[REVIEW] Dreame Bot Z10 Pro is an improved flagship model with automatic emptying

We’re bringing you another exclusive review of a new robot vacuum cleaner that’s just starting to hit the market. It’s an upgraded flagship model, the Dreame Bot Z10 Pro, with automatic emptying.

We recently tested the Dreame Bot L10 Pro, which is one of the best robot vacuum cleaners we’ve had the chance to try. With this new model also featuring a station for automatic emptying, we have high expectations. Let’s see if they’re met. Read our detailed review, where you won’t miss the vacuuming and mopping quality test.

Where to buy the Dreame Bot Z10 Pro?

We had a robot vacuum cleaner available directly from the manufacturer even before it officially went on sale. You can buy it right now in Dreame’s official store on AliExpress. It will be delivered to you express from a warehouse in Poland, and VAT is already included in the product price.

Basic parameters at a glance

We’ve also written about the Dreame Bot Z10 Pro robot vacuum cleaner on our Xiaomiplanet.sk site. This is a complete new release from Dreame, offering high suction power—up to 4000 Pa. You get 4 suction levels, which you can choose in the app.

The well-known Lidar system will take care of navigation throughout your home. Thanks to localization and space-mapping systems, the vacuum can effectively avoid obstacles and also creates a 3D model of the area it moves through. We tested obstacle avoidance with sudden obstacles already on the L10 Pro model, where it worked excellently. Here, we expect the same results.

The vacuum can handle obstacles up to a maximum of 20 mm, similar to other robotic vacuums. The dust bin has a capacity of 400 ml, but the vacuum is also supplied with a station for automatic emptying with a dust bag with a capacity of 4 L. The water tank holds 150 ml.

The rechargeable battery inside the vacuum has a capacity of 5 200 mAh, which should be enough for up to 2.5 h of cleaning for your home (approximately 250 m²).

Package contents

The Dreame Bot Z10 Pro robotic vacuum was delivered by a courier, who told us: “I have a bigger package from China for you.” The box for this robotic vacuum is indeed significantly larger than those of typical robotic vacuums, because it also includes the automatic emptying station.

The package dimensions are 52 x 38.5 x 44 cm, and the vacuum box is protected by an additional cardboard box. A plastic handle sticking out in the middle makes the box easier to carry, even though it’s quite heavy.

Inside, you’ll find, in the top section, a clear user manual, a three-pronged brush for bristles, a replacement dust bag, a mop, and a power cable placed in a cardboard divider box. Below that, there’s the vacuum packed in protective film.

At the very bottom, you’ll find the docking station for automatic emptying, also protected with film. All components are packaged very precisely and protected against any damage.

Design, build quality, and placement of the elements

We received the Dreame Bot Z10 Pro robotic vacuum in dark gray. The vacuum itself has a glossy top part, while the rest is matte. On the top you’ll find the Lidar system, 3 control buttons, and a removable cover flap underneath which you’ll find the dirt container.

Around the vacuum cleaner there are sensors that prevent it from bumping into obstacles and the exhaust outlets through which air is expelled from the vacuum. One half of the perimeter part also acts as a bumper that is slightly compressible so the vacuum can detect a potential impact.

The underside is traditionally where you’ll find the main rotating brush, which you can remove and clean, and you can even wash it. In addition to the main brush, there’s also a small three-armed broom for sweeping dirt from the edges of rooms and corners. There are also drop sensors for preventing falls down stairs. Plus, unlike typical vacuum cleaners, there are a pair of openings that are used to empty the dust bin into a bag in the charging station.

The charging station mentioned above is quite large and also includes a stand that the vacuum cleaner “climbs” onto. The Dreame Bot Z10 Pro empties from the bottom. So it uses a different system than the Viomi S9 that we recently tested. That’s why the charging station is significantly larger than the Viomi S9’s—its height is almost 50 cm.

In our case, the whole charging station with the waste bag is matte, in grey, which makes it feel a bit cheap. The large base also doesn’t add much in terms of elegance. The waste bag is accessible from the top, where you’ll find a removable cover flap. The front side only has the brand logo and a white LED status indicator diode.

