I’m deeply conflicted about the Dyson Spot + Scrub Ai robot vacuum and mop. It’s the company’s best robotic floor cleaner to date, with excellent mopping performance, good navigation and obstacle detection, and a multifunction dock that takes much of the busywork off your hands. But Dyson’s first attempt at a vacuum-and-mop combo is a worse vacuum than its predecessors, and that’s because there’s no Dyson motor in this vacuum.

You read that right. For $1,200, the Spot + Scrub doesn’t get you a Dyson vacuum; instead, you’re getting a third-party motor and brush system. “It’s not one of our V10 motors, it’s one of our partner technologies,” Nathan Lawson McLean, senior design manager at Dyson, told me.

Overall, the robot “merges new and already existing Dyson technologies with other platforms.” Lawson McLean confirmed that the Dyson tech is mostly found in the cyclonic auto-empty dock, the Dyson-designed roller mop system, and the Dyson-developed AI-powered stain-detection feature that gives the device its name. Hence, my conflict: how do I review a Dyson robot vacuum whose vacuum isn’t a Dyson?

Dyson Spot + Scrub Ai

Score: 6

Pros	Cons
Great mopping Big, bagless dust container Excellent navigation and obstacle detection Simple, easy-to-use app	Worse vacuum than the Vis Nav Too wide to navigate some furniture Stain-spotting is spotty The dock is an eyesore  Very loud

Where to Buy:

• $1199.99 at Dyson
• $1199.99 $849.99 at Walmart
• $1199.99 $849.99 at Best Buy

The Dyson Spot + Scrub is a robot vacuum that can also mop your floors. It uses a large, self-cleaning roller mop that dispenses 140-degree-fahrenheit heated water as it runs, and sensors tell it to raise the mop while vacuuming carpet. Its vacuum has a claimed 18,000Pa of suction and uses a single rubber/bristle roller brush along with two spider-like side sweepers to capture dirt. There’s a camera on board for AI-powered obstacle detection and stain spotting, along with lidar for navigation.

It comes with Dyson’s first multifunction dock that, in addition to charging the bot, empties its onboard dustbin, cleans its mop, and drains and refills its water tanks. The giant dock is an eyesore, but it works and is a welcome upgrade. The lack of a self-empty feature on Dyson’s last robot vac, the 360 Vis Nav, was a big miss. 

Dyson has ditched the D-shape of the Vis Nav and opted for a more standard round look. It has also abandoned its purely camera-based navigation in favor of lidar paired with camera-based AI obstacle recognition. iRobot made the same pivots last year when it began working with a third-party manufacturer to catch up with rapidly evolving competition — a few months before it filed for bankruptcy.

While Dyson isn’t likely to follow Roomba’s financial path, its latest model is clearly an attempt to keep up with the plethora of Chinese manufacturers in this space. The Spot + Scrub has a few signature Dyson features, but it is much more like the competition from Roborock or Ecovacs than any of Dyson’s previous bots. Right down to its motor.

Dyson wouldn’t share which “partner” (original design manufacturer, or ODM) it worked with, but mounting evidence suggests that Dyson built its flagship robot on the bones of Chinese ODM Shenzhen Picea Robotics’ R2 ODM platform. The product shares a lot of DNA with robots that we know were manufactured with Picea. It’s similar under the hood to Anker’s Eufy Omni line and iRobot’s 705 Combo Max, with the wheels, side brushes, and mop all bearing a strong resemblance (see picture). 

Of course, there are plenty of Dyson touches. A large air filter takes up much of the robot’s body and is much bigger than those found on competitors. It features the signature green laser of Dyson stick vacs for detecting dirt (which is also present on the latest Shark robot vacuum I reviewed; Shark is a Picea customer). The huge, clear “Cyclonic” dust canister in the dock is all Dyson — complete with Dyson blurple plastic. This is actually the dock’s best feature; not only does it eliminate the need for disposable bags, but the clear exterior makes it easy to see how well the vacuum is doing its job. 

