Review: Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra — ultra in every way with every feature you could wish for

Roborock has been making a concerted push back into the Australian market and their newest flagship vacuum cleaner, the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra, leaves nothing on the table.  It is packed full of virtually every feature we have seen in a robot vacuum before now.

The Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra is a fully-featured flagship robot vacuum with a price to match, as you would expect of such a device, at a RRP of $2,999.  It is a culmination of a spend of nearly $300 million USD investment in research by Roborock in the last five years, with a lot of that in AI.

That investment has made Roborock the number one worldwide in robot vacuum cleaners so we were looking forward to checking out the new S8 MaxV Ultra from Roborock.

Hardware and features

The Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra includes all the usual features you’d expect in a top-of-the-line robot vacuum.  It includes features such as a built-in voice assistant (“Rocky”), smart navigation and mapping using their PreciSense LiDAR Navigation System and obstacle recognition and avoidance system.

It also mops but does so with a new VibraRise 3.0 mopping system which not only vibrates/scrubs at a frequency of 4,000 times per second but automatically lifts 20mm when it detects carpets.  There is also an extra edge mopping system which spins at 185rpm for that clean closer to the walls.

The side brush is actually attached to a new FlexiArm which extends out for precise edge cleaning (1.65mm from the wall apparently).  The rollers are once again dual rollers to “prevent tangling,” and the suction is now a massive 10,000Pa.

Other new features include a Smart Plan technology which designs the fastest and most efficient way to get the area you want cleaned, cleaned.  

Don’t forget about the video call and cruise mode where you can steer the vacuum around your house while watching the view in front of it using the camera remotely – there is even 2-way audio so your dog can speak back to you (cornflakes?).

You can set the camera on the vacuum to automatically take snapshots of your pets when it encounters them in its travels.  It already takes snaps of any obstacles it comes across so it’s not much of a stress to add pets to the list – the AI decides what is what.

Don’t forget about the dock, the Robodock Ultra, because it is one of the more complete robot vacuum docks I have seen.  There is a reservoir for the clean water and the dirty water for it to fill the vacuum and clean the mopping pads for you.  These reservoirs do fill/empty quite quickly so you may decide not to use mopping on every pass it does.  I do a once-a-week mop to try and make it last longer.

The Rockdock Ultra also includes a reservoir for the floor detergent, not included in the box.  If you want to get the detergent, and I’d be hesitant to use a detergent that isn’t from Roborock simply from a clogging upland voiding the warranty perspective.  I had them send me some detergent too and it really did a good job with greasy stains – it wasn’t easy keeping the dogs away from all these foodstuffs and spills I was placing on the floor to test out the vacuum!

My issue here is that if I’m spending this much on a robot vacuum I wouldn’t and shouldn’t expect to have to spend even more to get full functionality of the vacuum. Roborock really should include a bottle of the detergent in the box at this price.

Roborock has also implemented their own digital assistant for the vacuum – Rocky – which you can use to start or stop a clean and tell it to clean particular areas.  I’m not a fan of company’s implementing their own digital assistants as they are normally fairly limited as this one is but it seems to work ok, not that I needed it much anyway.  

There is still support for Google Assistant, Alexa and Siri as well though if you prefer those.  Personally I’ll just use the schedule function and the app if I need something cleaned outside of the usual schedule.

Software and setup

Setup of Roborock vacuums is incredibly simple.  A simple scan of a barcode and you are pretty much good to go.  They have a simple mapping function that you can use that doesn’t mop or vacuum at the same time and I love it! 

This was the fastest mapping I have ever seen on a robot vacuum.  It took under 20 minutes to map my entire ground floor which would normally take over 45 minutes with most vacuums.  It did not get stuck under anything at that stage.

I was also able to create a map for upstairs as well and name it.  The app uses the vacuum’s AI to create its own names for your rooms, but you can change it if it is wrong for anything.  It will also detect which areas are carpet and which are hard flooring.  I was happy with the names it gave rooms but to me I really don’t care what it names a room, I know what and where they are.

The Roborock app

The Roborock app takes a while to get used to because there are so many different functions for this vacuum it is difficult to find where all the settings for it is.  Once you do it a few (or dozen) times though you will be able to quickly jump to where each setting is.  

Also, once you have the basic settings of the device setup and are happy with it, all you will need to change is on the front page or the vacuum – the vacuum suctions and mopping powers, the areas you want cleaned, to change maps, to view any snapshots taken and to view remotely through the camera.

I quite like the app but as I said it can take a while to get used to it.  Spend the time setting everything up to start with and tweak it each clean until you are happy with it and then you will not have to touch those settings ever again.

