First look: Dyson’s Spot+Scrub Ai robot seeks out stains

The Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai Robot is the company’s first combination robot vacuum and mop. It debuted at Dyson’s Berlin store during the IFA tech show this week and is a follow-up to the company’s 360 VisNav robot vacuum, which launched in 2023. Featuring a new round design, a self-cleaning roller mop, lidar navigation, and Dyson’s first multifunctional dock, the Spot+Scrub also comes with an “AI” moniker because it’s 2025 and doesn’t everything?

I spent some hands-on time with Dyson’s newest robot floor cleaner and came away underwhelmed. Dyson’s traditional vacuums set high expectations, but its robot versions have yet to meet them. I didn’t get to test the Spot+Scrub or see its stain-targeting feature in action, but my time with it didn’t convince me that Dyson has finally cracked the robot vacuum code.

The headline feature is AI-powered stain detection, and despite the buzzword, this idea does appear to address one of the biggest problems with robot mops — that they don’t do as good a job as manual mops. When its onboard cameras spot stains, the Spot+Scrub can “identify, react, check, and clean,” according to Dyson, using green lasers to highlight the dirt and allow the cameras to see it better. This helps it identify the type of stain, whether it’s dry or wet, and clean it appropriately, continuing to clean it until it’s gone.

Several robot vacuum mops from companies like Narwal, iRobot, Ecovacs, and Dreame offer similar “dirt detection” features — to varying degrees of success, based on my testing. Dyson seems confident that the Spot+Scrub is superior.

In an interview at Dyson’s event this week, James Dyson, founder and chairman of Dyson, said that he thinks the current crop of robot mops “are disappointing.” “Quite a lot of stain is left on the floors,” he says. “That’s why ours is better, because we can see the stain and we go back and get it until it’s gone.”

Along with stain detection, the Spot can also “spot” objects like socks and cables to hopefully avoid them. Dyson has also ditched its vision-based navigation system for lidar, which I’m told should help with the navigation issues its Vis Nav had.

The other big change is that the Spot+Scrub is round, a departure from the Vis Nav’s squared-off look. It has a decent 18,000 Pa of suction power, which peaks on carpet thanks to a built-in carpet sensor. Its super long, soft microfiber roller mop tackles the wet floor cleaning, extending out to clean along edges, and a combined rubber bristle brush sits behind the mop to help get up dry dirt. The roller mop raises when it encounters carpet to avoid getting your rugs damp, but it doesn’t have the extra protection of a cover that we’ve started to see on mopping bots. Dyson didn’t share pricing, but plans to launch in China later this year and the US in 2026.

My first impression seeing the Spot+Scrub in Dyson’s Berlin store this week was how big it is. The robot itself is about a third larger than the Vis Nav, and its dock is “hulking.” Part of the reason for that is the large roller mop it uses to wet clean. Roller mop bots are the hot new thing in robot vacuums, replacing spinning mop pads.

Ecovacs, Dreame, Eufy, and others have all rolled out roller mop models recently, the main advantage being that the mop can be cleaned while it runs, rather than having to head back to the base for a refresh. This requires a lot of onboard infrastructure, though, which is why they’re all so big. The Spot+Scrub is probably 4 inches tall (although I didn’t take out a tape measure), but there’s no lidar tower on top, so it may still make it under your couch.

The Spot+Scrub comes with Dyson’s first multifunction dock that automatically empties the robot’s bin, cleans and dries its mop, and refills and drains its water tanks. This is also very large, and while it has touches of the signature Dyson design, including some pops of red and purple, overall, neither it nor the robot itself looks that different from every other robo vac out there, which is disappointing.

The dock’s most interesting feature is the bagless dust container that can hold 2 liters of dirt. It’s a larger version of the Vis Nav’s onboard bin. To empty it, you pull it out, place it over a trash can, press a button, and the waste dumps out. While having to potentially deal with a bit of dust spillage while emptying isn’t ideal, it’s a fair tradeoff for not needing to buy separate bags, which is what most auto-empty docks use. Ecovacs’ latest robot vacuum, the Deebot X11 OmniCyclone, which also launched at IFA this week, has a similar dustbin solution.

The Spot+Scrub works with the redesigned MyDyson app, which I got a sneak peek at. It now shows the robot’s real-time cleaning progress, thanks to the addition of lidar navigation. From the app, you can schedule the robot and choose how it cleans: either vacuum, vacuum and mop simultaneously, just mop, or vacuum then mop.

The app also shows when the robot has identified a stain that it went back to clean, so you can check its work. Connectivity-wise, Dyson tells me Matter support is planned, which would allow the Spot+Scrub to connect to smart home platforms like Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home for voice control and other features.

So far, Dyson has failed to dazzle with its robot vacuums, despite having developed them since the 1990s. It’s one thing to build the world’s best vacuum; it’s quite another to create the world’s best robotic vacuum. While its Vis Nav had impressive cleaning power, its app, navigation, and overall experience were just okay.

My initial impressions of the Spot+Scrub are that it feels quite iterative, not the game-changing product you’d expect from Dyson. But if its stain-seeking and scrubbing feature really works as advertised, and it can properly navigate my house, then I’ll be impressed. I look forward to testing it.

Photos and video by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge