How goes the Narwal Flow 2, reminiscent of Michael Knight's Kitt

For the past three weeks, we have been testing the Narwal Flow 2, the Chinese company's new top-of-the-range floor-cleaning robot, on an almost daily basis. A small premise: this robot comes onto the market at a crowded stage. The year 2026 started with a continuous sequence of new robot hoovers and floor scrubbers, many of which focus on the same keywords: artificial intelligence and obstacle recognition. This is another reason why, in such a context, the Flow 2 may seem (and had seemed to us) one of many. The test removed our prejudice. But it also gave us a certainty: this robot is also a piece of furniture, with a LED light reminiscent of Kitt (the intelligent car that spoke to Michael Knight) that scrolls when the device performs some task.

Let's start with the most talked about specifications: 31,000 Pa suction, self-cleaning roller mop, dual chamber with AI. These are numbers and features found, more or less, elsewhere, often in the same price range. The point is how these technologies work together. This is where the Flow 2 stands out, especially in the handling of dirt.

The Freo Mind mode is the core of the system. The robot uses the front camera to analyse what is in front of it and adapt its behaviour in real time. When it detects accumulations of dirt or liquids, it takes a picture and modifies the cleaning strategy. And this is the first time that a robot has actually done this step in an obvious and concrete way. The suction power clearly increases in the dirtiest areas, and so does the roller passage.

There is also an element of transparency that is rarely seen in this category. The app shows what the robot is 'seeing', with pictures and markings on the map. Every obstacle is classified and recorded. Cables, shoes, small objects: the system precisely avoids them and reports them. This makes the behaviour more predictable and verifiable, something lacking in many competitors who work in a more opaque way. And it also partly tells you where the robots are heading, as Narwal (still a fairly young company) is considered among the trendsetters in the industry.

Another big factor we appreciated was the washing. The comparison with other robots on the market, in this case, seemed quite clear in Narwal's favour (even though the competitors were year-old models). The roller system is not cylindrical as in most models, but uses a flat surface that slides like a belt. This increases the contact surface with the floor with each pass. The result is especially noticeable on liquids. The robot absorbs spills such as wine and thick sauces without difficulty. Even sticky dirt is removed without leaving any residue, a test that challenges almost all robots. Some more difficulty on stickier dough residues (such as some pizza dough fragments), where the robot struggles more.