Dreame L40 Ultra AE review: robot vacuum delivers top performance with one dealbreaker

Dreame L40 Ultra AE review

On DroidApp, we do often review robot vacuums. For instance, the Xiaomi Robot Vacuum 5 Pro review recently appeared online. However, there are more big(er) players in this market, including Roborock and Dreame. The latter previously came out with the Dreame L40 Ultra AE, and how it likes it, we tell you in our review.

Unboxing and setup

Upon opening the large cardboard box, it is immediately noticeable that Dreame wants to provide you right away. This means we come across several extras. A standard brush can already be found in the robot hoover, but you can also use the tri-cut brush, which is included. This is capable of cutting through hairs, for example, so your brush won't 'choke' on hairs. In addition, you will find an extra vacuum bag in the box, as well as floor cleaner and, of course, paperwork. Also, Dreame supplies a brush with it.

Inside the base station you will find several things. First, under the flap at the top is space for both the clean water and dirty water tank. In many other robot hoovers, we usually don't see a flap over these two containers. This looks neater. Behind the silver-coloured flap is the dust bag and another container. This is where you can put the cleaning product. This is a nice touch, as the robot hoover can adjust the mixing itself.

Features

We mentioned it earlier on DroidApp: if you are in the market for a robot hoover, you can get your teeth wet. After all, the choice is huge. The Dreame L40 Ultra AE is a comprehensive hoover full of features. The company equips this robot with a maximum suction power of 19,000 Pascal, a 5,200mAh battery and a dust container with a 395ml capacity. The capacity for the tanks is 4.5 litres for clean water and 4.0 litres for dirty water. The mop pads can be cleaned at 75 degrees Celsius in the base station, while they can also be dried with hot air. This should minimise the risk of bacteria. There is also a self-cleaning washboard, so you also have less to worry about at the base station.

As discussed, Dreame's robot hoover features a brush that can lift itself up if necessary. There is also a side brush, but it does not have a flexible arm. To reach corners better, some robots have this, the L40 Ultra AE does not. Below the robot, we further see two mopping pads. These can also be lifted, so your rug does not get wet or damp unnecessarily.

The app

Dreame's Dreamehome app allows you to control the robot. Setting up the robot vacuum is easy. Through the home screen, you have direct access to the robot. You have several options, such as live viewing while vacuuming and you can choose shortcuts. For example, you can set a cleaning mode for after dinner, or where pets often sit.

If you open the device in the app, you will see the map of the last round. Of course, you can also start cleaning there, adjust actions for the base station or clean a selected room or zone. Once the robot has cleaned, you will also see what obstacles and such the Dreame has encountered. What strikes us is that with great regularity, it detects completely different objects than it actually is. For instance, a piece of a cat's scratching post (without a cat) is recognised as a pet, and even a basket is already a pet. By the way, the device can also take pictures when it sees your pet. It also recognised the living room as a kitchen. Curious, but fortunately adjustable.

Otherwise, the app works user-friendly and fast. Sometimes an irritating pop-up does pop up to sign up for the newsletter, but you can mute that too. Although the app is in Dutch, the robot does not speak Dutch. It does speak English, German, French, Spanish and Scandinavian languages, for instance.

In practice

We spent weeks testing the Dreame L40 Ultra AE. As a result, we can nicely take stock of how the robot hoover scores. As it turns out: it performs very well. Obstacles the robot approaches calmly, where the previously reviewed Xiaomi still sometimes thought, I'll drive into it anyway. The Dreame is not extremely noisy, which is also nice. The hoover goes around chair and table legs nicely and makes its rounds neatly. The area it cleans is about 48 m2 and for vacuuming, the Dreame takes about 65 minutes, which is a fine time. If it mops simultaneously, it takes about half an hour longer, including mop washing and refilling the water tank. The battery capacity is more than fine, staying half full after mopping and vacuuming.

You basically have no worries about the Dreame L40 Ultra AE's performance. Still, the Dreame is not perfect, and it proves that on the rug. We don't class it as high-pile, but it is slightly higher than low. In all the weeks, the rug has never been fully cleaned. Dreame doesn't get it. Occasionally it rides on it, takes a spin, and leaves again. And that brings this robot hoover's biggest downside. We checked all the functions, but to no avail. The rug, which in our household the cats also roll around on, does not get cleaned. This while the Roborock Qrevo Edge that is here, does pick this up nicely. The unit got stuck once in the beginning, and that was on the rug. Otherwise, it has always returned to its dock nicely.

Here in the house is a robot hoover with a flexible arm. You notice that when there is real dirt in the (extreme) corners, it gets to the corners better than the Dreame. But to be honest, we didn't find the lack of a flexible brush arm on the Dreame to be a big loss.

Mopping

Underneath the Dreame L40 Ultra AE are two mopping pads. These rotate and provide a fresh cloth over your floor. Really mopping like you do by hand, a robot hoover (at least in this segment) really can't do that yet. Partly because you can apply much more pressure by hand. Superficial stains do go away, but it does not scrub. For over your rug, the robot can lift its mops. For mopping, you can set the humidity of the mopping pad very precisely and you can adjust the mopping wash frequency.

Review

As mentioned, the Dreame L40 Ultra AE has been running around here day in, day out for weeks. So we can see exactly how the robot performs in practice. Because nice of those tests in a bin, that's of no use to you as a consumer. The robot hoover leaves a very good impression. We did not miss a flexible side brush, although it is often found in the segment, and can pick up just that one dirt in the corner. If you have a slightly higher rug, we can immediately discourage this Dreame, unless you don't want it vacuumed. The robot does nothing with it, and that is a shame. If you don't have a higher rug, we can definitely recommend the Dreame.

The recommended retail price of the Dreame is normally 699 euros. With Black Friday, it is now very interestingly discounted to 479 euros. You can check it out at Coolblue, Bol.com, Amazon and MediaMarkt.