Roborock Qrevo Master: two-minute review

Originally launched in May 2024, the Roborock Qrevo Master is a high-end robotic vacuum and mop that produces an impressive blend of power, intelligence and convenience. Boasting 10,000Pa suction, dual rubber rollers and flexible side brush, the Qrevo Master effectively tackles dust, debris and pet hair on a variety of surfaces, while its dual spinning mops and consistent downward pressure ensure a very decent level of hard floor cleaning and light stain removal.

Navigation is always a key standout feature among Roborock models and this one's no different. The Qrevo Master's LiDAR mapping and AI-powered obstacle avoidance allows the bot to maneuver around furniture and most larger household objects. However, when it comes to small obstacle avoidance there are more efficient models out there that perform better in this regard.

The Qrevo Master's self-maintaining dock, meanwhile, adds an extra layer of convenience, automatically emptying the dustbin, refilling the robot's water tank and washing and drying the two mop pads. For those seeking a premium, low-maintenance floor cleaning solution, the Qrevo Master is an excellent choice, and holds its own against the best robot vacuums on the market, despite not being the very newest model out. Read on for my full Roborock Qrevo Master review.

Roborock Qrevo Master review: price & availability

• List price: $1,599 / £1,199 / AU$2,199 (regularly discounted in all territories)
• Launched: May 2024

At list price, the Roborock Qrevo Master costs $1,599 in the US (although at time of writing, it was down to $899.99, which is the kind of price you should expect to actually pay for this model). In the UK it's £1,199, but again you should expect not to have to actually pay that – at time of writing it's down to £799.99. In Australia, the list price is AU$2,699 but it's currently discounted to AU$2,199.

Even at those discounted prices, it's still a premium robot vacuum. However, it's far from the most expensive model on the market – most brands' newest flagship models are well into the four figures in the US and UK.

At time of writing the Qrevo Master is still a relatively new model – it launched May 2024. However, the world of robovacs moves fast, and there are now several newer bots in the Roborock range. It occupies a spot somewhere in the middle of the Qrevo lineup, between the basic and budget-friendly Qrevo Q5 Pro+ and the expensive but excellent Qrevo Curv. The latest options to join the lineup are the Saros 10 and Saros 10R, both of which cost far more than the Qrevo Master and introduce some cool (if not wholly essential) new tech.

While not the best or most advanced robot vacuum in the Roborock lineup, the Qrevo master is still a mighty fine option that delivers on many fronts, not least its excellent navigation and vacuuming skills.

While there are other sterling robot vac manufacturers out there – namely Dreame, Eufy and Narwal – I personally always gravitate to the Roborock brand simply because the Chinese company's products are so reliable and usually ahead of the curve. Where Roborock goes, others follow.

Is the Qrevo Master good value? I'd say it sort of is given that most robot vacs with this level of smarts retail for around the same price. Nevertheless, there are some outstanding cheaper options around if you know where to look. (In the UK, the phenomenal Xiaomi X20+ performs almost as well as the Qrevo Master for around £500 less – it's the best budget robot vacuum I've tested, by some margin).

• Value for money score: 3.5 out of 5

Roborock Qrevo Master specs

Roborock Qrevo Master review: design

• Slightly basic looking hybrid bot, and a little on the tall side
• Dual rubber brush rollers and rotating mop pads
• Comprehensive dock, including mop cleaning and drying

I guess I've been spoiled by the clean Scandinavian-style design aesthetics of Roborock's latest premium models, the Saros 10 and 10R, because the Qrevo Master's robot unit looks a bit old fashioned with its large, plastic LiDAR unit and oversized bumpers. At 10.3cm in height, it's also quite tall which means it will have trouble passing under some low-slung furniture.

Roborock's newer (pricier) robots outshine the Qrevo Master in this area – the Saros 10 has a puck that can pop up and down, and the Qrevo Slim and Saros 10R don't have a puck at all. All look significantly slicker and more modern than the Qrevo Master.

