I've purchased a number of robot mops and vacuums over the years. None of them have been noteworthy. Sure they work, but they don't work well. In the case of mops, they always seem to smear dirt around rather than mop it up... in the case of vacuums, they always seem to lack the ability to suck up dirt efficiently. So, more often than not, I end up mopping and vacuuming manually while my robots sit idle.

The problem is... I have cats.

In addition to year 'round kitty litter getting kicked around, this time of year Jake and Jenny are shedding like crazy. This means fur is everywhere and hacking up hairballs are more frequent. Yuck. Every Spring I toy with the idea of buying new robots to help keep things clean (all my floors are hardwood, so it's very noticeable).

So every Spring I toy with the idea of getting new-and-improved robots. Then I don't because I don't want to spend the money only to be disappointed again.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago and I said something to a friend about cat hair being everywhere and I was presented an option for a too-good-to-be true new robot that was being released on April 20th... the Narwal Flow 2.

So of course I researched all the pre-reviews of the product and did a deep dive into the competition.

The robot I was looking at a couple months ago was the Matic, former Google Nest engineers. The reviews were amazing and its reimagining of floor cleaning seemed a smart take. But it was way too tall. It wouldn't fit under any of my furniture, which means all the cat hair blowing under it would never be touched. So I passed.

I have mixed experiences with Dyson (I find them mostly sub-par) but was told they have been investing loads of their cash into robots, so I looked at some reviews. But their latest and greatest Spot+Scrub was getting terrible reviews.

The previous Narwal models were always in competition with Mova, Roborock, and Dreame, so I investigated their offerings. I had experience with i-Robot and Ecovacs, so I looked into those as well. After exhaustive research, I decided that the models competing with the Narwal Flow 2 weren't much better or worse, so I pushed the button on it because the offer I had was too good, then I hoped for the best.

After living with the robot for a week, I have opinions.

Which I will share tomorrow.

SPOILER ALERT: This is a darn good robot mop/vacuum, and my home has never felt this clean with any other robot before.