- The new Narwal Flow vacuums forward then back for cleaner carpets
- A descending brush cover also improves pickup in deep carpets.
- A roller mop promises cleaner hard floors with fewer stains
Narwal has launched a whole fleet of new robot vacuums at CES 2025, but the one that has caught my attention the most is the Narwal Flow, which has an innovative way of making sure carpets are properly cleaned, as well as a pretty smart mop. System designed to remove dirt from hard floors, instead of simply staining it.
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We rate Narwal among the best robot vacuum cleaners out there. While its innovations are a little less flashy than what other brands are showing off at CES (Dreame’s new robot can climb stairs, Roborock’s has a mechanical arm that will pick up your socks, and SwitchBot’s will deliver your lunch), They might be more genuinely useful. .
Let’s start by vacuuming. Typically, robotic vacuums can struggle to extract dust from thicker carpets, but the Flow has different new features to help ensure a deeper clean. First, it will do a sort of moonwalk across the floor: first vacuum forward and then back, removing ingrained dirt and hair in both directions. The backward motion also helps lift the carpet fibers and release anything trapped deeper there. Narwal says this approach produces twice the dust collection compared to normal driving robots that only move forward.
The brushroll also has a cover that lowers near the floor when the robovac detects that it is on a carpeted area. This effectively creates a sort of vacuum (in the non-appliance sense) in the area, which increases pressure and improves pickup.
Unfortunately, there are no images illustrating the vacuuming features included in the press materials, so you’ll need to use your imagination here. When we tested Narwal’s previous flagship, the Narwal Freo Z Ultra, we weren’t impressed by the carpet cleaning powers, but the various fiber agitation functions, combined with an incredible 20,000 Pa maximum suction power, sound very promising.
go with the flow
Narwal Flow also has an innovative scrubbing system. Instead of the standard spinning mop pads or D-shaped mop, the Flow has a cloth-covered roller that rotates constantly (like a tank rail). This is fed with clean water from a small clean water tank on board, but the remaining dirty water is also drawn into a dirty water tank, to keep the roller as cool as possible.
Other premium hybrid robovacs may have a mop cleaning function built into the base unit, but this one constantly cleans its mop as it goes. The result should be cleaner hard floors, with fewer stains and spills.
The profile of the roller is wide and relatively flat rather than being a perfect circle, to maximize contact with the ground. It also runs in the opposite direction to the robot’s movement, to help agitate dried dirt, and can even kick to the side to get closer to the edges of rooms.
It’s not a new idea (it’s also appeared in models like the Eureka J20 robot vacuum cleaner, where it impressed our tester), but it’s still very uncommon and seems like a more effective mopping solution than existing alternatives.
Elsewhere, you get main and side brushes that are optimized to prevent hair from tangling and a side brush that extends when it finds a corner and can also reverse its direction (Narwal has learned a new trick and is applying it to all). Navigation is powered by dual RGB cameras (more on how robotic vacuums orient themselves here) and this robot is apparently capable of identifying over 200 common obstacles.
We don’t have details on pricing yet, although they are promised soon, with the Narwal Flow launching in mid-2025.
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