I'm not too enamored of the medical white color scheme of my review model – I much prefer the back version that appears in the studio photos in this review.

Let's tackle this model's navigation system first. Like all the very best robots, the Qrevo Master uses LiDAR and an RGB camera to find its way around a home, and its accuracy is second to none. In fact you can see the results during its very first mapping run in real time on the Roborock app. The RGB camera can also be used to monitor a room by driving the robot around like a remote controlled car.

However, while the Qrevo Master's large obstacle avoidance (furniture legs, etc) is above par – its Reactive AI software can identify and avoid 62 objects across 20 categories – its obstacle detection isn't as precise as the company's very latest navigation systems. After all, today's technology moves at such a pace that something considered groundbreaking a few months previous is very soon superseded by another that's lightyears ahead.

You do get a very decent tranche of vacuuming tech with this unit, including very effective dual rubber brush rollers with an anti-tangling device and an automatically extendable side brush that pops out in corners of a room. This model boasts 10,000Pa which is short of its higher-end stablemates but still perfectly acceptable for practically all cleaning scenarios, bar perhaps very deep pile carpet.

There are five levels of power to choose from – Quiet, Balanced, Turbo, Max and MAX+. Since the robot's battery is more than up to the task of vacuuming a large space (it has a running time of about 60 minutes in Max mode) , I would always opt for Max or MAX+ because, well, why wouldn't you?

On the mopping front this model comes with two circular toweling pads and, like many current high-end models, one of the mopping pads can also extend outwards to clean along skirting boards and around furniture legs. Both mops are pushed into the floor while they spin at 200rpm, giving any hard floor a good seeing to. This style mop tends to do a more effective scrubbing job than the static D-shaped pad still found on many robot vacuums – even the high-end models.

The mops themselves are pre-dampened by a small onboard 80ml water tank that is in turn filled in the dock just before going out on a mopping run. You can select up to 30 levels of water flow in the excellent Roborock app.

Of course, one wouldn't want any damp mops running slipshod over one's lovely carpets so the mops on this model lift by a few centimeters whenever the bot is traversing carpets or rugs. Likewise, its vacuum brush rollers also rise up whenever the robot is mopping or returning to base.

Dock design

At 521 x 340 x 487mm, the Qrevo Master's dock is considerably taller than many of its peers and that means it will be harder to position without it being too conspicuous. In fact this dock shares some design aesthetics with the Dreame L40 Ultra I reviewed a while back, including a very similar looking dust bag cover. But thankfully Roborock steered away from giving it any tasteless gold colored details.

It's not the most unpleasant looking dock I've seen, but compared to the gorgeous mirrored finish Roborock has applied to its Saros range, it certainly could do with a bit of a facelift. Thankfully the black option doesn't look quite as ungainly because, well, it's black and therefore less noticeable in a room filled with wooden furniture.

Like all good contemporary hybrid robot cleaners, the Qrevo Master's dock offers a fully automated maintenance system that empties the contents of the robot's small internal 220ml bin into the dock's larger 2.2-liter dust bag whenever it has finished a vacuum session. Having a robot with a self-emptying feature is an absolute must, especially if you have shedding pets in the home. Without one you will need to continually empty the robot's tiny bin yourself, sometimes halfway through a cleaning session and, believe me, that's no fun.

Since this model also wet mops hard floors, it comes equipped with a mop cleaning facility that washes both mops with hot water at 60C to break down dirt and bacteria. Aside from emptying the mucky contents of the 3.5-litre dirty water tank, filling the 4-liter fresh water container, and very occasionally removing the entire mopping tray from the dock to rinse and scrub it under tap, there's very little human interjection required with this machine.

• Design score: 4 out of 5

Roborock Qrevo Master review: performance

• Very good vacuuming and mopping performance
• Reliable LiDAR navigation but poor obstacle avoidance
• Effective dock with minimal human interaction needed

This robot vacuum does a lot of different things, so to keep everything clear, I've separated this section into a range of different performance elements. I'll start with navigation performance, then move on to obstacle avoidance. Next I'll get into vacuuming and mopping performance and finally I'll cover how well the dock held up during testing.

