CES 2025: Dreame’s X50 Ultra can climb stairs. Kind of. [Video]

CES 2025 is filled with weird, new robot vacuum innovations. Dreame, a Chinese tech company, has unveiled its new X50 Ultra, a “stair-climbing” robot vacuum. But before you start dreaming (pun intended) of a bot that can clean your steps, here’s the reality: the X50 Ultra doesn’t actually climb stairs.

Well, not exactly.

The X50 Ultra can “climb” only if your stairs are about two inches tall, which might make it more accurate to call it a threshold-hopper. Dreame’s North American PR team is marketing it as the “robot vacuum that can literally climb stairs” (their emphasis, not ours). That claim feels a bit overblown, considering the X50 Ultra’s actual capability is more about navigating small obstacles like cords or the lip of a doorway — tasks powered by Dreame’s ProLeap System technology.

Even so, two inches is more than double the threshold clearance height of most robot vacuums on the market. It may not be enough …