Dreame H16 Pro Steam reviewed: needlessly complex

Cleaning the floors with water and soap is something electronics can assist with. Is the Dreame H16 Pro Steam a dream to use, or in need of waking up for something better?

If you’re the sort of person with lots of dust, an animal that sheds like it’s no problem, or just simply have kids with no regard for clean feet or shoes (also known simply as “kids”), you probably know the need for a regular mopping well.

There are mops and then there are mops, almost like having a knife and then having a knife. And while we can’t all be Crocodile Dundee with cutting utensils, we might just be able to cut mopping time down with the right tool.

That mop you have isn’t a mop; this is a mop.

For Dreame, this mop comes in the form of the H16 Pro Steam, an electric mop and vacuum hybrid that can suck up dry dust and debris, and then wet and clean the floor, using a combination of water and cleaning product, and a bit of heat and scrub. Is it the professional dream you’ve been looking for?

What is the Dreame H16 Pro Steam?

When does a gadget make its way into the “pro” league? Clearly when it brandishes that on the name, which is more or less what Dreame has done with its H16, a combination vacuum and mop that covers both categories by calling it a wet and dry vac and mop.

To do that, there are two components for the use of the whole thing, with a vacuum sucking at 28,000 Pascals and a mop that can heat water to 90 degrees Celsius and a steaming system that pushes it even further to 200 degrees.

The system includes a self-cleaning process on the inside, so the mop barrel can be cleaned as you do the cleaning, and the chamber for all your gunk can separate: liquids go through, but debris is held in the section for debris.

Essentially, you don’t need to vacuum and then mop, but can vacuum while you mop. And as you mop, a little squeegee at the bottom will come down to wipe up any excess water.

The idea for all of this is to clean lots of things off the ground. We’re not just talking the regular wiping of dust, but also things that normally stick to the ground, such as food, dirt, and oils. Using a combination of hot water (or steam) and included cleaning product, Dreame is essentially offering an all-in-one cleaner.

Reach is also extended with this unit, because the barrel of the H16 Pro can be pulled all the way down to the bottom, allowing the thing to lie flat with the rest of the unit. That means you can roll it under furniture, and depending on how far you want to go, even control it remotely using an app.

Officially the mopping will run for around 20 minutes dependent on the mode you’re using, particularly when you’re talking about hot water mopping and a little less for steam. But keep things on auto and you can get up to an hour, because it might run a little less in temperature.

When you’re done, you’ll charge the H16 Pro on its specialty dock, which also runs through another cleaning process, even drying the mop as it does so. And then you can empty the compartments on the back for liquid and debris (but consider doing it outside, or pouring the liquid down a toilet like you do with dirty robotic mop water).

What does it do?

If that description doesn’t clear things up, the H16 Pro Steam’s use will, because it’s a wet and dry vacuum and it’s entire job is to do just that. Get it?

Jokes aside, the H16 is just one of the many electric app-connected steam mops making their way to market these days. They’re almost always from a company that makes robotic vacuums, and the Dreame H16 Pro is no different. Ever since Dyson announced it was entering mopping, we’ve seen more players find a way in, and Dreame is no different here.

Like actual robotic vacuum and mops, this model covers both wet and dry, cleaning floors two ways at once, but giving you the job to move it around, as opposed to letting a robot work it out.

There’s even a chemical soap dispenser built in, which will spray out the cleaner as you mop, and can be tweaked inside the app. It’s more of an automatic thing, though, and isn’t something you have direct control of.

All up, it’s a surprisingly heavy appliance to use around the home, but one where the compartment design is at least clever: a removable clean water tank at the front and a removable waste compartment at the back, complete with a red lever that looks like a carry handle but isn’t (pulling it will release the debris section from the dirty water, so only do this where you’re emptying).

Down the bottom of the unit is a section for the cleaning product, which Dreame kindly includes in the box.

Does it do the job?

Dreame’s H16 comes with a few modes, but much of it is made to be largely “set and forget”. For instance, it uses detergent against the ground, cleaning using the liquid and water, or switching to steam. But you don’t really get direct control of the soap beyond how it’s mixed, and unlike the trigger mechanism on the Roborock F25 Ace Pro, this cleaning liquid just kind of happens.

It’s an approach that works, but is decidedly less fun, and a whole lot slower and also much louder.

Turn the Dreame H16 mop-vac on and you’ll find a fairly loud combo unit waiting for you, pulling it back to let its combination of motors, wheels, and almost robotic parts do their thing, pulling you across the floor as you clean, clean, clean.

In automatic mode, it’s water and detergent, plus a sensor to detect how much of each is needed. Hot water mode adds the heat, while steam mode is triggered by holding the trigger down for three seconds, and it’s similar because it’s cleaning with high pressure steam.