Navigation performance

Top marks as usual to Roborock for this bot's navigation prowess. From the moment you set it all up – a breeze, it must be said – the bot trundles off without getting lost and quickly maps your entire floor plan in about five minutes. It then returns to its charging station and proceeds to dock as accurately as a spaceship.

I've since placed the Qrevo Master in our village hall – an extremely demanding 127 square metres of wooden flooring – and the Qrevo Master has never once lost its way or missed a section. Sometimes very large spaces with lots of reflective windows can affect a robot vac's LiDAR navigation performance and this usually manifests itself as a strange anomaly on the app's map interface where the room is mysteriously multiplied in size. This happened on a couple of occasions with the Dreame L40 Ultra. By contrast, the Qrevo Master's complex three-room map hasn't altered at all in three weeks of regular use.

Obstacle avoidance

This is the only test where the Qrevo Master showed its Achilles Heel. For my test I used a collection of small and large dog toys, plus a phone cable. At first the Qrevo Master simply steamrollered even some of the larger toys. Activating the 'Pet' setting in the Reactive Obstacle avoidance menu in the app makes a big difference to Roborock bots' detection skills, but I double-checked and I had indeed already selected this option.

I then ran the test again and, for some bizarre reason, it behaved a little bit better – as if it was going through a learning process. Nevertheless, like the vast majority of bots I've tested, it ran right over the small nylon dog bone and failed to extricate itself. And, while it at first appeared to avoid the charge cable, it soon changed its mind and simply ran over it and then dragged it around the rug.

It's difficult to tell why this model had such issues with obstacle avoidance, but in its defense, its day-to-day schedules have always gone without a hitch – when it has encountered a stray dog toy, it's simply pushed them to the side when not actively avoiding them. However, I agree that this is not ideal given the cost of the machine in the first place.

Hence, if you have a messy home with small items littering the floor, you'd be better off with the Roborock Qrevo Curv, the newer Roborock Saros 10R or the Dreame L40 Ultra. All three of these bots excel at obstacle avoidance.

Vacuum performance

For my hard floor test I measured 22 grams of oats, uncooked orzo, cornflakes, flour and a crushed cheese cracker. I then set a cleaning zone in the kitchen and commanded the robot to perform two passes using Max power. While some of the debris was scattered by the spinning side brush (a common occurrence with all robot vacs), it generally performed extremely well, collecting 21g when measured on the scales.

Granted, a few remnants of oats remained and some flour was left in the cracks but this was easily fixed by using a standard stick vac to finish the job. While not as successful as, say, the Roborock Saros 10R or Dreame L40, the Qrevo Master still proved to be very adept at hard floor sweeping.

I then set up a similar medium-pile rug test using the same 22g of ingredients. This test produced excellent results, with 22g back on the scales. However, it had also collected some extra pet hair and dust in the process so I would say pickup was nearer to 21g. That's an excellent result in my opinion. Best of all, I couldn't see any remnants on the rug from head height – and that's about as much as anyone could wish for.

Mopping performance

I'm not a big fan of robot vacs that also mop because I don't believe any of them are capable of replacing a human's ability to deeply wash a hard floor or target a specific area using either an old fashioned mop and bucket or one of those newfangled wet-and-dry cordless mops that are doing the rounds.

For instance, I would never consider going through the rigmarole of sending a robot mop to attend to an accidental spill when I can get the job done in a fraction of the time. However, I can see robot mops being useful at keeping on top of a pre-cleaned floor if programmed to run a series of regular mopping schedules.

Since this model uses two circular spinning mop pads, I knew before even starting my test that it would be efficient enough for a pass. And sure enough it mopped up all traces of the milk and soy sauce mix I spilled on the floor – in a single sweep no less. It even continued to move over the same spot a number of times, just for good measure. However, like most robot mops I've tested, it did leave a slightly sticky but invisible residue behind after the floor had dried. After the cleaning test, the robot duly returned to its dock to have the mops cleaned and dried using hot air to help keep mold at bay.

