Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra review

One-minute review

Roborock is a relatively new name in the robot vacuum market. Unlike brands such as iRobot’s Roomba, which has two decades of experience under its belt, Roborock entered the world of robotic cleaners in only 2014. However, following investment from smartphone brand Xiaomi, the brand has very quickly shown itself capable of giving bigger names a run for their money, with robot vacuums that are powerful and loaded with smarts. 

The Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is the brand’s latest robot vacuum and offers its most hands-off experience to date. Not only is this robovac able to mop floors as well as sweep them, but it also comes with a base station that will clean mopping pads and refill the water tank for you. It can even empty the dust canister into a container that will hold up to seven weeks worth of dirt and debris. 

The S7 MaxV Ultra offers five levels of suction and power, and can vacuum, mop or enlist both functions simultaneously. Even better, the mopping pad uses sonic vibration technology that delivers a scrubbing motion 3,000 times a minute to remove ground-in dirt, rather than simply sloshing water over your floors. 

The circular-shaped robot vacuum features a LiDAR scanner, along with a built-in camera, for navigating around your home. The latter can also be used to keep an eye on your home when you’re not around, or thanks to the microphone and speaker, to soothe your pets. The robovac will take a logical path around your home, rather than a random route, for quick and efficient cleaning, while Wi-Fi connectivity means the unit can be controlled via an app. 

At $1,399 / AU$2,699, the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is one of the most expensive robot vacuums we’ve tested. However, if you’re looking for a vacuum that can sweep and mop floors, as well as empty its own water and dust canisters, letting you really delegate the chore of floor cleaning, we think it’s worth the investment.

Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra price and availability

• List price: $1,399 / AU$2,699

The Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra costs $1,399 / AU$2,699, making it one of the most expensive robot vacuums we’ve tested. However, given that it can mop, vacuum and can automatically empty both its dust canister and water tank, the high price tag can be justified.

The Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra will be available in the US through Amazon on May 2nd, while availability in Australia will follow later in the year; in both territories, the robovac will also be available directly from Roborock. Note that there are no plans for the S7 MaxV Ultra to be made available in the UK.   

Roborock also offers the S7 MaxV Plus, which comes with a different base station that, while offering the self-emptying function for the dust box, doesn’t come with the functionality of emptying and refilling the water tank. This model costs $1,159 and will be available in April 2022. Alternatively, the robot vacuum can also be picked up without the base station for $859 / AU$1,599.

Roborock has yet to reveal the cost of replacement bags for the S7 MaxV Ultra. It already offers replacement dust bags for the base station that comes with the S7 MaxV Plus, which will set you back $41.99 for 12; but these aren’t compatible with the S7 MaxV Ultra. 

Design

• Five power levels, three scrubbing intensities
• 13.4oz dust canister and 6.7oz water tank 
• Built-in camera and Lidar scanner

The Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is the moniker for the package that bundles the S7 MaxV robot vacuum with the base station that can empty both the dust canister and water tank, while also refilling the robot vacuum with clean water. The robot vacuum sports the familiar circular shape of other Roborock models and measures 13.89 x 13.77 x 3.8 inches. Taller than some robot vacuums on the market, such as the Eufy RoboVac G20, we found it struggled to clean under some furniture with low clearance.

The matte black S7 MaxV has a plastic bumper around the top edge of the robot vacuum, while the bottom edge is home to the built-in camera. The robot vacuum includes a Lidar scanner, too. A 3 x 0.5-inch (w x h) disc that sits on top of the appliance, it works alongside the camera to help the robovac to navigate around your home, avoiding obstacles in its path. The camera can also be used to see and converse with anyone in its field of view, making it great for soothing pets when you’re not at home. 

On the top of the robot vacuum, you’ll find three buttons to switch the appliance on or off, start a spot clean, or send the unit back to the charging dock. There’s also an LED that pulses white when vacuuming, blue when mopping and green when charging. 

On the bottom of the S7 MaxV Ultra sit two rubber wheels that help the robot vacuum to work its way around your home, along with a rubber brush bar that collects dirt from floors, sweeping it into the 13.4oz dust canister. There’s also a 6.7oz water tank and a semi-circular-shaped mopping pad, allowing the robot vacuum to wash as well as sweep hard floors. Roborock states this size is sufficient to cover an area of 3,230 sq ft before it needs refilling. The inclusion of sonic vibration technology creates a scrubbing motion 3,000 times a minute, to remove ground-in stains from hard floors.

The S7 MaxV Ultra offers five levels of suction when vacuuming, three scrub intensities when mopping, and three cleaning modes (mop, vacuum, or vac and mop). Also bundled in the package is a docking station that charges and automatically empties the dust canister. Roborock says the 84.5fl oz container can hold seven weeks' worth of dirt and debris, although it has yet to confirm how many cleans per week this is based on. 

