josephine.watson@futurenet.com (Josephine Watson)
Dreame’s X50 Ultra Complete can climb stairs, but its rigorous edge cleaning is what makes it my top robovac of 2025
Dreame X50 Ultra Complete: price & availability
- Announced January 2025, on sale from spring 2025
- List price: $1,699.99 / £1,299 / AU$2,999
At its $1,699.99 / £1,299.00 / AU$2,999.00 list price, the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete is one of the most expensive robot vacuums you can buy today. It’s available to buy directly from Dreame, as well as via third-party retailers such as Amazon.
Thankfully, Dreame isn’t afraid of a good deal, and in the months since its release I’ve seen the price drop by $340 / £150 / AU$200. At its list price, it’s toeing the line of being overpriced, but its early deals make for a strong value proposition. It’s fairly common for flagship bots to cost well into the four figures these days, and the features here are in line with (or exceed) what you’d get elsewhere for a similar price.
Plus, Dreame is generous with accessories. Out of the box, you not only get the vacuum and base (which are pre-loaded with a dust bag, filters, a side brush and brush rolls), but you also get a full bottle of Dreame’s Multi-surface floor cleaner, two pre-loaded mop pads and ten replacement pads, two spare side brushes, two spare roller brushes, three spare filters and a cleaning brush for the water tanks, making for low maintenance costs in the first year or so.
- Value for money score: 4 out of 5
Dreame X50 Ultra Complete specs
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Max suction: |
20,000Pa |
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Robot diameter: |
13.8in / 35cm |
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Robot height:
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3.5in / 8.9cm (with puck retracted) |
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Dock dimensions (W x D x H): |
13.4 x 10.2 x 23.2 in / 34 x 26 x 59cm (excluding ramp) |
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Max threshold clearance: |
2.4 in / 6cm |
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Onboard dustbin volume: |
300ml |
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Onboard water tank capacity: |
80ml |
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Dock dust bag volume: |
3.2L |
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Dock water tank capacity: |
4.5L clean / 4L dirty |
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Base type:
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Charge, self-empty, refill water, wash mop pads, clean and dry mop pads, dispense detergent, self-clean |
Dreame X50 Ultra Complete: design
- Robot’s navigation puck can retract to enter low spaces
- Underneath are tiny legs to hoist the bot over tall thresholds
- Comprehensive dock with heated mop cleaning and UV light treatment
Looks-wise, the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete doesn’t break any conventions. Both the vacuum and its dock are fairly neutral, clad in either white or black with gold or gunmetal accents.
The base is slim at 13.4 x 10.2 x 23.2 in / 34 x 26 x 59cm – although you’ll need to add space for the ramp and maneuvering room for the robot to dock. Lift up its lid and you’ll find both the fresh and waste water tanks, while the dust bag and detergent tank are behind the accent panel on the front of the base. It’s also compatible with the Dreame Water Hookup Kit if you wanted a fully automated water refill and drainage system, which is a nice added benefit; I didn’t test this for my review, but broadly speaking, these hookup systems are fairly reliable.
Behind the scenes, there’s a lot more going on in the base; it’s self-emptying and refilling, but also packs cleaning tech for both the dust bin and mop pads, offering heated water mop wetting and hot air drying as well as UV light treatment for bacteria removal.
The robot itself similarly manages to pack ample features and functionality into its relatively compact body. It benefits from the direct time of flight (DToF) sensors situated within the sensor tower for accurate navigation and mapping. This can sink into the robovac in order to reach beneath low-clearance furniture, where it relies on its front-facing camera for navigation and obstacle detection instead. You can remove the lid of the robot vacuum to access the dust bin and set up QR code.
The underside is where the action happens. Here is where you’ll find its array of cleaning tools. Let’s get the bad news out of the way; while the extending side-arm is fantastic for edge cleaning, my robovac nemesis as a long-haired person are bristled side-arms. Hair is easily tangled, but I’ve yet to test a robovac where I don’t face this problem. Thankfully, the dual brush rollers (Dreame calls these the Hypersteam Detangling Duobrush) are super effective, making light work of pet and human hair alike.
You’ll also find the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete’s golden goose amidst the cleaning tools: two stumpy ‘legs’ that allow the vacuum to safely propel itself over small thresholds and furniture legs.
- Design score: 5 out of 5
Dreame X50 Ultra: performance
- Thorough vacuuming, superb mopping, and excellent edge cleaning
- Threshold clearing is impressive, but descents are alarmingly noisy
- Pop-down puck consistently identified low thresholds
After a painless five-minute setup and quick mapping, the Dreame X50 Ultra is a dream-e come true, passing almost all of my standard robovac tests with flying colors.
Let’s start with the special features. The tiny legs could be a game-changer for anyone with tall thresholds. The vacuum will square up against the surface and extend its legs to vault itself up and on to the surface. This part is a little slow, but overall works extremely well. You can see it in action below (filmed at a press event, where I could capture a clearer view of the mechanism in action).
Moving downhill is a little less graceful, and involves charging off the ledge and landing with an alarming crash.
The pop-down puck also worked well on test. I found it consistently identified low-threshold obstacles and receded into the vacuum. The inaccessible area beneath my sofa has never been cleaner.
Cleaning tests
Now on to the general cleaning performance. For this, I ran a range of vacuuming and mopping tests on different floor types.
On hard floors, the X50 Ultra Complete was easily able to collect a majority of the large, small and powder debris on its first pass of the area. While its side brush did send some debris flying, the vacuum returned for second and third rounds of cleaning to collect any mess it had missed the first time around. The story was much the same on my low and high-pile carpets, though as I’d expect, there was some residue left behind from the powder and fine debris.
When it comes to mopping, I was most impressed with the X50 Ultra, offering the most thorough mopping I’ve experienced so far, with ample controls in-app to customize your clean. I put the X50 Ultra to the test with sticky spills, wet spills and dried-on stains, and it cleaned each with ease, though did leave some small streaks. You can either mix in the Dreame-approved detergent directly to the water tank or use the built-in automated detergent tank; I found both worked well.
Edge cleaning is similarly impressive, thanks to the extending side-arm and mop pads, which paired with the X50 Ultra Complete’s excellent mapping to offer the most rigorous edge clean I’ve personally experienced.
The X50 Ultra Complete successfully identified all of the flooring types in my apartment, automatically adjusting the level of suction and mopping based on floor type and dirt levels. It features the increasingly popular mop-pad-lifting tech that keeps your carpets from getting soggy.
Broadly speaking, its obstacle detection is solid, though there were some exceptions; you’ll want to make sure small obstacles like shorter wires, crumpled paper and socks are cleared before setting of the X50 Ultra Complete.
Poop detection, however, has a quirk. Before I turned on Pet mode, the X50 Ultra Complete repeatedly failed to spot and avoid my mock pet poop. Instead, it barreled headfirst into the fake feces multiple times, especially when navigating between rooms, in low-light or on dark backdrops. However, its dodge rate improved significantly with Pet mode turned on. The X50 was able to avoid my fake pet poop 95% of the time with this mode on. (This is one of the
