Dreame Matrix10 Pro review: Clever mopping comes at a cost

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Most robot mops have a problem that owners may not think much about. The same damp pads that clean bathroom floors and pet messes often end up traveling through the kitchen and living room. Some higher-end robots periodically return to their docks to wash the pads as they clean, but no rinse cycle can completely wash away the ick factor of knowing the same pads that just cleaned around the toilet may later be wiping the floor where you eat.

Instead of relying on one pair of pads for the whole house, the Dreame Matrix10 Pro keeps three sets in its dock and swaps them automatically depending on where it’s cleaning. Each set is intended for a different job, and the dock can also dispense different cleaning solutions for general floors, pet odors, and wood.

At $1,499.99, though, the Matrix10 Pro puts a premium on that extra peace of mind. Its multi-mop system needs to deliver a meaningful improvement in cleaning and convenience, not just make you feel better about where the pads have been.

Dreame Matrix10 Pro: Design and features

The Matrix10 Pro’s robot has a standard round design, measuring 13.78 inches across and 4.09 inches tall, and is topped by a fixed lidar turret and buttons for spot cleaning, starting or pausing a job, and returning to the dock. Its feature set is typical of a flagship robot vacuum: it’s rated for 30,000Pa of suction and uses a dual-roller system that pairs a rubber-and-nylon brush for sweeping fine debris from hard floors with a flexible TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) roller that agitates carpet fibers to lift dust and hair.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

Round-bodied vacuums have a tough time cleaning along straight edges, so Dreame has equipped the Matrix10 Pro’s robot with a side brush that can swing outward into corners and an extending arm that pushes one mop beyond the robot’s body to reach along baseboards. The pads can lift 0.41 inch over carpet or be left behind at the dock during vacuum-only cleaning.

Lidar handles mapping, while an RGB camera, structured light, and LEDs help the robot see objects in its path. Dreame says it can identify more than 280 types of obstacles, including cables, socks, coins, and small toy blocks.

The dock is more novel. With its boxy proportions and patterned metallic front, the 23.2 x 16.4 x 18-inch (HxWxD) unit looks a bit like the mini-fridge you might have kept under a dorm-room desk. Inside the door, six color-coded mop assemblies are stacked vertically in three pairs. Orange-ringed Mop A uses nylon bristles to scrub greasy floors (think kitchens and eating areas). Gray-ringed Mop B uses absorbent pads for bathrooms and other damp areas, and blue-ringed Mop C uses thermal pads designed to retain heat for everyday cleaning and wood floors.

Dreame advertises mopping temperatures of up to 104-degree Fahrenheit, though the fine print says the pads actually measure between 86 and 104 degrees after one minute of cleaning following a hot-water wash at the dock. When the robot needs to switch mops, an internal shuttle removes one pair from the robot, parks it in the door, and installs another.

Much of the dock’s size is to accommodate a 5.5-liter clean-water tank and a 4-liter dirty-water tank. During mopping, it refills the robot’s 80ml onboard reservoir, washes and dries the pads, collects the wastewater, and scrubs the washboard. It also empties the robot’s 250ml dustbin into a 3.2-liter disposable bag; Dreame says the bag can hold up to 100 days of debris, though the actual interval will depend on how often you clean and how dirty your floors are.

Dreame Matrix10 Pro: Setup and performance

The dock comes mostly assembled—you only need to attach the ramp extension so the robot can enter and exit—but because of the intricacies of the mop-changing system, there’s a bit more setup than for the average robot vacuum.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

You have to place each pair of mops in the matching color-coded slot, following the guide inside the dock door. You’ll also need to fill the dock’s three cleaning-solution reservoirs, housed in a removable dispenser module behind the dust-tank cover. Dreame provides a 200ml bottle of each, and I found that each bottle was just enough to fill its corresponding reservoir. Replacement 1-liter bottles cost $26.99 for the multi-surface cleaner and $21.99 each for the pet-odor and wood-floor formulas, or $70.97 to restock all three. Each larger bottle should provide about five refills.

Finally, you need to slide the dispenser back into place, fill the clean-water tank, and the dock is ready to go.

Once the hardware is in place, the rest of setup happens on the Dreamehome app. You scan the QR code beneath the robot’s top cover, add the Matrix10 Pro, and follow the prompts to connect it to your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network. The app then walks you through the main features and prepares the robot for its first mapping run.

Fast mapping may not produce a finished map on the first pass. Mine captured the overall shape of my home but misread some room divisions and assigned generic labels such as “Room 2,” “Room 6,” “Hallway,” and “Hallway2.” The app gives you the tools to fix those mistakes: You can merge, divide, hide, and rename rooms, add furniture, draw no-go zones and virtual walls, and mark thresholds or ramps.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

It’s important to start with an accurate map, because the app uses each room’s type to assign its default mop set. If a bathroom is mislabeled as a hallway, for example, the robot may choose the wrong pads for the job. The app then recommends a cleaning order based on the mop assignments to limit trips back to the dock.

I’ve used the Dreamehome app with other Dreame robots, so its mix of straightforward controls and densely packed menus was familiar. Along with the ability to send the robot to individual rooms, edit the map, and build cleaning schedules, it lets you adjust nearly every part of a cleaning run, from suction and mop moisture to preset cleaning routines and pet-related behavior.

The Matrix10 Pro adds controls for assigning mop sets to rooms and managing the cleaning sequence built around them. The app is powerful once you learn where everything lives, but newcomers may find the sheer number of options daunting. CleanGenius mode offers an easier route by choosing the cleaning settings for you.

My home is mostly laminate flooring and one large area rug, and the vacuuming results were strong on both. The Matrix10 Pro picked up dust, cat hair, crumbs, and dry pet food without leaving much behind. For vacuuming, the app gives you the option of having the robot return to the dock and leave the mop pads there rather than just lifting them over carpet. That solved a recurring problem in my home, where dangling pads can catch on the edge of the area rug and get pulled off.

The extendable side brush did a good job of sweeping debris from along walls and out of corners, and despite sharing the house with three cats, I never had to cut hair from either roller.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

Mopping is the Matrix10 Pro’s marquee feature, and in my testing it did the job well. It cleared dried spills and routine kitchen grime with little effort, while stickier residue needed more water and multiple cleaning passes. The extending mop reached closer to baseboards and furniture legs than a fixed pair would, and carpet detection when I left the pads on was dependable.

When the Matrix10 Pro needs a different mop set, it returns to the dock and backs in so the current pads can be removed. It then pulls forward while the dock’s internal shuttle stores those pads and positions the next pair, before backing in again to attach them and resume cleaning. The whole exchange is automatic, but the extra trips to the dock and back-and-forth add time to mopping runs.

The dock cuts down on hands-on effort, but it doesn’t eliminate it. You’ll need to empty the dirty-water tank after every job to prevent odors. The clean- and dirty-water tanks lift out easily, and the washboard and filter can be removed and rinsed. You’ll also need to replace the dust bag when it fills and refill each of the three solution reservoirs as needed.

Should you buy the Dreame Matrix10 Pro?

I was generally happy with the results I got from the Matrix10 Pro, but I didn’t find them noticeably better than those of other premium robot mops I’ve used. What I did appreciate was that it kept dirt from different parts of my home more compartmentalized.

That convenience comes with tradeoffs, though. The biggest is that mop changes add time to cleaning. And the three cleaning solutions and six mop assemblies give you more supplies to keep track of than with a conventional robot mop.

If you’re mainly after excellent vacuuming and strong mopping, you can get comparable cleaning performance for less. But if the idea of better floor hygiene is appealing, this is one of the few robot mops that could put your mind at ease.