This is one of the best of the best robot vacuum cleaners you can buy right now. It's the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra. I'm Ben from Authentic.
And in this video, I'll show you guys my favorite features, what makes the thing so good, a few complaints I found, and... what are the key differences to its younger siblings, the S8 and the S8 Plus. Now huge thanks to Roborock for sending over the sample units, but no, this video is not sponsored.
This is my honest review. Quick unboxing of all three. The S8 is the base model, comes with just the RoboVac and standard charging base.
The S8 Plus, almost the same vacuum, also includes the auto-emptying base station. Then for the big daddy, the S8 Pro Ultra. The robot itself has some upgrades, Plus the bundle includes the auto mop washing, drying, tank refilling, dust emptying base station.
This guy does it all. Now there's three key differences to note between the S8, the Plus, and the Pro Ultra. First, the dust bin volume is slightly different. 350 milliliter on the S8 Plus and the Pro Ultra and then a bit larger at 400 milliliters on the S8.
This means if you buy the S8 base model, you cannot buy a separate auto empty dock or ultra dock at this time, so be aware. Secondly, the mopping system, VibroRise on the S8 and the Plus only has one X vibration module. The VibroRise 2.0 on the Pro Ultra model, it has two times of vibrating module for better scrubbing performance. And thirdly, the S8 and the S8 Plus brush type is called the Duo Roller, and the S8 Pro Ultra has Duo Roller riser, which has the ability to raise and lower its roller bars. They say this can maximize the cleaning effectiveness by not leaving marks during a mop-only session, avoiding cross-contamination, and a quiet mopping-only mode.
Now, speaking of the new Duo Roller, this is one of my favorite features. I could be wrong, but I think I read somewhere that allegedly iRobot had a patent on the Duo Roller system, which expires pretty soon. So I think we're going to see a lot more dual brushes coming out.
Now this straight up helps to clean more thoroughly, sweeping up more dirt and debris, doubling the surface area when brushing through carpets, helps removing of hair wraps around the rollers. You get the idea. It's a big win for us consumers.
Unfortunately, it looks like there's still a bit of hair tangle wrapped around the rollers. Now, of course, some of the key features of the SA Pro Ultra, it's found in this incredible base station. After hard working and cleaning your floors, the vac will return to the dock to recharge.
It'll auto empty the dust bin of all dirt and debris. Manually emptying those little bins is just nasty. There's also a clean and dirty water tank.
The clean will auto refill the water tank on the robot. Then it auto cleans the mop pad with this auto sliding brush roller. It auto dries the mop and the dock base with warm air to prevent molding and gross odors.
Like I said, it sort of does it all. Now there's quick mapping mode for fast and easy map creation upon setup. The lidar and maps are top quality. They're precise and accurate for intelligent navigation.
I could probably spend hours going through the Roborock app. It's probably my favorite right now with the best UI and powerful customization under the hood. Of course, there's map editing features like merging and dividing rooms and so much more.
One small but awesome software feature they just added. There's now a progress bar in the app. A very helpful, glanceable way of knowing how far along the robot is in its current cleaning task.
There's this new fast cleaning mode for better efficiency. Now, to be honest, I had higher hopes for this one. I think it's just a software tweak that adjusts its route. Less edge cleaning and stuff like that.
This is fast cleaning mode and you can see it it's just moving at normal speed. It's mostly an algorithm change I believe. I did a vacuum test in my office here with a standard cleaning time of 31 minutes for 323 square feet. Then in fast mode the clean time took 25 minutes or six minutes shaved off and down to 248 square feet cleaned. Now that's about 21 percent faster.
It's not bad. though I do wish that the vacuum itself would physically move around faster. That would be awesome. And then with the rated 6000 pascals of suction and the dual rollers, I honestly think the thing just cleans really well. Good vacuum lines left in my carpets too.
Now on to a few wishlist items I found. Firstly, the auto mop lifting. While I like this feature to lift the mop to separate vacuum and mopping into a single cleaning, it unfortunately only raises up 5 millimeters. That's the exact same as last year's S7 model. which I feel just isn't high enough for my high pile carpets.
If the mop pad is wet or it's a little dirty and it moves across my carpets or rugs, it's still gonna drag a bit even when it's lifted up. I hope they can improve this in their next model. Secondly, it's not really a complaint, but just something I learned and maybe you should know as well.
The S8 Pro Ultra does not have an RGB camera and the front headlight like my S7 Max V does. The V stands for vision, so maybe we'll see an S8 Max V in the future. I kind of missed that video camera mode.
Now instead of the camera, the S8 does have this infrared fill light to better identify objects in the dark, so that's pretty cool. Basically, I feel that this is possibly the best hardware match with the best software experience for an effortless and hands-free cleaning. Now sure, it ain't cheap, but you sure are getting a top-of-the-line product.
Links in the description, and I'll see subscribers in my next video.