Review: The Roborock Qrevo L Pro robot vacuum – Punching above it’s weight

When it comes to robot vacuum cleaners it’s fair to say that they have evolved over the past few years from a novelty to an effective way to maintain the cleanliness of your house.

I was sent the roborock Qrevo L Pro to review. My house has unique qualities which will put any robot vacuum to the test. There are three main challenges that any quality vacuum needs to accommodate. I have around 62 square metres of tiled area but all bedrooms and the media room are carpeted so there is a range of surfaces that this vacuum needs to clean.

But firstly the topline specs

• 18,500Pa Suction power
• All-in-One Dock with self-washing and drying of the mop with 75°C High-Temperature water washing and 45°C Warm air drying, plus auto dust emptying and water tank refilling.
• Dual Anti-Tangle System: The side brush is SGS-certified for a 0% hair tangling rate, while the main brush effectively prevents hair and debris from wrapping around it.
• Dual Liftable Spinning Mops: Dual mopping pads spin up to 200 RPM, removing stubborn stains and mimicking hand-mop results. The mopping module is able to lift 10 mm to avoid dampening short-pile carpets while cleaning.
• Reactive Tech Obstacle Avoidance: To detect and navigate around obstacles
• PreciSense LiDAR Navigation and Mapping: PreciSense LiDAR-based navigation system. The robot supports up to 4 floor maps
• Smart App Control

The challenges

1. The tiles are dark in nature which means they show every piece of grime or dirt or foot print.
2. Robot vacuums need to be able to reach to the edge of floor surfaces. If they don’t then you tend to be left with a band of grime or dirt along the skirting boards which needs to be manually cleaned.
3. By far the biggest challenge in my household comes in the form of a 9 year old Border Collie by the name of Billie. I swear I could knit a new dog every week from the hair that she sheds and even though my current robot vacuum claims to possess a tangle-free brush, it is no match for this remarkable shedding dog. The brush needs to be detangled after every cleaning cycle which defeats the purpose of having a docking station where multiple runs can be made without having to pay attention to maintenance

So with this in mind I put the Roborock Qrevo L Pro through its paces and judged it’s performance based on how well it dealt with these three requirements.

Unboxing

Robot vacuums come in big boxes and they’re heavy. Also they usually contain a few basic spares such as extra mopping pads or dustbags. This particular model came with none of that but did have a bottle of the cleaning solution for the clean water reservoir.

Roborock did a great job with the instructions. A large quick-start guide made the initial setup very easy. Those instructions got me to the stage of downloading the app and they too proved to be dead easy with a guided, step by step process to follow. Believe me, some brands can learn from this.

If you don’t have any Roborock appliances already you will be invited to create an account

Mapping

In my experience the best way to map a home is to close all curtains so that robot vacs don’t interpret your front or back yard as a room when the LiDAR scans out a window but this time the Roborock app insisted I ignore my gut and open all doors, blinds and curtains. I took their advice but my gut was right. After countless passes between my family room and dining room and one hour of frustration I cancelled the mapping process and started again.

On my second attempt with all the blinds shut and lights on instead, the mapping took only 20 minutes.

Upon completion you are given 7 steps to finesse your map.

1. Orientation – rotate clockwise or anti-clockwise to suit you
2. Check room partitioning – divide or combine the rooms that the vacuum created
3. Name your rooms
4. Create no-go zones – in the form of virtual walls or areas to avoid
5. Designate any doorsteps, sliding rails or other thresholds
6. Add furniture – select icons from the library of common items
7. Create a sequence you would like the rooms to be cleaned

Once you have completed these simple steps the map is complete, saved and an initial clean is commenced

You may have noticed that despite closing the curtains, the robot managed to peek through the windows a bit and managed to create “rooms” outside the house. No matter, I will just delete them right? No. You can only divide and combine rooms, not delete them. You can tell the robot they are no-go areas but they will never get to them anyway as it can’t travel through walls. If you, like me, prefer a nice clean map then you’re out of luck. You’re stuck with them.

Even if you manage to create a perfect map on day one, every subsequent cleaning where you do not have the curtains drawn will result in the creation of these outside rooms anyway so you may as well give up.

The upside of the robot continually modifying the map however is that if your initial map was hindered by furniture or maybe you left a door shut, each cleaning pass updates the map. I intentionally left the doors to the ensuite and walk in robe closed for the first week. Once I opened them my map was updated so there is an upside but boy those “outside” rooms annoy me.

