Announced during CES 2025, the Dreame X50 Ultra stood out from the crowd with a pair of retractable legs that allows it to step up, onto higher levels. It’s launching here in Australia from today, and I got to go hands on with it for a couple of months to try it out. 

Priced at $2,999, the Dreame X50 Ultra is a premium addition to the robot vacuum cleaner market in Australia. 

The Dreame X50 Ultra includes a number of features including the highlight, the ProLeap system which lets it scale barriers up to 4cm tall, and the VersaLift navigation system for object detection and avoidance, including avoiding pet mess, as well as charging cables and socks, while still getting close to – and even under furniture with impressive access to low clearance areas like under your couch. 

Dreame have also included the Dual Flex Arm Technology on the X50 Ultra, offering an extender for both the brush and mopping pad that allows it to clean even in those tight corners, and the vacuum offers up to 20,000Pa of suction to clean even the deepest pile carpets. 

We gave our in-house robot vacuum cleaner, Bob, a couple of months break and introduced Gus (My son names them). I’ve been using Gus for a couple of months and here’s how he went. 

Setup

The Dreame retail box is decently sized, though not overly heavy. I was able to set it up by myself easily, even with an injured leg. 

Inside the retail box you’ll find an instruction sheet, as well as the Dreame x50 Ultra itself, the base station and a box with power cable (standard kettle cord), brush, cleaning solution sample (200ml), mopping pads, spare dust bag, a ramp for the base station and of course instruction manual and warranty paperwork. 

Physical installation is easy, the dust bag is installed, so you’ll need to fill the cleaning solution tank, and install the mopping pads on the x50 Ultra itself. The clean and dirty water tanks are already in the base station, but you’ll need to add water. There is no ‘max fill’ line on the clean water tank, so don’t over-fill it. 

Once the unit is plugged into the wall, clean water and solution tanks filled, you can place the vacuum on the base station at which point it’s time for setup. 

Set up is done on your mobile, simply install the Dreamehome app for iOS or Android and begin the setup process. 

The setup process is surprisingly simple, you will need an account for the Dreamehome service, then it’s a follow the bouncing ball type setup initiated by putting the vacuum into setup mode – which the app will tell you how to do. 

Once you’re setup, the app will prompt you into mapping mode. The X50 Ultra will head around your house, scanning and then return to the base. 

The map itself is fairly rough, with the AI making educated guesses on what rooms you have and how they’re delineated – a bit of a stretch in some more open plan home. Still, it did it’s best and it was a great place to start. 

Using the Dreamehome app you can edit the map, splitting or merging areas and then renaming them. 

You can also set the floor type to let the vacuum know if it’s carpet or hard floor and what type.

Vacuum

Gus has been cruising around keeping our house clean for a month now and he’s become a valuable member of the family. 

He’s a silent assassin though, creeping around the house almost silently when moving between rooms. There’s some noise while vacuuming/mopping but it’s overall pretty quiet. 

There’s also the VersaLift Navigation for Low Space Cleaning – what this effectively means is the sensor on the top of the vacuum drops down to go under lower furniture. It lowers the profile of the vacuum, and it looks pretty cool when it pops up or lowers – going into sports mode as my son calls it.

The Versalift system uses AI + 3D Structured Light to identify up to 200 objects – including pet mess. An interesting affectation is that it’s an RGB sensor and the vacuum lights up in darkened rooms – I felt it a bit like Gus needed a light to feel safe, but he got the job done well, so whatever it takes.

Pets

The ‘Pet mess’ avoidance is part of the AI recognition system. It can recognise those ‘messes’ as well as recognise pets and take photos of them while it’s cleaning if they get curious. The pet mess avoidance is a real treat after some early robot vacuums didn’t have this feature. 

Of course I had to try out a bit of an obstacle course and it worked a treat.

Climbing the heights

One of the key features on the Dreame X50 Ultra is the ability to climb obstacles. Called the ProLeap system, it allows the Dreame X50 Ultra to clear obstacles up to 4cm high, or 6.4cm for dual thresholds.

The X50 Ultra found my laundry and main bathroom & toilet which have a raised threshold – automatically appending the app as having a passable barrier.  

My ensuite has so far defeated all robot vacuum cleaners to date – not so the Dreame X50 Ultra. 

The initial encounter wasn’t successful, however I found I could edit the map to add a passable barrier manually, at which point I started it again and I now get a full clean of the ensuite.