Lawson McLean also points to the bot’s 12-point hydration system, which self-cleans the microfiber roller as it mops, as a Dyson feature. This is also found on Dyson’s other wet floor cleaning products, the Clean + Wash and the Pencilwash. However, self-cleaning roller mops aren’t unique to Dyson’s robot mop — Eufy, Ecovacs, Roborock, Dreame, and 3i (Picea’s in-house brand) have similar designs.

A Dyson by any other name

Arguably, Dyson needed to work with an ODM that knows how to make a good robot vacuum that doesn’t get lost and can navigate well. Its previous robovacs were great vacuums, but terrible navigators. Switching from vSLAM camera-based navigation to the more tried-and-tested lidar has definitely improved things. Buying the tech from elsewhere rather than spending time developing it themselves was also the right move (if Dyson wanted to get a new vacuum out this decade), and working with ODMs is common in the industry. But a vacuum company putting someone else’s less powerful vacuum in their flagship robot floor cleaner feels like the wrong compromise.

Overall, the vacuum is fine, but it’s not great, which you would expect for $1,200. It does a good job on hard floors and low-pile carpets and tackled my dried oatmeal and chocolate powder tests there easily, sucking up most of them on the first pass. And while its 18,000Pa suction is impressive, combined with the generic brush design, which I’ve seen on dozens of lower-priced robots, it’s just not as good as the Vis Nav.

This was most evident on carpet. The Spot + Scrub really struggled on my high-pile living room rug, leaving almost all the dried oatmeal in my test. That’s disappointing compared to the Vis Nav, which has significantly more power and is one of the best robot vacuums I’ve tested for cleaning carpet. 

Instead of the long, fluffy brush of the Vis Nav that reaches along the edges, the Spot + Scrub has a small, single rubber/bristle hybrid brush in the center of the bot and two spider-like side brushes to divert dirt toward the brush. This design abandons everything that was good about the Vis Nav. When I asked Lawson McLean about the change, he said the bristle fibers help agitate the dirt better so it can be picked up by the vacuum. That’s true to some extent on hard floors, but in my years of testing robot vacs, it’s clear that these bristle brushes don’t work well on thicker carpet. They’re also much more prone to tangling. The brush was full of hair after just a few runs.

But the Spot + Scrub is a mopping robot at heart, and its long, blue microfiber roller mop, which extends 1.6 inches beyond the robot to clean along edges, does a good job of keeping hard floors clean. The robot also kept the mop clean during a job, and the dock washed and dried it reliably, if loudly and over a long time. However, in my two weeks of testing, I’ve yet to see noticeable benefit from the flagship AI stain-detection feature, which is purportedly capable of identifying stains and adapting its cleaning accordingly. 

The Spot + Scrub didn’t appear to treat the stains I put in its path differently from the rest of the floor, and in a couple of cases involving strawberry jam, it actively avoided them. (Lawson McLean said Dyson is working on improving the vacuum’s approach to “paste-like” objects; currently, it avoids them so as not to get the side brushes gloopy.) The dried milk I left for it didn’t get any special treatment — despite leaving residue after its first pass, it didn’t turn around to check on it and fully clean the spot as it is supposed to. The robot does generate a “Clean Map” in the MyDyson app after every session, showing where it spotted stains, and it didn’t “see” the milk. I also tried testing it with darker stains, like soy sauce, and had the same results.

Lawson McLean says Dyson is working on this: “We have a whole roadmap of over-the-air update improvements, including behavior adjustments that adjust how it cleans,” he said, adding they should be coming this summer.

One area where the Spot + Scrub excels is AI-powered navigation and obstacle detection, which are light-years ahead of the Vis Nav. It moved around obstacles like shoes, socks, and cables nimbly, and navigated between table legs and over small transitions very well. It rarely got stuck. That’s impressive for a bot this big. 

