Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra Review
Proper edge-to-edge cleaning and mopping
Verdict
There’s no denying it’s expensive, but the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra is a brilliant all-rounder: a powerful mop and vacuum cleaner that’s excellent at corners and edges thanks to its new side brushes and mop. With automatic dirt detection and obstacle avoidance, paired with the best app in the business, this robot vacuum cleaner tackles all jobs well and reduces the amount of manual work you have to do.
Pros
- Brilliant edge cleaning
- Excellent obstacle avoidance
- Mopping with detergent
Cons
- Expensive
- Can’t remove mop pad
Key Features
- TypeThis is a robot vacuum cleaner and mop, with a self-empty and self-clean station.
Introduction
With the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra, the company is aiming to solve that one last problem that all robot’s suffer from: edge and corner performance.
With a FlexiArm that springs out to clean in corners, and an extra side mop, this robot vacuum cleaner is the best overall robot and mop that I’ve tested. It’s also one of the smartest.
Design and Features
- FlexiArm
- Side mop
The Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra has been built to take the hassle out of all cleaning jobs, and that means that things are a little different on the underside.
First, you’ll notice that there are two rollers, which spin in opposite directions. These collect dirt but won’t get tangled with hair, similar to the rollers on the iRobot Roomba Combo J7+.
While the side sweeper brush may look normal, a closer examination shows that it’s actually on an arm, designed to spring out from the robot’s body to reach into corners.
Alongside this is a small spinning mop pad, which is designed for proper edge cleaning, without the traditional gap that most robots leave. That’s an impressive array of features in its own right.
Otherwise, the robot looks similar to previous models. There’s a wide mopping pad underneath, which has two sonic vibration zones for scrubbing, and a lift of 20mm. At that level, the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra can easily lift the mopping cloth of most types of carpets, so you can tackle all types of floors in one go. This pad can’t be removed, so if you have deep-pile carpets that the S8 can’t get over without wetting them, you’re out of luck.
On top, the robot looks similar to previous models, with the LiDAR dome on top for navigation, and the camera on the front used with Reactive AI 2.0 Obstacle Recognition that lets the robot skirt around tangles with ease.
The robot is available with a choice of two docks. I’ve got the new 8-in-1 dock. With this dock, there’s a bag that takes up to seven weeks worth of dust from the robot, sucking it out automatically. There’s also a dock that plumbs into the water supply for automatic water filling and removal; this one doesn’t take bin bags.
This dock has two 2.5-litre water tanks: one for fresh water and one for dirty water. Dirty water comes from the mop pads, which are scrubbed by the dock. Cleaning happens in the middle of a clean, when the S8 MaxV Ultra detects its pad is dirty, and at the end of a clean. For this model, the base of the dock is self cleaned, to remove one job.
While the previous model, the S8 Ultra, could have detergent added to the tank, the S8 MaxV Ultra has a detergent tank in the dock. Roborock recommends using approved detergent, but any concentrated detergent should be OK. Detergent is mixed automatically.
The robot is controlled through the Roborock app, which remains one of the best I’ve tested. An initial mapping run is performed, which doesn’t take very long thanks to the power of the robot’s LiDAR.
As with most of the competition, at the end of the mapping run, the app splits the map into rooms automatically. These can be split and merged as you want, and no-go and no-mop zones created if needed.
Cleverly, the robot also detects furniture, using its camera, correctly identifying my dining table and chairs, and my sofa. That’s handy, as the app lets you around these objects, just by selecting Zone and then tapping the furniture. That makes cleaning up after eating, for example, really fast.
The S8 MaxV Ultra will also detect the flooring type by room, giving you the option of what to do with carpet in each area. Choices are Avoid, Ignore (mop them), Cross (no cleaning) and Dynamic Lift (lift the mop).
For all cleans, there’s a choice of SmartPlan, where the robot works out how to clean automatically, Vac&Mop, Mop only, or Vacuum only. For the manual modes, there’s a choice of suction power (four modes), scrub intensity and water flow (four choices), and one or two passes. In addition, the S8 MaxV Ultra can be told which order to clean rooms in.
Routines can be created for common jobs, such as cleaning around a table or tackling the kitchen, and then started with the tap of a button.
Dive into the app and there are some advanced settings. FlexiArm should be turned on to improve corner and edge cleaning, and automatic re-mopping detects when the floor is dirty and gives is a second pass.
Obstacles are automatically marked on the map and, with the option selected, you can tap them to view what caused the issue.
