This year at CES, Roborock came to Las Vegas with a brand new brand for its robot vacuums. That is Saros. The reasoning for this is to better differentiate its products, as Roborock does have a pretty wide range of robot vacuums these days. With that announcement, Roborock announced the Saros 10 and Saros 10R. The Saros Z70 was also announced, but that won’t be available for a few more months.
Roborock introduced a few new features with the Saros 10R that I was very excited to checkout. For one, it has some crazy suction at 20,000Pa. It also has the new DuoDivide Anti-Tangle Brush. Which Roborock has said has a 0% hair tangling rate. Having a pet, I was very curious as to how that would hold up, as most other robot vacuums do have issues with pet hair after some time.
Now, unfortunately, the Roborock Saros 10R is pretty pricey. With a price of $1,599 it’s one of the more expensive robot vacuums that I’ve ever reviewed. But is the Saros 10R worth that price? Let’s find out in our full review.
Roborock Saros 10R Review: Design
The design of the Saros 10R isn’t a huge departure from previous robot vacuums. However, there are a couple of key design changes here. First of all, the Saros 10R is now much thinner than previous robot vacuums. It is now just 3.14 inches tall. Making it short enough to go under couches, loveseats, and other furniture. The other design change allows this to happen, and that is the removal of the top LiDAR system. Instead, Roborock is using a new flush, solid-state LiDAR navigation system. And I have to say, it does seem to work much better than previous Roborock LiDAR systems.
I’ve reviewed almost every single Roborock robot vacuum, since the beginning of the company, and when I say the LiDAR system on Saros 10R is better, I mean it. Just as an example, the Saros 10R has been run almost daily for two months before writing this review, it has gotten stuck just once. And that was because something fell and blocked its path to the charging dock. Meanwhile, older Robot vacuums like the Roborock S8 Max Ultra that was released last year, typically have to be rescued at least once per cleaning cycle. Roborock already did a really good job with navigation, but somehow they improved it.
I will say, however, that it is not perfect at avoiding objects, specifically cables. A couple of times, I’ve seen the Saros 10R dragging a USB-C cable around the house. It’s better than pulling something larger like a lamp (that has happened before). But it’s not perfect.
The big change to LiDAR navigation this year is that it uses the new StarSight Autonomous System 2.0. This consists of a Dual-Transmitter Solid-State LiDAR system, that is able to create a 3D map of your home. So not only can it detect objects, but it can also detect height and size. This is important for homes with uneven walls. Think of an upstairs of a house that has a slanted wall to meet the point of the roof. Unfortunately, I live in an apartment, so that’s not really a possibility for me.
The new dock design
Roborock seems to redesign its dock with every release, and the Saros 10R is yet another redesign. Roborock is looking to make a dock that will stay in your living room or elsewhere in your home, and just blend in. Instead of screaming “robot vacuum” to everyone. And I think they’ve done a good job with the Saros 10R. The dock is all black, and has two water tanks at the top, with a lower compartment that collects the dirt and dust.
This year, the dock is also quite a bit smaller. Measuring in at 18.7 x 15 x 19 inches. This means that it won’t take up a ton of space in your home, which is always good to see.
When your robot vacuum docks, it will empty the dustbin, as you’d expect. However, there is a new feature in the Roborock app that sets it to “smart” so it doesn’t empty the dustbin every time it is docked. But instead, it empties it when needed. I’ve found this to mostly work as expected, though there were a few times when it didn’t completely empty the dustbin. So I had to do it manually in the app.
On the top, there is a clean water tank and a dirty water tank, both of which are about 270ml. The dirty water tank is from cleaning the mops. The Saros 10R can also refill the water reservoir while docked. It’s easy to take care of, but just a fair warning, that dirty water tank can really get very smelly if you don’t empty it often.
Roborock Saros 10R Review: Performance
Perhaps the most important aspect of any robot vacuum is performance. I’ve mentioned already that the suction power is pretty incredible, at 20,000Pa. For reference, robot vacuums were stuck at around 3,000-4,000Pa until a couple of years ago, and now we’re approaching 20,000Pa with some going past it. But to be honest, I haven’t noticed much of a difference between this and the S8 MaxV Ultra which has 8,000Pa suction power. Despite running it at its max setting.
You don’t always need to run it at its max setting, in fact, I’d recommend not doing that unless the floors are very dirty or you have allergies. Because that can cause the motor to die much faster. It also means that it can’t clean as much on a single charge. So it’ll need to go and charge, then finish the job.
I was pleasantly surprised with how well it performed with hair. I have a dog, admittedly a short-haired dog, as well as my sister who lives with me. Both of which leave hair everywhere, so they really put the Saros 10R through its paces, to see just how well it handles hair. And I’ll put it this way. After two months, I’ve never had to untangle the brush. Typically, I’d need to do it after every few vacuuming. So this is a huge improvement, and one that might be worth paying the premium that this robot vacuum is demanding.
Throw away your Mop and Bucket
When it comes to mopping, there wasn’t a lot of testing for me here, as most of my apartment is carpeted. Basically, the kitchen, bathrooms and the foyer are laminate and that’s it. So it doesn’t do a lot of testing, but thanks to the spinning mops on the bottom of the Saros 10R, it does a pretty good job of mopping.
In the app, you can control the water flow, and also have it mop an area multiple times. I generally have it mop everywhere multiple times, since the kitchen and bathrooms can get quite dirty. And it does a really good job. Even with dried-on messes on the floors, like dried ketchup, which can often times be the hardest to remove.
Once docked, the Saros 10R can clean the two mops using clean water. Then it will dry the mops. This is important, as leaving them wet can lead them to smell as well as spreading bacteria. In the Roborock app, you can also set the length of time for drying the mops.
Using the two spinning mops is a much better cleaning experience than a single mopping pad. As it’s better at scrubbing the floor, and also cleaning up messes that a mopping pad would just spread around.
Of course, Roborock does still lift the mop up when it approaches carpet, to keep your carpets from getting all wet with the dirty mops. This means that you don’t need to remove the mops, or really ever touch them until it’s time to replace them. The Roborock app will let you know when that is needed.
Roborock Saros 10R Review: Software
The Roborock app continues to be one of the better robot vacuum apps that I’ve used. It gives you loads of options and puts them front-and-center making it easier to control your robot vacuum than ever before.
Surprisingly, this was easier to set up than previous Roborock vacuums. In the past, I’ve had issues getting it set up, where the app can’t find the vacuum or can’t connect to the WiFi network, but none of those issues this time. The Saros 10R was up and running in just a few minutes.
Roborock does a great job of letting the user customize just about every aspect of the Saros 10R. This includes how often it will auto-empty the dustbin, clean the mop, dry the mop, and more. So you can set your preferences to your liking, with ease.
Should you buy the Roborock Saros 10R?
This is a tricky question because, on the one hand, this is a really good robot vacuum. It does a great job with everything, and the hair anti-tangle features are a godsend. However, $1,599 for a robot vacuum is pretty tough to justify, especially in this economy. Hell, you could buy a few dozen eggs for that price.
If you’re in the market for a new robot vacuum and can find the Saros 10R on sale, then yes you should buy it. However, if you’ve gotten a robot vacuum in the past few years, I don’t think it’s worth upgrading at this price. I will mention that Roborock does have a trade-in program, where you can get up to $1,050 off of a new Roborock vacuum. And that can definitely help take the sting out of this price a bit.
2025-03-25 15:11:59