Dreame X40 Ultra Review: Strong vacuuming, smarter mopping

If a robot vacuum can handle my living room, it can handle most homes. In the last two years, these discs have grown from bump‑and‑go robots to cleaners that map rooms, dodge cables, and even mop with some thought. I’ve seen that change up close, and it’s been a pleasant surprise. Still, I haven’t often felt like I could just forget about them and let them do their thing.

Between a shedding dog and a preteen who leaves pencils and toys everywhere, my floors stay busy. Over the past three years, I’ve tried at least half a dozen robot vacuums, each promising less effort and cleaner floors. The vacuuming has usually been strong, sometimes excellent, but the mopping almost always fell short. More often than not, I still had to spot‑clean or bring out the regular mop after a “smart” run.

That’s why the Dreame X40 Ultra stood out. It’s the first robot in a long time that didn’t make me plan for a backup round of cleaning. It isn’t magic, but it comes much closer to what I expect from a premium do‑it‑all machine. Here’s how it fared in a month of trying to keep my home clean.

It Costs as Much as a Smartphone Flagship

At Rs 84,999/$899.99, it’s priced like a flagship phone, and that’s exactly why I’m bringing it up before anything else. The X40 Ultra isn’t just another robot vacuum. It’s a serious investment in home cleaning. I’m bringing up the price early because it shapes expectations. At this figure, you’re not buying convenience alone; you’re paying for a level of autonomy, intelligence, and consistency that cheaper models simply can’t sustain.

While the price tag can feel steep, it makes more sense once you see what it replaces: not just the vacuuming and mopping chores, but also the fussing, the troubleshooting, and the constant “second pass” cleaning I’ve had to do with other robots. The X40 Ultra is the first ever machine I’ve tested that delivers a genuinely hands-off routine most days. That shift in how I use it, and how little I think about cleaning now, is why the price feels more like buying time than buying a gadget.

Looks That Belong in the Living Room

The first thing I noticed when the package was delivered was just how big the thing was. My first-ever robot vacuum came with a small charging dock that can hide in plain sight. But considering how massive the X40 Ultra is, it ought to blend well in any room in the house. Thankfully, the Dreame X40 Ultra does. The dock has a clean, modern aesthetic with smooth lines and neutral colors that blend easily into most drawing rooms without screaming “appliance.” The robot itself has the same understated, premium feel, and together they look more like part of the furniture than something you want to hide in a corner.

Beyond appearances, the hardware reflects its flagship status. The X40 Ultra combines high suction power with dual spinning mop pads, advanced navigation sensors, and a self-maintenance dock that empties the dustbin, washes and dries the mop, and refills water. These are the features that make a difference in daily use, especially if you want to set it and forget it. More on them later.

But not everything in the design is perfect, though. The dock ships with a power plug that needs a 16A socket, which is rarely placed where you would ideally want to set up a robot vacuum. Though it works fine with a 16A-to-6A adapter, it’s one more thing to buy and deal with before the first clean, which Dreame could have avoided.

Features that Matter: Why It’s More Than Just a Vacuum

The X40 Ultra has no shortage of tricks, and I’d probably have a separate article listing them all. But these are the ones that actually changed how I clean, or rather, how little I had to think about cleaning:

• Suction with substance: Its 12,000 Pa motor isn’t just a big number. It reliably picks up pet hair, food crumbs, and dust from both hard floors and carpets without needing a second pass.
• Mopping that means it: The dual spinning pads don’t just drag a damp cloth over the floor. They scrub with enough pressure to lift dried spots I used to tackle by hand.
• Smart pad swapping: When it detects full carpeting, the robot drops its mop pads at the dock, cleans the carpet, and then picks them back up to resume mopping.
• Knows its way around: Between Lidar and AI cameras, it steers clear of pencils, charging cables, and the occasional sneaker that my daughter leaves in the middle of the room.
• A dock that does the dirty work: It empties the dustbin, washes the mop pads with hot water, dries them with heated air, and automatically refills the robot’s mop tank from its clean‑water reservoir so I don’t have to.
• Edges and corners aren’t an afterthought: An extendable side brush and mop arm get right into spots most round robots ignore.
• Enough battery for a lazy Sunday: The large battery lets it cover my living room, bedrooms, and kitchen on max suction and still come back with plenty left in the tank.

When Features Meet Real Floors

All the clever tricks in the world don’t mean much if the robot can’t keep up with the real mess in regular homes. I put the X40 Ultra through my usual mix of daily dirt, pet hair, and the occasional mystery spill, and it handled almost everything without me stepping in.

