Black Friday 2026 robot vacuum deals: how to tell a real discount from a permanent one

A crossed-out price is a claim, not a reference

Every manufacturer's shop we read crosses something out. On an ordinary Friday in September the German Narwal shop listed the Flow with a struck-through figure about thirty percent above what it charged, and MOVA's German shop showed the Rover X10 pool robot sixty percent below its crossed-out price. The same Narwal listing is more honest about the Flow 2: its standard pack crosses out nothing, and only the variants with an accessory pack carry a reduction, because the accessories are what is discounted. A tag that says 'was' tells you what the maker would like the machine to be worth. It does not tell you what anyone paid for it last month.

Roborock's American shop went one further in the week we started logging: the Qrevo 2 Pro sat on two listings at once under the same name, one about a third cheaper than the other. Our page shows the lower one; a shopper who found the other listing first would have paid the difference.

The rule that already exists in Europe

Since 28 May 2022 every announced price reduction in the European Union has to state the lowest price the trader applied in the thirty days before it: article 6a of the price indication directive, inserted by Directive 2019/2161. Poland wrote it into article 4 of its price information act from 1 January 2023, and Germany into section 11 of the Preisangabenverordnung on the day the directive applied. The rule binds a manufacturer's own shop as much as a marketplace, and it is why Polish and German shops now print a small 'lowest price in the last 30 days' under a Black Friday tag. Read that line, not the crossed-out one: if the thirty-day low equals the sale price, the reduction happened weeks ago and the tag is decoration. The United States has no such rule, only the Federal Trade Commission's guides against deceptive pricing, which ask that a 'former price' be one the item was actually offered at for a reasonable period; the United Kingdom did not take the directive over after leaving the Union and relies on similar guidance. In both, the burden of knowing last month's price is yours.

What nine days of logging show

Since 16 September we have recorded, every night, the cheapest matched offer for 52 machines on Allegro, the Polish marketplace, and every price the manufacturers' own shops ask. In nine days 25 of the 52 moved at least once, eight by ten percent or more, none by twenty. The Dreame L10s Ultra Gen 3 changed three times inside a sixteen percent band and ended the period at the top of it; the Dreame X60 Ultra fell fourteen percent and stayed down; the eufy Omni E28 went the other way, up fourteen percent in one step. The MOVA S70 Pro Roller and the Roborock Saros 10 each dropped by a tenth or more and sit at their lows; the Ecovacs Winbot Mini window robot wandered inside a ten percent band. None of these moves had a name. They are the ordinary weather of the market, and a Black Friday price that merely matches a September low is not a discount, whatever the tag says.

By 27 November the log will be long enough to show a thirty-day low for every machine we track, which is the number the tag has to beat.

Six checks before you pay

• Write the price down now. Whatever you are considering, note what it costs in October; the makers' shops and the marketplaces will both remember, and so should you.
• Read the thirty-day line, not the strike-through. In Poland and Germany the shop has to print it; if it matches the sale price, nothing was cut today.
• Treat a maker's 'was' as a wish. A price the machine was never offered at is not a former price, however large the font.
• Unpack the bundle. A robot plus a year of consumables at a round figure hides what the robot alone costs; the accessory packs are where Narwal's and Dreame's cuts usually sit, and the machine's price underneath may not have moved.
• Watch the replaced flagship, not the new one. A machine that gained a successor this year is where the honest cuts land: the Saros 10 after the Saros 20, the Flow after the Flow 2, the Dreame X50 Ultra after the X60.
• Check the machine before the price. A deep cut on a robot that cannot climb your thresholds or fit under your sofa is money spent, not saved; the threshold list and the height list take a minute each.

Which models to watch

Three groups are worth a place on the list. The replaced flagships above, where a real reduction is most likely because the maker has stock to clear and a newer machine to protect. The mid-priced docks, the L10s Ultra Gen 3 and the L40 Ultra AE, which already move week to week and are the machines most people actually buy; the mid-range ranking keeps them in order. And the budget pair with an auto-empty dock, the Roborock Q7 L5+ and Q10 S5+, which Roborock also sells without the dock under nearly the same name: check the plus sign before you compare a price, because the two are not the same machine. The budget ranking lists the whole bracket.

Dreame

71

Dreame L10s Ultra Gen 3

A full dock at a budget price: 25,000 Pa, a laser obstacle sensor, four floors of maps, a swinging mop and extendable side brush, 231 minutes a charge, and a dock that washes, dries, refills and doses detergent.

LiDAR25,000 PaSpinning mop

From

≈ $490

+Compare

The dates: Singles' Day on 11 November, Black Friday on 27 November 2026, Cyber Monday on 30 November. The reductions that matter usually appear in the week before the Friday and hold through the Monday; the strike-through prices appear whenever the maker likes.

Sources: Directive (EU) 2019/2161, which inserted article 6a into the price indication directive; Poland's act on informing about prices, article 4; Germany's section 11 of the Preisangabenverordnung; the FTC's Guides Against Deceptive Pricing, all read on 25 September 2026; and our own price log, kept nightly since 16 September 2026 from Allegro's affiliate feed and the manufacturers' shops.