Dyson Spot+Scrub AI review: Insanely smart robot vacuumThe brand new device promising advanced results on a budget is giving its predecessors a run for their money. But, does it create more messes than it cleans?Alice Clarke12 min readMarch 2, 2026 - 7:50AMDyson Spot+Scrub AI. Picture: Alice Clarke.We may receive payments from third parties for sharing this content, and when you purchase through links in this article. Product prices and offer details are not assured, and should be confirmed independently with the retailer. Learn moreAll I want in life is an army of robots to do my chores for me so I can just live and get things done, without having to worry about the wages or ethics of keeping servants. Robot vacuum cleaners that can also mop take us all one step closer to that dream, but it really depends on what you want/expect out of them. If you want a robot that can do a bang up job maintaining things that are already clean, there are so many options for that.RELATED: Best robot vacuum and mop combosThe problem comes when you want a robot that can take a dirty space and make it clean. Very few robots are capable of that until you hit the $2000-$3000 range, and even then their capacity of what they can effectively clean is limited. The Dyson Spot+Scrub AI talks a big game of using its LiDAR sensors and cameras with its AI to recognise various stains and clean them up by going over them repeatedly until they’re clean. I question its ability to actually do that.At $1999, the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI is a long way from being the most expensive, with most at the top of the range retailing for $3000, and the Dyson has most of the features of those more expensive machines. So, while it’s not even close to being a budget item, it is well priced for that it is. But is it worth it?<img src="https://www.news.com.au/akam/13/pixel_7929aaab?a=dD0yZTNjZTlkZmI3OTk1NzkxNDI4MzY4OTIzNTMwNjFmNTU3Yjg3Y2Y2JmpzPW9mZg==" style="visibility: hidden; position: absolute; left: -999px; top: -999px;" />1-MINUTE REVIEW: DYSON SPOT+SCRUB AITried and testedDyson Spot+Scrub AI $1999 at dyson HOW WE TESTED THE DYSON SPOT+SCRUB AII have tested dozens of robot vacuum cleaners in the 15 years since I first tried one of the old-school robot sweepers. I tested the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI on many of my standard tests: mapping, repeated maintenance cleans to find weak points, made an obstacle course out of cables and baby socks, alternated between tidying everything off the floor for a clean and not, and spread various goos and crumbs over the ground to gauge mopping and suction prowess. It was primarily tested in a 100sqm apartment with a mix of hardwood and tiled flooring, with various rugs and foam play mats. To ensure that the cleaning was conducted on hard mode, I had my toddler life her life as normal, leaving chaos and crumbs in her wake.FULL REVIEW OF THE DYSON SPOT+SCRUB AIFEATURESThe Dyson Spot+Scrub AI has all the standard features you’d expect of a premium robot vacuum cleaner:Run time: Around 140 mins on one charge, depending on selected cleaning program.Sensor mix: 24 sensors including LiDAR, ultrasonic floor-type sensors, an HD camera, dual-line laser system, drop sensors and edge-to-edge wall follow sensors. The docking station has 12 more unidentified sensors.DESIGNThe Dyson Spot+Scrub AI’s docking station is a winner. Picture: Alice Clarke.I really love the design of the docking station. It’s not afraid to be anything other than it is. A lot of other robovacs I see try to hide the bin and water tanks in a nondescript black box – the vacuum cleaner equivalent of putting a bottle of wine in a plain brown paper bag. The Spot+Scrub puts the engineering on display, which I really respect. Having seen the Dyson engineers at work at their R&D facilities in England and Singapore, I know how proud they are of every detail - why not show it off? The design of the robot itself is a bit chunkier. It has the girth of robots from 5 years ago. It also lacks the little retractable direct time of flight system that other premium robots have, going old school with keeping all the navigation sensors and cameras in the front of the robot, which is quite limiting, and has consequences I’ll cover in the mopping section. Dyson would likely explain away these inadequacies as being a hallmark of being a relatively new player in the robot vacuum space. However, given the premium price tag, Dyson’s entire robotics department, and the cache that the Dyson name comes with these days, I don’t think that argument holds much water.There are other little choices in the design that detract from the usefulness of the device. For example, the two very aggressive brushes on the front of the robot seem like a great idea in theory, and probably are great on a carpeted floor. But as you’ll see in the vacuuming section of this review, they’re a nightmare on hard floors if the floors aren’t already clean.One more serious flaw is how the water tanks are sealed. The one time the robot tried to consume a baby sock, the app alerted me to the fact that the robot needed assistance. So, I picked up the robot and turned it over to pull out the sock (as I have done to dozens of other robots in my time) and spilled a lot of very, very hot dirty mop juice all over my hands and legs. It was filthy, gross, and burnt my hand. Even after holding my hand under the cold water tap for 10 mins afterwards, I can still gently feel the slight burn three days later. Now, imagine that happening to a child who could have turned it over just as easily with more dire consequences.MAPPING AND NAVIGATIONWe put the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI’s navigation skills to the test. Picture: Alice Clarke.Mapping and navigation are at the heart of any robot, and while