Welcome back to Just Fun Tech, our column where we explore the wider world of technology that enhances our lives. Today, we’re continuing our coverage of the Roborock series of robot vacuum cleaners with the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra. This innovative cleaning companion offers a huge array of features, including robotic arms, voice control, rapid 3D home mapping with intelligent object detection, and far more.
This at-home-with-the-Jetsons appliance comes on two versions, the S8 Max Ultra and the S8 MaxV Ultra. The difference between the two models is that the MaxV version features voice controls and up to 10,000Pa while the standard Max tops out at 8,000Pa. Both models come with the self-cleaning, self-refilling RockDock Ultra for total automation. The S8 Max Ultra retails for $1,599 and the S8 MaxV Ultra retails for $1,799.
The Next Generation of Roborock: New, Improved, and Returning Features
Roborock and GameSpace have been on a journey together. We first began covering the brand nearly five years ago. Over that time, the brand has grown into one of the industry leaders and has begun to push the envelope in what it’s able to do. This latest model is its most advanced yet, offering full automation of its cleaning — both of your house and of itself using its improved RoboDock Ultra.
The biggest innovation coming this generation is its new FlexiArm side brush and Extra Edge mopping system. These features act as robotic arms, allowing it to reach right to the edge of your room, picking up debris that has accumulated there and ensuring an edge-to-edge mop.
It’s hardly the only new feature, however. It’s Roborock’s most powerful vacuum yet, offering up a full 10,000Pa of suction power in its highest mode to pull pet hair from carpets and hardwoods.. Its mapping system has been refined, allowing it to 3D scan every room of your house and assign labels to different obstacles it detects with its Reactive AI 2.0 system and LiDAR sensor.
It also brings back a favorite feature of mine that was cut last generation: remote control and video calling (only available on the MaxV versions). Using the Roborock app, you’re able to live monitor your vacuum’s video feed, even when you’re away from home, making it a kind of remote security camera. There’s even an option to find your pet, if you need to keep an eye on them while you’re away.
In fact, the S8 MaxV Ultra seems downright pet-centric. Not only does it have the power to effectively pull up that stubborn shed fur and seek out your pet with a single button press via the app, it’s also smart enough to recognize a cat or dog when it’s performing its normal duties. It snaps animal portraits as it cleans and makes them available for download via its app.
As it approaches a pet, it will also increase its suction power to grab what it anticipates to be extra fur. My dog is terrified of the vacuum, however, so this feature isn’t exactly her favorite.
This model also features a built-in microphone to offer voice control. You can call the vacuum from the other room with a wake word (“Hello Rocky”) command to begin cleaning or assign to a specific room, mode, or mess. It’s not a complete AI assistant and has a limited set of commands, but it worked reliably in my tests (though I did have to speak loudly to get its attention while it was working).
Then, of course, we have returning features, like its smart home mapping — a feature that can be leveraged before the first cleaning with a quick map generation option — and surface detection. Using its array of sensors, it creates and updates a real-time map of your home with every cleaning cycle, noting obstacles. The vacuum can detect whether it is running on carpet or hardwood, entering into CarpetBoost mode for additional suction or raising and lowering the mopping pad and dual rollers respectively.
The mopping function works well, even without detergent. The S8 MaxV Ultra features Roborock’s VibraRise 3.0 system. This raises or lowers the mopping pad and rapidly vibrates it up to 4,000 per minute to work out stubborn stains. It’s also able to detect when a stain hasn’t been completely removed and can go back for a second run if allowed to do so.
The app is absolutely critical to the S8 MaxV Ultra. Though you can technically use the vacuum out of the box without ever connecting it to your home network and the app, its three physical buttons don’t provide you access to its multitude of cleaning options. In the app, you can view a real-time map of your home, label individual rooms, and set up custom boundaries where you don’t want the vacuum to go. You can set cleaning schedules, change noise modes, activate remote calling, download software updates, and much more. It is well worth the effort to set up if you’re considering this vacuum.
RockDock Ultra – Improved and Included by Default
The other big addition is the brand new RockDock Ultra, which is included with every S8 MaxV Ultra. This docking station makes a massive difference in its use experience — namely, that you don’t have to engage with it very often if you don’t want to. It automates the cleaning, emptying, and refilling of the vacuum so that vacuuming only needs to enter your mind once every few weeks if not less.
The new dock is an improved version of the original that came with the S8 Pro Ultra. After every cleaning cycle, the dock cleans and sterilizes the mop with hot water and uses high-powered suction to empty the dust bin. It refills the mop tank with clean water and automatically adds detergent if you have it. When it’s done, it starts a hot air drying cycle for the mop to prevent mildew. As needed, the dock will also clean itself to prevent extra debris from building up.
It also recharges the vacuum of course. This much is standard fare for a docking station, but it too has been improved with 30% faster charging speeds.
