Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete Review

Design and Features

• Self-clean, self-empty docking station
• Uses two detergents
• AutoSeal Roller Protection

With its large self-clean, self-empty docking station, the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete doesn’t look that different to previous high-end cleaners in the company’s line-up, including the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete. 

Pull the vacuum cleaner out, and its round body also looks very similar to previous models in the line-up, complete with the LiDAR dome that can retract into the robot’s body when the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete wants to get under low furniture.

It’s a neat trick and one that makes this robot able to fit under furniture, just 98mm tall. That covers a lot of sofas and sideboards and makes sure that more of your home can be cleaned.

Flip the robot over, and the new features become obvious. Rather than the mopping pads that Dreame has used in the past, the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete has a larger roller that runs almost the full width of the vacuum cleaner. To aid edge cleaning, this roller can slide out when required, up to 40mm.

While other roller-based robots that I’ve reviewed, such as the Narwal Freo Z Ultra, can lift their rollers to move over short-pile carpet, the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete has its Autoseal Roller Protection system.

When carpet is detected, or the robot is in vacuum-only mode, the roller lifts and a plastic guard extends around the roller, preventing carpet from getting wet. 

In addition, the main brush can lift 5mm and the side brush 10mm to prevent them from wetting carpets.

What all of this means in practice is that the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete is more flexible than its roller-based competition and can easily move from hard floors to deep pile carpet and back without causing damage. 

For vacuuming, there’s a single-edge brush. This SideReach model allows this brush to swing out to clean right to the edge and into corners.

Dual, contra-rotating brushes sit in the middle of the vacuum cleaner, and allow it to clean without getting tangled with hair.

Back on top, the robot’s lid can be removed to access the bin. You won’t need to empty this daily, but it’s useful to do so that the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete’s filter can be cleaned.

At the front of the robot are cameras, which use AI-based image recognition to better clean and to avoid common obstacles.

The powerful dock sucks dust out of the robot and stores it in a disposable 3.2-litre dust bag, so you’ll probably get a couple of months’ use before having to replace it.

Clean water is provided by the 4-litre water tank in the dock. This dock has a separate detergent tank, and mixes water and detergent together.

There’s actually space for two different detergents: standard detergent and pet detergent. The latter can be used once a week or witih each clean, and is designed to help eliminate odours that can build in homes with pets.

Dirty water is collected in the 3.5-litre tank. Some water is left on the floor, but it’s my general experience that the dirty tank needs emptying around the same time that the clean tank needs filling.

Although the roller system means that clean water is added to the roller, and dirt removed as the robot goes around, the roller still needs cleaning. This is handled by the docking station, which can use 100°C water for a deep hygienic clean. Hot-air drying prevents mould and odours from building up.

FluffRoll built into the robot helps keep the roller’s fibres fluffed up, better able to collect dirt. It’s a small, yet important addition.

Control of the robot is via the Dreame app, which is home to all of the company’s other robots. It’s a decent app that’s pretty easy to use. Once the robot is connected to Wi-Fi, the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete has to perform a mapping run, which is fast. At the end, the app suggests a home layout automatically. It wasn’t bad in the Trusted Reviews Home Tech Lab, but I could easily split and merge rooms to match my actual layout.

Furniture can also be added to a room, which gives you a quick-select zone for cleaning, such as for tidying up around a dining table after eating.

There are also no-go and no-mop zones, although the quality of the robot and its self protection features mean that you shouldn’t need these options in many homes.

Cleaning options include cleaning everywhere, a room (or rooms) of your choice, and zones. For the latter, that can either be a zone that you’ve drawn on the map or an automatic zone that’s created when you tap a bit of furniture.

Cleaning options include CleanGenius, where the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete will work out the best way to clean. This has an option of Vac & Mop or Mop after Vac. Or you can use Custom mode to clean the way you want.

Custom mode has the choice of Vacuum, Mop, Vac & Mop, Mop after Vac, and Customize room cleaning (this lets you change the cleaning option on a per-room basis).

In Custom mode there are four suction power modes to choose from, and 32 levels of mop pad dampness. I’ve said it about other Dreame robots before, but 32 choices is too many and it makes it harder to select the right option should be.

This robot gives the option of Mop Pressure, with Light or Normal selectable. The latter is best for more floors, but use Light for a more delicate floor.

For modes that vacuum and mop at the same time, you get the choice of Quick or Standard routing for cleaning; select any mode that splits the functions and you can also have Intensive and Deep cleaning options for more thorough floor coverage.

Dive into the Advanced settings and there are options to turn on SideReach and MopExtend, which pushes out the roller and side brush when cleaning along walls, and around chair legs (and so on), for a deeper clean. I recommend turning these modes on.

It’s also worth turning on the Stain Recognition and Large Particles Boost features, which let the robot spot dirtier areas and cover them more thoroughly. There’s also control over the integrated ‘OK, Dreame’ voice assistant. I don’t find this that useful for most jobs, but the ‘Clean up here’ command is useful: the robot comes to find you and then cleans where you’re standing. That’s great for a quick clean-up.

Performance

• Powerful suction
• Excellent mopping
• Edge performance could be better

I set the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete for some cleaning tasks in the Trusted Reviews Home Tech Lab. I started with my usual carpet cleaning task, adding a teaspoon of flour to the floor.

Rated at a maximum of 30,000Pa, the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete is, on paper, one of the most powerful robot vacuum cleaners. That suction power holds out under testing, and my carpet was thoroughly cleaned with not a visible trace of dust left behind.

It was the same on the hard floor. Dust sprinkled in the middle of the floor was easily collected, and the floor was left clean.

Adding dust up to the kitchen plinth gave the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete the job of cleaning along the edge. Here, the level of dust did prove a bit of a challenge, and quite a bit of mess was missed or just swirled around.

However, with the mopping mode, the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete collected more of what had been missed, although not as close to the plinth as I’d have liked.

For mopping, I tested with my regular stains, starting with the dried-on coffee stain. This proved no trouble for the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete, and it easily removed the mess from the floor.

Next, the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller completely zoomed over the red wine stain and removed it all in two passes.

My tough dried-on mud stain was easily removed, too. The larger particles had been collected in the vacuuming run, and the remaining mess was mopped up with ease.

My toughest test is the dried-on ketchup. Here, two passes weren’t enough to remove the mess, even with all of the stain recognition features turned on.

Four passes got rid of most of the stain, leaving just a small amount of mess behind, which is impressive; the Narwal Freo Z Ultra did better, though, and fully cleaned all of the mess.

Human hair was no trouble for this robot, and I didn’t see any strands get caught around the brushes at the end.

Battery life is rated at 175 minutes on its lowest power setting, but the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete is similar to other high-end robots that I’ve reviewed. It had enough power for two passes of the lab, with vacuuming followed by mopping. And, there was a bit of power left for spot cleaning. Effectively, deep cleaning an average-sized floor is easy for this robot on a single charge.

Navigation is excellent, too. The Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Complete managed to squeeze under my test sofa, it skipped around test messes, including fake pet mess, and it smartly avoided getting tangled. Its ProLeap system can help it climb dual 4cm thresholds (8cm in total), so this robot can climb over most problem areas and go places many other robots can’t.

Should you buy it?