Dock performance

Since I have two Labradors and three cats, my home is always full of hair. In fact, I often find odd strands of Labrador hair in the most surprising places. As a consequence of all this hair, some robot vac docks I've tested have become blocked due to an excessive amount of hair stuffed into the robots' tiny bins.

If the dock's suction isn't powerful enough, chances are a bundle of hair will block the air intake, either where the robot meets with the dock's suction tube or, more than likely, at the end of its travel where the suction tube connects with the dock's dust bag. This kind of anomaly is easily rectifiable but also unnecessarily messy, especially given the fact that you buy a robot vac to do all the graft so you don't have to.

Well I'm pleased to say that the Qrevo Master's dock suction levels are easily high enough to draw everything out of the robot's bin and into the dock's large 2.2-liter disposable dust bag with no issues whatsoever. (I'd rate it amongst the best robot vacuums for pet hair in this regard.) In fact, the dock's suction was powerful enough to draw a heavy snooker cue tip into the dust bag, and not many robot docks are capable of that level of suction.

As a postscript, I should add that this robot has been employed full-time in our village hall for several weeks now, and the hall's main floor, its kitchen and toilet area have never looked cleaner. The Qrevo Master vacuums this enormous 127 square metre space three times a week and mops it twice a week. At no time has it ever got stuck in five weeks of regular use. It deftly vacuums the entire hall (even beneath a pile of chairs in one corner), keeps the hall's loos spick and span and stays on top of any kitchen mess. This just goes to prove that robot vacs – and mops – are just as suitable for commercial use as they are for domestic settings.

• Performance score: 4.5 out of 5

Roborock Qrevo Master review: app

• Highly customizable
• Easy to navigate
• Extremely comprehensive

I've said it before and I'll say it again – right now there is no better robot vac app for sheer comprehensiveness and ease of use than Roborock's. This app has it all, from scheduling and specific zone tasks, to a myriad of deep customization tweaks. That includes changing the amount of time the bot returns to the dock to have its dustbin emptied, editing the room surface and direction of wooden flooring, adding no-go zones, even adding furniture icons to the map so it looks like something out of the Sims.

Another great thing about this app is that you can programme a set of ‘Routines' like ‘vacuum the lounge' or ‘mop the kitchen' and save them all on the home screen for instant access. Roborock's tech bods left no stone unturned when developing this app and the results speak for themselves.

• App score: 5 out of 5

Should you buy the Roborock Qrevo Master?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How I tested the Roborock Qrevo Master

I lived with the Qrevo Master for several weeks to get a real feel for its performance. I also TechRadar's standard robot vacuum tests to assess performance.

The first thing we're looking for is overall suction performance on different floor types. For this, I spilled a selection of loose ingredients on both hard flooring and carpet and observed the results. Did the robot sweep it all up in a single sweep or did it snowplough everything? Did it scatter the ingredients in the process? Did it leave anything behind after a few passes? I then ran similar tests using liquids, to test this hybrid robot's mopping efficiency.

Aside from performance, I also looked at the design of the robot and self-emptying dock, tested the effectiveness of its obstacle avoidance, and considered how quickly it mapped my home's floor plan when first taking it out of the box. I spent time digging into its app to see how extensive and usable it is, and if any improvements could be made.

Read more about how we test robot vacuum cleaners

• First reviewed April 2025

Roborock Saros 10: two-minute review

Launched in January 2025, the Roborock Saros 10 is a premium robot vacuum with some seriously cutting-edge features. Primary among these is a navigation puck that retracts down into the bot when it senses it's entering a low-height space. That, combined with a suspension system that can bounce it over tall thresholds, means this bot can reach places other robovacs can't.

