We review a lot of robot vacuums at Digital Trends. While iRobot’s Roomba line may have Kleenex-caliber name recognition, there’s one lesser-known brand that consistently rules the top rankings: Roborock.
I will make no excuses for this company’s absurd naming conventions, which result in model names like the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra. But beneath the jumble of letters, numbers, and superlatives stacked on superlatives, I promise they make some really great robot vacuums and mops. In fact they make the very best. We gave the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra 4.5 out of 5 stars in our review and ranked it the very best robot vacuum you can buy — and it’s $400 off for Black Friday.
If you can afford the $1,200 price, that’s the model we’d recommend. The company basically took its very solid S7 MaxV Ultra from the year prior and fixed just about all the weak spots we complained about in our review: It now has dual rollers for pet hair, a mop-drying system to cut down on stink, and even more suction. The real innovation with these machines concerns the self-emptying vacuum and self-cleaning mops, which mean you don’t need to mess with anything for weeks at a time. As reviewer Jon Bitner puts it: “It’s easy to forget the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra is installed in your home — which is just about the highest praise you can give to a robot vacuum.”
But you don’t need to spend $1,200 on a competent robot vacuum. I recently recommended the much more affordable S7+ to a friend on Prime Day, and he’s been raving for months about how it solved all his kitty litter woes. That outgoing model is no longer being sold, but the next-gen S8+ can be had for a reasonable $800 on Black Friday discount. It matches the S8 Pro Ultra in nearly every way, including the self-emptying dock, except that the dock won’t wash the mop pad for you. Maybe you’re willing to toss it in the wash manually to save $400 if you don’t have a ton of hardwood floors and tile.
If you do have a ton of hardwood floors, let me make one last suggestion: The Narwal Freo is on sale today for $899, down from $1,200. The app isn’t as slick as Roborock’s, and the vacuum doesn’t empty itself, but the mopping performance is spectacular. It uses rotating pads (rather than vibrating) and a liberal amount of water to thoroughly scrub down your floors.
If you have a dog with the drool capacity of mine, it’s worth considering.
