Robot vacuums aren’t exactly new to Australian households anymore — plenty of brands promise to save you from lugging the Dyson around every other day — but Narwal’s Flow takes things a step further. It’s not just another round robot that bumps into skirting boards and half-heartedly drags a damp cloth across your tiles. This is a proper high-end machine that vacuums, mops, washes itself, and even dries its mop rollers so you don’t end up with that musty smell wafting through the house.
We’ve been living with the Narwal Flow for a while now, putting it through its paces on a very Australian mix of tiled kitchens, carpeted bedrooms, and the odd scattering of pet hair. Spoiler: it’s not a cheap bit of kit at close to $2k in Australia, but it’s easily one of the most “hands-off” cleaning gadgets we’ve tested. Whether it justifies the price tag comes down to how much you value never having to think about mopping again.
If you’ve been eyeballing Narwal’s lineup, the Flow sits a notch above the Freo Z10 in a few key ways. While the Z10 already impresses with solid mopping, decent navigation, and that auto-cleaning dock, Flow steps up the game: hotter mop washing, more advanced mop-roller extensions for edges, smarter obstacle detection, and generally more automation so you do less even if you’ve got trickier flooring or more rooms. Basically, if the Z10 is “this is great already,” the Flow leans toward, “OK, now let me truly forget about cleaning for a week” (or more).
Design & Setup
Out of the box, the Narwal Flow makes a big impression. The robot itself is slim enough to slide under most couches and beds, but the star of the show is really the dock. It’s a chunky bit of gear — you’ll need to dedicate a corner of the laundry or living room to it — but that’s the trade-off for getting clean and dirty water tanks, a self-emptying dustbin, and a built-in mop washer/dryer all in one.
Think of it less like a charging stand and more like a little service station for your robot. It's not small though .. it takes up a decent amount of my laundry floor space (which is already quite limited), making it a bit of an inconvenience in a small-ish apartment, but if you have more room, it's no big deal.
Setup is pretty painless. Fill the clean water tank, pop in a dust bag, hook it up to the Wi-Fi through the Narwal app, and you’re basically good to go. The app runs you through a quick mapping process, and from there you can set up rooms, no-go zones, and cleaning schedules. It’s the same basic workflow as the Freo Z10, but the Flow feels a bit more polished — like Narwal’s had another crack at smoothing out the onboarding.
App & Smart Features
Narwal’s app is where the Flow really comes to life. Setup is dead simple: once it’s mapped your house, you can divide up rooms, set cleaning schedules, and drop in no-go zones. You’ve got the usual options — vacuum only, mop only, or both — but you can also choose whether you want it to vacuum first then mop, or do the lot in one pass.
Controls are surprisingly flexible. You can dial up suction when tackling carpet, ease it back for hard floors, and tweak water flow so your timber boards don’t get drowned. The live map is handy too — you can watch it clean in real time and see what it’s covered. Voice assistants are supported if you want to bark commands at Alexa or Google, though the app itself is usually quicker. The only gripe is that some finer controls, like exactly how it handles corners, are still missing.
Performance: Vacuuming & Mopping
On the vacuuming front, the Flow’s suction is seriously strong. It makes light work of pet hair and crumbs, and while no robot will ever beat a proper upright for deep carpet cleaning, this one comes closer than most. Navigation is also top notch — it rarely gets stuck, and it’s smart enough to lift the mop when crossing carpet so you don’t end up with soggy patches.
It does seem to be a bit inconsistent, though. There are a couple of occasions where I've noted particular messes on the floor (fluff, cardboard offcuts, etc) and hoped the Flow would get them ... but somehow it seemed to avoid them, even when explicitly told to do a thorough vacuum. I couldn't quite get to the bottom of that, and ultimately gave up - hitting those areas with the stick vac to get the mess gone.
Mopping is where the Flow really shines, though. Instead of dragging a damp cloth, the Flow uses a roller mop that scrubs, rinses itself with hot water, and then dries at the dock so it doesn’t get that gross musty smell which makes some vacuums about as appealing as a wet, stinky dog.
The rollers even extend slightly to hit edges and corners, which most bots miss. You’ll still need to top up the clean water tank and empty the dirty one, but compared to wringing out a mop and bucket, it’s a breeze.
On that, though ... this is one thirsty robot. If you mop and vac daily (as a house with kids really needs), you'll find you're refilling the clean tank and emptying the grey tank every other day or so. It's a modest price to pay - especially if its in the laundry with easy access to a sink to empty and refill - but it is a minor annoyance, especially if you get notified that the dirty tank is full or clean tank empty when you've already left for work ...
Battery Life & Maintenance
The Flow’s battery is big enough that you’ll almost never think about it. On a standard clean it’ll easily get through a large Aussie home, and if it ever does run out mid-job it just toddles back to the dock, tops up, and picks up where it left off. In practice, you’ll only really notice the battery when you look at the app and see how much is left — otherwise it just gets on with things.
Maintenance is where Narwal’s approach really pays off. Instead of rinsing grubby mop pads and scraping out dustbins yourself, the dock does most of it for you. It washes and hot-air dries the mop rollers, empties the robot’s bin into a bigger dust bag, and keeps dirty water separate from clean. Your main jobs are refilling clean water (annoyingly, this can be quite often), emptying the dirty tank (so is this), and swapping a dust bag every few weeks (though, really, it can last a lot longer if it's only vacuuming little bits and not huge dust bunnies).
It’s still not completely “set and forget,” but it’s a lot closer than most other bots.
Verdict
The Narwal Flow feels like the next step for robot cleaners in Australia. It’s pricey and it takes up a fair bit of space, but it earns its keep by being genuinely less hassle than lugging around a stick vac and mop. Vacuuming is solid, mopping is outstanding, and the level of automation means you can actually forget about floor cleaning for days at a time.
Compared to the Narwal Freo Z10, the Flow adds refinements that make a difference — better edge cleaning, smarter obstacle detection, and hotter mop washing that keeps things fresher. If your place is mostly hard floors with a few carpeted rooms, it’s one of the best options you can get right now. If you’ve got wall-to-wall carpet, you might not see the same value.
Bottom line? If you’re happy to pay for convenience and want a robot that actually delivers on the promise of hands-free cleaning, the Flow is about as good as it gets.
Narwal Flow launched in Australia this mornth for a RRP of $2,999. The Narwal Flow is available on the Narwal official website and Harvey Norman, with an early bird promotion is be running from 13th to 31st October 2025, offering a discounted price of $2,499 (from $2999).
From the 27th October, the Flow will be available in Amazon, JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, Costco, Big W, Bunnings and Kogan online.
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