Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra – week 4, end of most testing. What I found/found lacking
There’s little doubt my Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra has been through more than most. Unless you’re vacuuming and mopping between 5000 & 7000 square feet of office space that’s trafficked by over 200 people daily doing 10 hour cleans, you’re not coming close to what I put this through.
Let me also preface this, this is the best robot vacuum cleaner and mop I’ve ever run across in almost every category. I have found issues quickly most likely because I have 5 & 1/2 hours of actual non-charging use of it a night. I’d say the average consumer is probably using this for less than 20 minutes a day. I’d also say based on what I’ve seen of robot vacuum reviews, the average reviewer is buying a bag of glitter, sprinkling it on a carpet, throwing down a fake dog poo, and phoning in a review with a monetized link.
This is broken down into a features wish list and a FAQ. At the bottom you will find links to all of the previous articles on this unit.
So, sometime in week 4, with an estimated cleaning time of about 140 hours (5.5 hours a night, 6 nights a week) this is:
Paul’s opinion of what the Roborock S7 MaxV UItra needs
Prioritized cleaning
One of the things I’ve noticed when cleaning a space as large as my testing environment is that I want the main areas hit first. I’d really rather the unit got all the mopping done and the atrium cleaned and then it can do whatever it wants.
Also maybe I want the mopping done last so there’s not a potentially damp mop dragging on carpet?
Non-US versions of the app evidently have this ability based on what I’ve seen in screenshots and been told. Just bring it to the US app.
Mop smarter
Right now the unit defaults to mopping for about 20 minutes and then returning to the dock to wash the mop, then resuming. For most purposes absolutely fine. Here’s what happened to me.
I just happened to jump into the thing to watch what should have been the last minute of mopping. The unit had roughly 5-8 feet of mopping left and then the building would be nothing but vacuuming. It stopped, having reached the 20 minute threshold, and drove itself across the building to clean the mop. Then drove itself back, positioned itself, and finished that last 5-8 feet of mopping.
Just seems like there could be an “if totalmoppingtimeestimatedleft < 2 minutes, keeponmopping”
Charging percentage set
Right now if you run out of juice during a run, or get low, it returns to dock, charges up to full, and then resumes cleaning. Well, what if this is an average occurrence for you like it is for me? The unit can run for about an hour and a half doing really well and then it needs a charge. Said charge can take several hours to complete.
But what if you just want to hit to 50% or so and resume the last 10 minutes or so of charging?
I doubt too many people have the issue of resuming cleaning mode. I really do. But if you’re regularly scrubbing and deep cleaning and run into it nightly (I do 2-3 times a night,) charging to 50% and resuming would cut down on an hour or so of cleaning time for me.
My last 1-2 hour top-off generally culminates in a 10-20 minutes more of cleaning before the routine is done.
More battery
My tests indicate I’m a special snowflake here, however one of the things that has come up a few times in the unofficial S7 Facebook group is that battery life is *a* complaint. While resume operations is great and all, throwing an extra two hours to charge a unit from dead to maybe do 10 more minutes seems to be getting on other people’s nerves.
So maybe a larger battery option for us freaks?
ReactiveAI 2.0 needs to recognize a couple more things
Dangling cords off of tables need to be identified and avoided. I’ve watched the S7 MaxV Ultra drive straight on in, spin around, and take 5+ minutes to untangle itself all the while pulling what’s on the other end of the power cord right toward the edge of the table.
It has handled that situation with kid gloves at least. It hasn’t broken a lamp yet, but we have heavy lamps.
It’s gotten better at identifying robot trapping chairs with the latest updates, but it still acts like it’s tiptoeing around a dynamite monkey whenever we get to a planter. One planter can take 3-4 minutes to go around the outside of and I have no idea why. Mostly an issue if you are testing in an atrium with 20+ planters.
Door stoppers at 3 inches or so off the ground just aren’t seen.
Does not detect loose RCA cables on the floor, half inch broken metal, screws. All of which I’ve had to extract. Only the RCA cables should have triggered a warning, I think, but yeah.
