Hands on: Roborock S8 Pro Ultra smart home vacuum & mop

JP234 said:

We have a Roomba, and have found it to be virtually useless. Can't get in corners, gets lost and spins around in a circle, vacuums the same spot over and over until we pick it up and move it. And it has never, ever been able to dock itself and charge. It has to be manually put back in place. It's the dustiest appliance we own, from disuse. Did I mention that it is loud and annoying when in use?

Maybe this ultra-expensive and HUGE alternative would perform better, but at $1,599, we'll just do as we have: get out the broom, dust mop, vacuum or Swiffer, and do it manually. The peace and quiet of manual cleaning is restful compared to motorized cleaning devices like this, or landscaping power tools.

Not exactly sure what your point is -  the Roborock doesn't have any of the issues you have with your Roomba.  Also, the $1599 price tag is for the version that has that HUGE docking station - if you buy the regular Roborock, it's no larger than your current Roomba and probably isn't priced any higher either.  In other words, stop comparing apples and oranges to justify your decision.

I was a very happy customer of the Roborock S5 Max.  It did an excellent job cleaning and, more importantly, after initial setup never had an issue.

Two years later, I was wooed by the Roborock S7 MaxV's suction power - supposedly twice my S5's.  I didn't want any part of the auto-emptying, auto-mop-cleaning dock since the former simply meant you'd have to start buying bags for the robot (cleaning out the onboard dust bin is simple and requires no bag) and the latter meant more mechanicals that could go wrong and, potentially, a stinky mop.  Anyway, to each their own when it comes to the dock.

Robot reviews are great in that you get to see the features of a robot.  But reviewers rarely spend enough time with the robot to give long-term feedback on these devices.  The reviews for the S7 were great - just like this review for the S8.  But they didn't help discover any of the shortcomings that reveal themselves over time.

For me, the S7 MaxV has been a lot more hassle than its predecessor.  I really don' know why - it has a lot more sensors than the S5 did - but the robot gets lost or stuck on a regular basis.  It usually happens after a few weeks - not right off the bat.  I am pretty sure it's some sort of software bug: I've noticed that over time, the map starts deteriorating: it starts showing little non-existent artifacts (like dark grey dots and lines that the robot avoids but which don't exist as anything real in the house) - and walls that were previously pretty perpendicular to one another start skewing one direction or the other.  As a result, the robot begins making nonsensical decisions about where to go - or try to go as the case may be.  I've contact Roborock about this on numerous occasion, but their stock answer is that I should delete the map and let the robot recreate it.  And this is what I'm forced to do periodically - and it's annoying as heck.  Mostly because the earlier version of the Roborock had none of these issues, but also because my house is one of those "open concept" houses where some rooms - e.g. kitchen, dining room, family room - aren't distinct rooms as far as the robot is concerned.  So you have to manually divide up the space in the app - a laborious activity in the app consisting of dividing and combining things successively.  Then there are the floor-ceiling windows or sliders that, without manually creating "invisible walls" the robot constantly runs into (and gets stuck at when there's also a sliding door track).  So it takes a good half hour of time every time I have to recreate the map because the Robot f*&ked up the map again :-(

I love the fact that the S7's mop works better than the S5's and that the quiet mode is indeed pretty quiet and lets us run the robot every day.  I'm not sure that our all-hard floor house needed the extra suction power of the S7 - and combined with the map headaches I've been having, I would not have upgraded from the S5 had I known this up-front.  I'm glad the reviewer thinks the S8 is a good upgrade from the S7 - he must have never had the mapping errors I saw - or he's recommending the S8 because they fixed them there?

Another question for the reviewer: in the video you seem to indicate that with the S8 you can only remove the cloth mop?  In the S7 the whole plastic piece the mop attaches comes out - which is very helpful because it means you don't have to turn over the robot every time you want to put a new mop cloth on.  When I mop with the S7, I put a new mop cloth on for every room I have it mop.  If that's no longer possible with the S8, that's a definite negative - unless you get the S8 Ultra, which supposedly cleans the mop cloth for you.

twolf2919 said:

I was a very happy customer of the Roborock S5 Max.  It did an excellent job cleaning and, more importantly, after initial setup never had an issue.

Two years later, I was wooed by the Roborock S7 MaxV's suction power - supposedly twice my S5's.  I didn't want any part of the auto-emptying, auto-mop-cleaning dock since the former simply meant you'd have to start buying bags for the robot (cleaning out the onboard dust bin is simple and requires no bag) and the latter meant more mechanicals that could go wrong and, potentially, a stinky mop.  Anyway, to each their own when it comes to the dock.

