How Roborock’s Qrevo Curv series is building a better vacuum mop

We’ve been enjoying the convenience of robotic vacuums for over 20 years at this point. That’s a lot of time for the engineers behind these extremely capable little assistants to really fine-tune their designs, resulting in series like the Roborock Qrevo Curv lineup, combining an elegant, clean aesthetic with the very latest technical refinements to push performance to new heights.

But just how many different ways could there possibly be to get floors clean? As it turns out: a whole lot! Companies like Roborock are always looking for the next big upgrades to take cleaning tech to another level, and by checking out models like the Qrevo Curv 2 Flow and Qrevo CurvX, we can see exactly how these advancements are making it easier than ever to keep your home looking like you’ve got a full-time cleaning staff in your employ.

Getting more sophisticated about mopping

Turning a vacuum cleaner into a robot may not have been the simplest evolution in the world, but it’s easy to see how it makes sense: Vacuum cleaners are already highly mechanized cleaning devices, and all we had to figure out was a way to let them navigate and move around on their own.

But mopping is another problem entirely, and for many of us, it’s an extremely manual process: filling buckets, swabbing floors, wringing dirty water out. It may not be immediately obvious how to automate all that, but looking at the differences between the Qrevo CurvX, launched in May of 2025, and this year’s new Qrevo Curv 2 Flow, you can really start to appreciate all the very cool advancements that make these solutions possible.

A successful robotic mop needs to do several things well: Introduce a water-based cleaning solution to an absorbent material, scrub floors with that material, remove the dirty water, and avoid getting things wet that shouldn’t be wet.

The Qrevo CurvX takes what’s become a more traditional approach to this problem, employing a pair of spinning mop pads that push down against your floor. The robot wets them with its on-board water tank, and goes out in search of messes to clean.

That’s a great start, but there’s also a problem here: Once those mop pads tackle a big mess, the mess is still right there, stuck to your pads. How can you keep cleaning with a dirty mop? Robots like the Qrevo CurvX can always return to their base station to run a mop cleaning cycle, but this takes time.

The Qrevo Curv 2 Flow has a better approach to this same problem with its roller mop. On this model, the absorbent mop pad is wrapped around a long cylinder — picture a paint roller. Just like flat mop pads, the robot can push the cylinder down to scrub up messes, but unlike that strategy, there’s a neat trick here to keep everything clean.

As the mopping cylinder rotates in the Qrevo Curv 2 Flow, the part that just encountered your messy floor turns against a cleaning blade that scrapes the dirty water away — so that when it rotates back down to meet the floor again, it’s already clean and ready to mop up more mess.

That’s a huge game-changer that seriously reduces the need for the robot to interrupt its cycle and return to the dock for cleaning. And by being much more deliberate about the water it uses, this approach also lets the Qrevo Curv 2 Flow operate without leaving as much water behind on your floor to dry.

Wet stays wet, dry stays dry

No matter which approach a robot takes to perform its mopping, we expect mopping to only take place on surfaces that need it — that tile floor definitely deserves a good scrub, but nobody wants a wet mop dripping all over their carpets. And with these two units, Roborock highlights a pair of competing approaches to the solution.

The Qrevo CurvX is smart enough to know where it shouldn’t be mopping, and when it’s crossing those surfaces, it can retract its mop pads by up to 20mm, keeping them elevated above your carpets.

That’s a great start, but the Qrevo Curv 2 Flow takes this approach one step further with an actual physical barrier. It can also raise its roller mop — here, by 15mm — and once the mop is as far away from your carpet as it can get, the robot slides out its innovative Roller Shield, effectively acting as a drip tray to keep any stray moisture from getting where it shouldn’t.

Roborock’s attention to detail here even extends to other parts of the vacuums themselves. Just as you don’t want your carpets getting wet, the spinning side brushes these vacuums use to pull dirt, dust, and hair in close enough for the main brushes to lift up aren’t going to work as well if they’re drenched with mop water — or worse, sticky floor messes.

With the Qrevo Curv 2 Flow, Roborock gives the vacuum’s dual side brushes the ability to lift out of the way when the unit detects liquids in its path — preventing them from getting wet. And then when the coast is clear, they automatically drop back down into action again, ready to sweep up pet hair and other debris.

Building a better vacuum

Even as Roborock works to develop novel solutions to challenging problems like automated mopping, it’s not neglecting the vacuum side of things, and just comparing the progress made between the Qrevo CurvX and Qrevo Curv 2 Flow, it’s easy to see where some of those priorities lie.

When we’re trusting a robot to keep our whole home clean, the longer and more independently it can operate, the better. If the robot is constantly losing track of its surroundings, getting stuck on obstacles, or going back and forth from its dock to empty a full dustbin, even a basic cleaning can take forever.

Navigation solutions are rarely one-size-fits-all; the same system that helps your robot vacuum maneuver from living room to kitchen may not have much to offer when the unit’s trying to clean under a couch. Thankfully, both these models are equipped with a pair of systems, combining LiDAR with structured light and an RGB camera — sort of like what your phone may use for face unlock.

LiDAR is great for measuring distances, and helping the robot figure out just where it is in your home — and on the Qrevo CurvX, the LiDAR sensor on top can even duck down to fit in really low-clearance spaces. Then, for close-up navigation, the structured light and RGB camera let these vacuums recognize and avoid objects — over 108 different kinds on the Qrevo CurvX, and over 200 with the Qrevo Curv 2 Flow.

Space is tight on robots with as many features crammed into them as Roborock manages, but the company has still found room to push the limits on operational longevity. Compared to the Qrevo CurvX, the Qrevo Curv 2 Flow introduces a dustbin with a 25% larger capacity — so it can vacuum for that much longer before returning to the dock. And when you combine that with a battery capable of running the vacuum for 10% longer than the Qrevo CurvX, that just spells faster cleaning cycles, all around.

Smarter every day

With as many different robot vacuum options as there are out there, a lot of shoppers might incorrectly assume they’re all pretty much the same, but looking at some of the clever, really impactful difference between just these two models, you can hopefully truly start appreciating both how much thought and effort goes into eking out every last bit of power and convenience from this hardware, as well as how much potential there still remains for innovative new approaches to make automated cleaning solutions even better.

There’s never a bad time to get started making an investment in a cleaner, more automated home, but this Prime Day — starting on June 23 — Roborock has some great discounts running that you won’t want to miss. Those include a big 20% savings on the Qrevo Curv 2 Flow, discounted $200 down to just $799.99.

Whether you’re tempted to take home the Qrevo CurvX with its low-clearance LiDAR for squeezing under tight spaces, the Qrevo Curv 2 Flow with its advanced, holistic approach to mopping, or are waiting for a next-gen model like the Saros Rover that’s even capable of climbing stairs while it cleans, Roborock’s got the solutions you need to keep your home effortlessly looking its best.