Unveiled at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Roborock's new line of robot vacuums probably didn't get the attention it deserved. This is due to another vacuum from the Chinese company, the Saros Z70, which wowed everyone with its articulated arm and its ability to clear away objects left in its path. As a result, the Saros 10 and 10R had a relatively anonymous start to their lives... until now.
Indeed, we've been testing the Saros 10, the version with a vibrating mop, for a few weeks now. After about twenty days of daily use, the conclusion is quite clear: the Saros 10 is probably the best vacuum cleaner available. It's not perfect, of course, and suffers from some shortcomings, but the performance it demonstrates and the progress made in certain specific aspects of navigation and cleaning confirm, if need be, that these once gimmicky products have entered a new phase of their development. In this aspect and many others, the Saros 10 seems to us to be the most above the fray, as our full review attests.
Finally something new in terms of design!
Like many robot vacuums, the new Saros 10 is sold with a cleaning station. But unlike the majority of its competitors and its rather dull predecessors, it innovates somewhat in terms of its design. More compact and more compact, the station has a glossy facade which, while it won't please everyone, at least has the merit of breaking the mold a little. The downside of this compactness is unfortunately the fresh water and waste water tanks are more limited in capacity, but, as we will see later, this choice has little impact on the ease of use and maintenance of the Saros 10.
Regarding the robot itself, Roborock's designers haven't had as much freedom to express their boldness. The Saros 10 has a very classic design. That of a rounded robot vacuum cleaner that stands out only for its thinness: only 7.98 cm, which allows it to easily slip under furniture and other sofas.
Next-generation navigation
Navigation is one of the aspects in which the Saros 10 stands out from the Saros 10R. Unlike its "stepbrother," the R doesn't rely on a laser rangefinder like our test model, but on an LDS system and a 3D ToF that allows it to scan and map a room with increased precision. They are aided by a camera as well as lateral sensors that will help the robot move nimbly between conventional furniture and obstacles that it might encounter on its path. In this respect, the Saros 10R is probably a little better than the 10 in our test on navigation, which doesn't prevent our Saros 10 from doing very well.
Indeed, it has a three-level fine adjustment allowing its owner to adjust its behavior to its environment. In concrete terms, it is possible to ask the robot vacuum to be very vigilant and delicately navigate around each obstacle or, on the contrary, to take a little less precaution, even if it means knocking over a few chairs and other pairs of slippers that have been left lying around.
In any case, the Saros 10 performs without flinching, aided in its task by its fairly advanced obstacle recognition system. Indeed, the robot has in its database around a hundred objects that it is able to recognize and report to its user. The latter can be satisfied with a simple description or even ask its vacuum cleaner to take a photo of the obstacle encountered.
Finally, it's impossible to talk about navigation without mentioning noise pollution. In terms of noise generation, the Saros 10 once again performs very well, with an operating noise of less than 50 dB. Its docking station is slightly louder during a cleaning cycle, but this remains short-lived and acceptable.
Cleaning performance: above average
The first observation regarding the Saros 10's cleaning performance is somewhat surprising. On paper, it is simply Roborock's most powerful robot vacuum cleaner, with a power of 22,000 Pa. In our various cleaning tests, the Saros 10 proved very effective, recovering all the contents poured in to judge it. Its few weak points in floor cleaning are the same as those of its competitors. Thus, when placed against a thick carpet, it proves less effective on the edges of the carpet.
Finally, the most significant limitations in terms of cleaning are those linked to the Saros 10's form factor. In other words, with its round shape, it is difficult to clean effectively in corners, despite a rotating brush having a certain freedom of movement. On the other hand, when it comes to simple vacuuming, its small brush is much more effective and manages to reach small dust particles nestled in corners.
In the end, the cleaning results are more than satisfactory, and even if the Saros 10 is not the most powerful in its category, it is one of the most effective.
One of the applications the most comprehensive on the market
Like its predecessors, the Saros 10 can of course be controlled manually, but it is most often the mobile application that will serve as the interface. It is one of the most comprehensive on the market and undoubtedly the one that offers the most customization to the user. We won't go into detail about all the possible settings, there are far too many, but let's say that Roborock allows both fine management of each cleaning session (demarcation of areas, suction or washing intensity, number of passes, etc.) but also leaves the possibility of relying on its intelligent system so as not to have to manage anything.
We were able to test both modes of operation, and even if manual management requires a little time to choose its settings, we recommend that you favor it over Roborock's "SmartPlan". Not that the AI-based system is incompetent, but it shows a tendency to settle for a minimum service where a demanding user would undoubtedly wish for more effort. An example: although it automatically detects the kitchen, the Saros 10 only makes a simple pass in automatic mode, including when it detects traces of liquid such as fruit juice. Admittedly, this simple pass allows it to erase most of the trace most of the time, but the robot often proves more efficient when it is asked to systematically pass a second time in the most sensitive rooms.
Maintenance: a model of its kind
In this paragraph dedicated to maintenance, we will mainly talk about the home base. And for good reason, it is this which is supposed to ensure the maintenance of the vacuum cleaner. Roborock's promise is that you only need to intervene on the robot very occasionally. In this sense, the Saros 10's performance is excellent. In fact, we didn't need to turn the robot over other than to check the cleanliness of its rotating brushes or the absence of hair collected on the side of the brush.
Indeed, on these two points, the Saros 10 is exemplary. Regarding cleanliness in general, the docking station does an excellent job of cleaning thanks to an optimized maintenance cycle that includes vacuuming dust, but also drying the two brushes at 80°C. As for hair and pet hair, the nemesis of robot vacuums, Roborock seems to have found a very effective solution. Its new brush called "DuoDivide" is actually made up of two parallel rollers that don't rotate at the same speed, which redirects hair directly into the dust bin. This anti-tangle system proves to be very effective. On this point, Roborock achieves the same level of results as a Dreame X50 Ultra Complete, which impressed us during its test.
More generally, this is one of the aspects in which robot vacuums have made the most progress in recent years, which considerably reduces maintenance requirements.
Finally, as for its rather limited tanks, they didn't cause us any particular problems. Filling and emptying obviously depend on how often the robot vacuum cleaner is used, but overall, the Saros 10R seems to have controlled consumption of its resources, which also limits maintenance.
Autonomy and recharging: it has room
The results are also very satisfactory in terms of the vacuum cleaner's autonomy. In our typical use case, a pass over an area of approximately 50 m² only uses 35% of the battery. Of course, when we ask it to pay more attention to certain areas, a double pass or a greater intensity of passage in the kitchen, for example, this total drops considerably, but in any case the Saros 10's battery never seemed limited to us and the Roborock robot vacuum knows how to manage its battery intelligently with regular passes through its docking station when necessary.
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