On test, I found that both these features worked reliably well. And while the pop-down puck will only really come into play in homes with furniture that's a quite-specific distance off the floor, if you do fall into this category then this robotic will prove a game-changer. No more shifting the sofa once every six months to find a horrifying amount of dust sitting below it!

I was also impressed with the Saros 10's cleaning powers. Suction is strong enough to pull large volumes of dog hair off carpeted floors without fuss, and the anti-tangle roller does exactly what it's designed to do. Mopping is good, too, with the lowest mopping modes creating only the lightest mop; perfect for floors that are sensitive to too much moisture. On balance, I still think spinning mop pads (such as those that feature on the Saron 10's sister model, the Roborock Saros 10R) do a better job of scrubbing, but I did like how the additional mini side mop on the Saros 10 got right up to the edges of rooms.

I should also give special mention to the impressive hands-off dock, which not only empties dust and charges the bot (in double-quick time), but also dispenses detergent, washes the mop pads with hot water, and dries them with warm air. All this while looking far more stylish than basically any other dock I've seen in all my time reviewing robovacs.

At list price, the Saros 10 is far from cheap, but it's roughly in line with other brands' top-of-the-range models offering similarly advanced features. If you just want decent cleaning and are happy to take care of some of the maintenance tasks yourself, there are cheaper options to be found. However, if you're after an advanced model that makes use of the very latest tech and requires minimal intervention from you, this might be the best robot vacuum for you. Read on for my full Roborock Saros 10 review.

Roborock Saros 10 review: price & availability

• List price: $1,599.99 / £1,499.99 / AU$2,999
• Launched: January 2025
• Available: Worldwide

The Roborock Saros 10 was one of three new Roborock robot vacuums announced at CES in January 2025, alongside sister model Saros 10R and the Saros Z70, which has a mechanical arm.

At list price direct from Roborock, the Saros 10 costs $1,599.99 in the US, £1,499.99 in the UK, and AU$2,999 in Australia. At time of writing, it isn't available via any third-party retailers, but it may come to Amazon at some point.

That price puts it firmly into the premium bracket for robovacs. In fact, it's one of the most expensive models we've tested so far, although its price is roughly in line with many other brands' top-of-the-range models. Build quality, performance and featureset help justify that price somewhat, and I'm not going to score it down too much on price because I'm glad this kind of innovation exists in the robovac world – plus, it's a truly excellent robot vacuum. Having said that, I'd still hold out for a discount (or for the price to come down over time) before buying one.

This is a super-advanced robot vacuum, and you don't need to spend this much to get an appliance that will keep your floors clean. For most people's needs, there are models at even half the price that will do the job – especially if you're willing to sacrifice the mop washing / drying / self-cleaning dock functions, all of which will bump up the price significantly.

Note, however, that there are a couple of ongoing costs to factor in, too. The first is replacement dust bags, although with a 2.5-liter capacity, each bag should last a decent amount of time. The second is floor cleaner: Roborock recommends you use only its own branded detergent, and I'm disappointed to report it's very expensive.

• Value for money score: 4 out of 5

Roborock Saros 10 specs

Roborock Saros 10 review: design

• Pop-up navigation puck and bouncy chassis for traversing thresholds
• Bulky but smart mirrored self-empty dock, with mop cleaning
• Side mop and brush, and split main roller for directing hair

The bot itself looks similar to your standard disc-shaped robovac, but the main difference here is that rather than having a fixed navigation puck, it has one that can pop up and down. It will generally be up (this allows for better navigation); however, it will retract when the bot is docked and if it senses it's entering a low-height space.

On the front there's also a camera and additional navigation elements. The camera can also be used as a security cam, or to check in on your pets while you're out.

Flip it over and you'll find two chunky wheels and a smaller front wheel, all of which can raise and lower independently to get the bot over tall thresholds. It's designed to be able to traverse thresholds up to a total of 1.6 inches / 4cm in height, including double-step thresholds, using the same AdaptiLift technology included with the Roborock Qrevo Curv. The bot learns the best process for each threshold in the mapped area.

