Of all the companies that could have launched a robot vacuum in 2025, I didn’t have DJI in the running — but here we are. The drone and camera manufacturer released the DJI Romo robovac in Europe today, following its China debut this summer. The Romo is a combo robot vacuum and mop with a twist — it’s transparent. But, sadly, it can’t fly. Instead, DJI has channeled its navigation expertise into a bot that stays firmly on the ground.

I got a sneak peek at the see-through sucker at the IFA trade show in September. While I didn’t get to see it in action in the tiny room behind DJI’s huge booth, I did get to check out the hardware — and there’s some interesting tech here.

The Romo comes in three models: the flagship, fully transparent Romo P, which starts at €1,899 (around $2,200); the Romo A, which pairs a transparent robot with an opaque white base, for €1,599 (around $1,700), and the all-white Romo S, priced at €1,299 (around $1,500). All three are now available in Europe at store.dji.com.

Specs-wise, the three are nearly identical (see chart). The P’s dock adds a few extras, but mostly you’re paying that €300 for the cool factor of the transparent tech.

While I love a good piece of transparent tech as much as the next gadget nerd, I’m skeptical as to how good this will look in your living room after six months of hard work cleaning your floors. Still, as a robot vacuum reviewer, it was neat to get to see inside the vacuum and the dock.

That said, this is a very expensive vacuum for its specs — and seeing inside your vacuum has been done already (thanks, Dyson). Aside from navigation (more on that in a bit), the Romo line is very similar to Roborock’s less expensive Qrevo Curv series. The curved base stations have a similar design, and the bots have the same split roller brush that funnels hair into the center to be sucked away, along with an extendable side brush for reaching into corners.

They also share the same dual-spinning mop pad design, and both can recognize carpet and lift the mops to avoid mopping it. The Romos offer higher suction power — 25,000Pa — than the Curvs, along with a larger, 164ml onboard water tank, which means the bot won’t have to go back to the dock as often to refill.

The model I saw at IFA was the Romo P, and while the overall design resembles the Curv, both the base station and the robot itself are bigger, heavier, and substantially taller — the better to accommodate all its navigation tech. This is where DJI’s expertise clearly comes into play. The robot uses a combination of dual fish-eye vision sensors and wide-angle dual-transmitter solid-state lidar, technology derived from its flagship drones.

According to DJI, this enables “millimeter-level obstacle sensing technology” that, combined with machine learning, allows the Romo to detect objects as thin as a 2mm charging cable or even a playing card. That should mean it can navigate your home effectively without getting tripped up by common objects like cords and socks.

While most flagship robovacs have top-notch obstacle detection tech, this sounds like a significant step up. Roborock’s flagship StarSight navigation system on its top-of-the-line models can only identify objects as small as 2cm by 2cm.

I’ve tested a lot of robot vacuums and found that those with cameras are much better navigators, and the combination of lidar and vision sensors in the Romo looks promising.

The Romo’s self-cleaning base station also has a few unique features, including a slot for a “floor deodorizer solution” alongside the standard cleaning solution in the P model. This gives you the option to make the floors smell nice after vacuuming rather than doing a full mop with cleaning solution, which is a nice upgrade. It also features a high-pressure jet system to clean the mop pads, along with hot air for drying.

Another neat design reduces the noise level. DJI says the dock has a sound-suppression system with long muffler ducts and muffler chambers that dampen the very loud screeching noise common in self-emptying stations by 80 percent, to just 65 decibels. You can see these through the transparent paneling on the P model, which is very cool. But I maintain that I would like to see one again in six months’ time before deciding if see-through is a smart design choice or a clear mistake.

The Romo doesn’t have a US launch date, but we plan to test the European model and follow up with a full review.

Photos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge