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Looking for an alternative to a Roomba that really gets the job done? Enter the Roborock the robotic vacuum and mop all in one. Find out what features we love about the Roborock S6 Pure, what’s new with the recently launched S7, and what could still use some improvement.

Roborock S6 Pure Robot Vacuum Review

How does the Roborock Robot Vacuum work and what makes it different from other robotic vacuums?

The Roborock S6 starts with creating a virtual map of your house with all the rooms in it. It does this by using the massive Sensient sensor array with an accelerometer, odometer, infra-red cliff sensor, compass, lasers, and more to sense the environment around the vacuum. The Roborock always knows where it is and can avoid stairs, navigate out of trouble spots, and keep your valuables safe. 

Roborock Floor Plan Mapping

It can remember up to 3 different floors of your house. Once the map has been created, you can view the map on an app on your smartphone. The Roborock connects over Wi-Fi to the phone app once you get it installed. The connection and app are super simple to get set up. From the app, you can set No-go zones, No-mop zones, create invisible walls, and select and prioritize rooms for cleaning. Here’s a screenshot of a generated map for one floor of our home:

The Roborock uses the created map of your home to comprehensively clean each room. You can even watch the progress of the vacuum once it starts going. Once the borders of the room are known, it will clean in a z-shape pattern to ensure the whole room is covered. The Roborock calculates the most efficient route to clean the room (rather than just randomly bouncing around the room like some Robotic Vacuums we know). It will also keep track of the time spent cleaning and will provide a summary once the cleaning is completed.

Roborock S6 Features

The Roborock features a Powerful 2000Pa Suction with Automatic Carpet Boost. As you can see illustrated on the map, the Roborock Vacuum can detect different floor types. When on carpet, it will automatically turn up the suction. It has a very strong suction (especially for a robotic vacuum). It easily lifts dust from floors and the automatic carpet boost feature switches to full power on carpets to provide a deeper clean.

The Roborock includes a 5200mAh Lithium-Ion battery which gets you up to 3-hours of non-stop cleaning. This is enough to cover over 2100 square feet. The Roborock will also go back to dock charger automatically when the battery power gets low, after charging, it will resume to where it left off and complete the entire cleaning job. Of course, this feature is more helpful for single story homes.

The dustbin will hold up to 460 ml worth of debris on the S6 pure (the S6 version is slightly larger at 480 ml). One excellent feature included with the Roborock is its climbing which enable it to scale thresholds of up to 0.8 inches. So it won’t get stuck between rooms because of a small difference in flooring levels.

The S6 model is 55% percent quieter than the S5 model with the inclusion of sound suppression. In fact, the Roborock S6 even has a quiet mode that you can run the vacuum on when needed (like when baby is asleep or for late at night cleaning).

You can start a cleaning session multiple ways. You can simply press the power button on the unit, you could start directly from the phone app. As an added bonus, the Roborock integrates with Amazon Alexa, Siri and Google Home to enable comprehensive voice control. Just a few simple commands and off your vacuum will go.

Finally, the Roborock includes a washable E-11 filter. Helping you to trap dust, dirt and allergens and remove them from your home. Since it’s washable, this means fewer replacements are required. The app keeps track of all parts of the machine that need maintenance. It shows how long they’ve been used or since they’ve been clean. It will also alert you when maintenance is required.

The Roborock isn’t just a vacuum, it’s also a mop

The Roborock S6 Pure also features a 180 ml tank for mopping in addition to vacuuming. Making it one of the very few robotic mop and vacuum combos in one. You do have to snap on a separate piece for mopping to get that started. This means if you want to vacuum and mop you’ll have to start up the Roborock again after snapping on the mopping attachment.

Spoiler Alert – this is something that’s been addressed with the S7 model. The Roborock S7 will intelligently lift, allowing you to vacuum and mop in a single clean. It also features a larger water reservoir

The Roborock S6 is available in black or white, and currently retails for around $399.99 on Amazon (a discount of $200 off the full $599.99 retail price). The Roborock S7 has a lot of similar features, with a few worthwhile additions. It has upgraded powerful suction, sonic cleaning, intelligent mopping, a larger water tank and an upgraded main brush on the vacuum for better cleaning. If you really are keen on the mopping feature, I’d recommend starting with the S7 instead.

Our Experience with the Roborock Vacuum

We bought our Roborock about a year ago now. Her name is Rosie, because of course she needed to have a name. Overall, I think Rosie does a great job vacuuming on both hard and soft surfaces. In fact, she has some of the strongest suction I’ve seen on a robotic vacuum. However, I have to say that I’ve been pretty unimpressed with her mopping for a number of reasons I’ll get into shortly.

