The Freo Z Ultra may be the hands-off robot vac you've been looking for

If you’re in the market for a new robot vacuum for your smart home, there’s no better time than now to find one that fits your needs. One you may want to keep an eye on is the latest offering from Narwal.

At IFA 2024, Narwal debuted the Freo Z Ultra, a robot vacuum/mop that’s powered by AI. This product boasts a variety of helpful features like smart obstacle avoidance, self-cleaning, baseboard cleaning, quiet maintenance, and more.

Obstacle avoidance

Going into further detail, this robot vacuum avoids obstacles with the help of two 1,200p RGB cameras with 136-degree viewing angles. And with its Dual AI chips, it’s capable of recognizing over 120 household objects. The company says this technology allows the robot to make real-time decisions to stay out of the way of people, pets, and furniture. This device will even employ a safe distance avoidance strategy if it detects pet feces to prevent spreading the mess.

On top of that, the Freo Z Ultra uses LiDAR SLAM 4.0 technology to map the room. The firm claims it can scan a floor in as little as six minutes. It can also store multiple floor maps for more complex house layouts. And if there are places you don’t want it going, you can set “No-Go Zones.”

Cleaning features

The Freo Z Ultra offers quite a few features to clean up your house. As with any hybrid robot floor cleaner, there’s a vacuum and mop to address different types of messes. The vacuum offers up to 12,000Pa of suction power, which is said to be capable of sucking up more than 99% of solid particles. Meanwhile, the Reuleaux triangle-shaped mops are capable of reaching corners and can raise as high as 12mm to avoid getting your carpet wet.

Something this vacuum has that others don’t, however, is a baseboard cleaning tool. Called the EdgeSwing, this tool is said to use electrostatic force to attract and remove dust from baseboards.

Another neat feature is its ability to adjust how it cleans depending on the situation. Narwal refers to this feature as the Real-Time Adjusted Cleaning Strategy. Simply put, the robot can tell the difference between dry dirt and wet messes. It can also detect heavy dirt, which will cause it to target that area until it’s clean.

Finally, for pet owners, there’s a Pet-Friendly Cleaning Mode where the robot will avoid the animal and clean other parts of the house until the pet moves. Once the pet is out of the way, it takes care of any debris in the area. It can even recognize certain areas as places your pet frequents.

Base station maintenance

Narwal boasts that the base station requires minimal human intervention. Due to the 2.5L dustbin bag and dust compression, it only needs to be changed about once every 120 days. The station is also designed to kill bacteria in addition to cleaning the mop. The company claims its AI DirtSense technology analyzes wastewater particles and automatically adjusts the washing and drying temperatures accordingly. Additionally, it’s said the base station operates at 55-58dB, which is about half of the industry average.

Availability

If this sounds like the perfect vacuum/mop for your home, it will be available for purchase in North America and Europe. In North America, you’ll be able to order one starting October 8, 2024, for $1,499 on the company’s website. However, you can get in on early-bird benefits if you pre-order between now and October 7.