the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI is a huge improvement over the previous Dyson 360 VisNav, it’s still a work in progress. Mapping my apartment was a quick and easy process, the little robot just a look around each room and made a pretty accurate floor plan. I then went into the app and made a couple of adjustments, naming the rooms, dividing off the kitchen, etc.Interestingly, while some other premium robot vacuum cleaners automatically detect the floor type for each room and allow you to set rules for those floor types, the Spot+Scrub AI doesn’t do that. There is no way to input the floor type. You just have to create cleaning rules for each room individually, which is fine, you only have to do it once, it’s just not as intuitive as it could be. Overall, I found the app very easy to navigate.I’m also interested to note that it doesn’t appear to update the map as it goes. It still tries to avoid phantom chairs that have been moved since the original mapping was done. Most other robot vacuums I’ve tested are designed to acknowledge that the home is an evolving beast, yet the Spot+Scrub AI expects mine to remain static.It’s the second robot vacuum I’ve tested in a row that refuses to clean to the edge of my dishwasher, and I’m not sure why that’s happening. It also won’t go anywhere near the edges of its own dock, and it seems to be afraid of my front door, not going within a metre of it. I had that same problem with the 360 VisNav and spent hours on the phone to Dyson support trying to work out why. We never solved the problem.In the app you can tell the robot where there is a little threshold for it to climb up. This made me believe it could climb up a small threshold. It does not seem to be able to do that. It was able to get up onto my daughter’s thick foam play mat, but then it just spent an inordinately long time stuck on the edge, absolutely soaking that area. It would half get up, then it would give up and reverse to go through the pattern again.The same thing happened in my shower. It climbed down the little 1cm lip into the shower, and then it was stuck there for 5 minutes until it eventually started ramming itself as hard as it could into the edge of my glass shower screen and I had to come rescue it before it did something expensive.One of the tests I do on all robot vacuum cleaners is an obstacle course. I sprinkle a couple of items into my hallway (with room to pass on both sides) to see what the robot does. In this case, it was two toddler socks and two power cables. At this point, the Spot+Scrub AI had previously eaten a toddler sock, so my hopes were low. Instead, it did the most relatable thing: it went up to the first sock, did a 360 tour around it to look at it, and then went back to the dock, abandoning the clean early despite still having 6 zones to go. On the one hand, it’s annoying. On the other hand, I also sometimes want to give up at the first sign of inconvenience, so I get it.What I find amusing, but isn’t necessarily a problem, is that this little guy is absolutely fighting for its life anytime it has to get back into the dock. It usually takes several run ups and then it eventually manages to get in with the same grace as an 18month-old toddler crawling up onto a dining chair.All that said, it is still a huge improvement over the previous Dyson 360 VisNav model, which used to navigate itself around my apartment as though it were blind drunk, crashing into every object as hard as it could to confirm it was corporeal. Aside from my shower screen, the Spot+Scrub AI has mostly been very gentle and respectful towards my possessions, and I have rarely had to come to its aid. The mapping issue is one that can be fixed by a software update down the line.MOPPINGThe Dyson Spot+Scrub AI failed the yoghurt test. Picture: Alice Clarke.Mopping is the big new feature of the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI, and Dyson is so confident in its AI’s ability to spot stains and then repeatedly scrub until they’re gone, that the company named the robot after it. That confidence may be misplaced. However, it is excellent for maintenance mops. The first three times I used the Spot+Scrub AI I used it for maintenance cleans, which is to say that may floor wasn’t especially dirty, but it had been walked on and interacted with in ways that could become gross if left unchecked.I was extremely impressed with how well it mopped the kitchen and bathrooms, using just the right amount of hot water to (according to the sheer grossness of the water) pick up a lot of dirt from the floor.The problems only came when I took the robot through more intense tests. The dried pasta sauce remained on the kitchen floor through at least 10 rounds of cleaning the kitchen. I gave it every opportunity to find and rectify the mark, and every time it only went over it once, barely making a difference. It neither spotted not scrubbed.However the worst test was the yoghurt test. I have used this standard test on many roller bar robot vacuum cleaners and it normally works out fine. I put a tablespoon of yoghurt on the ground and get the robot to clean it up while it’s fresh. The Spot+Scrub AI failed this test more impressively than any other robot I have ever tried. I first put the yoghurt a relatively short distance from the dock. The Spot+Scrub AI then launched itself at the yoghurt with such enthusiasm that the rapid spinning brushes spread the yoghurt everywhere. It was like I had thrown a tub of yoghurt into a jet engine. The brushes then spread the yoghurt around the entire bathroom, making the mess significantly larger. I then cleaned both the front brushes and dismantled the vacuum roller to clean all the yoghurt off those brushes and inside the bin. Often mopping robots will reverse into wet stains to avoid the vacuum coming into contact