Day 1 – Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is impressive
The Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra appears to be what everyone hopes for in a robot mop/vacuum cleaner. This being a robot that mops and vacuums at the same time, lifts the mop up when on carpet, doesn’t get tangled in easily avoided traps, maps quickly, vacuums dirt like no other, scrubs the floor with its vibraing mop pad, and then cleans the dirty mop pad every 20 minutes or so of mopping.
After all of that, it refills the water tank, empties the collected refuse into a bin, and damn this is a fine vacuum… at least on paper. I’m at day one and that paper seems right.
TL;DR – Paul finds a couple of minor glitches but is otherwise impressed with everything on day 1.
You’ll recall I’m a Roborock S7 fanboy (might be a Q7 Max+ one soon as well, but it hasn’t had the use and amazing reception Rhonda did,) so take what I’ve discovered in stride as this is day one, and putting this directly into the largest cleaning arena and running it until something fails, you’re going to encounter is not exactly a normal set of reviews.
Testing grounds
The testing grounds I’ve put the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra involve about 5000 square feet of surface cleaning area. The building itself has about 7 times that space, but offices are off limits for this.
About a third of the space the MaxV is in requires mopping, and the rest is short corporate carpet with planters and robot trapping chairs pretty much everywhere. There has been no robot vacuum that could come close to handling this, although the DreamBot D10 did a pretty good job of vacuuming about half of that nightly. It just couldn’t handle the mass mopping requirements and I had to wash the mop pad every single day.
The D10 also ran out of water, but that’s another story.
The hope here is the MaxV Ultra and its auto cleaning and refilling will help out. With several hundred people walking through the doors daily it’s a pretty dirty floor and the janitorial staff do what they can, but we’d rather they were free to work on other projects.
Software issues encountered
I’ve reviewed two of Roborock’s products that I loved (and then there was the H7, but that’s not a smart vacuum and was discontinued evidently,) and have used the software extensively. The MaxV add-ins have a couple of notable glitches.
One of the features of the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is it’s got a camera and you can jump in, remote control the robot, and talk/see people. Combine this with the 3D mapping and you’ve got yourself a pretty sweet little set of tools if you just want to poke around your house while you’re away and look around. They put in a security unlock requirement of a standard pattern swipe.
But, there’s an issue. The first issue is you can accidentally swipe around a pin meaning you can connect pin 1 to pin 7 and skip pin 4. You can also … you know what, take a look at the photo below you’ll understand exactly how not right the pattern swipe logic is.
In the above example, I connected 1 to 7, 4 was not highlighted, then went to 5, up to 2, you can’t go back through 5 but I was able to go around 5 to 8, 8 to 9, 9 to 6, and then 6 around 5 to 4.
I discovered this because I set an extremely easy to remember unlock code and managed to botch it by tracing a straight line not quite straight.
Not a deal breaker, just something to note if you’re going with using the remote cameras.
Firmware needs an update right at the getgo, I managed to start it, it failed (may have been extreme distance,) the firmware did not list as needing an update, and then later did. I did my first fast mapping on outdated firmware, and the newer lists itself as improving fast mapping. No big whoop, but the fail notification seemed to be missed by the app. Meh.
After the base firmware updated I’d say I had no network feeling issues. That said, the unit was also several hundred feet closer to the Wi-Fi ap.
A couple of times with the unit evidently cleaning its mop pad I found the app was unable to do much of anything. I couldn’t see the map, couldn’t turn on the camera. This was only while it was docked and cleaning the mop pad however. Unless you’re doing an hour of mopping a night and actively jumping in and out to see what you can see on your building’s security cameras, I don’t think you’re going to run into much of an issue.
Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra – the first two runs
We had two runs today – the escorted mapping run, in which I walked around a building with the unit making sure nobody tripped on it, and then the 9pm finish whenever you finish run. It ran out of battery and returned to the dock about 10:30 to recharge and continue later. I suspect it will finish up the main area sometime around 3am and probably not complete the floor on charge 2.
The initial mapping was 20something minutes faster than anything I’ve mapped with. Seemed solid. Wish I’d mapped with the new firmware, but womp womp. I had that weird update / no update issue. It mapped out the size of a medium sized house in about 10 minutes, but this is significantly larger so yeah. 34 minutes I believe for our atrium and conference room. I believe the D10 we mapped at 58 minutes and it couldn’t reach the conference room by a few feet due to a maximum distance limitation evidently.
We have not encountered a maximum distance limitation yet, but if it gets into the studio area we’re looking at a significant space and might.
At the end of day 1, watching remotely… it’s working well so far. It’s doing what I’d expect my beloved Rhonda (the original S7,) to do but with cameras and it seems like a little more logic when it comes to going around things.
Misc things noted
Water tank on the base unit lid can leak if you turn the canister sideways.
Robot trapping chairs still present an issue to this robot, but it has thus far managed to surmount them.
Should you buy the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra?
Maybe? I’ve used it for a day at this point, so I wouldn’t take this as the end all and be all of a review, just the start of an ongoing one. I’m impressed and will link follow ups when I get around to them next week. Your use cases probably will dictate the choices here as this is a significant upgrade over your standard vacuum, but comes with the price as well.
You can find the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra on Amazon and on Roborock’s site.
End of day 1
At 7am the unit was still running and actively cleaning. The first person here came in and pressed the Home button, got an error message that the main brush was jammed, but the unit returned home. I received the message the brush was jammed about the same time on my phone.
Inspection revealed that at some point the unit had found a large broken metal nut of some sort and pulled it into the chamber. It was a worthy blockage. I have no idea where it grabbed that or why it didn’t mention that the main brush was stuck until someone pressed home. Perhaps it’s because the brush had been rotating and when they pressed home it couldn’t. I do not know.
The unit ran for five hours and six minutes last night, and probably would have completed the areas that were not blocked off sometime in before six hours. I’ll schedule it to start later.
The only notes I have really are – 1) impressive, 2) water tank for this level of mopping will have to be filled every other day.
Followups
Day 1- The Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra I’m initially impressed
Day 3 – I’m more impressed
Day 6 – find some issues and wants
End of week 1 – some strange oddness
Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra ends week 2 like a lion
The end of week 3 / start of week 4
Week 4 – end of most testing
Product links: Roborock site. Amazon.
Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra
The Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is a self-mop cleaning, self-emptying, self-water refilling beast of a robot vacuum.
Product Brand: Roborock
Product Currency: USD
Product Price: 1399.99
Product In-Stock: InStock
4.8