Multiple Wi-Fi pairing
While my situation is a crazy testing ground, there are plenty of people who to get their house in order have had to set up multiple Wi-Fi routers. My dad is one of them. His internet comes in on the north side of a ranch-style house, and after many attempts to get the internet to the south side he finally set an AP up with a cable run in the crawlspace to get internet over there.
Yes, there are other ways to do that network, but the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra being able to handle multiple maps, I believe it should also be able to handle multiple Wi-Fi access points. I mean what if you’re an AirBnB or house cleaner or something and just want to take it to help you out while you’re cleaning?
Automatic firmware upgrades
They’ve released at least two since this arrived a month ago. In both instances I’ve had a small issue with the app and what I believe to have been Wi-Fi connectivity issues. In both instances I thought that the unit had upgraded, it had not.
I believe the average user probably wants an option to set and forget that the unit exists. This would do that. While I believe it adds the potential for catastrophic firmware nightmare scenarios, pretty sure these can be worked around.
Basically I don’t see why an app is required to notify me to go in, poke around to figure out where the red dot is, press firmware upgrade, and then keep the app open and running while it happens.
Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra Overall
I believe I am done with the corporate test, although I may find something to complain about whenever my officially sanctioned Roborock cleaning substance arrives (maybe today, it’s my running issue with Amazon missing delivery target by days if not weeks, again.) I’ve been just mopping with water thus far in an attempt to just pick up the layers of dirt.
I’ll be replacing the mop pad tomorrow most likely after usage that I would guess is somewhere around 6 months of normal house use. As noted this has not been normal.
I can really find very little to be actively complaining about. I know this doesn’t sound like your average product pitch, but this thing is great. Buy one at the links below, make me commission! Or don’t.
The FAQ (I’ll update it if anyone asks)
How often do I need to replace the bags?
I had to change at 3 weeks, I clean 5,000 square feet nightly and don’t have many animals in the building (people do bring them but we’re not cleaning their offices.) I’d suspect the average non-animal owner is looking at once every 3 to -4.5 months and if you have a sheddy dog as little as two weeks.
How often do I need to fill/empty the water?
I change and empty it every two to three days. This is at approximately 1800 square feet of mopped surface a night on default mopping. So probably every 3600-5400 feet of mopping space. Maybe more. I’ll try and metric this better.
How cool is the two way talk via S7 MaxV Ultra?
Not particularly. Delay combined with where the speaker is means a conversation is awkward. Then again even if it were perfect, at least one party is talking to a puck robot.
How cool is the video on the S7 MaxV Ultra?
Very. I never ever imagined I’d sit and watch video of a robot cleaning first-person. It’s entirely fascinating to me looking at the world at two inches or so off the ground.
Does it return home?
In 4 weeks of testing it failed to return home six times. The culprits were robot trapping plant maze x2, robot trapping chair x1, RCA cable left out by reality show production team x1, strange issues with 100+ foot hallway that seem to make it think it’s 14 feet off of where it is x2.
Should you not have a reality show filming and 20+ large plants, the robot trapping chair, I think you’ll probably be fine.
Does it avoid poop?
I do not know. I’ve watched videos with fake poo and it avoiding, however while I am allowed to use these overnight at the testing location, I do not have a budget for fake poop, nor am I allowed to crap at the office on the floor / do I want to clean up real.
Should I buy the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra?
It’s great, but here are the specific things that the S7 MaxV Ultra does over the S7/Q7 and dock – if you don’t need these features the Ultra is going to be absolute overkill. Beautiful overkill, but overkill.
- Video camera obstacle recognition (you have problems with something else getting tangled a lot?)
- Two way calling (meh)
- Mop washing (dragging a mop eventually becomes dragging dirty water)
- Water tank refill (do you have a large mopping surface?)
- Video and ability to roll around your house just looking at things (kind of useful)
Wrap-up
I’ve listed out a lot of things I’d like to see. I believe Roborock will provide most of these in future updates. The price is higher than I would pay for a robot vacuum, however I do not think it’s out of line for the class that it is in and how good it has been. I’ve just got a mental upper limit of how far I’d go before manually scrubbing the mop head myself.
It’s a great product, or at least my experience has been great.
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.
