Roborock Saros 20 Review: Worth Every Penny?

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Need-to-knows

• Super easy sets up in 30 minutes
• Provides a solid level of cleaning, you may still want to hoover once a month
• Obstacle avoidance is great
• Can overcome small steps to get into different rooms

I’m about to say something that I didn’t expect when I first got my hands on the Roborock Saros 20, or maybe it’s just common sense if you think about it long enough. Either way, I’ve discovered that reviewing robotic vacuum cleaners is remarkably simple because you only really need to assess a few key elements. These are as follows:

• Does it actually clean effectively?
• Is it easy to set up and operate?
• Does it get stuck on stuff all the time?
• Is it worth paying well over $1000/£1000 for?

I’ve spent a month with the Roborock Saros 20, which I shall sometimes refer to as ‘Rocky’ from now on (because that’s how you talk to it), and I can safely say that it ticks pretty much all of those above boxes, with a few exceptions. The big question is, do those exceptions make spending that money, and it is a lot of money, a waste? Well, here are my full thoughts as a first-time robot vacuum cleaner user to help you decide!

How I reviewed the Saros 20

Like most people who buy a robot vacuum cleaner, I wanted Rocky to become a complete substitute for manual hoovering and mopping. Let’s be real, you’re paying in order to never have to clean your house, or at least keep it to a minimum.

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As such, I’ve been using Rocky in exactly this way. I haven’t touched my own vacuum cleaner for a month and have been sending Rocky out two to three times a week to keep on top of things. This includes mopping the kitchen and bathroom floors whilst also navigating elevated parts on the thresholds to some rooms.

At a glance

The basics

The key things to know are that Rocky can both vacuum carpets and mop hard floors, automatically switching between the two modes when it detects a change in floor type. That means you can send it out once it has mapped your home and leave it to its own devices.

Rocky comes with a docking station, which is medium sized compared to the rest of the market, that needs to sit in an easy to access place. The dock is where you top up the water for mopping, empty the dirty water and take out the dust bag. It also cleans the mop heads for you.

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There are some nifty special features that are worth knowing about. The first of these is the ‘AdaptLift Chassis 3.0’ which basically means Rocky’s body can be raised slightly to tackle ridges/bumps up to 8.8cm tall. It also has ‘StarSight’, the autonomous system dedicated to detecting objects or areas to avoid, plus a little extendable rotating brush that helps Rocky sweep debris away from walls where it can’t usually reach.

Does it actually clean effectively?

Ok I’m not going to keep the suspense a moment longer. The all important question, does the Saros 20 do a good job of cleaning?

The answer is yes. You don’t get a result that matches an actual hand-held vacuum cleaner, no robotic version does that I’m aware of, but I’d say you get about 80% of that from Rocky. This is simply because hand-held vacuuming is more thorough and vigorous. The best way to describe it is that if I’ve sent Rocky out whilst away, then I’d come home and think ‘somebody has hoovered’, which is rather satisfying considering I hadn’t lifted a finger.

You might notice a few bits of debris that the Saros 20 missed, which I think is to be expected from these machines, but overall the vacuuming does the job.

And it’s a similar case for the mopping. If you have some ingrained, dried stains on your floor then Rocky probably won’t clean them fully because they require a bit of elbow grease to get out. But for lighter stains and general cleanliness, the mopping is great. It’s a new level of satisfaction, that is quite hard to overstate, to get home and see a shiny floor appear without doing anything.

There are some thoughtful touches too that make the Saros 20 a more effective cleaner. The sensors are contained completely within the body of Rocky so it can clean underneath things like your sofa and the ability to lift itself over steps is really handy, although it does sometimes need a few attempts.

Overall, the Saros 20 cleans very well. You can’t buy one expecting a spotless performance, but you will be getting something that does most of the job for you. If you like a completely sparkling home, then you’ll probably feel the need to get the manual hoover out once a month. I’ve been sending Rocky out a few times a week and it’s been perfect for keeping on top of the average mess you normally generate.

Is it easy to set up and operate?

This one is a big fat yes. It literally took me 30 minutes from unboxing to Rocky mapping out my home to begin cleaning.

Once out of the box, you find a spot for the dock, plug it in and fill up the water tank. Yes, that’s all you need to do. Then you clip in the mop heads and brush underneath Rocky, remove all of the tape and place Rocky into the dock to charge.

After that, everything is done via the app which is excellent. You scan a QR code to sync Rocky up with your network and from there you can customise a surprising amount. There are loads of settings to play with from simply changing the suction level to altering the cleaning pattern on hard floors to mop more effectively.

You can set up custom cleaning routines, such as activating after meal times, switch settings to deep cleaning or extra sweeping and get more granular by telling Rocky how to clean specific rooms.

For the first outing, Rocky will roll around and map your home automatically, and then you can start cleaning. You don’t even need to have the dock in a particularly open space, I put mine in the utility cupboard which is a pretty tight area and Rocky has no issues getting in and out.

Keeping everything stocked/clean with the dock is easy too, both the water tanks on top and dust bag inside pop out without any issue. You do have to throw the latter away though, which is a shame. It would be great to get reusable bags in future!

Does it get stuck on stuff all the time?

This all links to what I was saying above but a robot vacuum cleaner that needs your constant attention because it ran over a wire isn’t much use.

Thankfully, the Saros 20 is pretty good at object avoidance. It is excellent with big, static things like chairs or tables which it cleans around without a problem. And for the most part it avoids wires on the floor, but there have been a few instances where I’ve got a notification from the app while out of the house to tell me that Rocky was jammed.

There is a setting in the app to boost wire detection, but in all honesty I think the way to get best results with robot vacuums is to pick stuff like wires up off the floor before cleaning. Obviously, this removes the chances of an accident but it also means that Rocky doesn’t leave an area unclean for being wary of hazards.

The app also comes in really handy here. I have an old fireplace in my front room which has a section of flooring that is slightly lower than the rest of the room. Rocky had trouble detecting this area so I just set up a zone in the app around it and set it to avoid at all times which works perfectly.

Rocky will also label obstacles it has found in the app that it recognises like beds, shoes or lamps. It’s all very clever and means that you can happily leave the Saros 20 to do its work. And, if anything does go wrong, it alerts you in the app.

The only other thing to mention is how it tackles inclines. I have lips on the thresholds to my kitchen and bathroom which are both about 4cm high. At first, Rocky struggled with them but after a few outings, it learned that it needed to engage the lifting legs to get into the rooms.

Conclusion: Is it worth paying well over $1000/£1000 for?

This is a slightly subjective question. It depends on what your budget is and what you’re willing to spend but I will answer this question in two ways.

First off, the purely practical question. Will the Saros 20 clean every inch of your home to the standard of a human? No. But it will provide a very good level of cleanliness that drastically reduces your need to do any mopping/hoovering. Which brings me to…

The second, more philosophical question, of how much value you place on your time. Because you aren’t spending the money here to get a professional grade clean in your home, you’re spending it to buy back a bit of your life.

Has the Saros 20 stopped me from mopping and hoovering? Pretty much. Is this a brilliant feeling? Absolutely. Do I think everyone would benefit from having one of these in their homes? Definitely. And for these reasons, I can’t not recommend the Saros 20.

On the whole, it is an excellent bit of kit that does what it says on the tin and I’m particularly impressed by how easy the app is to use in tandem. The last question to seal the deal on my recommendation is this: would I buy one of these for my mum? You bet! And it would put me in with a shout for being the favourite child…