The roller is rather unusual. It combines rubber fins and bristles, and is split in the middle to allow hair to escape into the bin, rather than becoming tangled and requiring you to then manually cut it off.

There's a spinning side brush that tucks itself away when it isn't in use. Again, the design is a little unusual: it has two arms, which sit near each other and extend at a slanting angle, to resist hair from becoming tangled.

For mopping, the Saros 10 has a fixed, D-shaped mop pad. This has two vibrating zones that are designed to help dislodge dirt, and can also press down on the floor. (It's still not my preferred style – I find dual-spinning discs do a more thorough scrubbing job, which is the reason for docking a half-mark in this section).

There's also a tiny extra side mop designed to get closer to the edges of rooms. Cleverly, if you opt for a mode where the mop isn't needed, it can drop the mop off in the dock, so there's no danger of damp carpets.

The panel on the top of the robovac is magnetic, and can be removed to reveal the onboard dustbin. You shouldn't need to access this often – only if the self-empty process fails because something has jammed the mechanism. Presumably there's also a water tank in there, but I couldn't find it.

Dock design

The Saros 10 dock is one of those does-it-all units that not only charges the bot and empties its small onboard dustbin, but does a whole load more besides. It can refill its onboard water tank, disperse detergent, clean the bot's mop pads (at up to 176ºF / 80ºC), dry them (at 140ºF) over the course of a few hours, and also clean itself (at up to 176ºF).

It's designed to be able to recognize what's on the mop and adjust the temperature to suit; so it knows to use hotter water for grease and coffee stains than items such as mashed potato.

As such, the Saros 10 is fairly bulky. However, it's one of the best-looking docks I've seen, with a smart, mirrored front that simply reflects the rest of your room back at you. So if it looks messy, that's on you.

The dustbag is hidden behind a front flap that opens when you press it, and two large water tanks (one for clean, one for dirty from cleaning the mop) are housed in the top, again behind a door.

There's a removable ramp up into the dock, and inside you can see the brushes for cleaning the mop pad.

• Design score: 4.5 out of 5

Roborock Saros 10 review: performance

• Excellent vacuuming on higher settings; can handle pet hair
• Mopping also very good on higher settings – edge mop is useful
• Navigation great but object avoidance unreliable

Setup was painless. I unpackaged the bot, left it to charge on its dock, and then was prompted to complete a quick mapping run. Here, the bot made its way briefly into each room, looked around a bit, then left. It then provided me with a suggestion of what it thought the rooms were, and their floor types.

I was testing this bot in a town house with multiple levels, so I repeated the process for each floor, carrying the bot up to each level to do so (advanced though this robovac is, it still can't climb stairs).

The initial plans were generally very accurate. After they'd been created, I went back in and corrected room types, removed unnecessary areas (it included the stairs when mapping higher levels, although its cliff sensors reliably prevented it from trying to go down them), and added no-go areas.

Vacuuming

On the vacuuming front, there are five power levels to choose from: Quiet, Balanced, Turbo, Max and Max+ (there's a battery life warning with this mode). You can also opt to clean the space once or twice. I did find this bot a little noisy in vacuum-only mode, but it certainly wasn't any louder than a manual vacuum.

To try out vacuuming, I first set off the Saros 10 to clean each floor of the house, using a mix of different power levels, in vacuum-only mode. After cleaning, and before the bot returned to the dock, I inspected the onboard bin to see what it had gathered collected.

I found Turbo mode was enough to extract plenty of dog hair from carpeted floors, and even more if I amped it up to a higher power mode. I was also impressed that the bot had no trouble auto-emptying, even when full with hair. I could hear the tell-tale "whoomph" sound as the wodge of dog hair made its way from the onboard bin to the dock dustbag.

I was also generally impressed by the roller design – there was next-to-none of my long hair wrapped around it at the end of a vacuuming session. That isn't the case with some of the robovacs I test.

