At the breakfast counter with my back turned I hear the artificial voice “starting scheduled cleaning” as the machine comes to life at its base station ramp. Pausing to get its bearings it rumples off across the tile floor on a mission: Monday 0900 – mop the master bath. I watch intently as the (new to me) Roborock disappears from line of sight but using the app I can resume tracking and even get live video feed. With sensors and intelligence it can navigate on its own and doesn’t need me to nanny but it’s just so interesting to watch this marvel.

Setup

I spent the better part of a day learning and tinkering. The robot and its dock are fairly intuitive. There are two controls; one for to press to return home and the other a ‘play’ button to power on/off, pause, resume. One can issue commands by voice directed at the robot: “Hello Rocky”. The app is the more nuanced and has the steeper learning curve. Here is where you manage maps, set routines, and create schedules. You can really drill down and specify pre-set levels of clean e.g. vacuum balanced, turbo, custom. mop water low, medium, high or custom. This allows you to specify what you want based on the type of surface; tile, carpet, or hardwood. I find that water dispense rate low is ideal for hardwood and high is okay for tile but you get the idea. If you want, you can let the robot decide by choosing SmartPlan. There are menus and sub-menus within the app and a bit of a time sponge to the extent you’d like it to be.

Initially you will want Settings>Manage Maps>Create a Map. The obvious place to begin is the first floor or where ever the Dock is. Send the machine off on a map only survey. The AI is fairly good at identifying rooms with open door access. Later you can use the app to modify rooms, rename, divide or merge rooms. You can even name furniture that is identified but I don’t see the point in that but with a room named it is easier to send Robrock on specific jobs, spill cleanups.

You will want to give the machine small tasks one by one (as opposed to entire house) to allow the unit to return to the dock. The dock has fresh water supply, the clean mops function, and automatically extracts the dirt from the onboard bin. This container is slightly larger than a DustBuster but way smaller than a traditional vacuum cleaner so it fills quickly. The onboard water reservoir and waste tank is good for ~250 sq ft. between service.

These tanks can only be filled | pumped out by the dock but the dust bin can be removed manually. The first time you tackle a room you will want to frequent the dock. In my case various rooms had not been cleaned for awhile and were overdue. This means that the robot will be put through its paces first go. Consider manually dumping the dust collector at 10 min intervals as mine filled with fibers and hair to the extent that the base station had a rough time emptying as advertised. My feeling is that following the first clean subsequent jobs will have less and less heavy soil / fur balls and thus less chance of overload.

The AI is very good at avoiding obstacles. Rarely does it collide with or bump into things. Even delicate object de art placements or personal items strewn about are left unmolested. However, I did have to “rescue” the robot a couple of times when it tangled with lamp electrical cords. You don’t have to hide these but I found that strategic arrangement or bundling will avoid that replay.

The dock is downstairs so I hand carried the robot upstairs for mapping and then a clean. It recognized the top of the stairs when set in motion and didn’t fall off the cliff. But, after it finished I created a no-go zone at steps ledge for peace of mind.

While auto probing that first step my heart leapt as it careened toward disaster but it hit the brakes last moment on edge of the precipice. Not my idea of a fun thrill.

Now that rooms are mapped and routines scheduled I expect to be less hands on. I did notice thread like material spindled onto the brush rotors. Fortunately it’s a minor task to flip it upside down and remove them. A pen knife with care can remove and clear the rotor bearings. It all snaps back into place after maintenance. No other tools required.

Verdict

Clean! The Robotrock is excellent. I ask it to clean the kitchen nightly. No more random crumbs under summertime bare feet. Less traveled areas; once per week. Roborock will have something to do everyday in rotation. My garage (painted floor) has been mapped and Roborock rolled beneath cars and all. Very tidy now.