You get the choice in the H16, as Dreame effectively blends what we’ve seen from Tineco and the soapy-equivalents you can find about the place.

There’s even an awkward “scrubbing” mode that pulls itself back and forward in small amounts, effectively scrubbing the floor as you move through your house.

Easily one of the more awkward settings, it feels like the sort of thing you could just do yourself if you needed to, but here an electronic component is scrubbing for you, back and forth, back and forth, almost in a silly way.

After a few tries with it, you’ll likely head back to the safety of automatic or hot water, both of which feel like they do just as good a job, and won’t make you feel weird about a mop pushing back and forth with minimal effort from you.

In both of these modes, we found the H16 Pro worked very well, cleaning the floor with ease, and even giving you a scent afterwards.

Technically, the Dreame H16 Pro appears very capable on the surface. You’ll get a great result when you work out what you need to do.

The problem is that this mop is needlessly complex and doesn’t really nail the brief of being the best cleaner you can find for the price. It’s not even second place for this reviewer.

What does it need?

Ultimately, the Dream H16 Pro can feel too complicated to use, and the moment you remove the plastic protector on the top of the unit, you’re left with icons that feel more like interpretive dance than actual explanations of what you’re going to be using.

There’s a mode for automatic cleaning, for washing, for steaming, and for scrubbing, and there are a bunch of settings for control in the app, but it’s not as easy as use and get the best result.

You’ll spend your time jumping through settings and waiting, the latter of which seems like a problem in Dreame’s H16 Pro.

Simply put, you’ll wait for anything involving heat. That’s normal for a steam mop, but the H16 seems especially problematic in this way. The time waiting seems just too long.

You’ll need to wait around 45 seconds for the hot water mop to warm up, and if you decide to put the mop down or stand it up while you wait, the system will go back and restart the entire thing. Basically, you need to hold the H16 while you wait.

Let’s say you want to use steam. To do that, you need to be in the hot water mode, pull the trigger on the mop for three seconds, which seems to be its only real function. When you do that, the mop will take another 45 seconds to get hot enough for the steam to work, and only if you hold it up and don’t decide to take a break.

That’s a minimum of a full minute and a half of standing, waiting around, while your wet-dry vacuum and mop just builds up the heat and pressure to do its thing. It feels like the sort of thing you could just get it to do in its special base, but no, you need to stand there… waiting.

Overall, it’s just a touch frustrating, which is a bit of a message for the interface and even the volume, because it is loud to use and clean. But it’s also a problem for the inclusion of the robotic control, something that’s a bit of an extra you won’t end up using because it feels utterly unfinished.

Like the Roborock F25 Ace Pro, you get a robotic mode where you can seemingly drive the vacuum around when you lie it on its back. Putting the vacuum in this position has another purpose, namely that of getting under tight spaces and narrow confines, but controlling it remotely is handy too.

Or it would be if the Dreame H16 Pro could turn a corner, any corner. It can’t.

The only movement Dreame’s seemingly robotic handheld vacuum and mop can go is forward and backwards, meaning you need to physically turn it and make it move in directions like left or right, making the whole robotic element kind of pointless.

Like the awkward and complex interface, the robotic remote control is equally awkward. It’s just a little surprising.

Is it worth your money?

Perhaps the worst realisation here comes from the price.

Made available for a shade under $1500 in Australia, the H16 is too expensive, and doesn’t feel like it at all makes sense in the marketplace.

Ultimately, it’s just too expensive for what it is. The Dreame H16 is technically capable, but doesn’t have the design chops of competitors and manages to feel even more overpriced than what we’ve seen from rivals.

Yay or nay?

After seeing a few of the new generation of mops in the past twelve months, and also playing with Dreame’s rather impressive Aqua10 Ultra robotic vacuum, the H16 feels like a back-step, taking what we loved about the brand’s introduction and more or less throwing a bit of a curve ball.

Everything we’ve seen from Dreame feels advanced, and genuinely seems like it could last you several years. The company is definitely thinking about the future. The problem is it might not be thinking about ease of use in its designs.

Even the trigger for the steam mop is confusing. On other vacuum and mop hybrids, the trigger is a fun design addition, with a squeeze releasing a spray of soap to let you clean the floor. Not here, where it’s an after-thought, and basically here to trigger a mode that the mode selector should work with.

It’s just not fun, even though the H16 Pro feels like it should be fun.

For $1500, you have to expect better, simply because better can be found at a lot less than what Dreame charges here. You might get great use out of the H16 Pro Steam Wet and Dry vacuum mop, but we’d definitely look around first, because almost everything else comes off as better value, and possibly better overall.