DJI Romo P Review

Design and Features

• Stunning, see-through design
• Choice of two detergents
• Very flexible cleaning options in the app

It gets to the point where once you’ve seen one robot vacuum cleaner and mop with a self-clean, self-empty station, you kind of feel like you’ve seen them all. The DJI Romo P might have the same core features as its competition, such as the Roborock Saros 20, but it’s done with a lot more flair.

Here, it’s out with solid plastic and both the robot and its docking station are finished in clear plastic, so you can peer through the outside to see the internals. If you like this kind of thing (and I do), the Romo P is quite the stunner.

With or without the clear exterior, the curved docking station looks great and reminds me of the Narwal Freo Z Ultra’s docking station. It’s quite deep, but that means that there’s no need for a ramp, and the robot docks and tucks in out of sight.

Like the Freo Z Ultra, the Romo P’s docking station takes two detergent tanks: one for general cleaning and one for a deodorising solution that’s designed for people with pets (the Narwal version takes regular and deep cleaning solutions).

Samples of both are provided in the box, but they’re not of the refillable type, so you need to replace them with DJI’s own cleaning solution. Most rivals, such as Roborock, have a pull-out tank that lets you use detergent of your choice.

Clean water is provided by a 4-litre tank, and dirty water is sucked into another 3.2-litre tank. These are both easy to remove for emptying/refilling.

Water from the clean tank is heated to between 70°C and 75°C for cleaning, and then hot air drying helps prevent mould and odours from building up.

Dust is emptied into the 2.4-litre bag at the front, which self-seals on removal and should hold enough dust for around 60 days’ worth of use. 

The robot itself looks just as cool as the docking station, with the clear plastic case showing a network of wires and tubes, and I could even see the spinning motors that power the dual mopping pads.

Front-facing solid-state LiDAR is used for navigation, with dual cameras to aid navigation, as well as spotting and avoiding obstacles. That means no dome on top, although at 98mm tall, the Romo P is a bit taller than the main competition, although it could squeeze under my test sofa without issue.

A small bin can pull out from the rear. While you won’t need to worry about emptying it manually, the filter it holds should be cleaned regularly to maintain suction power.

Flip the robot over, and it’s unusual to see two side brushes when most flagship models tend to have only one. Here, one brush is fixed, but the other can swing out to get closer to the edges of rooms or even into corners.

Likewise, one of the mopping pads can perform a similar trick for edge cleaning. This is a standard feature on high-end robots, but it’s still nice to have the tech here.

When carpet is detected, or in vacuum only mode, the mop pads can lift off the floor. DJI doesn’t say by how much, but looking I’d say that the mops can clear very short pile carpet. At this price, I’d expect a docking station that can remove the mop pads for vacuum only mode.

The main floor brush has a split in the middle, much like the DuoDivide brush on Roborock vacuum cleaners. The idea is that hair gets picked up, and slides towards the gap in the middle, getting sucked up without tangling.

Control of the DJI Romo P is via the DJI home app. It’s quick and easy to get the robot connected to the app and then out for its mapping run, which is quick. Similar to other robots, the Romo P then creates a map automatically, suggesting rooms. It was pretty spot on in my case, but it’s easy enough to merge or split rooms to get the layout you want, and to and no-go areas.

Although the robot has sensors to detect carpet, it automatically adds floor types to the map, which can cause issues. I have an area of hard floor that I use for the mopping tests. This floor is by the door, with carpet all around it, but the Romo P detected incorrectly that chunks of this hard floor were carpet.

After several passes it reduced the area that it though was carpet, but there was still a strip on the hard floor where my stains were, which meant that the Romo P kept avoiding mopping them.

I had this issue with the Narwal Flow, too. Fixing the issue is hard. I could tell the Romo P to ignore the carpet in an entire room, but I couldn’t find an option to delete a bit of wrongly-detected carpet. In the end, I had to tell the Romo P to ignore carpet to get the testing done. With traditional boundaries, such as doors, you shouldn’t get this option, but I’d like the Romo P to have better floor detection as standard, and be more flexible when it comes to cleaning.

Cleaning options let me select the clean the entire house, a room or rooms, or to draw an area on the map for spot cleaning.

It’s the cleaning options that prove how versatile this cleaner really is. There are the standard cleaning modes: vacuum and mop, vacuum then mop, vacuum only, and mop only.

Normally, mixed mopping and vacuuming modes would only give you a choice of the number of passes you want to make for both modes. Here, the Romo P splits out the options. For example, when set to Vacuum Then Mop, I could perform up to three vacuuming passes, and then a choice of one, two or automatic mop passes. That makes it much easier to control how you want each room or area to be cleaned.

There are three vacuum power modes to choose from and a choice of three water level modes, and three route choices, depending on whether you want a fast clean or a slower, more thorough one.

In mop only mode, there’s then the choice of detergent, choosing between the degreasing option or the pet cleaning solution, or just cleaning with water alone.

Advanced options include the ability to increase suction when “particulates such as cat litter” are detected, and a liquid detection option that lets the robot suck up spills. 

I should also point out that the DJI Romo series was accidentally hacked, with a user gaining access to thousands of devices. The issue has been addressed, but it’s still quite shocking to hear about.

Performance

• Good standard vacuuming
• Mops all but the toughest stains
• Struggled with hair on carpet

I put the DJI Romo P through my standard tests in the Trusted Reviews Home Technology Lab. I started with the carpet cleaning test, sprinkling a teaspoon of flour onto the test flooring. I was impressed with how well the robot cleaned, using its 25,000Pa suction power to really clean that carpet. This is a brilliant result and as good as robots get.

I found that the DJI Romo P did as well on the hard floor with the same spill, easily cleaning up the mess.

Moving to the edge test, the DJI Romo P needed suction power and then its mops to clean, but it did manage to get most of the mess within two passes.

Mopping tests started well, using the standard detergent. I found that my dried on coffee stain was fully removed.

My red wine stain proved no issue for the robot, either; it easily cleaned up the mess after a couple of passes.

My mud stain was dealt with, too: the particles were vacuumed up and then the left of stain was wiped up with the microfibre cloths.

My ketchup stain proved to be a much harder job. After four passes, the stain was reduced but still very visible.

I continued to send the robot out, but after six passes (left) the stain was still quite visible, and after eight passes, the stain was reduced but still there. The Roborock Saros 20 does better in this test.

I also tried the DJI Romo P out with human hair strands, dropped onto the carpet. After vacuuming, I flipped the robot over and didn’t see any traces of hair wrapped around the brush.

Before I got too excited, I noticed that the robot hadn’t done a very good job of vacuuming the hair, and lots of strands were entangled in the carpet fibres.

Battery life is rated at three hours, although that’s for the lowest power setting. More reasonably, using higher power settings, the battery is big enough to last for a couple of passes on the average-sized floor, so there are no issues here.

Navigation is very good, with the DJI Romo P avoiding all of the common traps I set: shoes, loose cables and fake pet mess. I didn’t find this robot trying to get into areas it couldn’t get out of, and moved quickly to an area for spot cleaning.

Should you buy it?