The Narwal Flow 2 earned a spot on our Top 20 Robot Vacuums list when we first tested it in the Vacuum Wars studio. Although some aspects of its performance were not as strong as the original Narwal Flow, it initially ranked well enough to make the list. As other higher-performing midrange and flagship robot vacuums were released, however, the Flow 2 eventually dropped off our official rankings. (See our studio review)
We wanted to see what it was like to live with the Narwal Flow 2 on a day-to-day basis in a regular family home, so I brought our review model home with me for three months. As Vacuum Wars’ staff writer for robot vacuums, I regularly test these products in my own busy family home, where they face the kinds of everyday challenges that can be difficult to replicate in the studio. In this long-term review, I’ll cover what I liked about the Flow 2, what I didn’t like, and whether I would recommend it.
Narwal Flow 2
Vacuum Wars Stars 3.72
The Narwal Flow 2 is Narwal’s latest flagship robot vacuum and introduces several notable upgrades, highlighted by its Visual Language Model (VLM) system with dual HD cameras and a 10-TOPS AI processor that can recognize a virtually unlimited range of objects, detect items as small as 5 mm, and even locate valuables such as keys and wallets. In testing, it excelled at obstacle avoidance, avoiding 20 of 24 obstacles, and delivered above-average navigation efficiency despite its unconventional cleaning pattern. Vacuuming performance was another strength, with a powerful 31,000 Pa suction rating, airflow slightly above average, 84% sand removal in the carpet deep-clean test, excellent flattened pet hair pickup, and perfect anti-tangle results with 0% hair wrap in the 7-inch hair test versus a 26% average. Additional advantages include robust mopping hardware with a self-refreshing roller mop, 10 mm mop lift, edge extension, strong threshold crossing up to 38 mm, an excellent multifunction dock, Matter compatibility, and extensive app features. The main drawbacks were mopping performance, which scored just 68 points in the dried-on stain test compared to a 108-point average, and concerns about app reliability, with some users reporting mapping and connectivity issues. Despite these weaknesses, the Flow 2 earned a place on our Top 20 robot vacuum list. See additional info
The Home Testing Environment
The main level of my home is about 750 square feet, or roughly 70 square meters. It is made up mostly of hard floors with area rugs.
I have three school-aged children who often leave shoes, art projects, and other objects on the floor. I also have a large German Shepherd mix that sheds a significant amount of hair.
For my use case, the most important robot vacuum features are:
- Mopping
- Pet hair pickup and management
- Obstacle avoidance
Those priorities made the Flow 2 an especially interesting model to test over a longer period.
Mopping Performance
The first major positive was the Flow 2’s mopping performance. In fact, I felt it was the strongest robot vacuum mop I had used in my home to date.
That was interesting because the Narwal Flow 2 received a fairly low score in our stain tests during our initial studio review. The result surprised us because the original Narwal Flow had been so strong at mopping, and the Flow 2 introduced a number of upgrades.
During the initial setup after bringing the robot home from the studio, however, there was a significant firmware update. Brands often release firmware updates during the first few months after launch to address issues discovered after release.
We do not know whether that firmware update was responsible for the improved mopping performance, but it is one possible explanation because the Flow 2’s mop performed extremely well during home testing. There wasn’t leftover residue or streaks on the floor, and it produced the cleanest mopping results I had seen from a robot vacuum so far.
Vacuuming and Pet Hair Performance
The Flow 2 was also a strong performer in vacuuming. Because my house has mostly hard floors and one low-pile rug, basic sweeping performance is not usually a major challenge. Pet hair, however, definitely is.
Anyone who has seen my other home reviews knows that pet hair has been an ongoing source of frustration when it comes to robot vacuum dustbins overfilling. Because the Flow 2 has a relatively small 300-milliliter onboard dustbin, I was initially concerned that this might become an issue.
It never did. The Flow 2 never overfilled its dustbin, never developed problems with hair clogs, and never experienced hair tangling around the brush. That alone was enough to make me extremely happy with its performance. Frequent hair clogging, along with the suction issues that clogs can create, can be a significant problem in homes with heavy-shedding pets.
As far as both sweeping and mopping were concerned, the Flow 2 turned out to be an excellent floor cleaner in my home.
AI Obstacle Avoidance
One of the most heavily marketed features of the Narwal Flow 2 is its AI-powered obstacle recognition and avoidance system. The Flow 2 performed strongly in our studio obstacle-avoidance testing, so we expected it to do well in a home environment. We were not disappointed.
In fact, so far, it is the undefeated obstacle-avoidance champion in my home. The Flow 2 never once became stuck on a cable, which was a first for a robot vacuum in my house. With several family members working and studying at home, extension cords and device cables are common obstacles.
There were only two situations during the entire three-month test when the Flow 2 experienced a driving issue that required human intervention. On one occasion, it picked up a small piece of paper that jammed the brush. On another, it became caught underneath a chair and essentially fell asleep there for half a day while I was away from home.
Other than those two instances, the Flow 2 navigated without requiring assistance. It also moved just as effectively in the dark as it did during the daytime. In my experience, the Flow 2 was a legitimately autonomous floor cleaner.
Valuables Recognition Feature
I also tried testing the Flow 2 feature that is designed to recognize valuables left on the floor and pin their locations on the map.
The feature needs to be activated in the app, but despite trying it, I was never able to get it to work reliably.
Because this is still relatively new technology, it may simply need more time to mature. However, the concept has significant potential as robot vacuums continue evolving beyond floor cleaning and toward more general home-assistant functions.
