what is Roborock’s vacuum/mopping robot worth?

What we liked about the Roborock S7 Pro Ultra

Its all-in-one station

The great strength of the Roborock S7 Pro Ultra, it’s its all-in-one maintenance station. Although imposing and made of black and white plastic, it is nonetheless elegant. Since its inception, Roborock has known how to make beautiful products, so this S7 Pro Ultra is no exception to the rule.

The station is divided into four parts: at the bottom, there is the robot’s storage area, where it will come to recharge between each cleaning session. Above, three bins allow the robot to act independently.

On the right, the bin contains a dust bag that collects the dirt sucked up by the robot. It is changed or emptied on average every 7 weeks. In the center, a water tank to which you can add a floor cleaner fills the robot so that it goes to clean the surfaces. Roborock recommends using only its homemade cleaner. We used another product, without lathering it and had no problems. On the left, the last tank is responsible for collecting dirty water.

Thanks to this complete station, your daily cleaning operations are therefore limited to filling/emptying the water tanks and changing the dust bag. Otherwise, a simple press of a button or a voice command can start the vacuum cleaner. Magical.

Its excellent suction

“You want more suction? It’s well and truly done.”. This is what we can read on the official Roborock website about the S7 Pro Ultra. The manufacturer has indeed doubled the suction power of its Pro model, capable of delivering 5100 Pa against 2500 Pa for the S7.

But to sum up the quality of aspiration in Pascal’s number would be insufficient. The materials used for the brushes, their position on the robot, the ability to overcome obstacles are all other criteria to take into account.

Good news, the S7 Pro Ultra ticks all the boxes. Powerful, it sucks up (almost) everything in its path. On a hard surface such as parquet or tiles, almost all the residues are sucked up. On short-pile carpets, 90% of dirt disappears. This figure drops to 75/80% on higher pile carpets.

These performances are therefore excellent and position the S7 Pro Ultra as one of the most efficient robot vacuum cleaners when it comes to suction. Maybe even sometimes a little too much (we will come back to this).

Note that the central brush and the side wheels are based on a “floating” mechanism to avoid boarding the knots of hair or hair. If you have pets, for example, the suction of the S7 Pro Ultra should satisfy you.

Its artificial intelligence (and the application)

© Lemon squeezer

From the first minutes with the Roborock S7 Pro Ultra, you will have to download the Roborock application in order to configure it but also to access a slew of interesting features.

In itself, the S7 Pro Ultra is already a concentrate of artificial intelligence. Its various sensors are perfectly exploited to carry out a complete mapping of your home. This model is even without doubt one of the most gifted on the market in this exercise.

With disconcerting rapidity, the robot maps a 2D but also 3D plan of your home. It identifies furniture and can even know what type of furniture is installed in a room.

The S7 Pro Ultra also adapts the suction and cleaning to the surfaces on which it ventures. For example, the mop is able to adapt to different floors. Thus, when the robot detects a carpet, the wet part is raised by 5 mm so as not to wet these surfaces.

Thanks to the Roborock application, you can therefore access a slew of usage options. First, there are those that allow you to personalize the cleaning. You can choose time slots, program scenarios, determine surfaces to clean or avoid, etc.

The application also allows track health status of your cleaning buddy. We find there each element that constitutes the robot with its state of form. If a part needs to be replaced, repaired or cleaned, the application indicates it. It even specifies upstream in how many cycles an element will have to be changed.

Among the other parameters we find the management of the carpets (how the robot behaves when it arrives on this surface), maps, remote control or the voice and language of the robot. The S7 Pro Ultra can also be controlled by voice thanks to Google Assistant, Alexa or Siri.

What we liked least about the Roborock S7 Pro Ultra

The mop not efficient enough

© Lemon squeezer

To ensure wet cleaning of floors, Roborock relies on VibraRise, its vibration technology . The robot diffuses water via a tray covering a third of its surface and covered with a scratch mop.

This operation is to be distinguished from rotating skates, such as those fitted to the Deebot X1 Turbo that we usually use and which proves to be more efficient. Indeed, the mop of the S7 Pro Ultra is content to pass over a task with very small rubbing movements caused by vibrations (3000 per minute announces the mark). The revolving skates, them, rub with more authority on a surface.

The S7 Pro Ultra is therefore less good than its competitor in this area, but it remains the most efficient robot vacuum cleaner with vibration system. Concretely, you can expect him to clean superficial stains or liquids that have just been spilled. On the other hand, it will not come to the end of certain encrusted tasks, even for only a few hours.

Disappointing obstacle avoidance

Without a camera, but equipped with a LiDAR, the Roborock S7 Pro Ultra is not the best at avoiding small obstacles. While the 3D mapping system is effective, detection of small objects is impossible.

You will therefore have to prepare the ground well before launching the beast. Because the suction power is such that the robot takes everything in its path. From the sock, to the cable, passing by the little toy forgotten in a corner of the living room and even the shoes (damn laces) nothing can resist him.

Thus, we regularly found the robot in the middle of the living room with an object stuck in the central roller. The S7 Pro Ultra, like any robot vacuum cleaner, being there to save us the slightest effort, getting up several times to unblock the roller can quickly become annoying.

If you do not have the time or inclination to prepare your surfaces before each wash, we therefore recommend opting for the superior model, equipped with a camera. If you have animals that tend to mark their territory anywhere, the S7 Pro Ultra won’t be of much help to you since it is unable to detect droppings. You have been warned.