with them. The Dyson Spot+Scrub AI does not do that.I then got it to mop the room four times afterwards to try to get the rest of the yoghurt up, and it fully avoided a 15cm radius of the dock, which is interesting, given it spread the yoghurt there once and just couldn’t ever return. It’s relatable, I will admit.If you have pets who may potentially have indoor accidents, I cannot stress enough how much you should avoid this machine.Just in case the problem was that I had put the yoghurt too close to the dock, I then repeated the test in the kitchen. The problem was not that I had put the yoghurt too close to the dock.Now, Dyson cautions that the Spot+Scrub AI is not designed to clean anything more intense than a liquid. Nothing viscous or with a thick or wet film, you’re supposed to clean that yourself. And I will agree that the Spot+Scrub AI was descent at picking up water, though also spread a milk spill way further than I would like. I would also say that if I spent $2000 on a robot that mops, I would expect that robot to mop any food spills, just as I do from other robots I have tested which are capable of cleaning yoghurt and porridge spills.Verdict: While the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI is excellent at maintenance mopping, you should never, ever get it to clean up an actual mess unless you just want to make far more work for yourself.VACUUMINGThere were still oats on the floor, even after more than 10 cleans. Picture: Alice Clarke.This is the area that the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI should excel in, after all, that’s Dyson’s whole thing. But while the suction is excellent, and it has picked up a lot of debris, there are a few design details that hold it back from being amongst the best of all time.While I did have to kick a couple of medium-sized debris into the robot after the brushes kicked it away, the suction is excellent for maintenance cleans and fine-to-medium sized debris. It’s just let down by the intense brushes.The first issue is the lack of split brush bar. Dyson really pioneered and perfected the split brush bar, because it’s the superior technology to avoid hair tangles. Other brands use those split brush bars in robots for the same reason. And yet the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI doesn’t have one, and so I have had to manually remove several hair tangles (often covered in yoghurt).However, the biggest issue came during the dry oats test. I have done the oats test with dozens of robot vacuum cleaners. It’s pretty straightforward: I sprinkle a handful of dry oats on the ground, the vacuum sucks it up, and then I have a look to see how many oats remain. In the $2000+ range I would expect around 5-10 oats to be missed, but otherwise pretty even cleaning. So, I was shocked at just how badly the Spot+Scrub AI failed the test.It started by having the brushes at the front spread the oats at high velocity. Oats everywhere. So many oats. Like an oat tornado.Then it half-heartedly moved some of the oats around and decided it was done. It picked up maybe 20% of the oats, if I’m being generous. I have since set the robot to vacuum the room 10 more times and can still see at least 70 oats on the ground. Some are spread to random locations, but some are hanging out in open areas of the room. This is the biggest fail I have seen of a non-budget robot in years.This is surprising, because it performed quite well on the flour test (like the oat test, but flour). Some of the flour was spread out, but the Spot+Scrub AI was able to go pick pretty much all of it up later.Verdict: Once again, while the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI is good for daily maintenance cleans, it’s not going to replace a traditional stick vacuum cleaner if you have a specific large spill, or larger debris on the ground.VERDICT: IS THE DYSON SPOT+SCRUB AI WORTH BUYING?Dyson Spot+Scrub AI. Picture: Alice Clarke.Part of the problem might be that, even after all these years of testing robot vacuum cleaners, I still want them to do what the companies say they will, rather than what I know this category to be capable of.Robot vacuum cleaners may one day be good at cleaning up acute spills, and I have tested several that aren’t terrible at it (most of them with a price tag more than $500 higher than the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI). But I’ve still never met a robot vacuum cleaner that eliminated my need to have a Dyson V16 Animal and a steam mop in the cupboard.What robots like the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI do eliminate, though, is the need to regularly vacuum and mop, giving me back hours every month. To me, those extra hours with my daughter are worth $1999. But I have an uncomplicated home layout, and am confident in dealing with a quirky machine. Your circumstances might be different.Looking around at other reviews, other people have had slightly better vacuuming experiences than me, but also noticed that the Spot+Scrub AI didn’t live up to the promise of detecting spills and then going over them repeatedly.While the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI has many, many quirks, and I will be finding oats and yoghurt in my apartment for years to come, it’s actually my favourite robot I have tested in well over a year. It’s perhaps not technically the best. But aside from yoghurt and oat-related issues, it hasn’t caused me significant problems since I blocked it from accessing my shower. I have used many other robots that clean better, but they all needed frequent rescuing from under my sideboard, or from eating electrical cables or toys. The Dyson Spot+Scrub AI is the first robot vacuum cleaner I’ve felt comfortable doing daily cleans in my apartment unsupervised. 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