As for build quality, it’s at a good level despite the fact that almost everything is made of plastic.

Pairing and getting to know the app

The vacuum works with the Xiaomi Home app, as it belongs to the Xiaomi ecosystem. The app automatically detected the Dreame Bot Z10 Pro vacuum nearby, so we didn’t need to look for it in the device list or scan any QR code.

Adding it is fast and trouble-free: just select your home WiFi network, enter the password, and the vacuum automatically pairs with the app, where you can add the new device to your own room.

The home screen is the same as on the other Dreame vacuum cleaners. You’ll find a map (after the first clean), the area size in m², the time of the last cleaning, a battery icon that unfortunately doesn’t show the percentage, switching between room cleaning, the entire map, or a zone, and also map and virtual wall management.

At the bottom of the screen, you’ll also find buttons to start cleaning and a button for charging. However, while writing this review, we got a firmware update for the vacuum from version 3.5.8_1028 to version 4.1.7_1056. It brought excellent improvements to how the main screen is displayed.

We finally got the battery percentage display, as well as settings for the suction and mopping level directly from the main screen. You can compare the old and new main screens in the screenshots below.

First power-on, space recognition, and modes

The first cleaning is all about discovering the rooms. The map gradually appears on the main screen of the app. We tested the vacuum in a 3-room apartment with an area of 69 m², but since it can’t reach the bathroom or toilet due to the higher thresholds—and we also didn’t let it go into the wardrobe—the cleaned area was 34 m².

The first cleaning took 45 minutes, but most of the following ones were faster (29 – 32 minutes). The map was somewhat nonsensically automatically split into only 2 rooms, where the second one is just a small section behind the sofa, which in reality isn’t a room.

The obstacle-avoidance system using sensors works very well, and the vacuum barely bumps into any obstacles. It can also effectively avoid an unexpected obstacle we placed in front of the vacuum while it was running. It works in the same way as the recently tested Dreame Bot L10 Pro model.

There are 4 suction levels – quiet, standard, strong, and turbo. The default is the standard mode. For mopping, you can choose from 3 water-flow levels – low, medium, and high.

Vacuuming performance

The Dreame Bot Z10 Pro has suction power of up to 4000 Pa. Cleaning quality is good even in standard mode, but some debris is only removed in turbo mode. The biggest issue for the vacuum is solid particles such as small stones on a doormat from shoes.

The vacuum also isn’t a good friend of carpets with long pile, where it sometimes spends more time than necessary. You can even see this in the suction map, where its route is displayed. What’s strange is that it only happens sometimes. In most cases, the vacuum passes over carpets without any problems.

We tested the cleaning performance the traditional way too—by scattering breadcrumbs mixed with coffee and red lentils on the kitchen floor. Here’s what it looked like before vacuuming:

After the first vacuuming, the floor was not quite clean. The vacuum has enough suction power, but the three-armed brush managed to scatter dirt onto areas that had already been vacuumed.

If you happen to spill a larger amount of coffee, flour, or anything else, let the vacuum clean that area at least twice—ideally three times. Even after the second round, the floor still wasn’t completely clean, again because the brush was scattering the dirt to different spots.

Mopping quality

The vacuum comes with a mop that attaches to the underside of the vacuum. Water is poured directly into a tank that holds the cloth. The mop is a bit smaller than we’re used to, and given the smaller cloth area, we had some concerns about the mopping quality.

We spilled water mixed with cocoa and food coloring on the floor in our kitchen. Before mopping, it looked like this:

After the first mopping pass, the vacuum only slightly spread the stains around the floor.

After the second attempt, it managed to remove some of the stains. The third mopping session improved the overall result a little, but it’s still just average. The small mop area and weak water flow meant that even this robot vacuum doesn’t stand out for mopping quality. It also can’t deal with fully dried stains at all.

Map customization options

The Map Management tab contains the map currently used for vacuuming or mopping. You can save up to 3 maps, and then switch between them manually. That makes the vacuum useful even in multi-storey spaces.

