Of all the reviews I’ve tackled in 2025, Dyson’s new robotic vacuum cleaner arrived with the greatest air of excitement. No, really. I love my Dyson stick vacuum, was disappointed to discover how poorly Dyson’s last robovac reviewed, and I’m a sucker for a good old-fashioned redemption story.
It’s called, rather clumsily, the Spot+Scrub Ai. This is Dyson’s attempt to redeem itself in the robovac world, by sprinkling a bit of the bagless, semi-transparent, cyclone tech magic that’s made the British-Singaporean firm so successful in the posh vacuum space.
You’ll have to hold tight for my full review, but my first impressions of the new bot are good. The disappointing 360 Vis Nav of 2023 failed to trouble TechRadar’s best robot vacuum ranking. Despite possessing a sky-high price tag, it was purely a vacuum, with no mopping function and no self-emptying capabilities.
The Spot+Scrub Ai comes out firing on all cylinders with both of those functions present and correct. It’s got a clever, roller-style mop that’s fed by an onboard water tank, and a base station that charges the battery, cleans and dries the mop, and uses Dyson’s cyclone technology to empty the robot’s dust bin.
Pleasingly, the base station is bagless – something that’s surprisingly rare in the robovac space. Instead of buying new bags every few months, and trying to work out what sort and size of bag the robot needs, you simply lift the dust collector out and empty it into a bin, as you would any other Dyson stick vac.
I’d rather the contents of the bin weren’t visible through a clear plastic window, as if to display to visitors just how dirty my carpets were before they arrived, but I accept it’s a design trait that echoes the rest of the Dyson aesthetic. I’d also like Dyson to include some mopping detergent in the box. Adding some to the water tank is one of the first instructions, yet it’s sold separately for £19.99. For a £1,050 vacuum (US and AU price TBC) that feels a bit mean.
A bit of a dis-app-ointment
The setup process is simple enough, and especially so if you’ve used any other robotic vacuum cleaner. However, so far I’ve found the app a little disappointing – for a premium, tech-first firm like Dyson I’d expected better. It isn’t unstable, nor is it full of the poorly translated English seen in rival vacuum apps, but it isn’t particularly logical either, and I had issues editing my map after the bot failed to identify some doorways on its initial mapping run.
For a robovac that apparently possesses artificial intelligence smart enough to identify over 190 objects and substances – best not to dwell on the latter – failing to spot a doorway, even when there’s a threshold and a change from wood flooring to carpet, is disappointing. Perhaps I’m being picky, but anyone spending four figures on a robovac has every right to be. And in any case, rival vacuums I’ve tested do a much better job of mapping doorways and even labeling rooms based on their contents.
A couple of other app issues, I’m afraid. The robot adds orange traffic cone icons to the map after a clean, but they’re not labeled and tapping them does nothing. Has it spotted a sock, a stray USB cable or a mouse? I’ll never know. Rivals at least try to guess, and some even attach a photo, though they often resemble evidence from a Netflix crime documentary.
Also, despite spending time labeling the map – lounge, kitchen, hallway, toilet, etc – these tags are frustratingly missing on the screen for telling the robot where to clean, and are instead assigned a number. My kitchen and living room have the same icon, for some reason, and since I live in a predictably symmetrical newbuild house, it isn’t immediately obvious which is which. Always best to double-check, or I’ll worry that the Dyson will try to mop the lounge carpet instead of the kitchen.
My first impressions of the app aren’t great, but I’ll overlook these if the rest of the robot lives up to expectations – and, after a couple of cleans, the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai seems pretty smart. It navigates well – something its predecessor struggled with – and I think it looks good, as far as these things go. I also like the bagless design and I’m particularly keen to see how well it mops. Given its roller design, ability to reach into corners, and use of warm water to clean itself, I have high hopes – plus it claims to use AI to spot dirt and scrub at those bits more aggressively, which will be interesting to test over the holiday period.
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