Of all the reviews I’ve tackled in 2025, Dyson’s new robot vacuum arrived with the most excitement. No, really. I love my Dyson stick vacuum, was disappointed to find how badly Dyson’s last robovac was reviewed and I’m a sucker for a good old fashioned redemption story.
It’s rather clumsily called Spot+Scrub Ai. This is Dyson’s attempt to redeem itself in the robovac world by sprinkling some of the bagless, semi-transparent, cyclone technology magic that has made the British-Singaporean company so successful in the high-end vacuum space.
Happily, the base station is bagless – something that is surprisingly rare in the robovac space. Instead of buying new bags every few months and trying to figure out what kind and size of bag the robot needs, you simply lift out the dust collector and empty it into a bin as you would any other Dyson vacuum cleaner.
I’d rather the contents of the bin weren’t visible through a clear plastic window, as if to show visitors how dirty my carpets were before they arrived, but I accept that it’s a design feature that echoes the rest of the Dyson aesthetic. I would also like Dyson to include some mop detergent in the box. Adding some to the water tank is one of the first instructions, but it is sold separately for £19.99. For a £1,050 vacuum (US and AU price TBC) it feels a bit mean.
A bit of a dis-app salve
The setup process is simple enough, and especially if you’ve used any other robot vacuum cleaner. So far, though, I’ve found the app a little disappointing – for a premium, tech-first company like Dyson, I expected better. It’s not unstable, nor is it filled with the poorly translated English seen in rival vacuum apps, but it’s also not particularly logical, and I had trouble editing my map after the bot failed to identify some doorways in its initial mapping.
For a robovac that apparently possesses artificial intelligence smart enough to identify over 190 objects and substances – best not to dwell on the latter – it’s disappointing to fail to spot a doorway, even when there’s a threshold and a change from hardwood to carpet. Maybe 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 few other app issues I’m afraid. The bot adds orange traffic cone icons to the map after a cleaning, but they are not labeled and tapping them does nothing. Has it seen a sock, a usb cable or a mouse? I’ll never know. Rivals at least try to guess, and some even attach a photo, although they often look like evidence from a Netflix crime documentary.
Despite spending time tagging the map – living room, kitchen, hallway, toilet, etc. – these tags are frustratingly missing from the screen to tell 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 newly built house, it’s not immediately obvious which is which. It’s always best to double check or I’ll worry that the Dyson will try to wash the lounge rug 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 few 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 especially keen to see how well it mops. Due to its rolling design, ability to reach into corners and the use of hot water to clean itself, I have high hopes – plus it claims to use AI to spot dirt and scrub on these pieces more aggressively, which will be interesting to test over the holiday period.
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