This reliable Dreame robot vacuum has flagship features at an affordable price

If space is a premium in your home, the new Dreame D20 Air Plus robot vacuum may be the perfect solution. With 20,000Pa of suction pressure, edge and corner cleaning, hair anti-tangle features, and a compact design, it is an affordable solution if mopping is not your top priority.

At 12.8 inches wide and just 3.7 inches tall, this is a compact, lightweight bot that can fit into tight spaces and under shorter furniture. Does this compact bot have what it takes to clean your home?

What do you get in the D20 Air Plus?

The Dreame D20 Air Plus would best be described as an entry-level robot vacuum. I’m happy to report that it performs as well as some mid-range and higher-end cleaning bots, but it is a smaller, lightweight robot vacuum that handles dry debris well and has a simple mop pad for light-duty mopping.

I’m impressed with the compact design of the base station. It is a small rectangle that houses a larger vacuum bag for long-term storage of dry debris and charges the bot. That’s about it. As it does not offer water containers for mopping, the overall footprint can remain small.

The bot itself is a highly capable vacuum. 20,000Pa of suction pressure meets and exceeds the capabilities of the very best bots that were on the market a year ago. The long-bristle front brush with anti-tangle design is also a feature previously reserved for high-end machines. Thanks to that brush, the D20 Air Plus can sweep all the way to the edge of your room and reach right into the corners.

The mop on the D20 Air Plus is a flat pad that is attached below the back of the bot. You are given control over 32 levels of water output adjustability, but the pad mostly acts as a damp cloth for dusting and touch-up coverage. It will clean a mess well, but the pad does not self-clean on the go, risking streaks.

Navigation is handled through a LiDAR turret on top of the bot (Dreame calls this Pathfinder Technology) and down-facing cliff sensors — there are no cameras here. For close-in maneuvering, the full front half of the bot is a physical bumper; the bot effectively detects contact with objects and diverts around. This absence of camera-based object recognition — a feature reserved for the step-up D20 Pro Plus — helps explain some of the minor navigation quirks I ran into later on.

In terms of performance… Not bad

As the Dreame D20 Air Plus ran around my home, I was pleased that it very rarely came into contact with my furniture, and I was very happy that it did not jump off the step into my living room. Cleaning performance was great. 20,000Pa of suction pressure is more than enough to pick up small pebbles, pine needles, and suck dirt out of rugs. The bot handled it all, then deposited it cleanly into the larger storage bag in the base station.

Operational volume is worth talking about. Although the D20 Air Plus is far quieter than a normal stick vacuum, it is considerably louder than the average robot vacuum I’ve tested. Some bots can run at night while you sleep; this is not one of them. I will plan the automated cleaning schedule to run at times that my household isn’t typically in need of quiet time.

While navigation has been solid, the bot is still a little aggressive about some operations. I watched it expertly dodge chair legs to get in and out to clean under my dining room table, well done! But then it went up to a plastic tub on the other side of the room and tried to shove it across the floor. Same thing when it got under my desk, I have a small floor pad down there, which the D20 Air Plus attempted to shove out of the way. This ultimately seems to be common with items that are not perpendicular to the floor. Angled chair legs, the rounded bottom of a plastic tub, and similar seem to trick the sensors. Luckily, a firmware update could fix that.

My only complaint with the D20 Air Plus concerns small rugs. It can handle getting up onto most of them cleanly if it goes straight in, but I watched the bot spin near the edge of a mat, fold it over behind itself, come back and use the folded side as a ramp to launch off to the side, then turn back in and shove against the folded side of the rug and push it across the floor. My deep, fluffy bath mat was a greater challenge. The bot did not get stuck, at least, but it did shove the mat into the corner of the room.

Finally, battery life is worth talking about. It’s not bad, it’s just a lot less than the flagship bots I am used to. With 3,200mAh of capacity, this vacuum is rated for 150 minutes of run time. For my space, with the bot set to “Standard” vacuum power, the bot cleaned ~400 sqft of floor in about 48 minutes for the very first clean; it consumed around 80% of the battery. Luckily, subsequent cleanings have been more efficient. I opened up another room to it, so it now cleans ~463 sqft in ~57 minutes, consuming ~73% of the battery.

Dreame D20 Air Plus review verdict: Should you buy it?

I like the Dreame D20 Air Plus, and I’m confident that for vacuuming, it will keep running without oversight for weeks, even months on end. While it can do some basic mopping, I’ll stick to bots with self-cleaning capabilities for hard floors. It’s also noisy enough that I don’t want it operating near me while I’m trying to focus on stuff, but it otherwise navigates well enough to be underfoot in the kitchen, if needed.

Looking at the competition in this segment, the D20 Air Plus compares to many common bots, including the average robot vacuums I see in most local stores. The Narwal Freo S is more affordable at typical deal prices and offers similar capabilities and navigation, but it has only 8kPa of suction compared to the 20kPa of the D20 Air Plus. The Roborock Q10 series offers 10kPa of suction and also offers similar capabilities and navigation.

The convenience of automation, 20,000Pa of suction pressure, adequate navigation and obstacle avoidance, and a compact design make this bot well worth consideration, especially at sale prices.