Roborock announced its new Roborock S8 robot vacuum cleaner at the last CES in Las Vegas. It features 3D obstacle detection, a dual rotating brush, 6000Pa suction, and a vibrating mop for cleaning. Here again, we have a model that promises to be extremely comprehensive and efficient. Having been in testing for a little over a month now, I invite you to discover it in more detail in this comprehensive review… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ipzXOJ020Y&t=1s Unboxing the Roborock S8 We see the brand's usual packaging, clearly highlighting the product, its name, and its main features:The back tells us a little more about these features:
Inside, we find the robot, along with its mop, its charging station and cable, and a user manual. A transparent plastic plate is also included to avoid water marks where the robot parks. A kit stripped down to the essentials, as we no longer have replacement brushes, a second mop, or even a small cleaning aid.
No surprises in the design: nothing looks more like a Roborock than another Roborock :) We therefore find a circular robot, glossy white, with a diameter of 35cm and a height of 9.6cm.
A sleek design just the way we like them, with just three buttons on top, allowing you to start the full cleaning, start cleaning in a localized area, or redirect the robot to its charging station.
Alongside these buttons, we find a now-familiar feature: the PreciSense LiDAR radar, presented as a small turret on top of the robot, allowing it to scan its surroundings in 360°. This LiDAR system can quickly map any room in real time, allowing the robot to navigate using the most intelligent path.
But to improve movement efficiency, the Roborock S8 is also equipped with a front-facing camera powered by artificial intelligence: Reactive 3D. This system recognizes obstacles using infrared imaging technology and 3D structured lighting: a shoe, an electrical cable, a toy, etc., will be immediately recognized and processed accordingly, day or night. Currently, the robot is capable of recognizing 42 different types of objects. This feature has significantly improved over the last two generations of robots thanks to continuous learning. One notable difference, however: it's infrared imaging, not a real camera. This means it's no longer possible to use it to check what's going on in your home, but on the other hand, security and privacy concerns no longer arise.
Another sensor on the side allows it to follow walls perfectly, cleaning right up close to baseboards.
The top of the robot opens to provide access to the 400 ml dust bin.
As is now customary, this dust bin is equipped with a HEPA filter.
In the corner of the compartment, you'll notice a small removable plastic cover: this Roborock S8 is indeed designed to work with the emptying station if desired. Be careful, however, as the manufacturer doesn't appear to have planned to sell the station separately. While the robot remains the same, you'll need to choose the correct version at the time of purchase if you also want the emptying station (S8+) or the washing station (S8 Pro Ultra).
At the back of the robot is another 300 ml compartment, this time to store the water that will be used for mopping the floor.
Simply fill this tank with tap water, with a little detergent if desired. Be careful not to use foaming or harsh products, as this could void your warranty. The manufacturer recommends using its own detergent, but it's still difficult to find (and expensive). The Roborock S8 is equipped with a vibrating mop module, called VibraRise:
This mop vibrates 3,000 times per minute for more efficient floor cleaning.
The mop can be easily removed by simply removing it from the Velcro straps. This makes it possible to machine wash it from time to time.
This mop module simply clips onto the underside of the Roborock S8:
While the robot's exterior looks very similar to previous models, the underside reveals a new Roborock feature: the use of a dual rotating DuoRoller brush, previously only seen on competitor iRobot.
The use of this dual silicone brush will notably improve the cleaning of rugs and carpets, and prevent tangling of hair or pet fur.
As seen in the disassembly, the two brushes each have their own position, marked by a colored symbol on the robot:
There's also a side brush to bring dirt back to the center of the robot, and various sensors to detect dirt, carpets, or even vacuums. Thanks to these sensors, the robot is able to increase its suction power when moving over carpets, focus on a dirtier area, or even avoid falling down stairs.
The Roborock S8 comes with a small, very classic charging station:
Compact, it takes up little space, compared to emptying stations, which are sometimes bulky and not always easy to fit into an apartment, for example. However, we regret the absence of a winding system for the excess power cord, which is sometimes found on this type of station:
The advantage of this type of station is that it offers a relatively compact package, allowing the robot to be placed almost anywhere in the home:
Using the Roborock S8
While the Roborock S8 can operate immediately by simply plugging its station into an electrical outlet, its true potential is revealed via its mobile app, available on iOS and Android. After installing the app and creating an account, you'll be prompted to add a device. The S8 is normally detected automatically:
You then need to press and hold the two opposite buttons on top of the robot to initialize the Wi-Fi. You then enter the name and password of your Wi-Fi network to add the Roborock S8.