To test how the Roborock Saros 10 handles different kinds of debris, I ran TechRadar's standard suction tests. I sprinkled a teabag of dry tea on the carpet, alongside a handful of oats. I then ran the vacuum over them. On first pass in Turbo mode, the results were a little disappointing – the bot failed to pick much up, and what it did, it spat back out on a different area of carpet.

I ran another spot clean in Max+ mode and was far more impressed. This time, the bot picked up most of the debris, both large and small. To be clear, this is a tricky test. I went back over the tea spillage area with my Dyson Gen5detect vacuum and even that struggled to get the very last specs of tea from the carpet.

It's worth pointing out here that, in general, robot vacuums are designed for maintenance cleans – for deep cleaning, you'll still want to keep one of the best manual vacuums to hand. Among robot vacuums I've tested, the Saros 10's suction performance in general was very good.

I ran the same test with tea and oats on a hard, tiled floor. This time, the bot picked up almost everything first time in Turbo mode, albeit with a fair bit of flicking around of debris. The only remaining bits were in the grouting cracks, and I managed to get those by remote-controlling the bot over the relevant area afterwards.

To assess this bot's edge-cleaning powers, I sprinkled team and oats along the edge of the tiled kitchen. It did a pretty good job of clearing it, although it did ping everything around a bit, and there were a few remnants left that it was quicker to tackle with a manual vacuum that try and get the bot to handle.

Mopping

There are four mopping levels to choose from – Mild, Standard, Intense and Extreme. These increase not just the amount of water used, but also the enthusiasm of the scrubbing. Standard mode is really very light; I found the floor had almost completely dried by the time the bot had finished cleaning the room.

That's great news if you have floors that are sensitive to too much moisture – wooden floors, for example. However, if that's not the case and you want a more thorough mop, you'll want to deploy one of the higher mopping modes.

You can choose for the bot to mop only, vacuum first and then mop, or do both at once. I tend to avoid combination mopping and vacuuming since it will often lead to messy rollers and side brushes, due to the combination of water and dry debris. In mop-only mode, the Saros 10 really is extremely quiet.

On test, I found it could take a while for the mop pads to fully saturate, and especially in Standard or Mild modes. Initially, I could see damp streaks on the floor where the bot had cleaned incompletely. However, the tiny extra side mop does a good job of getting right up to the edges of rooms.

For my mopping test, I smeared a tiny bit of ketchup on a tiled floor and left it to dry. After one pass in Standard mode, the Saros 10 had hardly cleaned up any of it. Amping it up to higher mop levels yielded better results.

On balance, while this bot does a good job of mopping, I still prefer the spinning dual disc-shaped mop style when it comes to pure scrubbing power.

Navigation and obstacle avoidance

The pop-up puck is an interesting one, because in reality it's a very specific situation in which it's actually useful – you need furniture that's taller than 3.3inches / 8.2cm but shorter than 4.5inches / 11.4cm (the height where the puck wouldn't need to retract) off the ground. If you have that, though, it's super useful.

There's only one piece of furniture in my testing house that falls into the correct bracket, and the puck worked exactly as stated here. It also didn't impede navigation at all, although said piece of furniture is quite small, so it probably didn't present the biggest challenge.

I also ran TechRadar's standard obstacle avoidance tests, placing a sock, a charge cable, and a shoe on the floor, spread apart. I also added a box of tissues, for good measure. Results were mixed here.

The bot tried to eat the sock. It successfully identified and avoided the shoe, and at first also the tissue box, although it then went back and pushed it around a bit.

The Saros 10 also chewed the cable. That isn't a massive surprise, because I've yet to come across a robot vacuum that can successfully spot cables. However, it's something Roborock specifically states the Saros 10 can do, so it's disappointing in this regard.

In general use, however, I found this robovac pretty good at obstacle avoidance. There are various bins, speaker bases and ornaments on the floor that it successfully avoided – but as mentioned, it isn't quite the "exceptional" obstacle recognition and avoidance promised by Roborock.

