I tried the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai at home. I was cursing it out more often than I was cheering it on.
UPDATE: May. 8, 2026, 5:00 a.m. EDT I first wrote about my first impressions of the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai in March 2026 after a week of using it daily at home. This review was updated after three more weeks of testing.
Dyson had nowhere to go but up after its last robot vacuum. You don't even need to test the new Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai to already know that it dunks on the 2024 Dyson 360 Vis Nav any way you dice it.
Still, as the third Dyson robot vacuum attempt after two flop releases, there's a lot riding on the Spot+Scrub Ai's success. If it sells well, that means the 360 Vis Nav truly was just a fluke. But if the Spot+Scrub Ai can't compete with the best robot vacuums of 2026 from other brands, perhaps it's time to accept that we don't always need to force the "stick vacuum brand to robot vacuum brand" pipeline.
I tried the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai at home against top flagship Dreame, Roborock, Eufy, and Shark robot vacuums. (There were seven robot vacuums in my apartment at one point in winter 2026.) Does Dyson's stick vacuum prowess finally translate to robovacs? Let's discuss. Use the table of contents to skip to the results of specific testing categories.
What's special about the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai?
I had been manifesting a robot vacuum with a laser since trying my first Dyson stick vacuum with a laser in 2022, so the dust-illuminating green light is easily the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai's biggest talking point. The green light works together with AI to help the Spot+Scrub Ai find hidden stains and microscopic debris, decipher between wet and dry messes, and then adjust cleaning accordingly. Unlike many other robot vacuums, which just make a set number of passes in the specified zone or room, the Spot+Scrub Ai double-checks each spot before moving on and goes back again if necessary.
The rest of the Spot+Scrub Ai's upgrades seem huge compared to the 360 Vis Nav, but were long overdue compared to the rest of the robot vacuum market. The Spot+Scrub Ai isn't just Dyson's first roller mop robot vacuum — it's the first Dyson robot vacuum that mops at all. In classic roller mop robot vacuum fashion, the roller gets rinsed in real time to ensure that every inch of floor is being scrubbed with a clean pad. It's much less common to find a robot vacuum and mop combo that actually mops with warm water for more efficient stain breakdown, but the Spot+Scrub Ai does. (Most only wash the mop with hot water, but clean with room temperature.)
The Spot+Scrub Ai also finally adds a self-emptying dock (those have been ubiquitous for half a decade), and washes and dries the roller mop. An AI-powered HD camera brings small obstacle avoidance technology to the Spot+Scrub Ai's resume, but it doesn't send or record images (so no livestream pet camera).
For general vibe and decor purposes, I can't say that I'm thrilled with the look of the dock. The three canister situation is bulky (just like the robovac itself) and unnecessarily industrial. But if you think this design is loud, just wait until you hear the self-emptying noise. FWIW, I do appreciate the built-in detergent tank and bagless dustbin.
Despite so many new features, Dyson surprisingly didn't hike the price from the 360 Vis Nav. The Spot+Scrub Ai costs $1,199.99, matching the debut price of the 360 Vis Nav when it came out in 2024. I'm glad that Dyson realized that the 360 Vis Nav was comically overpriced, which is probably why it's not hard to find it on sale for more than 60 percent off.
Is the Spot+Scrub Ai as smart as it sounds?
The Spot+Scrub Ai started out by acing several of my standard litter box cleaning tests for all robot vacuums. I have an uncovered self-emptying litter box (crystal litter) in the bathroom and a Litter-Robot Evo (clumping grass seed litter) in the kitchen. Both areas get pretty covered in tracked litter after even a day, but I pour extra on the floor for the initial test. The Spot+Scrub Ai finished with about 98 percent debris and dust pickup of each litter type, spinning around to use the laser to check for lingering particles before officially marking the area as complete.
Though the Spot+Scrub Ai is round (not D-shaped like 360 Vis Nav), the roller mop doesn't shy away from wall edges. I watched it scoot right up against baseboards, the open laundry closet door, and the washing machine. It even hugged the toilet as well as I could hope for in such a tight area.
The first wet spill obstacle course included splatters of chunky salsa and a red wine spill on hardwood. The Spot+Scrub Ai bodied the salsa, picking up a surprising amount on the first pass. It turned around and came back the other way to grab the few chunks that were flicked out of the way at first. Overall, the Spot+Scrub Ai+ had to have made about five passes over the same spot of hardwood floor after I assume it noticed that some salsa, a piece of dry cat food, or a speck of litter was left behind. In the app, you can follow along on the map to see where a stain has been detected. That part had me cheering out loud... for a second.
When it's thorough, it's thorough. But when it's not...