Overall here is a breakdown of the Pros and Cons of the Roborock S6 Pure Robotic Vacuum:

Roborock Vacuum Pros:

• Mapping feature ensures comprehensive cleaning
• Powerful suction that actually works
• Long battery life
• Easy to use app with lots of additional features, making for more intelligent cleaning
  • Invisible Walls
  • No-Go Zones
  • Multiple passes can be enabled
• Audible voice notifications make it easy to understand
• Can handle multiple floors (Up to 3 can be stored)
• Smart Sensors avoid falling down stairs, minimize trapping and prevent damage

Roborock Vacuum Cons:

• Mopping feature is lacking:
  • Water Tank is too Small
  • Cannot use cleaning solution
  • Requires a separate start interrupting cleaning
• Relatively Noisy Vacuum
• First vacuum is very slow

First Impressions

The first time you use Rosie (or any time you are mapping a new floor of the home), it will take quite a long time. The first time it ran on a 1300 square foot floor of our house, it took well over an hour to map everything out. This is because the Roborock vacuum will make a pass around the entire floor trying to determine all of the perimeters and room before it will actually start cleaning. It will look like the vacuum is just running into every wall and door in your house. However, don’t judge the Roborock too quickly on that first impression. After that a similar run of that same floor only took 30 minutes or so. So I would say to expect roughly double the time on the very first clean.

The wait for the first clean is absolutely worth it. The mapping feature makes the Roborock much more effective than prior generations of robotic vacuums that just randomly bounced around your house cleaning some areas but missing many others. The Roborock vacuum really does clean the whole room, and I find the suction does an excellent job. Maybe not as great as if you manually cleaned with a full power upright vacuum, but everything does get cleaned throughly especially for a robotic vacuum. In fact, you even get the coveted vacuum lines on carpet after it runs.

The extra corner silicone brush does help the Roborock get into nooks and crevices better than most robotic vacuums I’ve tried out. It still does have difficult getting into a sharp corner, but does an great job along a wall.

Roborock Features – Review

As far as the more advance features included with the Roborock, I love the invisible wall feature and no-go zones. They are super easy to drop in on the map, and I’ve used it to keep the vacuum away from fragile items. I’ve also dropped an invisible wall at the door in my office, because when the weather is nice, I like to keep the door open. Once when the door was open, I ran Rosie not even thinking about it, and she took a quick adventure outside. A simple invisible wall where the door was addressed this issue quite easily.

I do find that Rosie is pretty noisy, but we always run it at the higher power settings. The motor is pretty loud, but quieter than what you would expect with a regular vacuum. I find that even when I am on another floor when the vacuum is running, I can hear the vacuum bumping into things. To be honest, I’m okay with the louder noise if that’s a trade-off for actually working. Hence why we always have it on Turbo or Max.

Roborock Battery Life

We usually find that the dust bin fills up way before we run out of power. Maybe that’s because we have 2 kids and 3 dogs, so we definitely put the vacuum to the test. We will typically run the Roborock twice to ensure everything was picked up. So we will let it run, empty the dustbin and then restart it. While there is an option to automatically do 2 passes, we find the dust bin fills before those passes are complete. So it just makes sense to run, empty the dust bin and then run again. One nice feature is that the Roborock will let you know the dustbin is full. Rosie will just say “dustbin is full” and you know that it needs to be empty rather than having to check it.

If you are looking for a robotic vacuum that self-empties, it’s going to cost you quite a pretty penny. We’d recommend the iRobot Roomba i7+ (7550) if you want this feature. It will hold up to 60 days of dust and debris. Keep in mind this works best with a single story home as it requires going back to the dock to store the debris.

Roborock Mopping Features

So about the mopping feature…the Roborock S6 has a teeny tiny water tank (this has been improved in the S7). You also are only supposed to put water in it…no cleaning solution. After a couple of test runs, we’ve completely stopped using the mopping feature. It just doesn’t do enough and is more of a pain than a help on the S6 model. I don’t think that it does as much as I would like it to. It definitely isn’t a replacement for your weekly mopping. If you really want the mopping feature, upgrade and go for the S7.

Overall, I’ve been really happy with the Roborock S6 Pure as a robotic vacuum. It addressed a lot of the issues that older robotic vacuums had with not effectively vacuuming the whole house. I would never never recommend anyone buy a robotic vacuum that doesn’t include the mapping feature included on the Roborock. I also think compared to other choices on the market, you get a lot of additional features with the Roborock at a lower cost. So definitely more value for your money. If you’re in the market for a robotic vacuum, it’s definitely worth considering.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have you tried out a robotic vacuum or mop that you love? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below.

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