Finally! A robot vacuum that can climb stairs (well, kind of)

As ZDNET’s Maria Diaz reported, the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas revealed some interesting innovations in the realm of robot vacuums. Roborock’s new flagship model, for example, has a robotic arm that uses precision sensors and a camera to pick up socks.

Also: CES 2025: The most impressive products so far

According to Dreame, its new flagship model, the X50 Ultra, can “literally climb stairs.” That marketing claim is technically accurate — if the stairs are less than two inches tall.

A step forward for robot vacuums

It’s surely a step forward in robot vacuum engineering, but let’s not envision a bot that can clean your ground-level living space, empty itself, clean your staircase, and then continue sweeping your bedrooms on the second floor. Not just yet.

Still, the X50 Ultra’s ability to cross harmlessly over cords and more efficiently surmount the threshold of a doorway makes it an eye-catching addition to Dreame’s portfolio. Many budget robot vacuums stutter at the challenge of moving from one room to another if the entryway presents an elevated barrier, like a transition strip.

Not a budget robot vacuum 

To be clear, debuting at $1,700, Dreame’s X50 Ultra is not a budget vacuum. Placing it at the market’s high end is Dreame’s ProLeap System and the world’s first extendable double-jointed legs on a robot vacuum, which enables it to crawl over obstacles as high as six centimeters to do its job.

The price point for the X50 Ultra is appropriate for its mighty 20,000Pa of suction power, coming in second only to Roborock’s Saros Z70’s  22,000Pa, also introduced at CES this week.

Also: The best robot vacuum of CES 2025 – and 4 others that impressed us

Most appealing is Dreame’s claim that the X50, with its 360-degree scanning capability, can detect as many as 200 different objects, including pet droppings. To me, no robot vacuum feature is more important than its ability to avoid smearing poop across your hardwood, laminate, or especially carpet. We’ll have to wait for testing at the ZDNET lab to confirm its efficacy in that (crappy) scenario.

Integral to robot vacuum design is its vertical volume. Taking a page from Roborock’s playbook, the Dreame X50 Ultra can likewise retract its LiDAR tower to get under low-lying furniture as low as 3.5 inches (89 mm). We can expect retractable laser towers to become more common, at least until LiDAR can be integrated without moving parts.

The most notable step up from its predecessor, the X40, is the inclusion of two roller brushes instead of one. Its HyperStream Detangling DuoBrush consists of dual brushes that work in tandem (i.e., spin in coordinated revolutions) to prevent long strands of tangled hair from being caught in its rollers.

Also: The best CES 2025 products you can buy right now

Like its predecessor, the X40, the Dreame X50 Ultra has two mop pads that can raise to 10.5 mm for high-pile carpets and a MopExtend RoboSwing side brush for precision cleaning in corners and along edges. In case you intend to run it over low-pile carpet like Berber, the mop pads are easily removable.

The X50 Ultra also comes with hot water mop washing, hot air drying, dustbin compression for taming fluffy pet hair, and the addition of two bacteria-killing UV lamps. It also has a self-cleaning filter and tray.

Availability

The Dreame X50 Ultra is now available for pre-order, with deliveries starting on February 14. The regular price is $1,699, but early bird pre-orders can get a discount of $390, making the total cost $1,309. This discounted price includes a three-year warranty with an additional two years free for a total of five years of coverage.