But its size and bulk did mean it couldn’t get everywhere I wanted it to. While it fits under semi-low furniture (there’s no lidar tower on top; instead, lidar is built into the front of the robot), it is too wide to fit between the legs of the stools at my kitchen counter and struggles mightily to cross my thick pile living room rug. It’s also unbearably loud when trying to heave itself up onto the rug. To its credit, it eventually did, but only while making the most obnoxious robotic grunting sound. 

The other problem I found with the Spot + Scrub is that, while the mop stayed spotless, the rest of the bot got gross quickly. The brush area was sticky and icky after a few runs, and the base station was littered with dirt and debris that fell out of the robot when it docked and undocked, which is, again, a loud and laborious process.

While the Dyson Spot + Scrub does some things well, it doesn’t deliver on everything it promises. If you have a home full of hard floors and a few low-pile rugs, you’ll be happy (as long as you can find somewhere to hide the dock). But for other setups, there are better solutions. 

The Matic and Roborock’s Saros 10 are my current top picks in this price range for excellent all-rounders. A more direct competitor as a mopping bot is the Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Flow. At $1,000 (often on sale for $850), it’s cheaper and has a similar roller mop setup, along with a better vacuum/brush system. Its 20,000 Pa suction and duo divide brush system demolished my carpet oatmeal tests and didn’t get tangled.

The Qrevo also has a nicer-looking dock, but the vacuum itself is not as nimble as the Spot + Scrub and is more prone to getting stuck. If you’re mainly looking for a good vacuum and the mopping portion is of less importance, there are good, cheaper options with similar suction power and better brushes, including the Roborock Qrevo S Pro and Dreame L40S Ultra, both around $700.

If Dyson had been able to combine the power of the Vis Nav with the intelligence and mopping prowess of the Spot + Scrub, this could have been a great robot. Dyson’s engineering and motor power are its strengths, and sadly, they’re lacking here. Instead, Dyson outsourced this core feature to an ODM, resulting in a middling vacuum with a high-end mop and navigation. 

Photos and video by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Dyson, a company built on engineering high-speed motors, has confirmed to The Verge that its newest robot vacuum doesn’t use a Dyson motor. The recently launched Spot & Scrub Ai robot vacuum and mop was “co-engineered,” Nathan Lawson McLean, senior design manager at Dyson, told The Verge.

According to Lawson McLean, the device merges “new and already existing Dyson technologies with other platforms.” Specifically, the new lidar-based navigation tech and the robot’s vacuum motor were developed by a third party. “It’s not one of our V10 motors; it’s one of our partner technologies,” said Lawson McLean.

The fact that Dyson had help with its newest robot vacuum was suspected from the day it was announced late last year. The Spot + Scrub is a complete departure from Dyson’s previous models and has obvious similarities to other robot vacuums on the market. But this is the first time Dyson has admitted that it had help building its flagship robot vacuum. 

Outsourcing manufacturing of key components is far from unusual in the world of robot vacuum manufacturers or manufacturing in general. But for a company that built its brand on high-speed motors and cyclonic vacuum technology, it’s a surprising move. 

So, why did Dyson ditch its signature technology for its latest robot vacuum? Speed and cost, according to Lawson McLean. “We really wanted to enter the market in this new space of wet and dry and self-emptying,” he said. “And how could we quickly do that?” The answer: Get help.

While Dyson has been developing robotic floor-cleaning machines since the early 2000s, it’s years behind Chinese competitors like Roborock and Ecovacs, and even US-based iRobot, maker of the Roomba. The latter made a similar pivot from vision-based navigation to lidar last year, working with the Chinese original design manufacturer Shenzhen Picea Robotics to produce an entirely new line of Roombas.

Dyson would not confirm which partner it worked with, but Reddit sleuths and industry observers have identified it as Picea, which also works with Xiaomi, Anker (Eufy), and Shark, among others. (Picea recently purchased iRobot following its bankruptcy.) 

Dyson’s previous attempt at robot vacuums — including the 360 Eye and the 360 Vis Nav — featured Dyson high-speed motors. They were excellent vacuums, but they struggled with navigating autonomously. Both bots used camera-based vSLAM navigation, which was slow and unreliable.