Advanced features include the ability to use the robot to hunt out, photograph, and even video-call your pet. I did not try these features, because I suspect the dog would find such an intrusion wildly unsettling rather than reassuring.

Any photography and video features are turned off by default. To enable, you have to manually press some buttons on the robot vacuum, and you also have to be the primary account holder.

Battery life

I can't fault the Saros 10's battery. While it's less of an issue with robot vacuums than a cordless stick vacuum – because the bot will automatically return to the dock to charge whenever it runs out of juice, before resuming its cleaning task – it's still helpful for a robot to offer decent runtimes. That's especially true if you're going to use it in a house with multiple floors, where it can't always get back to its charge dock without help.

The Saros 10 managed an impressive amount of cleaning on a single charge. I was concerned that the Max+ mode – which comes with a "battery draining mode" warning – would run the battery down super quickly, but on test it trundled through three complete room cleans in vacuum-only Max+ mode (from a not-full battery in the first place) before running out of juice. Impressive.

Roborock also promises fast charging; it claims the dock will take the robovac from flat battery to full in 150 minutes. On test, I found this accurate. I went from 14% battery (at which point the bot told me it needed to return to dock to recharge) to 100% in under two and a half hours. If it goes flat mid-task, the bot will also figure out how much more power it needs to complete the task, and only charge to that point, for maximum efficiency.

Dock performance

Based on a couple of weeks of testing, the dock seems to be performing as stated. I've experienced no issues with the bin failing to empty completely, and the washing function seems to be working as claimed based on how clean the mop pads look and how dirty the water in the waste water tank is.

I'll update this section when I've been using the bot a little longer, and have a more complete view of the dock performance over time.

• Performance score: 4 out of 5

Roborock Saros 10 review: app

• Lots of settings for precise control
• ... but will also figure things out automatically, if you prefer
• Generally very usable, with a few usability quirks

The Roborock app is well designed and nice and usable, although it can take a little time to learn your options and explore all the settings at first – in part because there are so many of them. There are also a few areas I found unhelpful. For example, to swap between different floorplans in a multi-storey home, you need to go via the "edit map" menu, which feels unintuitive.

Otherwise, mapping is straightforward, and you have the option to set no-go zones and invisible walls, as well as removing sections that are added in error. You can also add furniture, and create cleaning preferences for different rooms and floors.

Strangely, you can't manually select the floor type for each room. You can create "carpet areas", but this is fiddly – no areas can overlap, making things tricky if the plan includes carpet rooms and hard floor rooms. The app will automatically identify floor type, but the areas that have been designated as carpet isn't always clear. I'd prefer to be able to set this as a backup – no one wants a mopped carpet.

A relatively new addition to the setup is SmartPlan 2.0, which uses AI to customize the cleaning route, suction power and mop settings based on the bot's knowledge of its environment and previous use. Roborock says it can even reduce suction power during designated "quiet hours".

In short, you can have as much or as little control as you want here. If you don't want to get involved, you can basically leave the bot to figure out everything on its own, and it will do a very good job. Alternatively, you can really dig into the different features and set up everything exactly as you want it.

• App score: 4.5 out of 5

Should you buy the Roborock Saros 10?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Roborock Saros 10: alternatives to consider

How I tested the Roborock Saros 10

I used the Roborock Saros 10 regularly for two weeks in a four-storey town house that has a mixture of carpeted and tiled floors, and houses a very hairy cocker spaniel. I used it to map and clean each of the levels, exploring the different settings and modes. For a more objective performance review, I ran TechRadar's standard suction tests (using dry tea and oats on hard and carpeted floors), mopping tests (using ketchup and juice on a hard floor), and obstacle avoidance tests (using socks, a cable and a shoe). I compared my experience of the Saros 10 against other robot vacuums I've tested, in terms of both ease of use and cleaning performance.

Read more about how we test robot vacuum cleaners.

• First reviewed March 2025