The new flagship robot vacuum brings all the suction power and smart features needed to keep your house clean, but it’s not perfect.
Roborock is to robot vacuums what Samsung is to smartphones; it has a model for every budget and every need. Between my first Roborock over five years ago and now, my cleaning needs and standards have greatly changed, as have the robot vacuum and mop combinations.
While the vacuum cleans deep and there’s a slew of features for you to learn how to use, the one major caveat I found during testing has to do with the mopping experience. Specifically, the robot’s brush leaves streaks. However, most people should understand that these robot vacuum and mop combinations are more for maintenance between deep cleans and are not meant to perform a thorough scrubbing on their own.
Maximum suction 10,000Pa
Runtime 180 minutes
Noise 67 dB (in Balanced mode)
Dustbin capacity 270 ml
Water tank capacity 100 ml
Finish Black and white
I’ve been testing the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra for a couple of weeks with almost daily use. Admittedly, I ran it manually for a good week while waiting to get whitelist access to test its app functions, but the map it created and followed upon connecting it to Wi-Fi was accurate to my floor plan.
Aside from everyday cases of dust, debris, and pet hair, my testing process also involved deliberately running it over different debris and substances to see how it vacuumed and mopped them up. These included coffee grounds, cracker crumbs, small pieces of mulch, and pieces of paper. Mopping included dry juice, soda, and water stains to see which got swept up more effectively, muddy footprints and pawprints, and other robot vacuum and mop tire tracks.
The hands-free dock: The Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra is the ultimate Roborock unit, with all the bells and whistles you’d want in a two-in-one vacuum. As such, the hands-free charging station has to deliver on these standards — and it does. You can expect an almost completely hands-free cleaning experience with the S8 MaxV Ultra, as the robot returns to the dock to empty its dustbin and wash and dry its mop pads.
You can go a few days without refilling the clean water tank and emptying out the dirty water, and up to seven weeks without replacing the dust bag. It also has a detachable detergent dispenser that you can fill with floor cleaner to have it automatically dispense into the mop.
Outstanding vacuuming: And I mean outstanding.