But that level of precision was missing when the botvac approached the spilled red wine. It wasn't the actual roller mop that blundered this spill, but the two spinning side brushes that are typically associated with dry debris.
The Spot+Scrub Ai's whole ethos is using artificial intelligence to clean on its toes, right? There's been so much hype surrounding the joint slay of the AI camera and green light to make tweaks to cleaning in the moment — to the point that they straight up included it in the title of the vacuum. So I feel like it's valid to assume that the Spot+Scrub Ai is smart enough to not make a mess worse. If it sees a puddle in the path ahead, wouldn't it make sense to pause the spinning dry brushes so that they don't further slosh the spill around?
Instead, I witnessed the Spot+Scrub Ai drive right over the spill with side brushes spinning full speed ahead, spattering wine in the vicinity on the floor as well as all over the underside of the vacuum. (Liquid seeping into the interior parts is a recipe for your robot vacuum to stop working.) Those side brushes, now soaked in wine and salsa, don't get washed in the dock like the actual roller mop does.
You can imagine my surprise when I heard the "cleaning complete" announcement, just to look down and see the abandoned puddle smeared to the corner of my kitchen Ruggable, plus a pile of spilled protein powder on the rug completely ignored. Dyson claims that the Spot+Scrub Ai relies on photographic evidence of mess removal before heading back to the dock. How was this missed? And what if the rug wasn't machine washable?
Factors to keep in mind
Several red flags popped up during my first week with the Spot+Scrub Ai. Since Dyson baked so many fancy and customizable settings into the Spot+Scrub Ai's app, I was open to the possibility of cleaning and navigation getting better over time. (That's AI's whole thing, after all.) Unfortunately, those initial concerns didn't sort themselves out over the next few weeks of testing.
Not-so-nimble navigation
Mopping fail aside, the Spot+Scrub Ai struggled to maneuver around my apartment without issue on a regular basis. While I've accepted that roller mop robot vacuums are the tallest type of robot vacuum mop combo, the Spot+Scrub Ai is so thick and cumbersome that it limits the reach of its AI mess detection features. It doesn't fit under the Litter-Robot step where a ton of litter gathers, or under the table legs in the hallway, where cat fur tumbleweeds and leaves batted off the dried arrangement on the table gather.
But it's more unforgivable that the Spot+Scrub Ai is too tall to fit under my kitchen counters — even other roller mop robot vacuums like the Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Flow had no problem scooting underneath. Then, the Spot+Scrub Ai never failed to get stuck after half wedging itself under the cabinets, battling with the bottom drawer for a minute straight every single time. Similarly, the Spot+Scrub Ai ended up scraping some gross brown gunk off the bottom of the dishwasher because the squeeze was that tight. You could drop a keep-out zone for tight areas like this in the MyDyson app, but that's kind of a crucial area for a robot vacuum to simply skip. Under-cabinet crumb duty is a non-negotiable in my book.
Unreliable carpet and rug cleaning
The Spot+Scrub Ai displayed consistently mediocre rug and carpet performance. It did a satisfactory job with cat hair in the medium pile living room rug, but left behind more than a few sprinkles and tortilla chip crumbs on the same rug. The Spot+Scrub Ai also had a pretty poor showing during the high pile test that I give to every robot vacuum.
I sprinkle small debris like dry quinoa or rice on a faux fur Tumble rug to really challenge the lifting capabilities on plush carpet — the Spot+Scrub Ai's pickup rate was only about 75 or 80 percent, leaving pieces behind in and laying on top of the fibers. Some were visible to the naked eye, some I only discovered after they got stuck to my bare feet.
The 18,000 Pa suction power is a tad low for a $1,199.99 robovac, considering the much-cheaper Eufy C28's 15,000 Pa did a better job on rugs in my testing.
Not cute
Perhaps the Spot+Scrub Ai's obnoxious industrial design would have grown on me had the cleaning experience itself been a breeze. But I had to rescue the Spot+Scrub Ai from being lost or stuck multiple times — just to carry it back to a dock that was the ugly duckling of the Dreame, Roborock, and Shark robot vacuum docks that I was testing at the same time.
The transparent bagless dustbin advertises every particle that's been sucked off of your floor. The transparent water tank resembles a plastic water bottle that was left in a hot car for a week. I realize that these design choices were supposed to help us keep track of what needed to be emptied or filled when, but at what aesthetic cost?
Is the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai worth it?
No, the Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai requires way too much babysitting to be worth its price tag. There are far better robot vacuum and mop combos that cost the same or less — this applies even if the Spot+Scrub Ai goes on sale. If you want a roller mop robot vacuum with reliable AI-powered cleaning, buy the Narwal Flow 2. If you really just want a Dyson, buy the Dyson V12 Detect Slim or the Dyson PencilVac.
