Robots have been vacuuming my house and office floors for at least five years, and after testing out a few brands, Roborock has proven to be reliable, powerful, functional, and easy to control. For the past couple of months, theRoborock S7 MaxV Ultra has kept my house in order and gained the confidence of my wife to mop her prized Acacia wood floors. That alone says a lot about this new robot vacuum.

The Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra, quite a mouthful for a name, is clearly the most powerful robot vacuum I have ever tested with the first complete system I've used where I am required to have very few interactions with the system to get the job done. Give it a few more years, and I won't have to do anything to maintain clean floors. Speaking of clean floors, mine have never been so clean as they were after the S7 MaxV Ultra, so for this device, you definitely get what you pay for.

Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra

5/ 5 Excellent

pros and cons

Pros

• Functional AI obstacle avoidance
• Self-emptying water and dust system
• Powerful suction levels
• Superb mopping performance
• Strong drivetrain for limited obstacles
• Customizable zone control with full mapping functionality
• Reliable, always returns home for charging

Cons

• Very large docking station
• Expensive

$1,399.99 at Roborock

A few of the primary ways in which this S7 MaxV Ultra system provides such a complete experience are the Empty Wash Fill Dock, ReactiveAI 2.0 obstacle avoidance system, and VibraRise mopping technology. It is an expensive vacuum, priced at$1399.99, with availability on May 2nd, but if you want a vacuum that you set and forget about for weeks at a time while trusting it will vacuum and mop thoroughly, then you may want to consider this new model.

Hardware and box contents

The Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra system arrived in two large boxes with the vacuum and a simple charging dock in one box and the Empty Wash Fill Dock in the other. The boxes contain the robot vacuum with included water tank and mopping cloth, dock charger, power cables, two dust collection bags, and detailed guides. I recommend you read through the setup and usage guides, as there are some things you have to do to set up the Empty Wash Fill Dock to work properly with the S7 MaxV Ultra. This includes removing the door inside the vacuum so that the dust bin can be sucked clean and deposited into the large dust bag mounted in the collection bin of the dock.

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Exploring the vacuum itself a bit more, it's a rather large beast with a substantial bright orange rotating vacuum bar and large silicone covered wheels to power it all over your floor. It's black with red highlights and looks a bit like a vacuum you might find on Kylo Ren's TIE Whisper, and I personally think it looks great.

Also: Best robot vacuum: Roomba isn't your only option

The top of the vacuum is matte black with a couple of carbon fiber areas, the buttons are well designed, and the lid lifts up to reveal a modern dust bin. Looking around the edges of the vacuum, we find an RGB camera, 3D structured light, and sensors to power the ReactiveAI 2.0 obstacle avoidance system (it sure sounds like a Star Wars vacuum to me).

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An optional mop head attachment slides on the bottom of one side of the circular design vacuum with two quick-release levers on either side. The onboard water tank is located in the back of the vacuum in a perfectly designed compartment above the mop head.

Matthew Miller/ZDNet

Looking to the Empty Wash Fill Dock, we find a dirty water tank, clean water tank, and dust bin. The dust bin isn't just an empty vast compartment that collects dust like the two water tanks that hold and disperse or collect water. The dust bin houses an actual custom vacuum bag, just like you find in traditional vacuums. It is rated to collect about seven weeks of dust before you need to replace the bag. This is a massive improvement over past robot vacuums I have tested where I had to go outside and bang the dust collection bin on the edge of the garbage can to get out all of the dust. I also often blew hard to clean out the dust, again causing a nasty mess in the area.

Software

Roborock didn't just improve the hardware of the vacuum but has also improved the Roborock smartphone application available for iOS and Android devices.

Simply walk through the setup of the Roborock app to connect your phone or tablet to the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra. The first time you vacuum with the robot, you will want to have the map of your home or office so that you can specifically identify areas to clean moving forward. You can view the map in 2D, 3D, or matrix. Matrix mode requires that you move around your house with your smartphone camera as it captures images for the matrix view.