With the Spot + Scrub, Dyson worked with “a partner” to add the more reliable lidar-based navigation tech. Based on reviews, it has been a big upgrade. The shift was clearly needed to keep the company competitive in a crowded market. But, in the process, they also dropped Dyson’s best feature: its powerful motor. 

Lawson McLean claims this tradeoff only tells half the story. “We never look at motors by themselves. […] the ducting, the inlet pressure, outlet pressure, etc. of the Spot + Scrub, all have a huge amount of Dyson engineering wrapped around it,” he says.

Additionally, he says much of the robot uses “new and already existing Dyson technologies,” including the Dyson-developed AI stain detection, 12-point hydration system for the self-cleaning wet rollers, and the “Cyclonic” bagless dock — part of the company’s first multifunction robotic dock.

But it’s still a Dyson vacuum without a Dyson motor, and in The Verge’s testing, the Spot + Scrub’s vacuuming performance was significantly worse than Dyson’s previous robots, particularly on carpet.

While he declined to share any future roadmaps, Lawson McLean hinted that Dyson could be working toward a robot that will successfully combine Dyson’s motor technology and vacuuming heritage with its advances in mopping technology, machine learning, and the key features of robotic vacuums. But the Spot + Scrub is not that. Instead, he says, it’s a “balancing act,” a product designed to keep Dyson competitive in a market where it has so far failed to make a significant impact.

Photography by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Many startups spend years trying to become a household name. Others just spend $10 million on a Super Bowl ad. That’s Dreame’s bet. The little-known Chinese robot vacuum company has grand ambitions to become a global consumer electronics giant and chose to run a pricey 30-second spot as its opening move. If it works, the ad may be remembered as the beginning of the rise of the next global tech powerhouse. If it doesn’t? Well, let’s just say Quibi ran a Super Bowl ad, too.

Dreame — pronounced dreamy — used its half-minute of exposure to promise a dizzying product evolution: from robot vacuums and lawnmowers to hypercars, humanoids, and even into outer space. Transformers-style robots took each product to the next level, hinting at a far bigger future than sweeping floors. “This commercial isn’t just about visibility; it’s a statement of commitment,” said Dreame’s North American CEO, Ana Wang.

The Super Bowl debut followed a big splash at this year’s CES, where the robotic cleaning company occupied two giant booths packed with examples of its expanding ecosystem. Alongside robotic vacuums, lawnmowers, and pool cleaners, the company showed off a luxury hypercar designed to rival Bugatti, household appliances laden with robotics and AI, and entries into dozens of consumer electronics spaces — from smartphones and smart locks to televisions and smart refrigerators. Its stated aim? To create a “people-home-car” ecosystem. Whatever that means.

Dreame’s 2026 Super Bowl ad.

Then last month, according to reports from China, the company announced it is launching satellites into space, with plans to send up 2 million more. It’s also developing humanoid robots, solid-state batteries, smart telescopes, and more cars — even flying ones. Plus, it plans to make its own chip to power it all with its new NXMind brand. 

Next week, on April 27th, it will bring its dream to America with a splashy San Francisco launch of new product lines across some highly competitive markets, all tied together by its “AI-powered whole-home smart ecosystem.” 

Dreame’s breakneck growth and ambitious expansion raise more flags than an Olympic opening ceremony. A vacuum company barely through its first decade, expanding into categories like TVs, cars, and appliances, which require a mature corporate infrastructure, feels fragile at best. To say nothing of trying to do all of that globally. For every Samsung, which grew from trading dried fish and vegetables into a global electronics powerhouse, there are plenty of LeEcos, which burn through their reckless ambition in a fireball of publicity. 

At the center of Dreame’s efforts is its young, charismatic founder and CEO, Yu Hao, who is betting that scale, speed, and (of course) AI can make the dream a reality. He’ll be in San Francisco at the launch, which is called “Dreame Next 2026” and will be a “four-day immersive experience,” according to a press release from the company. Dreame’s PR manager, Sam Tong, told me in an interview that they expect over 10,000 attendees, and that the event will feature product launches, exhibitions, and a keynote by Yu Hao. This is his moment to try to sell America on his vision of a Chinese technology company running every facet of your digital home life. It won’t be easy.

