Narwal’s new budget robot vacuum just got its first reviews, and its price depends on which one you read
Two independent reviews of Narwal’s new budget robot vacuum turned up sharply different numbers, especially on what it costs to own in Australia versus the US.
Narwal’s Freo 20 Edge received its first independent reviews this month, five weeks after Narwal introduced it as the budget model in its FlowWash cleaning lineup. One review scored it 83 out of 100. A second ran it for three weeks against a shedding dog, and called its mop system the reason to own it.
The Edge carries the same 31,000 Pa suction rating and flattened-roller FlowWash mop as the pricier Freo 20, but trades the flagship’s camera-based object recognition for a hidden dToF LiDAR and structured-light setup, and dries its mop pad at 113°F instead of 140°F. Narwal set its US price at $799.99 against the standard Freo 20’s $1,099.99.
One review, run in Australia, put the robot through suction, mopping and obstacle tests. It measured 60 decibels at maximum power, called its mopping exceptional, and reported no tangles from pet hair.
Of four obstacles set out for it, the robot avoided three and was tripped up only by a simulated pile of pet waste. A tougher, separate test combined a floor drop with a raised door threshold: the robot stopped correctly at the drop, then got stuck on the threshold anyway.
A second review, run in the United States, ran the robot for three weeks against a shedding dog. Its four-step mop cycle rinses the pad through 16 nozzles, scrubs with about 12 newtons of pressure, scrapes off residue, then draws the dirty water back into the dock.
Over three weeks, that cycle lifted dried coffee and ketchup on the first pass, and the brush came away with only a few trapped strands rather than a wound tangle. The dock itself needs a real footprint, about 14 by 18 by 21 inches, and the robot’s 3.7-inch body still can’t clear some low furniture.
The Edge is the entry point into Narwal’s current wash-and-dry lineup: the same suction and mop system as the pricier Freo 20, minus the camera-based sensors and the hotter mop-drying cycle. In the US it has run $699.99 to $799.99 depending on the week’s sale.
The Australian review lists it at AU$2,299, discounted to AU$1,799 with a store code, a price that is higher, numeral for numeral, than the robot’s full US sticker price before any discount at all.
Both tests are still short measured against ownership. The Australian review does not say how long its testing ran, and even the three-week US test is well short of the months of wash cycles and mop-scraper wear the robot is built to handle.
No published test has checked whether missing the simulated pet waste was specific to that unit or typical of the model, and nobody covering either review has explained why the Australian list price sits so far above the US one.
