Robot vacuums have come a long way over the past several years, with some of the most advanced models nowadays going well and beyond anything we thought they’d be able to do. But, in a lot of cases, they’re also still an eyesore in your home. After spending a couple of months with the Narwal Flow 2, though, that’s one of the biggest things that stood out – I actually rather like how this looks, and it doesn’t give up top-tier performance to do so.
Let’s start off with the design here, as I think it might be one of the biggest things Narwal Flow 2 has going for it.
The dock has this modern but subdued gray design that features a matte finish, sharp angles, and some nice lighting effects on the front. Unlike Narwal’s former all-white design language, this new look blends into its surroundings far better, while again just looking nice to the eye. The Roborock Saros 20 I reviewed earlier this year checks a lot of the same boxes, but I think Narwal wins on pure aesthetics. Two water storage tanks can be found on the top – one for clean water, the other dirty – and the dustbin neatly hides away underneath those.
The lights I mentioned serve a practical purpose – or at least they want to. Every core function shows a different lighting effect, but Narwal doesn’t explicitly tell you what these effects mean. There’s a purple-ish light when the robot docks which I assume just means it’s charging. There’s an orange light when the robot has been docked after cleaning which I assume is for the heated drying of the mops. I do wish Narwal did a better job explaining this, but it’s a cool effect nonetheless – it’s also completely optional and can be turned off. You can also turn it fully on, with purple, fireplace, and nightlight effects available in the app.
The robot itself matches the look of the dock, with its own ambient lights around the center ring. It’s a clean-looking machine that houses all of its sensors around the edges. There’s no central sensor pillar here, though I didn’t find the Flow 2 thin enough at 3.7 inches to fit under much furniture outside of a bed or desk. After around three months of use, it’s still in pretty good shape too.
But how’s the performance? Ultimately, that’s what matters most.
In a word, excellent.
Narwal Flow 2 touts 31,000 Pa of suction power for vacuuming up debris, and features a rotating track mop that applies pressure to scrub the floors, and you can use detergent for a deeper mop too. While I still find the dual mop head setup of other vacuums a bit strong in some areas, the results speak for themselves here – I often find that Flow 2 manages to leave the floors feeling cleaner under my bare feet than other setups I’ve tried. The vacuum power is roughly the same as you’d find on any other flagship-tier robot vacuum, and I appreciate Narwal’s brush that reduces tangled hair. It’s been a “set it and forget it” system outside of swapping out the mop water around once a week.
It can clean for a while, too, with a huge 7,000 mAh battery. This is a vacuum that I’m never seeing pause its task to charge, even if I send it on a full-house run (around 1,300 sqft) with multiple vacuum and mopping runs back to back. Despite the sensors being largely invisible to your own view, Narwal’s obstacle avoidance is great – it never tried to suck up any socks on the ground, but I’d still recommend moving wires out of the way.
Like the physical design, something else that I found let the Flow 2 fit a bit better in day-to-day life is that it’s really quiet. I usually schedule my vacuum to run early in the morning or late at night so I don’t have to hear it while I’m working in my home office, but Flow 2 is quiet enough to where, even in a directly adjacent room, the volume doesn’t usually bother me. Narwal touts that Flow 2 operates at under 56.5dB – roughly the same volume as a normal conversation or perhaps a standard dishwasher running.
The same applies to the dock. The auto-empty dustbin is remarkably quiet, even being able to empty out the vacuum on a late-night cleaning run without waking me up in the next room.
Rounding things out, there’s the app. Narwal’s app is simple to use, but just as advanced as the one Roborock uses which, personally, I’ve long considered the best of the best. Once you access the robot, you can see a map of your home, select room or zoned cleaning, and pick how you want it to clean. It’s all intuitive and readily available, and you can customize the cleaning to add additional cycles or increase power pretty easily. Of course, you can also set an automated schedule for cleaning times.
Narwal Flow 2 checks a lot of boxes. It’s quiet, it looks good, it performs well across both vacuum and mopping tasks, and it has a good app. And it does all of this for a great price. At $1,499, it’s a bit more affordable than the Roborock Saros 20 I mentioned earlier, despite performing roughly at the same level – Roborock’s advantage is really its ability to fit under furniture, and it’s a bit better at picking up small pet hairs on carpeted surfaces.
Right now, though, Narwal Flow 2 is an even better deal, with a discount on Amazon and Narwal’s site to $1,049. At that price, it borders on unbeatable.
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