It won’t have the name-brand cachet of iRobot’s Roomba or Samsung’s Powerbot, however the Roborock S5 can maintain its personal with each these robotic vacuums. The Roborock S5 comes with laser navigation, flooring mapping, and each vacuuming and mopping capabilities, so you’ll be able to deal with all of your flooring cleansing from the consolation of your sofa.
The Roborock S5 impresses proper out of the field with its shiny white end, a welcome change from the samey shades of black frequent to most robotic vacuums. On the highest is a button that prompts automated cleansing, one other for spot cleansing, and a 3rd for recharging, which primarily works just like the “house” button on different robotic vacuums, sending the Roborock again to its charging dock.
A turret on the highest of the vacuum homes the Roborock’s laser distance sensor and brings its complete top to about three.eight inches. A zero.6-liter dustbin is situated below a lid simply behind it. A cleansing device for the untangling hair from the primary brush is latched right into a slot proper subsequent to it—a considerate element as these instruments are simply misplaced.
The Roborock S5 contains vacuuming and mopping capabilities.
On the underside are a curler brush and a single spin brush for edge cleansing, two essential wheels, and an omnidirectional wheel on the entrance. For mopping, the vacuum comes with a separate water tank and material that you just connect to the underside whenever you’re prepared to wash exhausting flooring.
Setup and utilization
One other welcome design element is the inclusion of a moisture-proof mat. You snap this onto the charging doc in order that residual water out of your mopping received’t drip in your flooring whereas the Roborock is recharging. You then simply plug the dock in and set the vacuum on its charging pins. Whereas it’s charging, obtain the Mi House companion app, add the Roborock, and comply with the prompts to attach it to your Wi-Fi community.
For the preliminary cleansing, I turned the Roborock unfastened on a 50-plus-square-foot space that included carpet, hardwood, and linoleum affected by all the things from pet hair to paper scraps. The vacuum methodically cleaned a small space of flooring totally earlier than shifting onto one other, building a map because it went.
Zoned Clear Up enables you to scale a number of areas on the map utilizing a resizable field after which dispatch the vacuum there to wash.
It’s a decided little bot, too. The place some robotic vacuums will change route as quickly as their entrance bumper encounters resistance, the Roborock tried to push by means of most obstacles when it might. Generally, that really helped as when it encountered a pair of my child’s sneakers and simply pushed them alongside till they moved out of the way in which. It may be doubtlessly disastrous, like when it insisted on getting below a guitar stand till it met sufficient resistance to alter route simply earlier than tipping over an costly axe.
The Roborock had no drawback navigating the transitions between the totally different flooring varieties, nor did it get hung up on any furnishings. Its top prevented it from getting below my sofa and kitchen cupboards, nevertheless it left the wide-open areas freed from particles. That features wall edges, that are robust for some round vacuums. The spin brush deftly swept any grime into the trail of the primary brush so it might sweep it into the suction. And the entire cleansing took simply 21 minutes in keeping with the app.
Whereas this auto mode is nice for common upkeep cleansing, the app offers you a pair extra choices. One nice one, particularly when you have babies, is a location characteristic that allows you to click on a spot on a room map and ship the vacuum to it. Then you’ll be able to activate Spot Clear mode, additionally from the app, for a concentrated cleansing. The opposite is Zoned Clear Up, which helps you to scale a number of areas on the map utilizing a resizable field after which dispatch the vacuum there to do its factor.
All through a cleansing, the S5’s voice immediate will chime in with standing reviews, letting you understand when it’s beginning or stopping cleansing or returning to its dock. There’s even a “Discover my robotic vacuum” button within the app that when pressed prompts the Roborock to name out “Hello, I’m over right here.”
Mopping
To mop swept flooring, you’ll want to connect the mopping module. This consists of a flat water tank and a material. It’s pretty uncomplicated: First you dampen the fabric then connect it to the underside of the tank. Then you definately fill the tank and slide it into its slot on the underside of the vacuum. Lastly, choose the mopping mode within the app and begin the cleansing.
The robotic vacuum makes use of laser navigation to construct a map of the cleansing space.
Sadly, the mopping efficiency didn’t impress as a lot because the vacuuming. It didn’t do a lot however smear a light-weight sheen of water on my flooring, and inconsistently at that. It lifted solely the loosest grime off the floor, and it’s actually no substitute for an intensive hand mopping. Extra problematic was that the Roborock doesn’t keep away from carpeting when it’s in mop mode—as Ecovacs Deebot OZMO 930 does—nor does it acknowledge when it has moved again onto carpet and cease mopping. In consequence, I ended up with a number of ft of damp carpet after I didn’t supervise a kitchen-floor cleansing.
The app
The Roborock’s app interface is cleanly designed and intuitive to make use of. The map the vacuum builds throughout its preliminary cleansing fills a lot of the display. Beneath, the dimensions of the present cleansing space is displayed, together with the cleansing length, and the remaining battery cost as a share. On the very backside, are buttons to activate the assorted cleansing modes.
The Settings menu presents a wealth of further options you’re certain to make use of. I’d suggest activating Carpet Mode proper off the bat, because it permits the Roborock to robotically acknowledge carpets and improve suction. Additionally useful is a “don’t disturb mode” that allows you to set a time when the vacuum shouldn’t clear.
That is additionally the place you’ll be able to entry your cleansing historical past, view how lengthy the assorted vacuum parts have till they must be cleaned or changed, and even entry handbook vacuum controls within the type of a digital distant management or joystick.
Backside line
With its very good dust-busting and funky map-enabled options, The Roborock S5 Robotic Vacuum Cleaner stacks up properly in opposition to different upper-tier robotic vacuums. Even its mopping perform is beneficial as a light-duty upkeep choice—simply don’t anticipate it to wash up ground-in grime. The one premium characteristic it’s noticeably lacking is smart-home integration. If that’s essential to you, take a look at our high two robotic vacuum picks—the iRobot Roomba 960 and the Neato Botvac D7 Connected —each of which work with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. [Editors’ word: Roborock has since knowledgeable us that Amazon Alexa assist is an undocumented characteristic. Yow will discover extra about it here.]