A few screens then briefly explain how the robot works and offer a few options to enable if desired, such as multi-floor management or pet monitoring.
As is often the case, an update will most likely be offered. You can also enable automatic updates, which will save you from having to worry about them later:
The first step is to create a quick map of the home. It's very quick, as it took the robot less than 10 minutes to map the 80m² ground floor. At this stage, the robot doesn't perform any cleaning, but simply walks through the entire home to identify the rooms and create a map of the home. It automatically divides each room when it detects a doorway, as seen here:
Detection in progress on the left, detection completed on the right.
If the division isn't suitable, you can still modify it manually, by merging or splitting rooms. The mapping management here is very comprehensive, as you can label the different rooms to make it easier to find your way around, create no-go areas, areas to vacuum but not wash, virtual walls, etc. Here, for example, I've highlighted the carpets in blue so that the robot only vacuums, without washing, and I've completely banned the area where the dog rests so as not to disturb him. The app even allows you to add furniture and create a 3D representation of your home:
A very interesting feature is the ability to specify the floor type: tile or parquet. The robot can then adjust its cleaning, including mopping, automatically based on the specified floor type. A nice little detail: it's possible to specify the direction in which the parquet is laid. An option in the robot's configuration allows it to clean in the same direction as the floorboards, which avoids leaving any marks during cleaning.
Note that it's also possible to indicate difficult doorways, allowing the robot to accelerate slightly to navigate them smoothly.
For each room, you can let the robot automatically determine the cleaning type (based on the floor type and the room), or manually adjust each setting. We have 4 suction levels, and 3 scrubbing levels for mopping.
During cleaning, the map displays every detail. White lines indicate the robot's path. A white line surrounded by a lighter area indicates an area that has also been cleaned. The robot starts by going around the perimeter of the room, then cleans the center by tracing lines.
But most importantly, the Roborock displays every obstacle detected and recognized: here, an electrical cable under a piece of furniture, there, a chair with legs that could block the robot. The smallest element is detected and recognized thanks to the artificial intelligence powering the S8. It can thus anticipate and adjust its operation accordingly. Result: the robot never got stuck, and it didn't need to tidy up before cleaning. An electrical cord or a shoelace pose no problem, and the robot knows exactly how to avoid getting tangled up in them.
The settings section also offers numerous options for adjusting the robot's operation. The most practical feature is, of course, the robot's schedule programming, which allows you to program the days and times of operation, as well as the rooms to be cleaned. It's not mandatory to run a complete cleaning of the entire home; you can, for example, clean only the bathroom, kitchen, and dining room every morning after the children leave:
It is possible to activate or not the obstacle avoidance systems, even if I don't really see the point, the goal being precisely to exploit these systems for efficient navigation. On the other hand, the management of carpets is more interesting, the robot being able to ignore or completely avoid a carpet. But above all use dynamic elevation: if the carpet is not too thick, the robot raises its mop to go on the carpet and vacuum it (up to 5mm). This is a system already encountered on previous models, which is very practical. Even when you don't want to wash the floor, it is not necessary to remove the mop module: it simply lifts up to let the robot only perform vacuuming.
Here we find the option to carry out cleaning in the direction of the parquet, which can indeed be interesting. As usual, the robot has many languages, and it is possible to make it speak in French to be alerted vocally of the slightest message from the robot.
Among the other options, it is possible to deactivate the button lights for more discretion, deactivate the robot buttons for child protection (or prevent the dog from triggering the robot as my boxer likes to do so much), prohibit operation during certain hours, so as not to be disturbed or even request recharging of the robot during off-peak hours only. Even if this type of robot consumes little electricity, there will always be some savings on the bill at the end of the year :)
Finally we find the usual manual control if necessary, available in two forms, to manually pilot the robot to a location. A function that I never use, personally, because the robot does its job very well automatically.
As you can see, we have an extremely comprehensive robot in terms of its capabilities. Many options are available for users who want to fine-tune its functionality. But for those who don't want to bother, there's no problem either, as the robot is smart enough to handle the cleaning itself.
