More than one company unveiled a robotic vacuum cleaner with a mechanical arm at CES 2025

It turns out that Roborock isn’t the only company to bring a robot vacuum cleaner with a mechanical arm to CES 2025. Competing company Dreame, which introduced its climbing stairs robot vacuum cleaner earlier in the week also worked on a robot vacuum cleaner with an object pick-up arm.

The device is still a prototype, according to the company, but the as-yet-unnamed robot vacuum was on full display at the Dreame booth at CES. Considering it’s still a prototype, the actual hand looked much more substantial compared to that of Roborock’s Saros Z70. It was much thicker and had a larger “claw” that looked like it could pick up slightly heavier objects. (Roborock says its vacuum can pick up objects weighing up to 300 grams.)

Unfortunately, Dreame wasn’t shown actually grabbing anything, but I was able to see the hand extend and retract a few times. It appeared to be on a similar device to the X50, as the prototype vacuum cleaner also mounted on “legs” similar to Dreame’s X50 ladder.

A Dreame representative at the booth told me that the company had been working on the prototype for a while, but decided to accelerate its plans for the vacuum at CES. After a quick glance up, I knew exactly what he was referring to: Dreame’s booth was located right across from Roborock, which was displaying a massive replica of its Saros Z70 with hands on top of its booth.

Maybe next year we’ll see the two robots do battle with vacuum arms.