There’s also a Pet Area Deep Cleaning. When pet supplies are spotted, the robot can give an area an extra deep clean. A new feature in the AI Laboratory setting has a similar feature, only when an extra dirty floor is detected, the robot will start deep cleaning.
Overall, the features mean that the robot should automatically take the best option for cleaning, all with very little input.
The camera isn’t just there for cleaning, it can also be remotely viewed, with controls for moving the robot around. As the camera is low down, it can’t see much beyond ground height, but it can be a useful way to take a look at what’s going on in your home while you’re out. And, there’s even a mode for it to go and look for pets.
Similar to the Ecovacs T20 Omni, Roborock has included the “Hello Rocky” voice assistant. I found that this responds better than Ecovacs’ “Hey, Yiko”, and is good for starting a clean, or even selecting a room to clean. There are also basic Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant Skills available.
This is the first robot vacuum cleaner to support the Matter standard, which sounds very exciting. And, it is exciting. Just not today. Currently, although vacuum cleaners are now part of the Matter standard, there’s no smart home system that supports them. Think of this as a future feature that will be useful.
Performance
- Excellent vacuuming
- Brilliant edge and corner cleaning
- Powerful mopping but it can’t remove the toughest of marks
With a rated 10,000pa suction power, the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra is one of the most powerful robot vacuum cleaners, on paper. Fortunately, that power transfers to real-world tests.
I started with my carpet test, adding a teaspoon of flour to the test rug. Giving the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra one pass on its standard settings, it did a good job but left some mess behind.
Changing the dirt detection settings, and adding two cleaning passes, dramatically improved the results, giving a near-perfect clean.
The hard floor performance was excellent. Just one pass was all that was needed to pick up the same level of dirt.
Edge performance is usually something that haunts vacuum cleaners, but the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra did brilliantly. After one pass, the dust by the kitchen plinth had mostly gone. Two passes was enough to remove everything.
It was a similar story with the corner test. Most robot vacuum cleaners simply can’t get into the corners, but after two passes, the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra had removed most of the dirt. That’s brilliant and means less time with a regular vacuum cleaner doing edge clean-up.
Next, I put human hair on the floor and let the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra pick it up. It managed to collect all of the strands, and not one was wrapped around the dual rubber brushes.
To test mopping, I added some stains to the floor. I started with ground-in mud, which has loose particles and trod-in mess. It took two passes to remove everything, but my floor was clean at the end.
Coffee stains on the floor were gone in just one pass, easily scrubbed off the floor.
Red wine stains needed two passes to clean the floor, but they, too, were removed and the floor as brought back to its best.
I found that for stubborn stuck-on stains, such as that pictured below, the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra couldn’t quite lift them. In terms of raw mopping performance, then, the Eufy Omni S1 Pro, with its large roller, is better at open spaces, but not as good for edges and corners.
Navigation is excellent. Common obstacles are spotted and avoided with ease, and I never saw the S8 MaxV Ultra get stuck. With the dirt-detecting modes turned on, the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra is fascinating to watch. Rather than just moving in long up/down movements through a room, the robot will stop and swing in a circle around some areas, before moving on.
Battery life is rated at up to 180-minutes on its lowest setting. Even on maximum vacuuming and mopping, I found that the robot had enough power to do the entire lab twice. For all high-end robots, battery life isn’t something that we need to worry about.
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Should you buy it?
You want the best combination of mopping and vacuuming
Able to get right into corners and tackle edges brilliantly, this is the best all-rounder at vacuuming and mopping.
You want something cheaper
This robot vacuum cleaner is expensive, and there are cheaper options that are still very good for those on tighter budgets.
Final Thoughts
It’s expensive, but overall, the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra is the best robot vacuum cleaner and mop you can buy. I say that knowing that the Eufy Omni S1 Pro has the more powerful mop, but the S8 MaxV isn’t far behind, and is far more accomplished at cleaning edges and corners, both in vacuuming and mopping modes.
With its very powerful app, and smart cleaning routines, this is the best all-rounder I’ve tested. If you want something cheaper, check out my guide to the best robot vacuum cleaners.
How we test
Unlike other sites, we test every robot vacuum cleaner we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as our main robot vacuum cleaner for the review period
We test for at least a week
Tested with real-world dirt in real-world situations for fair comparisons with other vacuum cleaners
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FAQs
The 8-in-1 dock has tanks for clean and dirty water, and a bag for dirt; the other dock doesn’t have the bag and is plumbed in for permanent water flow and emptying.
Full specs
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