But what about its efficiency?
The suction is extremely effective, thanks to its 6000Pa power and its dual-brush system. The layout of my home isn't very challenging, with tile and laminate floors. Previous versions never posed any problems cleaning the home, and even vacuuming the few rugs present. It's therefore difficult to appreciate the improvement in cleaning, since it was already perfect before. With more than double the suction power compared to the S7, there's no need to worry about the cleaning quality. On the other hand, this brush system does indeed provide a very visible improvement in hair tangles! With three women at home, it goes without saying that brushes usually need to be cleaned often, because even with silicone brushes, hair gets tangled up in them. Worse, the hair can cut through the silicone, damaging the brush. I have to admit that this dual-brush system is much more effective here, so much so that I haven't had to remove any hair in over a month of use!
An option allows you to launch a “quick” cleaning, for a quick cleanup before guests arrive, for example. The cleaning is a little less efficient, but the speed is still there, taking almost half the time, for a clean that's still very good. This is a function that can come in handy from time to time. Conversely, if you want to perform an intensive cleaning, you can ask the robot to make 3 passes in the same room if you wish!
The robot's route is also very efficient. While you have to think about tidying the house with “entry-level” robots, to avoid getting caught in cables, shoelaces, or stuck under a chair, there are no particular constraints with this Roborock S8. Here too, the radar technology, but especially the object recognition thanks to its 3D camera and artificial intelligence, have already been proven on the S6 and S7 versions. But the S8 improves it further, for a flawless route. With 5 people at home, including 3 teenagers, there's no need to tidy everything up before the robot comes by, even in the teenagers' bedroom :p It starts automatically at the programmed time, and does its job in our absence. At no time did the robot get lost or get stuck. Roborock has achieved a level of mastery close to perfection at this level, and this greatly facilitates the use of a robot vacuum cleaner, whatever its interior. A small downside is object recognition, where a small cushion was recognized as a cat, or a pile of sheets of paper as a power strip. In any case, if the nature of the obstacle was not always correct, the fact that there was an obstacle was well assimilated and handled correctly. That's the main thing!
It's worth noting that the Roborock S8 is capable of managing maps for multiple floors and recognizing them automatically. For example, you can pick up the robot and place it on a specific floor to clean: it will recognize the area and take care of its task without any problems. No worries about the stairs; its numerous sensors identify it without a hitch.
Washing the floor is also effective. I was more skeptical about using a vibrating mop compared to two motorized mops, such as those found by Dreame or Yeedi. But it turns out that the 3,000 vibrations, coupled with constant pressure from the mop module (equivalent to 600g), are effective for daily cleaning. Not as effective as two rotating brushes, but the S8 still performs quite well. Just one small complaint: the water takes too long to reach the mop, so the robot usually has to cover the entire room before the mop is wet enough to clean. The trick is to moisten it yourself before use.
In terms of battery life, the manufacturer claims 3 hours on a normal cycle, or about 200m². Since the area I needed to clean didn't require that much time, I was able to switch the robot to Turbo mode without any problems. This mode allows for more powerful vacuuming, albeit with a shorter battery life. But it's still more than enough for my 80m², which the Roborock S8 handles in a single pass. Of course, Turbo mode is noisier, but since it's working when we're not there, that's not a problem.
Conclusion
In six years, Roborock has established itself as a true leader in the field, and the level of technology in its robot vacuums is impressive! The days when robots randomly navigated a room seem a long way off. This Roborock S8 maps out an interior in minutes and is quickly ready to clean every square inch, room after room. And this without needing to have a perfectly tidy interior. Because it must be admitted that perfectly tidy rooms, without a single cable, toy, or shoe lying around, are more like something out of a home decor magazine than reality :p Thanks to its 3D obstacle detection, the S8 is capable of detecting the slightest obstacle and handling it in the best possible way. Ultimately, the robot knows exactly what it's doing and performs a very efficient cleaning of the entire interior, even along the baseboards. Only the washing is a little below the competition's using a dual rotating mop system, but it will be more than sufficient for daily cleaning. In short, this new version doesn't disappoint, but we expected nothing less from Roborock!
This S8 model is available in black or white, priced at €699, a little higher than the previous entry-level S7. But the onboard technology is far superior to the previous range! Note that it's currently available for €599 by checking the €100 coupon on Amazon.
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