Roborock Saros 10 Review: Brilliant mopping and vacuuming

Introduction

Roborock’s attempts to simply its product line-up haven’t exactly gone to plan, with two flagship models coming out this year, the Roborock Saros 10 that I have on review here, and the Roborock Saros 10R that I’ve already reviewed.

I’ll explain more about the differences (and similarities) between them further on in my review, but for now, all you need to know is that the Roborock Saros 10 is slightly more powerful, did slightly better in my mopping tests, and has some very smart features, making it one of the best robot vacuum cleaners that I’ve tested.

Design and Features

• Auto-empty, auto-clean dock
• AdaptiLift chassis
• Anti-tangle hair pick-upD
• Very smart app

There’s not much to tell between the Roborock Saros 10 and the Roborock Saros 10R from an initial look, but after setting both up there are some minor and major differences between the two models.

Starting with the similarities, both robots have a self-empty and self-clean docking station, but the Roborock Saros 10 ships with the newer RockDock Ultra 2.0. It looks similar from the outside, but it’s better designed and has some new features.

With the Saros 10R, the flap hiding the detergent container and the bin bag has to be pulled off; with the RockDock Ultra 2.0, there’s a push-to-open hinged flap that gently swings open. It’s not a massive difference, but the Roborock Saros 10 is definitely nicer to use.

There’s space for a 2-litre dust bag, which, with normal use, should last around two months before you have to replace it. Self-sealing, the bags are quick and easy to replace without making a mess.

There’s no detergent in the box, so I added standard floor cleaner to it; Roborock also sells its own formulation.

On top, under a lid, are two 3-litre water tanks, with one for clean water and one for dirty water. Some water gets left on the floor, but I tend to empty the dirty tank at the same time as I refill the water tank.

Rather than washing the mop at one temperature, the RockDock Ultra 2.0 uses dynamic mop washing, using adaptive water temperatures to tackle different types of stains: 50°C for starch-based stains, 60°C for grease stains and 80°C for coffee stains and sterilisation.

There’s then 60°C air, which is used to dry the mop, preventing bacteria or odours from growing on the mop pad.

Flip the Roborock Saros 10 over and you can see that this robot uses a wide mopping bracket with a microfibre cloth, rather than dual spinning microfibre cloths, as you’d find on the Saros 10R or rival cleaners, such as the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete.

This mopping pad uses ultrasonic scrubbing technology to vibrate at up to 4000 times per minute. This lets the cloth agitate and remove stains, in conjunction with the hot water and optional detergent.

This mop pad can lift by up to 8mm when a carpet is detected, allowing the robot to move over and vacuum carpets. However, there’s one more trick: the entire mop bracket can be left in the docking station, so the robot can move about and vacuum only with no danger of touching carpets. That’s the first time I’ve seen such a mop bracket with this option, although it’s relatively common now for microfibre mopping pads to have the option to be dropped off.

As the mop bracket can’t be extended to tackle side cleaning, there’s an individual side mop instead, similar to the one on the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra. The main difference is that on the Saros 10, this side mop can be lifted when not required.

The main DuoDivide brush bar uses the same split design that I saw on the Saros 10R. It’s designed this way so that any hairs are channelled into the middle of the brush and up into the bin, rather than getting tangled around the ends of the brushes.

In mopping mode, or when the robot is returning to dock, its main brush can lift up off the floor to prevent muddying a wet floor and to prevent wet messes from getting stuck to the roller.

Similarly, the FlexiArm side brush, which can swing out to clean edges, around furniture and even under overhangs, such as a fridge door, is also designed to prevent tangles, and it lifts up out of the way when not needed.

AdaptiLift is present with this model, allowing the entire body (or each corner) to lift up to 10mm off the ground. How this is used, depends on the task and obstacle.

For deep pile carpet, the entire chassis can lift, letting the robot move and vacuum without getting stuck. Testing it out on a deep-pile rug, I was impressed with how well it worked. The Roborock Saros 10 might have started moving more slowly, but it continued to move and vacuum at the same time.

For an obstacle, such as a sled leg chair, the chassis can be independently lifted at different points to help the robot free itself.

When in deep mopping mode, the robot can lift its front wheel, putting more downward pressure on the mop bracket at the back.

Finally, thresholds of up to 4cm can be crossed. Unlike with the S10R, I didn’t have to draw the thresholds on the map, and the Roborock Saros 10 managed to cross the divider that I put down with ease.

On the top, there’s a cover that hides access to the robot’s bin. Granted, you won’t have to empty this manually, but it’s worth cleaning out the bin once a month using running water, and also washing out the filter.

You’ll also see that the Roborock Saros 10 uses a LiDAR navigation, rather than the StarSight Autonomous System that the S10R uses.

LiDAR requires a dome to get a 360 view, so the Roborock Saros 10 has a trick to get under low furniture: the sensor can retract into the body when it’s not needed, similar to the system used on the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete.