“His idol is Elon Musk,” Tong said. “Chinese media say he wants to be the Chinese version of Elon Musk.” When I asked about the enormous, seemingly impossible scale of his vision, she said, “We have the conditions, we have the funds, we have the technology, and he has the dream.” 

So, where exactly did this upstart floor cleaning company come from?

The Dreame dream began in 2009, when Yu started the Sky Workshop, a student-run aerospace makerspace at Tsinghua University. The project attracted sponsorship from Boeing and, combined with his studies in computational fluid mechanics, became the underpinnings of Yu’s Dreame.

Dreame Technology was established by Yu in 2015 in Suzhou, China, to develop high-speed digital motor technology, with the goal of dethroning Dyson in home-cleaning appliances. The company started out building products for Xiaomi, and its first launch was the Dreame / Xiaomi V9 stick vacuum at the end of 2018. A cheaper near-clone of Dyson’s much-loved V8, the V9 featured a 100,000rpm brushless motor, just a hair slower than Dyson’s 110,000rpm. It received mostly positive reviews, largely because it was roughly half the price of Dyson’s premium cordless. 

In early 2019, Dreame broke away from Xiaomi and launched its own brand of robot vacuums, quickly becoming a top global retailer in the category, with particular success in the European market. It innovated rapidly and, in 2022, launched the L10S Ultra, among the first robot vacuum-mop combos with a multifunctional dock that could empty the robot’s bin, fill its water tanks, and wash its mops — now a staple in the category. More recently, it introduced the first vacuum that could climb small steps, debuted a robot vacuum with a mechanical arm (although its competitor Roborock has actually shipped its), and developed a robot with track wheels that can carry a vacuum up flights of stairs. 

On top of all this, in 2023, Dreame launched a sub-brand, Mova, which makes robot vacuums, robot lawnmowers, hair dryers, and more, all of which are nearly identical to Dreame’s. Initially positioned as a lower-priced brand, Mova is now a more direct competitor, complete with its own wild ideas and giant CES booths —this year it showed off a drone that can fly a robot vacuum between floors. It also plans to launch its own EV, the Kosmera Supercar, according to Yu. 

Robotic household appliances were clearly just the beginning for Yu, now 38, who named the company Dreame to underscore its ambitions. “We’re a dreamer, and we want to shape the day we’re living our way,” Roger Tang, marketing director of Dreame Televisions, told me in an interview. 

According to Tang, there is a method to all this product madness. The tech that powers Dreame, he says, is based on three pillars: AI algorithms (the brain), high-speed motors (the heart), and robotic arms (the body). “The high-speed motor is the foundational IP — Yu Hao developed it and now wants to put it in everything,” he said. 

And by “everything,” he means everything. In addition to its core robotic products, Dreame is putting its motor tech — which it claims now exceeds 200,000rpm — into air purifiers, fans, hair dryers, and even cars. (Something Dyson also tried and failed to do.) The company is expanding into other consumer electronics spaces, from smart home gadgets such as door locks and security cameras to DJI-like action cameras, smartphones, AI-enhanced smart rings, and smart glasses. While some products feature new innovations (mostly related to AI), some closely resemble competitors’ products — particularly the Dyson Airwrap-inspired line of hair dryers. (Dyson has sued Dreame over the similarities.)

Dreame showed off some of its new gear at CES in Las Vegas, but it was at the Appliance and Electronics World Expo in Shanghai, China, last month that the company really turned up the volume. It took over an entire hall at the convention and, alongside even more home appliance launches, debuted the Aurora line of smartphones with 29 models, including a jewel-encrusted gold one that costs $10,000. Dreame also displayed a robotic window cleaner, a robot lawn mower with an arm that can water your yard, and a flying car (which, sadly, remained stationary on the show floor). Images on social media showed humanoid robots everywhere in Dreame’s over-the-top booth, basically “booth babe-ing” for its various innovations. 