Robot reviews are great in that you get to see the features of a robot.  But reviewers rarely spend enough time with the robot to give long-term feedback on these devices.  The reviews for the S7 were great - just like this review for the S8.  But they didn't help discover any of the shortcomings that reveal themselves over time.

For me, the S7 MaxV has been a lot more hassle than its predecessor.  I really don' know why - it has a lot more sensors than the S5 did - but the robot gets lost or stuck on a regular basis.  It usually happens after a few weeks - not right off the bat.  I am pretty sure it's some sort of software bug: I've noticed that over time, the map starts deteriorating: it starts showing little non-existent artifacts (like dark grey dots and lines that the robot avoids but which don't exist as anything real in the house) - and walls that were previously pretty perpendicular to one another start skewing one direction or the other.  As a result, the robot begins making nonsensical decisions about where to go - or try to go as the case may be.  I've contact Roborock about this on numerous occasion, but their stock answer is that I should delete the map and let the robot recreate it.  And this is what I'm forced to do periodically - and it's annoying as heck.  Mostly because the earlier version of the Roborock had none of these issues, but also because my house is one of those "open concept" houses where some rooms - e.g. kitchen, dining room, family room - aren't distinct rooms as far as the robot is concerned.  So you have to manually divide up the space in the app - a laborious activity in the app consisting of dividing and combining things successively.  Then there are the floor-ceiling windows or sliders that, without manually creating "invisible walls" the robot constantly runs into (and gets stuck at when there's also a sliding door track).  So it takes a good half hour of time every time I have to recreate the map because the Robot f*&ked up the map again :-(

I love the fact that the S7's mop works better than the S5's and that the quiet mode is indeed pretty quiet and lets us run the robot every day.  I'm not sure that our all-hard floor house needed the extra suction power of the S7 - and combined with the map headaches I've been having, I would not have upgraded from the S5 had I known this up-front.  I'm glad the reviewer thinks the S8 is a good upgrade from the S7 - he must have never had the mapping errors I saw - or he's recommending the S8 because they fixed them there?

Another question for the reviewer: in the video you seem to indicate that with the S8 you can only remove the cloth mop?  In the S7 the whole plastic piece the mop attaches comes out - which is very helpful because it means you don't have to turn over the robot every time you want to put a new mop cloth on.  When I mop with the S7, I put a new mop cloth on for every room I have it mop.  If that's no longer possible with the S8, that's a definite negative - unless you get the S8 Ultra, which supposedly cleans the mop cloth for you.

Heya friend. So to be clear, I've been using the S7 MaxV Ultra since it launched, which was in April of 2022. Nearly an entire year. Never once has my S7 gotten stuck or stuck. Well, one time it did get stuck because my wife had a new curtain in the bathroom that was too long and it had big tassels that got inadvertently sucked up. As soon as I saw the alert on the map, I knew exactly what had happened. I fixed our curtain and never had an issue again.

I also don't have any of those issues with my map. I haven't ever had to rebuild it and it still gets full coverage in my home. That's with my wife rearranging furniture and lots of dog/baby toys lying around. Im not sure why you are having such peculiar issues. My map has only gotten better as it collected more data and the rooms started to take better shape from the initial scans. I also have two floor-to-ceiling windows and a sliding door that never gave us any hassle. I'm so confused at why you're having these problems.

I draw issue with your insinuation that I didn't spend enough time with the S8, or the S7 for that matter. I've used the S8 for perhaps a couple months now and haven't had any issues you describe, but I did have a good experience with the S7.

For the mop question, it has the same bottom as the S7. You can't remove the entire mopping attachment, just the mop pad. At least on the S7 MaxV Ultra and the S8 Pro Ultra. They may be different the entry-level models.

twolf2919 said:

I was a very happy customer of the Roborock S5 Max.  It did an excellent job cleaning and, more importantly, after initial setup never had an issue.

Two years later, I was wooed by the Roborock S7 MaxV's suction power - supposedly twice my S5's.  I didn't want any part of the auto-emptying, auto-mop-cleaning dock since the former simply meant you'd have to start buying bags for the robot (cleaning out the onboard dust bin is simple and requires no bag) and the latter meant more mechanicals that could go wrong and, potentially, a stinky mop.  Anyway, to each their own when it comes to the dock.