Here, the robot has a cut-out at the front, which allows the LiDAR sensor to have a 100° field of view for navigation while the sensor is retracted. In this mode, the robot is just 79.8mm tall, allowing it to get under lots of bits of low furniture.

I’ve got a corner sofa in the test lab, which angles back at the rear and can trap some robots; the Roborock Saros 10 managed to get under, give the area a full clean, and then come back out to clean the rest of the lab.

At the front of the cleaner is a camera, which is used for object detection and avoidance, recognising many common obstacles from shoes and cables to pet mess.

Control of the robot is via the excellent Roborock app. Once connected to Wi-Fi, the Roborock Saros 10 takes just a few minutes to skirt around your home and build a map, suggesting where rooms should go. It’s easy to split or merge rooms if mistakes have been made.

As the robot moves around it can spot furniture automatically, although you can use the map edit feature to add your own. Doing so is useful, as it gives a quick way to clean around an object, such as cleaning around a table after eating.

More advanced features include the option to set the floor type, to help the robot make the right cleaning decisions.

Once done, the cleaning options include cleaning the full house, the room (or rooms) of your choice, zones or routines (pre-defined cleaning options, such as vacuuming the table and around the area you used to prepare food).

For each type of cleaning, you can use SmartPlan, where the robot makes its own cleaning choices, or you can customise the settings, with a choice of Vac & Mop, Mop only and Vacuum only.

It’s a shame that there’s not a direct option to vacuum first and mop second; if you want this, you have to set up a routine.

When you choose how to clean, there’s a choice of four vacuum modes, four water flow/scrub intensity settings, a choice of one or two passes, and the option to perform a fast or standard clean.

Opt for Mop only and you get two more routing options for a deeper clean; with Vacuum only, you get an extra vacuum power level.

So far, so normal, but it’s worth diving into the advanced settings to add some extras. I recommend turning on FlexiArm Design Extended Cleaning for better corner cleaning; and Automatic Re-Mopping to let the robot go back to very dirty areas.

Go into the AI Laboratory settings and turn on Deep Cleaning for Heavy Dirt or Stains to spot and deal with very dirty areas, and FlexiArm Design Extended Cleaning for Crevices to clean below appliances and furniture that the robot can’t fit under.

Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are supported, as is the built-in “Hello Rocky”, which will work even if the robot is offline. Hello Rocky is quite clever, as well as starting and stopping regular cleans, you can say, “Hello Rocky, clean here” and the robot will come and find you to perform a spot clean.

Performance

• Excellent vacuuming
• Deep mopping
• Requires advanced settings to get the best results

I set the Roborock Saros 10 a series of cleaning tasks, starting with vacuuming up messes. I allowed the robot to use its maximum power setting (a crazy 22,000Pa) and two passes.

With these settings, the flour spill on my carpet was mostly gone, with just the odd little spec here and there; that’s the best that I’ve seen from a robot vacuum cleaner.

Hard-floor pick-up was excellent, with all of the test flour that I had placed in the middle of the room collected.

Edge collection was excellent, too. With vacuum-only mode, most of the mess by the kitchen plinth was collected; once the robot returned for mopping later, the last bits of mess were collected.

I had great success with the mopping mode, which I engaged after a vacuum pass to remove any dry, loose bits of mess.

For mopping, I set the Roborock Saros 10 to maximum water and scrub intensity, and with two passes. I left down my normal collection of dried-on messes. I started with the coffee stain, which the Roborock Saros 10 managed to remove with no trace of dirt.

The same was true of my dried-on red wine stain, which the robot had no trouble removing.

With the tougher stains, things were a bit trickier. I found that the mud stain was mostly removed, but there was a faint outline left.

My ketchup stain had had some mess removed, but not much. However, for this initial pass, I had turned off the advanced stain detection and mopping features, so I turned them on.

These options saw the Roborock Saros 10 focus on the stains, and cover them multiple times, lifting its front to press the mopping pad down. In no-time, the mud stain had gone.

After two cleaning passes, the ketchup stain was dramatically reduced; after two more passes it was gone entirely, bar the set-in stain from a previous test, which is hugely impressive. If you do need to clean very tough stains, then it’s good to know that the Roborock Saros 10 can do it in multiple passes.

Putting down human hair, the Roborock Saros 10 managed to collect all of it without any getting tangled around the roller brush or the side brush.

I measured the robot at just 62.6dB on its maximum setting, which makes it extremely quiet for a robot vacuum cleaner.

Battery life is quoted at 180 minutes on the lowest power setting, which is less than for the S10R. However, in real-use, there’s nothing to worry about: I used maximum settings for two passes of the testing lab (the same size as an average floor in a regular home), and had power left to target areas for extra mopping.

With a 2.5-hour charging time, I didn’t have to wait long until the robot was fully recharged and ready to go out again.

Should you buy it?