How well does it clean?

First clean, the S8 MaxV Ultra cleaned my lounge room rug and even though the rollers are meant to be anti-tangle, they got tangled up and the vacuum couldn’t move afterwards.  The rug is incredibly hairy though and it took me a while to take the rollers out and remove all the carpet hairs from it to get it to work again.  I set a no-go zone for that rug going forwards – I’ll have to get the handheld vacuum out to clean that in the future.

The hardwood floor cleaning is magnificent.  I set out the usual spillings on the floor – crumbs and more — and it vacuumed them up as good as I’ve ever seen.  The S8 MaxV Ultra is able to re-vacuum an area if it detects that it has missed something, or it will increase the suction strength when cleaning a particularly dirty area.

Carpeted areas are also cleaned really well but if you have a long-haired rug make sure you make it a no-go zone because it will clog up, tangle and stop the vacuum from working.  Making a no-go zone is super easy – just go to the map, edit it and add a no-go zone by moving it and changing the size of it.

You can set the suction power to higher or lower levels based on how dirty your floor is.  I set mine to ‘Turbo’ just because, why not?  You can also set the vacuum to give pet areas a deep clean (it detects where these pet areas are apparently – it didn’t do mine and actually called a dog bed a shoe).  There is also a setting where the vacuum will automatically detect carpets and turn suction power to maximum for a deeper clean of them.

  

Using Roborock’s Reactive AI 2.0 Obstacle Recognition the vacuum can avoid obstacles and determine what they are and how it should avoid them.  The vacuum does have anti-fall detection and it worked although there was a time when I didn’t trust it and put a vacuum at the top of the stairs.  The problem was that I suspect the vacuum thought it was an extension of the floor and tried to clean out to it and dropped onto it.  

The following attempt I removed the bean bag and just put cushions a bit further back and it did not fall over the edge, but it cleaned right up to it.  

Roborock has included sensors that detect the height of structures so it knows if it can go under it or not.  At one stage the vacuum did get stuck under a couch – well, half stuck under.  We have a rug that is about 6 inches from the edge of the couch and when the vacuum was coming out from under the couch it pushed the rug up a bit making it higher than it actually was, resulting in the vacuum not being able to get out from under the couch.  I simply set that as a no-go zone for next time and it never happened again (and I got a standing ovation?).

Mopping was good but not great but that really depends on how strong (scrub intensity and water flow) you want the mopping to function.  I had it set on ‘Standard’ and it was unable to fully clean off a couple of carefully placed cordial spills.  Interestingly, the vacuum is meant to automatically remop dirty areas after mop cleaning but it didn’t on this occasion.  Maybe the green cordial was too subtle?

I tried the cordial ‘spills’ again the next day with the mopping set on ‘Intense’ (there is also an even higher ‘Extreme’ level) and it cleaned the spills no worries.  These spills were placed very close to the edges of the wall and the vacuum cleaned them without any issues.

There are so many settings and functions on this robot vacuum that it is difficult to keep track of them all.  I suggest trying all the vacuum settings first and then the mopping settings to see what works best for you and your home.

You name the cleaning function, the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra can do it.

Final verdict

Roborock has pulled out all stops for the S8 MaxV Ultra robot vacuum. It sucks like never before, it mops like never before with added reach for both vacuuming and mopping with extended arms and mops, it has new AI functionality which is actually useful, and it even has its own digital assistant which actually works, consistently (as long as you know all the commands required).

It cleans exceptionally well with both mopping and vacuuming functions, as long as you have the correct setting saved — the more you use it the more you will get used to changing the settings required based on what you are cleaning. It struggles with longer haired rugs and as such cannot fully replaced all the vacuums in your home but it certainly decreases the requirements of the second vacuum — a little, but powerful, handheld would be enough for the rugs and this one for everything else.

As a robot vacuum it is lacking nothing and for that reason it is priced at the pointy end of the market, but if your budget can extend to a tick under $3,000 and you want the bee’s knees with every possible feature you could ever wish for, then it is probably worth the outlay. It isn’t alone at this price with this being the approximate going price for a flasghip ultra-premium robot vacuum.

Those who do not need every single possible feature under the sun may be better off looking for something a bit less feature-packed and thus cheaper. For me though, I have to give it two big thumbs up.

The S8 MaxV Ultra is available at an MSRP of $2,999.00 via Roborock and selected retailers.  For more information on the S8 MaxV Ultra and other Roborock products, visit  http://www.roborock.com.au/.