Vacuum tech is slowly and steadily getting better and Roborock is one brand that is leading in terms of features, reliability, navigation, and maintenance. It’s exciting to see that Roborock is pushing the entire field with new innovative features.
Roborock officially unveiled the S8 Pro Ultra at CES in January 2023. This article details why it’s expected to lead the pack on technology and features for likely the next few years.
Roborock is finally incorporating dual roller brushes
A dual roller design allows for better cleaning ability and suction as it can grip and remove dirt and debris more effectively. The dual rollers work together to increase the overall surface area for cleaning, allowing for better removal of dirt and debris from the floor. Dual rollers can provide more consistent pressure too, leading to improved suction.
Roomba has had a big advantage in suction power for a long time. They use a dual roller design that has proven to be effective in getting a deeper clean on any surface type. Despite this, we have a hard time recommending even the higher-end Roomba models due to their poor vSLAM navigation and cumbersome mapping routines.
Adding another roller to S8 will tip the scales on suction power and thus cleaning ability. We’d like to see the rollers get a bit wider in future iterations of this design.
Increased suction power (6,000 Pa)
6,000 Pa is a mind-blowing leap of power. The older Roborock S7 has 2,500 Pa of suction power, and we struggled to tell the difference between it and the purported class-leading Roomba S9+ (suction stats are not public but everyone seems to agree that it’s the best). So 6,000 Pa seems like a big increase over recent Roborock models. The assumption here is that some of this upgrade is due to the added brush roller mentioned above.
The RockDock - Zero Maintenance?
Roborock refers to this dock as “zero maintenance”. That depends on how you look at it - maybe there is less maintenance for a short time.
Eventually, the base will need to be cleaned, the mop will need to be washed (by hand or washing machine), water tanks refilled/dumped, dust bin emptied, rollers checked for hair, etc. Only now it will be less often, in theory. Still, the prospect of having to do less routine maintenance and babysitting is very exciting.
Here is what is being claimed on the new base:
- Self-emptying: This feature has been around for a few years now on various bases. I expect this to continue working well.
- Self-washing: You can now leave the mop on the robot, and the base station will clean it off. If this works well, it will be a great time saver. No more removing or changing the mop for the next run.
- Self-drying: Warm air is blown onto the mop to dry it out and prevent mold growth. This is smart.
- Self-refilling: Less frequent mop tank refills - yes please. Another great feature.
- Self-cleaning: The bottom of the dock is cleaned, possibly by the same cleaning mechanism that cleans the mop pad. This is interesting and I can’t wait to see how effective it is.
Built-in mop that automatically rises when it detects carpet
This feature has been around since the S7. Roborock claims it is improved on the S8 Pro Ultra, but doesn’t detail what that means.
On the S7, it works fairly well to keep the mop from dragging on short and medium-length carpets. We wish it raised a bit more, as the mop touches carpet under long carpet (and I’m not talking about shag carpet).
Auto-rise feature on the dual brush system for tackling bigger spills (S8 Pro Ultra)
This new feature appears to be a mop-based feature. For example, the rollers can lift so that they don’t make spills worse if the robot travels over a large wet spot.
The first question that came to mind when I heard about roller auto-rise is this: will auto-rise for the brush rollers fix the dragging nubs issue?
In a previous review of the Roborock S7+, I noted that the “nubs” drag on the floor. Long story short, the robot traversed a particular section of hardwood on a daily basis, and sure enough, one of the nubs was dragging directly over the scratch that had formed. Unfortunately, the S8 appears to have the same plastic nubs. In the pictures, they look smaller to me than what was on the S7. So I have hope.
Alternatively, if I can manually adjust the height of the rollers, just slightly, using the new auto-rise feature, that might fix the issue for me. There is no evidence that auto-rise will be a solution, but I’ll provide an update once I get a chance to test the device.
Other improvements
“AI-obstacle avoidance” and “Improved mopping system” are also mentioned but there is little detail on how things are improved over previous models. 30% fast charging is also boasted over previous models.
See our comparison of the S8 vs S7 vs Q7