Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsVery Happy, but onboard intelligence needs work
Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2021
After having done a great deal of research, I am very, very happy with the product - now that I have a better grasp of it's strengths and weaknesses. You can read all about the reasons to love the product on the page, so I will share the things the marketing material doesn't mention. I purchased both (not at the same time) the eufy by Anker, RoboVac G30, and this Roborock S7+ Robot Vacuum and Sonic Mop with Auto-Empty Dock here on amazon... and I need them both. Hear me out.
One practical issue is that "scheduled cleaning" may be included on the S7+, but isn't a really an option. To properly use the S7+, you must clean or change the mop pad, you must wet the mop pad, and you have to fill the water tank. So there is no such thing as unattended operation. Any indication otherwise is skeptical. For example, the user manual says that you should empty the water tank and detach and clean the mop between uses. If you do that - you can't schedule cleaning. If you don't do it, you need to make sure that the S7+ goes to the dock with a full water tank. You're involved any way you look at it. Then when it starts cleaning, the mop will be too dry, and only thin, wet streaks will make it onto the floor until 1/4 of the tanks reserves are used up soaking the mop cloth.
Also, the best mopping setting, "Fine Mopping" disables the vacuum. That was unexpected. The "normal" setting is good for most things, but when I want to mop the floors, I want to do a proper job of it.
On the other hand, I do like to spray something on the floors ahead of the robot and I wouldn't want the liquid floor cleaner vacuumed up in the process. You can't put any cleaning solution in the water tank, so the S7+ is basically water and a wet washcloth dragging across your floor. That's not to say it isn't good, 99.99% of the time, a wash cloth across the floor a few times a week is all I need to keep the house clean. I prefer to have some type of solvent diluted in a spray bottle and applied to the floor so I use Lundmark floor cleaner for the tiles and Lysol floor cleaner for the laminate floors.
You should understand that the ENTIRE Mop Attachment does not vibrate for the scrubbing action. It does not. There is a smaller, stretchy area in the middle of the mopping pad called the vibration area. The mop mount has an area that wiggles. It wiggles the vibration plate. The vibration plate is velcro'd to the vibration area of the mop pad, and that is the only part that "scrubs." So it scrubs in the middle, but not the full 11 in. width of the pad - it is not edge-to-edge.
So, my house runs smoothest when the eufy RoboVac G30 vacuums the house first (it's smaller, gets into more places, and a low-profile to get under furniture), and then I activate the Roborock S7+ to do the mopping. I DO wonder if this means I should have purchased a dedicated mopping robot with spinning pads, but most of them are not very smart and most of them don't work with Alexa.
The onboard software needs some work. The S7+ definitely knows where the vacuum is in the head, doing a fine job whenever I use it. But it has NO idea where its rear-end with the mopping pad is going. This is never more obvious than on an outside-curve. The refrigerator is ever so slightly rounded, and bows out a bit, and the S7+ gets its nose all the way around it, but the mop never comes near the edge. There is about 8 in. in front of my fridge that the S7+ has never been able to mop. It does a find job moving in a straight line under the cabinets and dishwasher, but that outside-curve foils the S7+ every time. I have to get my swiffer wet jet to clean that area. Also, the software is too conservative when it maps out the room. It reminds me of how some older children use a coloring book. The S7+ will go around the outside edge of the room cleaning about a 12 in. wide strip along the way. Then it will go back and forth within the outline to clean the area. However, it proceeds to mop WITHIN that original 12 in. strip. Never again reaching the edges. So it misses the opportunity to mop the spaces it failed to reach in front of the refrigerator. If the onboard software was updated, it could fix a tremendous amount of dead areas. There is a lot of criticism of the bump-and-pivot style, non-laser units, like my RoboVac G30, but it never, ever misses a spot. And I have since duct-taped a swiffer duster pad to its butt, so every time it turns around, it dusts the baseboards.
Another weakness in the S7+ is that it has a VERY difficult time with rather common door saddles. This, I really don't understand, but it appears to be mechanical. The saddle in the door frame between my hallway and bathroom doesn't seem high at all. The RoboVac G30 has no issue getting over it. The S7+ fails to enter the room 6 out of 10 times. Once the nose goes over the saddle, the middle of the body catches a fulcrum point, and the wheels cannot push the robot over the saddle. Sometimes it can, but it fails enough that I have learned to place the S7+ in that room before I issue the command to "Start Cleaning." It seems to have no problem leaving that room, but isn't good at entering it. So again, there is no such thing as unattended cleaning.
Just a final note. These things I have mentioned are not a big deal to me. In the grand scheme of things, my floors have never been this consistently clean. Many people point out that these robots can't scrub and clean as effectively as a person with a mop - that is clearly true. However, the S7+ keeps you very far ahead of the game, and this "frequent maintenance" very dramatically reduces the need for manual mopping.
