Long hair can be a giant pain when it comes to robot vacuums, winding around the main and side brushes until things grind to a halt. Narwal's affordable Freo Pro robovac and mop comprehensively solves this problem with a pair of smart innovations.
Let's deal with the basics first: don't be fooled by the "Pro" in the name – the Freo Pro is actually Narwal's most affordable robovac at the moment. But it competes well on features and performance against others at premium price points.
At the heart of it, this is a robot floor cleaner pitched further toward the hard floor end of the spectrum than to carpets, thanks to a juicy big pair of scrubbing mops that can put a decent bit of pressure down onto a mess as they work.
Its 8,500-Pa vacuum suction puts it toward the higher end of what's available, and as with most wet/dry cleaning robots, it'll go back to its base station to clean and dry its mops as it charges.
Oddly, it doesn't empty its dust canister at the same time. Instead, Narwal has built in a "dust compression" system, so whatever's in the canister gets packed in there pretty densely as time goes by, and it doesn't seem to affect performance too badly.
Narwal says it doesn't need to be emptied for "up to 7 weeks," but that certainly isn't the case in my disgrace of a hovel, where my two kids seem hell-bent on covering the carpets in as much crap as possible on a daily basis. If I leave the canister in there for three or four days, it'll be absolutely stuffed full. This is not Narwal's fault.
When it's time to tip the dust out, the Freo Pro dust canister design is terrific; hold it over the bin, squeeze a tab, and the dust falls out in a single big lump most of the time rather than breaking up into a cloud of tomorrow's problem.
In terms of intelligence, the Freo Pro maps out your house quickly and efficiently. The app isn't a whole lot of fun to use – as is typical of many of these Chinese-built robots – but it does the job well enough after a bit of setup and tweaking.
Its AI DirtSense system "intelligently analyzes dirt levels" as it works, so it's supposed to go over stains and spills until they're sorted out. I can't say I've really noticed it working harder on particular areas in the couple of months I've had it running around my house, but then for reasons stated above, it's probably fair to say the whole floor would qualify as a crisis on most days.
I'll say this though: The Freo Pro definitely seems to do a better job avoiding obstacles than the Eureka J20 I've been running it against lately. It's not perfect; it'll swallow the odd clothes peg, chew on a rubber glove and munch the odd sock. Like all robovacs, it has an insatiable appetite for charging cables and will yank them from the wall and gobble them up given the slightest opportunity. But it does seem to run into notably fewer problems than the Eureka machine – it hasn't tried to fling itself off steps or ride any guitars out of the room – and it seems to need a lot less rescuing as a result.
AI Mode cleaning seems to work about as well for me as going through and setting up each room individually, which is very well, so in my experience I'd say this machine doesn't need as much fine-tuning as some might. It's worth mentioning though that the Freo Pro seems to go through water a lot faster than other robots – that's odd in a house like mine that's entirely carpeted other than the bathroom and kitchen.
What else, before we get to the best bits? It's quiet – especially quiet if you run it at "regular" suction, but still not too antisocial when it's cranked up to maximum levels. It integrates with Alexa, Siri and Google Home so you can set it to work with voice controls. And the base station is easy to take apart for tray cleaning.
Where the Freo Pro really shines, though, is in how it deals with long hair – thanks to a pair of very clever designs that completely eliminate the kinds of tangles that can bring other units to a halt.
To begin with, the main roller brush doesn't turn on a double-sided spindle – it spins on a single-sided mount, then tapers down in a slightly conical shape that leaves the other end floating. The result: long hairs might start to wrap around the brush, but they quickly move down the cone shape and get sucked through at the loose end. This does make the brush a tiny bit more fiddly to put back in if the Freo Pro tries to eat something, but not once in the last two months have I had to go through the slightly gross task of untangling hairs from this roller brush.
Likewise, the side brushes (and there are two, which is great) are also designed with long hair in mind. Each is a split design with two brush arms, and these automatically vary their angles, sometimes sitting in a wide V, other times pulling in toward parallel. The idea here is that long hairs will get wrapped around the side brushes as per normal in their V formation, but then as the brushes come in toward that parallel configuration, the hair loosens and gets flung straight into the main vacuum.
There are two and a half long-haired inhabitants in this house. With other robovacs, I've frequently had to pull, tear and cut tangles away from the brushes. I haven't had to do this once with the Narwal. Outstanding!
At US$599.99, the Narwal Freo Pro is a mid-priced option in a robot vacuum market that now sees robovac/mops rolling out closer to $200. But its excellent mopping capabilities, competent obstacle avoidance, powerful 8,500-Pa suction and brilliant handling of long hair make this feel much more like a premium option. I rate it considerably higher than the $1,099 Eureka J20. I'm impressed!
Source: Narwal
