The name of the game for robot vacuums like the new DreamBot L10s is convenience. There are much cheaper options for automated vacuums to dust or mop your floors, but the reason to consider this all-in-one cleaning option is for advanced features that aim to alleviate your daily cleaning tasks.

After some time with the DreamBot L10s, the product surprised me in a number of ways. On the one hand, I've been impressed with its ability to navigate my home and create detailed maps, complete with furniture and flooring types. On the other hand, it hasn't been reliable in how well it actually cleans the floors—an obvious problem for this particular type of product.

If the DreameBot L10s wasn't such a premium-priced device it might warrant less scrutiny of its cleaning skills. No one should be expecting perfection from an automated robot—yet. But the DreameBot costs a lot—making its overall value less than stellar.

Thanks to its self-emptying charging station, the Dreamebot L10s Ultra can vacuum and mop and then empty its dust and dirty water on its own. The station will also dry the mop pads, refill water and add cleaning solution if that has been purchased.

To navigate, the device uses an RGB camera along with what Dreametech calls "3D structured light." That's a fancy way of saying lidar, or light detection and ranging, which works by using light to gauge the depth and height of rooms and objects. For vacuuming, the L10s Ultra has a suction rating of 5,300 pascals (Pa) at its most powerful level.

Beyond its use in navigation, the Dreamebot's camera can also be utilized to patrol your home. You can remotely view the camera through the mobile app and drive the vacuum to a specific location or have it automatically cruise around.

In terms of setup, I was pleasantly surprised by how simple and straightforward it was to download the app, connect the vacuum to Wi-Fi and then do an initial floor mapping. My familiarity with the robot vacuuming world may influence my opinion, but I was also very surprised by the design of the Dreamehome mobile app. It follows a lot of the same conventions as similar products, but it's not an exact copy.

The DreameBot L10s Ultra is pitched as an advanced cleaning machine and priced accordingly. With this type of product, the premium cost is justified by the vacuum's ability to be self-sufficient. Beyond being self-emptying, it should also have great object avoidance so it's not getting stuck or continually finding trouble areas.

I have a few of those trouble spots in my house that most robot vacuums aren't very good at navigating. Things like raised tile in front of a fireplace, tight corners or shiny metal furniture legs always present problems. The L10s Ultra wasn't flawless at navigating its surroundings, but it did do a very good job at avoiding those things in my home. Plus the times it did get itself into tight areas it was able to also get out. It didn't bang into any walls. Its carpet cleaning lines were impeccably straight. It also handled new objects, like shoes, with skill.

One area of object detection that was curious to me was its relationship with cords. I knew it saw the USB-C cables I had on the ground because it identified them on its map. It even highlighted the cable in a picture and gave it an 87-percent accuracy rating for how certain it was about what it was seeing. Still, there were a few instances over time of its grabbing a cord it shouldn't have.

Unfortunately, as impressed, or at least as satisfied, as I was with the device's ability to navigate a room, I was less thrilled with its actual cleaning skills. Initially it seemed to be doing a fine job when I was focused only on its maneuvering. But then I noticed several times when a crumb or two hadn't been picked up.

I then set a few very realistic scenarios to see how it did. First, I went to the hall closet, grabbed my kids' shoes and emptied them onto the hardwood floor. Predictably, there were bits of sand everywhere. The L10s Ultra ended up leaving behind a lot of the small grains after it passed over the area. It wasn't noticeable at first glance, but you could certainly still feel the sand on your feet and see plenty of pieces if you were looking for it.

Another time I grabbed a handful of chips and crushed them in the middle of the kitchen floor. I wanted to gauge how this vacuum did with very obvious messes that might need to be spot cleaned—compared to general dust gathering. It left an embarrassing amount of chip crumbs behind.

Right after it finished, I gave the vacuum a second chance to redeem itself by sending it back to the kitchen in vacuum-only mode (with no mopping) with its suction level set to turbo—its highest setting. It still didn't get all the chip pieces I dropped on the floor, but it got most of them with the higher suction level.

One problem with continually setting the vacuum at the highest suction is its constant loud noise. It would be hard for me to hear that level of sound continuously were it cleaning while I was home. After a third pass over the chips, the L10s Ultra was able to completely clean the floor, save for one single piece.

There were other tests and observations over time that all yielded hit-or-miss results. Often it did a fine job, but there were enough instances when debris was left behind and its cleaning efforts were less than helpful.

If the DreamBot L10s Ultra would have done a better job at reliably picking up crumbs and dirt on a single pass, it would be a must-have product for anyone tired of daily cleaning. As it stands, its disappointing cleaning performance negates much of its appeal—and makes it too expensive compared with other options on the market right now.

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