When I spoke with Michael Meng, president of Dreame’s robotic vacuums unit, at CES this January, he outlined yet another of Dreame’s grand visions: “Our ultimate goal is to eliminate human housework.” Today, Dreame robots are focused on cleaning the ground, but in the future, he says they will be “more like a family service robot that can help us improve our daily life,” most likely in a humanoid form. I witnessed a demo of this promised future in the AI Laundry Care Robot, which can collect, wash, and dry your clothes, working in concert with Dreame’s new L9 washer and dryer. 

The prototype I saw used a camera in its robotic arm to identify and sort clothes before loading them into the washing machine. Shortly after CES, Dreame announced the robot would also be capable of folding laundry, a long-held dream in robotics littered with failures and zero commercial products. However, Dreame seems confident it’s cracked it. David Ye, Dreame’s global product manager for washing machines, told me the laundry bot will come to market in three years. 

Even if all these gadgets eventually ship — and that’s a big, history-defying “if” — it’s not clear how many will ever reach the US. So far, Dreame is launching just six “premium products” stateside this year: a mini-LED TV line, a fridge that dispenses sparkling water, a high-tech washer-dryer set that will work with the laundry robot, a mini-split air conditioner that uses mmWave-sensing robotic arms to direct air flow, and an air fryer and automatic espresso machine. 

Combined with Dreame’s other products and plans, it’s a wildly ambitious lineup. Its success will depend hugely on Dreame’s ability to figure out how to make AI more than a layer of glitz and buzzwords on top of existing products. Otherwise, it feels less like a connected ecosystem and more like a factory masquerading as a lifestyle brand, taking a scattershot approach to finding the next big thing in consumer electronics.

While Yu’s vision, from homes to cars to space, draws comparisons to Elon Musk, it also mirrors the ambitions of Jia Yueting, the Chinese CEO of the ill-fated LeEco. Jia also attempted to rapidly branch out from a strong niche (TV streaming) into electric cars (Faraday Future), smartphones, and TVs, and failed spectacularly. The company collapsed shortly after launching in the US, and Jia self-exiled from China. 

Dreame has already had its share of controversy. In 2024, in a CEO WeChat group, Segway-Ninebot President Wang Ye accused a company widely believed to be Dreame of implementing what became known as the “finger cutting plan.” This allegedly involved luring employees from Ecovacs, Roborock, and Ninebot with enormous salaries, tapping them for trade secrets, then quickly firing them. Dreame denied the allegations. 

The industry has also noticed that many of Dreame’s products closely resemble those of competitors. Its latest gadgets — the window-cleaning robot and action camera — have similar counterparts on the market from Ecovacs and DJI, respectively. Along with Dyson, Ecovacs has filed multiple lawsuits against Dreame. (Dreame has also filed some right back.)

According to reporting by PandaYoo, Dreame’s revenue grew tenfold between 2020 and 2022. Bloomberg reports it raised around $560 million in a Series C funding round in 2021 and planned to IPO as early as 2024 (Dreame refuted this at the time). As of 2024, the company was valued at $2.8 billion, and in Q3 2025, revenue was reportedly on track to hit over $4 billion in 2025. This positions it as one of China’s fastest-growing consumer tech firms.

However, at the same time, rumors of near-bankruptcy circulated. Yu dismissed the reports, saying the company “has sufficient cash flow,” and that he had spent around 5 billion yuan ($702 million in 2025) over two years to increase his stake in Dreame from 45 percent to 70 percent. Still, the breakneck pace of expansion hints at some internal instability. In another attempt to quash concerns, Yu reportedly gave each of Dreame’s over 18,000 employees a gram of gold as a bonus at the end of last year.

