
One thing that hasn’t changed over the years since I got that first robot vacuum is the fact that robot vacuums both debut at high prices, but are frequently discounted, given the intense competition among their makers. When I started using the Freo X10 Pro, it was retailing for $700. However, in the months since, and even now as this is published, it’s been significantly discounted whether you buy directly from Narwal or a third-party retailer like Amazon.
However, what’s different about the Narwal is that it’s a far better value than my Roomba j7 was when it was brand new. It’s faster, quieter, better at cleaning, and also mops my floors. The Freo X10 Pro can’t climb stairs or reach every tight spot around my house, but it’s significantly cut back the amount of time we spend vacuuming and mopping our floors. In fact, the floors are cleaner simply by virtue of the fact that Narwal’s robot takes care of it unfailingly on a schedule. It doesn’t procrastinate, putting off chores like I do. Instead, it just goes about its business, cleaning up a couple of times a week, which makes it well worth this kind of investment to me.
The Freo X10 Pro is available directly from Narwal. The list price on Narwal’s website is $699.99 but the company is currently running a sale reducing the price to $419.99. You can also buy the Freo X10 Pro from retailers like Amazon.
