One of our favourite robotic cleaners is getting a few upgrades for its latest model, and the company making it is also building a mattress cleaner.
Minds far greater than ours are helping out with cleaning around the house, all in an effort to make the home more of a zero labour effort.
We’re not entirely there yet, but ideas like the LG CLOiD and its robot laundry folder and dish manager could just make home life and chores that much easier when it arrives, and when the price falls enough so that anyone can get one.
Until that happens, we’ll have to rely on a different type of robotic appliance: the kind that happily vacuums and mops, and largely lets you get on with your life rather than dealing with the messy maintenance of keeping your home clean.
Last year, we saw more robotic vacuum and mop models than we’d ever seen before, and some of them stood out in a seriously big way. One impressed us so much, it became the favourite, nabbing a Best Pick in our yearly awards.
Seemingly coming out of nowhere, the Narwal Flow is one of those robotic vacuum and mop combos that doesn’t stop until it’s done, and appreciated for that very reason.
But Narwal isn’t done, and at CES 2026, the company is revealing what’s next for its combo robot.
The new model is aptly named the Flow 2, likely because it’s the sequel, but it doesn’t appear to be a minor update. Rather, Narwal has given the system more AI with an autonomous system able to recognise a virtually unlimited number of items and obstacles, and bolster its modes with pet care and baby care modes, controlling its performance dependent on what the AI is trigger by.
In the baby care mode, the vacuum will control its sound, going quiet near a crib and sending alerts for toys it finds on the ground as it moves. It will even apparently avoid areas where the baby has been snapped by its cameras crawling.
Meanwhile, the pet care mode automatically cleans where your pet has been, and can be used to find a pet and use the vacuum for a video call. As to whether your dog or cat will appreciate you talking through the robotic vacuum is anyone’s guess, but each pet is different.
Narwal is also improving the mop capability in this model, increasing the temperature from 45 degrees Celsius to 60, which should deal with stubborn stains.
The AI mapping is also improving, we’re told, thanks in part to new cameras and an AI model.
Narwal’s Flow 2 is clearly its star of the show, but there are other models on the way, such as a few cordless vacuums, as well as something it calls the U50, a mattress cleaner that uses vacuum technology, ultraviolet light, and heat to clean a mattress and covering fabrics, removing allergens and mites by heating to an iron level of heat at 58 Celsius, and then sucking any mites or allergens from the fabric, sealing it in a dust bag.
Like most things at CES, there’s no word yet on either of these gadgets coming to market in Australia, but given Narwal has presence locally, we’d say there’s a good bet that our neck of the woods is on the cards for what the company is showcasing in Las Vegas right now.