Performance

Of course you read reviews to help you decide whether you should buy of these so lets see how it performed

Tiles

One of my three objectives was to see how my dark tiles looked after a Qrevo clean. I’m pleased to say that the vacuuming and mopping of these tiles was a success. The before and after shots below show that the powerful 18,500 Pa suction power made light work of collecting Billie hair and depositing it into the docking station dustbag without needing to untangle the tangle-free brush.

The dual rotating mopping pads then finished the job leaving the tiles in a much better condition than I could have using the old methods early robot vacuums used of dragging a wet cloth along the floor.

Whilst the performance was impressive in satisfying 2 of my 3 requirements my need for true edge cleaning could not be achieved. With the spinning mop setup and no kick-out functionality, the mops simply can’t get the skirting boards leaving a distinct line around a room

Carpet

With 5 possible suction strengths of Quiet, Balanced, Turbo,  Max and Max+ the Qrevo did a fantastic job on my carpeted area. There are options for multiple passes and patterns that best suit your carpet and of course there is the AI SmartPlan option to allow the vacuum to determine the best approach itself. Both worked well but my approach to carpet is Max+ all the way. The areas are left with that “just vacuumed look” that makes it a shame to have to walk on. With my previous robot vacs the hidden pet hair in carpets was when their struggle was most evident. The tangle-free brushes continually clogged, but not this time. The Roborock removed what I couldn’t see and successfully transferred it to the onboard bin and subsequently to the dustbag within the dock. Pet-owners will love this vacuum

Battery

The Qrevo L Pro on average used 1% per square metre of coverage to vacuum then mop. Slightly less power to vacuum than for mopping. For my tiled areas of about 62 square metres I was left with 75% battery after a complete vacuum. The tiled area took 52 minutes which is slightly quicker than others I have owned or tested. A full vacuum and then mop of the same 62 square metres took 165 minutes and used 58% battery. Plenty of power to spare.

If your cleaning job is not achieved by the time the robot drops to 15%, the unit will return to the dock til it has reached 80% again and it will then return to complete the task.

Recharging rates

A full recharge (not that you can get down to 0%) would be in the vicinity of 4.5 hours. The robot took 175 minutes to get from the 15% figure back to 80%. Whilst docked it does it’s thing of emptying the onboard bin and cleaning the mops.

Working with smart assistants

I’ve always found smart assistants a bit hit and miss when it comes to being a functional alternative to the native app for vacuums. They tend to promise much but usually only deliver a limited number of options. For instance, in earlier models across various manufacturers I could usually start and stop a vacuum but only on the default program which cleans your entire house.

The Qrevo L Pro is much smarter than that. I can start a specific cleaning cycle, tell Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri to vacuum a particular room or start a particular routine. I was particularly impressed with the Siri shortcuts integration. Siri shortcuts has always had the potential to do good things but I found it too tricky to get right. This time around the Roborock app walks you through the process to customise a cleaning cycle then assign a voice command to it. Clever stuff

Obstacle and hazard avoidance

Generally this vacuum did a pretty good job of avoiding larger obstacles however twice I found it caught tangled in the arch nemesis of robot vacs, cables. Shoes also got pushed along the floor rather than avoided but it had no trouble when I threw a blanket on the floor to mess with it and it breezed through my complicated dining area where table and chair legs are aplenty

Avoiding me and things I threw in it’s way

It also sensed a drop to my garage (10cm) and pulled up just short of falling. Some other vacuums require you to create a virtual wall to avoid that fall.

My verdict

It might come down to perspective. If you’re coming from a basic robot mop this will be revolutionary. It possesses many features that would have been considered cutting edge only 2 years ago. Yes it could be improved but it is far from the top tier pricing of the more sophisticated robots.

Pro’s and Cons

The good

• Clear instructions
• Truly tangle-free – a must for pet owners
• Great job on dark tiles
• Good battery life
• Thorough cleaning on both hard surfaces and carpet
• Quiet (only around 55 db)
• Comprehensive app
• Terrific smart assistant integration

The not so good

• Lack of spare consumables supplied in the box
• No kick-out functionality on the mopping pads
• Mapping sees outside windows as rooms and you cannot delete them

There is plenty of information about this vacuum at the Roborock website as well as an opportunity to buy at Amazon where at the time of publishing the RRP of $1699 was reduced down to 50% off at only $849.