Robot reviews are great in that you get to see the features of a robot.  But reviewers rarely spend enough time with the robot to give long-term feedback on these devices.  The reviews for the S7 were great - just like this review for the S8.  But they didn't help discover any of the shortcomings that reveal themselves over time.

For me, the S7 MaxV has been a lot more hassle than its predecessor.  I really don' know why - it has a lot more sensors than the S5 did - but the robot gets lost or stuck on a regular basis.  It usually happens after a few weeks - not right off the bat.  I am pretty sure it's some sort of software bug: I've noticed that over time, the map starts deteriorating: it starts showing little non-existent artifacts (like dark grey dots and lines that the robot avoids but which don't exist as anything real in the house) - and walls that were previously pretty perpendicular to one another start skewing one direction or the other.  As a result, the robot begins making nonsensical decisions about where to go - or try to go as the case may be.  I've contact Roborock about this on numerous occasion, but their stock answer is that I should delete the map and let the robot recreate it.  And this is what I'm forced to do periodically - and it's annoying as heck.  Mostly because the earlier version of the Roborock had none of these issues, but also because my house is one of those "open concept" houses where some rooms - e.g. kitchen, dining room, family room - aren't distinct rooms as far as the robot is concerned.  So you have to manually divide up the space in the app - a laborious activity in the app consisting of dividing and combining things successively.  Then there are the floor-ceiling windows or sliders that, without manually creating "invisible walls" the robot constantly runs into (and gets stuck at when there's also a sliding door track).  So it takes a good half hour of time every time I have to recreate the map because the Robot f*&ked up the map again :-(

I love the fact that the S7's mop works better than the S5's and that the quiet mode is indeed pretty quiet and lets us run the robot every day.  I'm not sure that our all-hard floor house needed the extra suction power of the S7 - and combined with the map headaches I've been having, I would not have upgraded from the S5 had I known this up-front.  I'm glad the reviewer thinks the S8 is a good upgrade from the S7 - he must have never had the mapping errors I saw - or he's recommending the S8 because they fixed them there?

Another question for the reviewer: in the video you seem to indicate that with the S8 you can only remove the cloth mop?  In the S7 the whole plastic piece the mop attaches comes out - which is very helpful because it means you don't have to turn over the robot every time you want to put a new mop cloth on.  When I mop with the S7, I put a new mop cloth on for every room I have it mop.  If that's no longer possible with the S8, that's a definite negative - unless you get the S8 Ultra, which supposedly cleans the mop cloth for you.

Good points and in general I agree with them. The software is pretty good but needs to be bulletproof. I've run into the same problems with my S7 plus auto empty dock. 

However, from the article:

"

As with the S7 series, the S8 mop pad comes off for additional cleaning, but the fixture is a permanent attachment"

I think that answers your question. 

In my case (EU version) the bags for the auto empty dock are optional. You can use the cyclone unit instead of bags. 

One curious note when ordering bags for the auto empty dock (S7): there are two versions. One for the US market (and maybe elsewhere) and another for the EU market. They aren't compatible between versions. I wonder if this has carried over to the S8 line. 

JP234 said:

We have a Roomba, and have found it to be virtually useless. Can't get in corners, gets lost and spins around in a circle, vacuums the same spot over and over until we pick it up and move it. And it has never, ever been able to dock itself and charge. It has to be manually put back in place. It's the dustiest appliance we own, from disuse. Did I mention that it is loud and annoying when in use?

Maybe this ultra-expensive and HUGE alternative would perform better, but at $1,599, we'll just do as we have: get out the broom, dust mop, vacuum or Swiffer, and do it manually. The peace and quiet of manual cleaning is restful compared to motorized cleaning devices like this, or landscaping power tools.

Well, this is a Roborock vacuum and not the Roomba. Ive been using the S7 MaxV Ultra for a year and never had those issues you experienced with your Roomba and haven't had them with the S8 either. Nor do I have charging issues or problems with volume. They seem irrelevant to this hands-on...

You say this "expensive" and "huge" alternative, though as I state right at the beginning, Roborock has a range of choices. They have units for only a couple hundred dollars or the all-new S8 starts at $750 before getting up to the $1600 option. iRobot's Roomba line also has entry-level models up to an $1100 model with a very large docking station. 

For what it's worth, the $1100 Roomba is actually $100 more than the equivalent Roborock S8+. Roborock then offers the $1600 S8 Pro Ultra with the empty, wash, fill station that iRobot doesn't even offer. None of them are capable of emptying the robot, cleaning the mop, and refilling it with new water.