According to Dreame’s Sam Tong, the company receives significant funding from the local government. This is a common pattern among Chinese manufacturing companies, most famously exemplified by Shenzhen’s rise from a fishing village to China’s Silicon Valley, spurred by government investment. Dreame is based in Suzhou, a region of China that has grown into a major hub for advanced manufacturing and technology, thanks in part to government investment. 

Dreame operates as if it has virtually unlimited funding — and ambitions to match. In addition to the launch spectacle next week, Tong tells me Dreame has installed a management team in Washington, DC, and is ramping up US-based customer support. 

The company, which claims to operate in 120 countries and sell products in more than 4,000 physical stores (including 200 Targets in the US), is also opening physical “experiential” Dreame stores in high-profile locations from Silicon Valley to Paramus, New Jersey. It’s still looking to out-Dyson Dyson. 

Dreame’s ambitions border on crazy. But it seems that’s the point. Musk himself would probably say it is. “Even Chinese media say it’s a crazy move. But that’s just us,” said Tong. Yu Hao has gone from trying to out-power a Dyson vacuum to trying to build, well, everything. “We have a car launching, we also have a rocket… he has funds from Chinese investors and the Chinese government,” she said. “So, why not?” 

Well, because churning out Dyson and DJI lookalikes while handing out grams of gold and trying to emulate Elon Musk isn’t building a company, it’s putting on a show. Dreame’s vacuums are good products, and Yu’s intelligence and ambition appear real. That’s a solid foundation for making something truly great — just not for making everything.

This week, my top pick for a retrofit smart lock launched the first Aliro-compatible keypad. The Nuki Keypad 2 NFC ($179) brings tap-to-unlock via Apple’s Home Key and Samsung’s Digital Home Key to the Nuki smart lock, allowing you to tap your phone or smartwatch to unlock your door, just like you tap to pay. 

Aliro is a new smart lock standard supported by all major platforms and handset manufacturers. It is designed to allow any smart lock to be securely unlocked by any smartphone, regardless of manufacturer, without requiring proprietary apps.

An open standard, Aliro stores a digital key in your phone’s wallet that you can tap to a compatible lock or keypad. Along with NFC, Aliro supports Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and Ultra Wideband (UWB) to unlock your door using your phone.

Nuki is a retrofit door lock, meaning you don’t need to remove your deadbolt to install it. Instead, you replace the interior thumb turn with the Nuki. This makes it simple to install and ideal for renters or people who can’t or don’t want to replace their entire lock. There is no visible smart lock on the outside of your door, so an exterior keypad is needed to enable tap-to-unlock.

Nuki Keypad 2 NFC

Where to Buy:

• $179 at Nuki
• $179 at Amazon

Earlier this year, Aqara released the first full replacement door lock to support Aliro. The Aqara U400 also features UWB connectivity, enabling hands-free unlocking with Apple Home. The Nuki keypad only supports NFC, so it doesn’t work with hands-free unlocking. 

The Keypad 2 NFC can be set to one of two modes: Smart Home Mode or Nuki App Mode. The former allows the lock to work with Apple Home and Samsung SmartThings and connect through Matter. The Nuki lock works with Thread, so you will need an Apple or Samsung SmartThings Matter/Thread hub to use the feature.

Nuki App Mode lets you use tap-to-unlock without being tied to a platform or a specific handset manufacturer. You only need an NFC-capable smartphone and the Nuki app. 

The Aliro standard is still in its early stages, and compatibility remains limited. Nuki’s Martina Stix says that currently, while you can use the keypad with both Apple Home Key and Samsung Digital Home Key simultaneously, this only works if Apple Home is paired first and Samsung SmartThings is added later. “We’re constantly working with the mobile wallet providers to improve the interoperability between their systems,” she says. “But can not give any timelines about future changes or improvements.”

I demoed a prototype of the new keypad at the IFA tech show last year.

Along with tap-to-unlock, the new keypad offers fingerprint and keypad unlocking, and, of course, you can still use your existing key. While the keypad does not support auto-unlock over UWB, the Nuki lock offers a similar feature in its app. The keypad is now available and compatible with existing Nuki smart locks.