Watching the Dreame X50 Ultra actually navigate up a barrier is a real trip and you should give it a watch

Tight corners and more

The Dreame X50 Ultra includes both SideReach Vacuuming and MopExtend RoboSwing Technology. What does that mean? Well, it means the sweeper and the rear left mop move out to reach into places the body can’t quite reach. 

The ability to get into tight corners is a welcome one. The brush and the mop heads get right into the corners with the floor getting a better clean than other models with static brush and mop heads. It’s not perfect, but it does get right in there. 

The other bonus is that the brush and mop can actually get under doors if you have no room dividers. It’s a pretty neat little trick. 

Cleaning

This is obviously the most important thing with a robot cleaner. The Dreame X50 Ultra is spectacularly good though at both mopping and vacuuming. 

With 20,000Pa of suction power behind the HyperStream Detangling DuoBrush, the Dreame X50 Ultra is a beast when it comes to cleaning. The vacuum cleaner made short work of my longer pile carpet, giving it a thorough clean, while also doing an excellent job on my hard floors. 

The DuoBrush worked magic in not tangling hair around the rollers – not something to worry about with a ‘doodle’ dog that doesn’t shed, but we still have mysterious long hairs show up, however Gus has not spun a single hair into his rollers since he started. 

The obvious concern for robot cleaners is the mopping heads dragging on the carpet. The Dreame X50 Ultra has a mop lift of 10.5mm and at no stage did the carpet ever feel even damp after it ran through – even after a mopping cycle. 


Base Station – maintenance and charging

The base station – or as it’s listed, the Auto-Empty and Mop Self-Cleaning Station, is fairly compact, with a thinner profile that still packs in the clean and dirty water tanks as well as the dust storage, cleaning solution dispensing system and of course the mop cleaning system which includes drying – and charging – that is to say, it’s a lot, but it’s very well put together.

Consumables

The clean and dirty water tanks lasted a couple of cleans for me, in a 4-br home. You can fit 4.5L in the clean tank, and 4.5L in the dirty water tank to account for a little extra in there – with both tanks securely closing with a clip and are convenient to carry thanks to the handle on top. The tanks only fit in one side to avoid any issues with using the wrong tank.

The dust bag is still going on the original after a month, though there’s a spare included in the box. 

I used the sample cleaning solution, and it’s still going – though starting to run low. You’ll need to spend around $40 for a 1L bottle that should keep your floors looking fantastic for a fair while.

Mop

Of course with all that mopping, there’s mop pads involved. I love the magnetic release and attach of the Dreame X50 Ultra which lets it drop the pads for vacuum mode – and then reattach them when needed – and he’ll proudly announce he’s attaching the pads when he starts to clean.

When your robot returns to the base, it’s met with something called the AceClean DryBoard system for cleaning. This upgraded system fires 20 high-temp spray nozzles at the pads, doing away for cleaning them by hand. Dreame says this also gives the washboard a spotless streak-free appearance – and let me tell you, it’s clean, dry and the wife is happy. 

Charging

The Dreame X50 Ultra includes a 6,400mAh batteryDreame says you’ll get about 200 minutes of runtime out of it – and it was more than enough to get the whole house done on one charge.

After several years, our previous vacuum was starting to need a few goes to get the job done, so seeing it done on one charge, with room to spare, was brilliant. 

Charging does take a while to max out that big battery, around 4.5 hours to get to a full charge. You can monitor the battery life in  the app, with the battery status showing quite prominiently on the home screen.


Should you buy it?

It’s hard to fall in love with a robot, especially a robot mop/vacuum system, but Gus is now a fully fledged member of the household. 

The floors are clean in EVERY room of my house across carpets and hard floors. The X50 Ultra just does its thing and you rarely even hear him as he navigates around the house – though emptying the dust bag is still a little loud.

The Dreamehome app is easy to setup, and navigate to find all the awesome features packed in. It’s delightfully simple to activate it to clean the whole house, a room or even a just a spot. 

The premium market for robot cleaners is tight with competition, but the Dreame X50 Ultra makes a welcome addition for anyone who’s found their robot cleaner can’t access some areas of their home. It has all the premium functions, and just adds the neat ProLeap system to hurdle those barriers when needed. 

If you’re looking at robot cleaners, the Dreame X50 Ultra is definitely one to check out. You can find the Dreame X50 Ultra on the Dreame website, or over at JB Hifi, The Good Guys or Bing Lee.