Who it’s for:
Roborock’s latest flagship dishes out some of the most powerful suction and sonic scrubbing that can be achieved by a robot vacuum today. It accurately makes it to the correct rooms of the house and livestreams its view along the way, then thoroughly cleans itself. Naturally, such a full checklist makes this a robust floor care suite for heavily lived-in homes, especially those with multiple pets or kids and multiple floor types.
On the flip side, all of that is simply going to be overkill in smaller spaces with light foot traffic that just don’t need a deep clean as often. Plus, that exhaustive checklist make the S8 MaxV Ultra the most expensive robot vacuum of CES 2024. While making the investment now will probably get you off the hook from upgrading robot vacuums for several years, $1,799.99 just isn’t a realistic cost for a lot of people.
Why we picked this:
Many classic robot vacuum features used to be considered premium but are now pretty standard, like self-emptying, smart mapping, and mopping. Then, there are the newer advanced autonomy features that are still reserved for truly premium bots, like self-washing, self-drying mopping pads, and small obstacle avoidance. The S8 MaxV Ultra checks all of those boxes, then rubs it in with the rare appearance of a livestream pet camera. You couldn’t paint a full picture of the best robot vacuums without it.
The 10,000 Pa of suction power clocked by the S8 MaxV Ultra really showed on rugs of multiple piles in my apartment. It successfully removed the layer of cat fur that was tinting my colorful bedroom rug gray — making it believable that Max+ mode achieves 99.5% pet hair pickup, like Roborock claims. The S8 MaxV Ultra also aced my artificial obstacle course of loose soil, various snack crumbs, and even a mound of super fine corn starch.
Switching to hard floors, picking up dust bunnies and kitty litter was a breeze for the S8 MaxV Ultra on hardwood and tile. During mopping, the vibrating mopping pad visibly ate away at dried drips of sauce and footprints, and there’s something about its automatic use of detergent (instead of just water) that’s extra comforting to me. Being off the hook from dealing with soggy mopping pads is also clutch, especially on the rebound of using the Roomba Combo j9+, which doesn’t do that.
Lastly, the livestream pet camera is just an objectively cool addition to a robot vacuum’s tech menu. I really like the idea of being able to keep tabs on my cats while they’re away, whether that’s through watching the steam of what the vacuum sees while it roams, or entering “find my pet” mode to snuff out hiding spots.