Vacuuming was sort of what I expected. On hard floors, it rarely left stray crumbs behind, even along the edges where others tend to miss. On carpets, it pulled up the fine dust that makes the vacuum bin look more satisfying and slightly alarming after each run.

But the mopping surprised me more, or rather, it pleasantly shocked me. Instead of leaving a faint streak or damp patch, it actually lifted dried coffee spots and dog paw prints in one pass. For the most part, I kept the deep cleaning mode ‘ON’, which ensured better mopping. The robot is designed to clean the dirtier parts of the floor first, so it follows its own AI-decided path for cleaning, which might seem random to us.

Navigation was sharp, with barely any collisions. It skirted around cables, toys, and dog bowls like it had been cleaning my house for months, not days. That consistency meant I could finally run it on a schedule without worrying it would get stuck halfway through. After every clean, it marked the obstacles on the app along with a picture of them taken from its AI camera. That AI camera can be used like a monitoring camera, which I found very handy to keep a tab on my dog when I was away.

Once the mopping was done, the dock took over and cleaned the pads with water that it automatically heated to 70°C to kill bacteria. What’s more. It even dries the mop pads so that we don’t get the dirty smell. Weirdly, the dock reserves its detergent for pad cleaning but doesn’t mix any into the hot water that actually washes your floors.

Noise levels were noticeable on max suction, but not disruptive enough to stop a conversation or movie in the next room. Battery life was generous too, and I never saw it below 50% of charge even after deep cleaning the whole house.

Where It Struggled

Perfection still eludes even the best robots. While it managed pet hair well, the X40 Ultra somehow found it tough to pick up longer strands of human hair. In these 30+ days of usage, there has been one time I noticed some hair strangling the brush, but thankfully, it was right in the middle and needed very little effort to detangle and remove.

Though it cleans corners better than other robot vacuums I’ve used, it still struggles to pick up debris with its single rotating brush. The brush went out of shape after around 60 hours of usage, but thankfully, Dreame has made available the accessory kit for X40 Ultra (buy link) for just Rs 2,299, which includes the main brush, 2 side brushes, 2 dust bags, and a few others.

While it managed to mop regular liquid spills, it’s not great with sticky spots that would usually require some extra pressure. None of these were deal-breakers, but they were reminders that even top-end automation isn’t entirely set-and-forget.

App Experience: It Works, but Not Without Quirks

The Dreamehome app gives you complete control over the robot, from scheduling and mapping to adjusting suction, mop settings, and obstacle avoidance. That level of customization is a big part of the X40 Ultra’s appeal: everything is tweakable, including AI-driven mop extension, virtual barriers, and multi-floor mapping.

But it isn’t flawless. There are little things that made me grin — like a button that says “Cleanup Paused” instead of simply “Pause.” Also, every time you fire up the app, it throws up a pop-up for subscribing to their newsletter with no option to disable permanently.

Despite those minor annoyances, the app mostly works intuitively. I can check cleaning progress, reroute the robot if needed, or alter settings – all from my phone.

Dreame X40 Ultra Review Verdict

In a home that usually exposes a robot’s limits, the X40 Ultra has kept pace without me having to babysit the robot. After weeks of use, it’s the first one in years that has wrapped up a job without me planning a manual follow-up. That alone has changed how often I even think about floor cleaning.

The engineer in me can’t stop appreciating the modular design. There are no pipes or screws, and you don’t need to manually attach or remove anything. The mop pads attach or detach automatically as per the task, the robot fetches clean water from the reservoir and pumps out the dirty water back, and dust is automatically collected in a dust bag, which has lasted over a month (~32+ hours). The only manual work is to refill clean water and clear the dirty water on a daily basis.

It does come with strings attached: a premium price, a large base, and the need for a 16A outlet (or an adapter), so placement needs a bit of planning. Even so, what you get back is time – fewer rescues, fewer missed patches, and far less tinkering between runs.

Day to day, the pickup is reliably strong on hard floors and carpets, but the best part is mopping that actually works. Multi-floor mapping and object avoidance keep it moving instead of stalling. The dock handles the messy upkeep – emptying, washing, drying, refilling — and the camera view doubles as a quick pet check when I’m away.

It isn’t spotless every single time. Sticky residue can still need a quick wipe, and long strands of hair can wind around the brush occasionally. The app is powerful but rough in places (quirky labels, a recurring newsletter prompt), and it gets loud on the top setting.

If your floors see pet hair, kids, and daily mess, this makes sense despite the price. If you only need basic vacuuming, there are simpler, cheaper picks that will do. For everyone else, this is the closest I’ve come to letting a robot take over the floors.

Buy Dreame X40 Ultra (India)
Buy Dreame X40 Ultra (USA)

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