Though it is quite loud, the RockDock adds much more convenience to an appliance that is already convenient on its own. I would like it to be a little less like a jet engine when it empties the dustbin, but it’s much better than emptying it every night.
Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra – Performance
The Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra is an outstanding robot vacuum. It is a notable step forward from the S8 Pro Ultra, which was very good in its own right. But the extra development time Roborock took with this vacuum really paid off. It’s not perfect, though, and some software updates are needed to bring it to its full potential.
For normal cleaning, it is noticeably more efficient than the S8 Pro Ultra. I have been using that vacuum for around a year and would notice that it would sometimes seem to get lost and would return to rooms for one or two passes before leaving again. Resetting the map fixes this issue, but it’s a reoccurring bug. The S8 MaxV Ultra, on the other hand, has been consistently efficient with its cleaning paths.
After mapping the house during the first cleaning cycle, which took about an hour, it has reliably tracked an efficient room-to-room path. It’s not exactly the same every night, as obstacles seem to play into its calculations, but it hasn’t gotten lost or struggled to find its way back to the dock.
Object detection has been good but more sporadic and seems to be related to object height and whether it can identify what it comes across. It does a good job of avoiding my children’s socks that they refuse to stop leaving on the floor but will still suck up cables and wires. Larger objects, like balls, shoes, books, and plants, it moves around smoothly. It also does a very good job of detecting humans and larger obstacles and stops before making contact with them.
The FlexiArm doesn’t work exactly like I thought. The robot needs to detect the wall or corner to trigger it to sweep debris from the edge into its double roller. In our kitchen, however, it doesn’t consistently extend the arm below our cabinets. It’s an improvement versus not having such an arm but I’m hopeful that we’ll see improved performance with future software and firmware updates like Roborock delivered with past models.
The mop functionality is definitely improved. Even without detergent, I noticed an immediate improvement from the S8 Pro Ultra. Particularly stubborn stains, like dried drops of juice from my three-year-old’s cup, were a bit more difficult and sometimes required a quick pass with a paper towel. It still did a good job overall and with a cycle each night, it can prevent stains from settling in the first place.
The new edge mop system is also a nice improvement. This works similarly to the FlexiArm but absolutely got closer to my walls for an even better clean. These are key additions that I expect to see other brands follow suit with in the future.
The voice commands were useful, though, over time, I mainly used them to start the cleaning cycle and little else. The commands were reliable, I just found the app to be a better match to my own use preferences.
The increased suction power was definitely noticeable. Note that you have to engage this higher power suction within the app, but if you have pets, it’s worth doing at least once a week. Our dog spends a lot of time in my kids’ playroom and the carpet is always laced with shed fur. The highest power suction pulled a surprising amount of fur on its first pass — the bin had much more than I could even tell visually!
The app is great for automating your cleaning cycles. Once it mapped my home, I was able to label each room and create boundaries, blocking out our bathrooms and beneath our schoolwork table. I was also able to create a schedule that made the vacuum begin its own cleaning cycle overnight when we were asleep. On its highest suction setting, it can be quite loud, and the RockDock even more so. Pushing all of that to the late night hours when we were asleep upstairs ensured that it wasn’t a nuisance.
The RockDock is simply great. Like last generation, it does a good job of cleaning out the dustbin and filling the device with clean water. The automatic detergent dispenser is another value-adding feature that gives you one less reason to fuss with your robot. This model appears to be similar to the last RockDock in terms of how long it will take between needing to change dust bags, but it’s not even close to being full after the last two weeks of nightly cleaning and stress tests. The prior model would generally last 6-8 weeks, so there is a recurring cost in dust bags there. But the automation of this otherwise cumbersome chore is well worth it, in my opinion.
Before moving on to my final thoughts, I’d like to take a moment to talk about privacy. The Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra is a very “aware” robotic vacuum. It’s actively assessing its environment, labeling obstacles, and snapping pictures of your pets. The fact that the camera can be remote controlled could be another source of concern.
Roborock claims that it does not save any pictures. It is also encrypted for security against third parties who may be looking for a way to access your network. Despite this, I feel that it’s important to mention that you can program your settings and then take it off of your WiFi network. It will continue to follow its settings and you won’t need to worry about your privacy.
Final Thoughts
The Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra is an excellent robotic vacuum. It needs some updates to really leverage its arm and improve its object detection but, even so, this is a premier robotic vacuum that brings advanced features and cleaning power. The advancements Roborock has brought this generation are more than fluff to release a new yearly model, which is refreshing to see. The company has also done well with updating its prior models, so I’m confident that we’ll see more of the same support here too.
The Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra is an expensive appliance for your home, but it’s excellent and competes with the very best robot vacs out there. And if you can live without voice controls, video calls, and that bit of extra suction, the S8 MaxV standard is a great alternative for significantly less.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes.