After clicking on the map you want to edit, there are 3 options available: combine rooms, split them, or rename. You still can’t choose custom room names. Only a few predefined options are available, but they’re enough for typical apartments or houses.

Additional map customizations are on the main screen. You can add so-called virtual walls and no-go zones for vacuuming or mopping into the map. Using them works well, and the vacuum fairly accurately avoids the restricted zones and virtual walls.

Runtime on a single charge

The rechargeable battery inside the vacuum has a capacity of 5,200 mAh, which—according to the manufacturer—should be enough for 2.5 hours of home cleaning (approximately 250 m²). We tested the runtime on a single charge in all four cleaning modes.

We always started vacuuming with a fully charged battery. When the capacity dropped to 15 %, the vacuum announced that it’s returning to recharge at the docking station. In the home where we tested it, we had 2 small rugs, while the rest was hard flooring.

• silent mode – 3 h 17 min, 156 m²
• standard mode- 3 h, 142 m²
• strong mode- 2 h 22 min, 113 m²
• turbo mode- 1 h 20 min, 67 m²

The manufacturer-declared runtime of 2.5 hours and roughly 250 m² is quite imprecise. For example, in standard mode, the vacuum lasted up to 3 hours—but it covered only 142 m². Charging from 15% to 100% takes almost 4 hours, which is a pretty long time.

Settings and noise level

There are several customization options in the settings. Let’s look at the more interesting ones. The device settings include turning 3D obstacle avoidance on/off, adjusting volume and the language the vacuum uses to announce the start and end of cleaning, error messages, and similar features. There are 9 world languages available, but there’s no Slovak or Czech.

You can also enable performance boost when vacuuming carpets, a child lock that disables the buttons on the vacuum, or set it to automatically continue cleaning after it returns to recharge.

You can also set automatic waste collection into the bag at the charging station, which you can turn off or set to happen automatically after every one, two, or three completed cleaning sessions. You can schedule cleaning for a specific day and time, too—and even repeat it.

There’s also a history where you can view previous cleanings, as well as the total area, time, and number of cleanings completed. It’s also interesting to see the current status of the filter, side brush, main brush, and sensors.

When it comes to noise, we measured it with a sound level meter across all four modes:

• quiet: 55 dB
• standard: 57 dB
• strong: 60 dB
• turbo: 70 dB

Quick comparison with Viomi S9

Compared to the Viomi S9 we recently tested, this is a different type of vacuum, even though at first glance you wouldn’t notice. As we mentioned in the introduction, both vacuums have different automatic emptying systems. While the Viomi S9 docks for emptying directly onto the dust container, the Dreame Bot Z10 Pro is emptied from the bottom using openings on the bottom of the vacuum.

Another difference is the location of the waste container inside the vacuum. The Viomi S9 has a combined dust and water container that slides into the vacuum from the back. The Dreame Bot Z10 Pro, on the other hand, has an opening cover from the top, under which the dirt container is located, while the mop with the water tank is installed from the bottom.

One of the most interesting differences, though, is how well they avoid obstacles. Viomi S9 navigates by bumping, while Dreame Bot Z10 Pro uses sensors and 3D scanning to efficiently avoid obstacles and get around them in 95 % completely without contact.

Dreame Bot Z10 Pro: Final verdict

The Dreame Bot Z10 Pro is an upgraded flagship model that introduces a system for automatically emptying the dustbin. This recent trend works really well, so you don’t have to deal with the impractical chore of shaking dust out into the trash.

The vacuum cleaner also offers an exceptionally high suction power, up to 4000 Pa, 3D scanning of the room, and a system that helps it avoid obstacles. So the Dreame Bot Z10 Pro doesn’t crash into obstacles, but instead steers around them effectively. Cleaning quality is very good, but mopping is weaker.

We also like the app environment improvement—it now offers all the most commonly used settings directly on the home screen, where you can also see a map of the room. As a slight downside, we find the large and not very aesthetically pleasing emptying station.