Matthew Miller/ZDNet

Room names, floor types, furniture, and obstacle are intelligently identified by the vacuums cameras, and then you can edit them if they are incorrect. I've been very impressed by the accuracy of the AI identification.

If you tap on one of these obstacles, a photo captured by the vacuum and the type of obstacle (wires) is shown. I've been very impressed by the wire identification that has avoided running over wires under furniture as I get a flawless vacuum experience.

You can create invisible walls, no-go zones, and no-mop zones in the software. I use walls for areas I do not want the vacuum to go and no-go zones around some furniture areas where the vacuum will not fit between the chair legs. Otherwise, I trust the vacuum to recognize hardware floors or area rugs. As the S7 MaxV Ultra continues to perform, I trust it more daily to avoid items and am not as worried about entanglement or other issues as I have been with vacuums in the past.

Also: Roborock S5 robot vacuum review: Powerful, intelligent competitor takes care of your chores

Suction power options include quiet, balanced, turbo, and max, with the vacuum capable of 5100Pa of suction power. The battery is designed to last up to 180 minutes in quiet mode. I typically run it in turbo mode for about 60 minutes for each cleaning session.

Mop intensity modes that you can select include mild, moderate, and intense. I chose the intense option for a deep clean and have been very satisfied with the results. You can choose to have a session for vacuuming only, mopping only, or both.

An exhaustive amount of settings are available for you to customize your entire vacuum experience. Settings include obstacle avoidance options, remote viewing (yes, you can view your house remotely via the camera on the vacuum), map management, do not disturb time periods, auto-empty settings, wash settings, carpet settings, and much more. I encourage you to explore all that the vacuum has to offer.

Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra -- Coming soon

$1,399.99 at Roborock

Daily usage experiences and conclusion

I would try out mopping with water with past robot vacuum tests and only carry out mopping evolutions during the evaluation period. My wife loves our gorgeous Acacia wood floors and did not want to risk damaging them, so we stuck with using Bona and a hand mop. I'm pleased to say that the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra has made her a believer in robot vacuums, and the vacuum has passed her test of high quality mopping with flying colors.

We also weren't fans of just using water on the wood floors, so I did a bit of research and found the Bona was OK to use in lieu of water, and thus we have been mopping our floors with the Bona cleaning liquid in the robot vacuum.

Matthew Miller/ZDNet

The other major concern we had with mopping was getting all of the area rugs we have down on the hardwood floors soaking wet. The vacuum is very intelligent, and the mop head lifts up to clear the rugs, so the rugs stay dry. You can actually watch the Cylon-like LED light on top switch between white and blue as the vacuum moves around your spaces. When it turns blue, it indicates mopping mode is enabled, and when it is white, then vacuum mode is active. It's a pretty amazing piece of technology.

By default, after every 20 minutes (you can adjust this time period in the settings) of cleaning, the S7 MaxV returns to the dock, triggering an automatic cleaning sequence. A cleaning module with a soft rubber bristle brush starts to sweep the mop surface at a rotation of 600 times per minute, with water being constantly sprayed onto the mop. The module travels back and forth from left to right of the mop, drawing the dirt and grime out of the entire mop surface, which gets collected at the base of the cleaning station. The fact that the vacuum not only mops but cleans the mop head too is amazing.

Matthew Miller/ZDNet

Speaking of cleaning, with the Empty Wash Fill Dock, the vacuum will return to the dock and then automatically suck the dirt out of the onboard chamber and push it into the dock vacuum bag. This is a very loud process, so don't get spooked when this emptying evolution takes place.

With theRoborock S7 MaxV Ultra  you simply set it up with a connection to your phone and let it map out your floor plan. Fill the clean water tank, put it in a vacuum bag, attach the mop head, setup your vacuuming and mopping schedule and then come back in a couple of weeks to check on the status of things in the dock. The vacuum has returned every single time, it has avoided obstacles, it has thoroughly vacuumed and mopped my floors, and it can even be used as a remote robotic security camera.

Hardware

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