Roborock S8 vacuum + mop review

Robot floor cleaners are evolving at a rapid pace, and companies like Roborock just keep churning them out—lots of different models for different use cases. So what are you getting with the Roborock S8 and is it a worthy buy? I recently received an S8 robot to try out in my home. I’ll run it through my array of cleaning tests to show you how well it vacuums and mops, and I’ll cover off the special features it has that might make it enticing for you.

Roborock S8 vacuum + mop review

What’s the difference? Roborock S8, S8 Pro Ultra, S8 +

One quick note before we go on; if you’re checking out this model you may see it referred to as both the S8, and S8 Plus. The difference here is that the plus version comes with an auto-emptying base station. The model I received is simply the robot so does not have any auto-emptying capabilities. While it’s a great feature, if you can do without the auto-emptying it really helps to keep the price down. There is also the S8 pro ultra which comes with an auto-emptying base station which will empty and refill the water and wash and dry the mop too. Of course, adding all that makes it much more expensive; here you get all the smarts of Roborock’s top-end floor bot, at a much smaller cost.

What you get

Let’s see what you’re getting here. The Roborock S8 is a dual robot vacuum and mop.

With suction power up to 6000Pa, this should ensure that every speck of dust and every grain of debris is picked up, even if it’s lodged up between crevices or grout.

Another key feature is on the bottom— the DuoRoller brush system. These two brushes work together to loosen stubborn dirt from the surfaces and carpet in particular, beating it our of the fibres and then inhaling it. It also boasts carpet detection and Carpet Boost which will increase suction when it is vacuuming the fibres of carpet or rugs.

Watch my full hands-on review of Roborock S8

When it comes to the mopping this bot uses what’s called Vibra Rise sonic vibration mopping, which essentially shakes the flat microfibre mopping pad over the surface of your floor 3,000 times per minute as it moves around. This has kind of a scrubbing effect that can help lift those drips and dribbles from the floor, better than simply dragging a damp cloth over it.

How well does all this technology actually work in a real home? I’ll put it through my standard battery of cleaning tests momentarily.

A few other features related to the mopping; the S8 uses downward pressure on the mop to help with that scrubbing, and the opposite happens when it detects carpet; the mopping plate will lift up to keep from wetting floors.

Set up

Generally speaking getting Roborock vacuums set up is quite easy. You do need the Roborock app in order to connect to your home Wi-Fi and control your robot. I did recently experience an issue where I was unable to set up the S8 using my Apple iPhone, even though I’ve been able to set up Roborock vacs with an iPhone numerous times in the past. If you are also having trouble, I recommend reaching out to Roborock’s customer service. During my testing. I was able to use an Android phone and everything worked fine.

Roborock app is where you will be able to control your robot and set daily or weekly timed cleanings.

Get started your robot will create a virtual map of your home on its first outing. Once you have that virtual map you can use it to schedule room-specific cleanings. If you want your robot to simply vacuum it will handle that no problem.

When you’re ready to begin with mopping, you can remove the small water tank located in the back edge of the robot. While the tank only holds a few ounces of water, it’s enough to do about a thousand square feet of space at my home.

One last caveat; because this robot does not automatically empty itself nor do any of the mopping maintenance, you will want to empty the dustbin after each cleaning session, and check the water level too.

Cleaning tests: vacuuming

When I test a robot vacuum and mop I run all of them through the same tests. I spread finer flour or cornmeal, bits like rice or oats and crackers or chips on carpet and hard floors. I also leave small spills both wet and dry for it to mop up.

Someone quite impressed me at how well the S8 vacuums. I ran it for a few days just to get a sense of how it works. I found the suction is strong and you can also crank it up or lower it which has the effect of making the robot run quieter too. I did also regularly notice the robot increasing its suction power when it detected carpets and rugs. I found this definitely made a difference in how effectively the rugs were vacuumed.

On my dedicated vacuum spills… it was outstanding at getting pretty much everything I threw at it off the hard floors. On carpets, it also did a really good job and was extremely thorough. It did struggle a little bit with finer cornmeal, only getting about 80% of that spill.

Cleaning tests: mopping

I was really impressed with the mopping capabilities of this robot. I let stains like coffee and soy sauce dry on the floor to see if it would be able to scrub them up. The s8 was definitely able to power even dried on stains off the floor extremely effectively—even on its mid-level mopping setting (there are three settings; you can use less water and scrub intensity or more). It may miss some spots simply based on where they are placed, but the ones it does tackle are almost completely powered away; I’d say about 90 to 95% of all dried-on spills were removed.

While it’s extremely difficult to catch the mop lifting in action, I can confirm the S8 didn’t leave my rugs damp after it travelled overtop of them. The mop will lift a full 5 mm which should be plenty for many household floor coverings.

Obstacle avoidance

Roborock S8 uses what’s called PreciSense® LiDAR Navigation,. It’s the brains behind the device’s smart and efficient cleaning and the tech which creates the map of your floor plan. The same brains use infrared technology to supposedly identify and avoid random objects in its path —including pets, children, and other household hazards, even in the dark. I found the obstacle avoidance to be a little on the random side; while on occasions the S8 was easily able to unstick itself from getting snagged on a floor mat, it was not able to identify and avoid this cable. I think how well this will work in your home depends what kind of things you tend to leave laying around. For the most part, snags that I needed to intervene in were minimal.

Overall review: Roborock S8

Overall what I think I love the most about this robot is that you are essentially getting Roborock’s top of the line vacuum and mopping robot with all the bells and whistles at a much lower cost than something like the S8 pro ultra. You get all of the mapping and smarts, the vibrating scrubbing mop, as well as very powerful section with carpet boost too.

Overall cleaning ability is extremely effective and it can easily manage all but the toughest stains and spills’ even then it’s getting about 80-90% of it.

So what are the downsides?

It is hard to crack on this bot for some of the cooler features it doesn’t come with and if you do want auto emptying or more of the maintenance done, you can certainly upgrade to one of those other Roborock models I mentioned like the S8 + or the Cadillac S8 Pro Ultra.

But if you’re looking for an extremely powerful vacuum robot that is also an extremely effective mop all wrapped up in a smaller package, I can definitely recommend the Roborock S8 to you. This version sells for about $1145CAD/$599USD and don’t get me started on that chasm of a price discrepancy… even with the exchange rate…

Anyway, if you don’t think the S8 is what you’re looking for you can see what you get for upgrading to that Cadillac S8 Pro Ultra or check out why I didn’t love the budget Q5… Right now.

This is available on Amazon, and the Roborock website.

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