This robovac’s base station also offers the ability to clean the mopping pads, and empties the dirty water into a 101fl oz tank, before refilling the on-board water tank from the 85.5fl oz clean water tank. However, measuring 16.6 x 19.8 x 16.5in, the docking station takes up a fair amount of space. 

Performance

• Powerful suction
• Can mop as well as vacuum
• Self-emptying

Once we’d set up the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra, which included presenting a QR code generated by the app on our phone to the robovac’s cameras, we were able to start cleaning the floors in our home. The Robot vacuum made light work of collecting fine dust, cookie crumbs and larger debris – including cereal – from hard floors, even on the lowest power setting. However, we did find that on hard floors the side brush had a tendency to scatter larger debris further around the room, which made the vacuuming process slightly longer than we’d hoped.  

On carpet, the vacuum was able to suck up the majority of the fine dust and larger debris we sprinkled onto the floor, although the more powerful settings were required to give carpets a deeper clean. We were also impressed that the robovac can be set to automatically increase the suction level when carpet is detected, boosting it from level one, dubbed Quiet, to maximum or Max + during testing.

The inclusion of the Lidar sensor and the camera resulted in the robot vacuum taking a methodical route around our home, both when vacuuming and mopping. It also helped to keep the vacuum conscious of furniture and obstacles, so it didn’t bump into anything –  unlike robot vacuums that only employ gyroscopes, such as the Eufy G20 for example.  

Note, too, that while the majority of robot vacuums that can claim to ‘mop’ hard floors simply slosh water around, the S7 MaxV is capable of scrubbing as well. As such, we found it easily coped with removing tough dried-in stains such as Coca-Cola on our hard floor, as well as fresh dirt. Even better, when set to vacuuming and mopping, the robot vacuum will automatically lift the mop on detecting carpet, to avoid it becoming soggy.

The S7 MaxV is pleasingly quiet when used on its lowest level of suction. Our decibel meter measured 55db when cleaning hard floors, rising to 63db on Max+, with a slightly increased figure of 68db on carpet. This is equivalent to the level of noise of a shower running.

However, noise levels rise as the robovac docks and empties its dust canister and water tank, with our decibel meter hitting 82.8db – similar to standing 100ft from a train traveling at 45mph. 

As we’ve already mentioned, the built-in camera can also be used to see and speak to anyone in its field of view. On test, we found it mesmerizing viewing a live feed from the camera as the robot vacuum made its way around our home. The sound was clear when using the microphone and speaker to converse, also making it a great tool for soothing pets when you’re not at home.

App

• Simple to use
• Matrix maps currently only available on new iPhones
• Integration with Alexa and Google Assistant

The Roborock app is simple to use, and once the robot vacuum is connected to your Wi-Fi, you can easily start a full clean by tapping on the icon of the robot vacuum and pressing ‘clean’. From the app, you can change the cleaning mode as well as the suction level and scrubbing intensity. 

As the S7 MaxV cleans your floors it also stores a map of your home, which you can then split into different rooms and zones, allowing you to focus on specific areas rather than your whole home. It also organizes the rooms into a cleaning schedule based on the size and the type of floor, saving the dirtiest areas until last – for example, a hard floor in the kitchen that needs sweeping and mopping. With the ability to store three different maps, this robovac is ideal for multi-level homes. 

As well as creating a 2D map of your home, the robot vacuum also offers a 3D map. In addition, for those who are using the robot vacuum with an iPhone, there’s also the ability to create a matrix map, which uses the camera on your phone to capture details about furniture and floor types, so you can start a clean that may simply encompass the area around your bed or the dining table, for example. However, this functionality is only available to those using the robot vacuum with an iPhone 12 or above. 

The S7 MaxV is also compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant, enabling you to use your voice, rather than the app, to start the robot vacuum cleaning.

Battery life

• The battery lasts up to 180 minutes between charges
• It takes four hours to fully recharge
• Clear battery level visible in the app

According to Roborock, the battery will last for up to 180 minutes between charges, although this is in Quiet mode. When the S7 MaxV was used on full power, we found the robot vacuum lasted for 75 minutes, before automatically returning to the base station to charge with a battery level of 19%. 

However, this was sufficient to enable a full clean of a three-bedroom, two-storey house. The robot vacuum will also return to finish cleaning if it hasn’t completed its session when the battery runs out. 

It takes four hours to fully recharge the S7 MaxV Ultra, which Roborock claims is 30% faster than using other Roborock charging docks. There’s a clear battery level indicator in the app to view how much run-time remains. 

Should I buy the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra?

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First reviewed: February 2022

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