Navigation and Cleaning Speed
The Flow 2’s overall navigation was good, and it moved quickly through its cleaning runs.
When vacuuming and mopping simultaneously, it took around one hour to clean the entire main floor. I experimented with separating the two jobs and setting the robot to vacuum first and mop afterward. Doing that added only about another half hour to the overall cleaning time.
I typically use vacuum-before-mopping settings with robots that struggle with the fine grit and clay common in my region, which can sometimes cause streaking during mopping. That extra step was not necessary with the Flow 2, however, so I eventually returned to running the vacuum and mop at the same time.
Battery Life
Battery life was not an issue in my home because the floor plan is relatively small.
However, the Flow 2 performed very well in our studio battery testing. It received a very high battery-efficiency score, and we estimated that it could clean more than 2,300 square feet on a charge. My use case does not require that level of efficiency, but based on our official testing, I would not expect battery life to be a significant issue with the Flow 2.
Base Station Performance
The Flow 2’s base station was another positive. I never experienced the kinds of hair-clogging issues that can sometimes occur in auto-empty systems when dealing with large amounts of pet hair.
The dock itself is attractive and relatively narrow, making it easier to find a place for it in the home. It also includes a lighting feature with different color options, which I enjoyed.
The mop pad also stayed clean and soft over time. The station’s cleaning tray was easy to access, remove, and clean, and it fit back into the dock without difficulty.
Narwal released a white version of the Flow 2 shortly before this review was published. I would have preferred that version because my dog’s hair is white and tends to show up more noticeably on dark surfaces.
Drying Cycle and Voice Announcements
There was one aspect of the base station that became annoying. After a cleaning run, the dustbin and internal channel went through a drying cycle. Several hours later, a voice announcement would play to let me know when that process had finished.
This could be startling when I ran the robot in the evening and the announcement went off in the middle of the night. I tried to disable this notification in the app, but it was not clear how to turn off that specific announcement without disabling all voice alerts.
That leads into my main complaint about the Flow 2.
Narwal App Experience
The Narwal app was not my favorite. It includes plenty of features and offers very granular control over the robot, but I did not find the interface to be intuitive. Some settings were difficult to locate even when using the app’s search function.
For example, the Child Lock was located inside a general settings section that contained a number of seemingly unrelated features. Other specialized options, including lighting controls, could also be difficult to find. This was a recurring issue throughout the app. Features were often located inside menus or tabs that were not necessarily where I expected them to be.
The functionality was there, but finding and learning how to use it required more effort than I liked.
Initial Mapping and Stair Detection
I had a small scare during the Flow 2’s initial mapping run. The setup process itself was user-friendly, and the robot moved very quickly through the house while creating its first map—possibly a little too quickly.
When it first encountered the staircase, the robot darted toward the edge and stopped itself very quickly several times. Its back end tipped upward just enough to be concerning. I did not capture footage of this because I was busy rushing toward the robot in case I needed to catch it.
Fortunately, that never became necessary. The Flow 2 never actually went over the edge, and after the initial mapping session, it never came that close to the stairs again.
I still added a no-go zone to the map around the staircase as an extra precaution.
Robot Height and Furniture Clearance
The Flow 2 itself is also noticeably taller than many of the flagship robot vacuums we have seen this year.
It was able to clean underneath the furniture in my home, and the extending mop and side brush provided good reach underneath my kitchen cabinets. However, homes with lower-clearance furniture may notice the additional height.
The robot also picked up a scratch on the top at some point during the three-month test.
Extra Features
There were also some features that I did not find useful.
One example was a pet mimicry option, which I was fairly sure would scare my dog.
Features like these may be entertaining or interesting, but they can also contribute to a robot’s price without necessarily improving its core cleaning performance. That is something worth keeping in mind when evaluating higher-end robot vacuums with increasingly long feature lists.
Narwal Flow 2: Three-Month Home Test Verdict
Looking purely at performance, the Narwal Flow 2 ended up becoming one of my favorite robot vacuums.
It performed exceptionally well in the areas that mattered most in my home, with strong results in both vacuuming and mopping.
Its intelligent obstacle avoidance was also extremely successful during real-world use. Going three months without becoming stuck on a cable was especially impressive in a busy family home where cords, shoes, projects, and other objects are regularly left on the floor. Pet hair performance was another major advantage. Despite its relatively small dustbin, the Flow 2 avoided the overfilling, clogging, and brush-tangle problems that I have experienced with some other robot vacuums.
The biggest drawback was the Narwal app. While feature-rich and highly configurable, I felt that it had too much of a learning curve and that important settings were often harder to find than they needed to be.
Overall, however, the Narwal Flow 2 performed extremely well during three months of real-world home testing, especially in the areas I cared about most: mopping, pet hair management, and obstacle avoidance.
Top 20 Robot Vacuums
Explore Vacuum Wars’ always up-to-date rankings of the best robot vacuums, based on independent, hands-on testing. We purchase every unit ourselves and have evaluated more than 150 models, giving us a deep benchmark for cleaning performance, navigation, battery life, and advanced features like obstacle avoidance and mopping.
Narwal Robot Vacuum Buyers Guide – 2026
Our Narwal Robot Vacuum Buyer’s Guide explains the differences between models so you can easily compare features and prices. We cover everything from the best budget-friendly Narwal vacuums to the most advanced systems with self-cleaning docks and smart navigation. Whether you’re upgrading or buying your first robot vacuum, this guide will help you choose the best Narwal robot vacuum for your home and budget. See the Guide
Narwal Flow 2
