Narwal has been blazing a trail—a very tidy one—in home robotics for a decade, but isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
The Chinese outfit, famous for releasing the world’s first self-cleaning robot mop and vacuum in 2021, continues to forge ahead with innovative designs that combine the latest tech with surprisingly elegant aesthetics. The new flagship, the Narwal Flow 2, which debuted at CES in January before officially launching in April, delivers advanced A.I.-powered cleaning in a stylish package.
There are, of course, other robot vacuums that use artificial intelligence—it’s 2026, after all—but the Flow 2 takes a two-pronged approach that radically improves mess detection. “We have a comprehensive system that makes it so different from any product in the market,” Dede Liu, Narwal’s PR and communications representative, said in a discussion at House of Robb: The World’s Game during the weekend of this year’s FIFA World Cup Final.
The Flow 2 incorporates both onboard A.I.—a chip inserted in the vacuum itself—and cloud-based A.I. (plus dual RGB cameras) to help it not only recognize and avoid obstacles in the home but distinguish between different types of messes to optimize cleaning strategies.“It helps it recognize what dirt is in front of it so that it can decide, ‘okay, I should clean harder,’ or ‘I should clean in a gentle way,’” explains Liu. The Flow 2 cleans exceptionally well, too, thanks to a built-in high-speed roller mop that uses water at a temperature of between 113 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Few other comparable robots clean with heated water.
