Dreame X40 Ultra vs Roborock S5

“I tested and retested the Dreame X40 and X30, they just didn't do as good as the older L20, I don't know why, but it was consistent over many tests. Same thing with the S8 MaxV vs the S8 Max Ultra. The short answer is that before I did this new test, I was mostly just guessing about relative differences in mopping ability, I could do the basic mopping tests that I did, but those really only helped me find particularly bad mopping robots, they didn't help us to know which one was better than another in an objective way. Now that I have a system that, at least I believe is accurate, it will change the rankings going forward. You could argue that I shouldn't weigh the mopping ability scores so heavily in the final rankings, and I may revise that in a future algo update, but for right now I think its a good system, even if it radically changes my view on which are the best robots out there right now. One thing I have found over the years is that every release of every product is different. certain little changes in manufacturing change performance metrics even with its not supposed to on paper. testing products in increasingly better ways is the only way to keep the manufacturers honest.”

“The Roborock S5V models have fairly limited object avoidance. They are stripped down versions of the "base" models with less cameras. So if not eating things like cables is a priority, I think the Mova might be a better choice as it is supposed to have quite good avoidance.”