I have always been curious about robot vacuum cleaners. not just for the convenience, but to see if they actually make sense in an Indian household. I could not find a dedicated thread for them on Techenclave so I thought I would start one.
Brands like Dreame, Ecovacs and a few others are available in India now, but picking the right one was not very easy. After some research, I went with Ecovacs N30 Pro Omni about a month ago. I will share a short review soon on mine.
Hopefully this thread can become a useful resource for anyone considering a robot vacuum. It would be great to hear from TE members who already own one - your experiences, tips, third-party spares sources and which models you think are actually worth buying in India.
I ordered a Dreame L10s Pro Ultra yesterday from Croma. Final price was Rs. 49848 (CC EMI of 16632 x 3 months, about 1350 as interest). Listed price was Rs. 52999 + Rs. 49 (handling charges, may be because I am ordering an out of stock product). The store lady gave me a shop discount of Rs. 1500. Also got 3000 off on ICICI CC 3 months EMI offer. They didn’t have stock at the moment (as of now, only some Cromas have it), so will take about 2 weeks to arrive from their godown. Keeping my fingers crossed.
This is my second attempt to buy it. First was from Amazon (seller RetailEZ Pvt Ltd) for Rs. 48,357.90 (after SBI CC discount of 4,740.10, listed price was 52,999). They send me a previously used device, the box wasn’t even sealed! Returned it, waiting for refund.
Picked Dreame for these reasons (note that this is not a comparison with Ecovacs Deebot N30 Pro, both have their own strengths and weaknesses):
Availability in a physical store.
Rotating mop functionality.
Heated mop cleaning (some say this will prevent it from smelling).
Can add cleaning solution. I think the solution is a bit on the expensive side (about Rs. 1000 for 1 litre).
Has camera for detection in addition to Lidar.
Dreame’s India website is part of their parent website (https://in.dreametech.com), while that of Ecovacs is https://ecovacsindia.in/. This makes me doubt that Ecovacs may not be directly selling in India.
Dreame has started selling through Croma (and not just Amazon, like Ecovacs). This tells me that the company (Dreame) may be interested in establishing its products in India more.
Just for reference, some other threads related to this topic:
Ecovacs has it’s own shops under the name of frootle. You can directly go there and get a first hand experience on the products. And their aftermarket sales are also pretty good.