New Roborock vacuum robot cleans up with a gripper arm

Manufacturer Roborock calls its new top models Saros and is presenting several of them as world premieres at the CES tech fair in Las Vegas. The Saros Z70 with an integrated gripper arm is particularly spectacular.

Saros Z70: robotic arm cleans up

The Roborock models can already climb, but now another spectacular feature has been added. The Saros Z70 is equipped with a foldable, five-axis robot arm, which is housed in the robot hoover's casing and extends when required. It can work both horizontally and vertically and grip selected obstacles. It then removes them to a designated place.

Obstacles can be socks or toys lying around, for example. In this first version, the weight of the objects is limited to 300 grams. The clean-up function is also only available for some of the 108 obstacles that the system recognises. The robotic arm, which is equipped with a camera and infrared, can also be controlled via the app.

Despite the gripper arm, the Saros Z70 is only 7.98 centimetres high as it does not have a sensor tower. The suction power of the Z70 is 22,000 pascals and the rotating mops can be raised by up to 2.2 centimetres. It also has the same climbing system as the Roborock Qrevo Curv and can therefore overcome thresholds of up to three centimetres in height.

The Z70 will be available in the first markets from February. It is not yet clear whether this will include Switzerland or other European countries. A price of 1600 dollars was announced at the CES. It can therefore be assumed that it will cost at least 1600 francs here too.

Saros 10: Laser turret is retracted

The actual successors to the S8 series are the Saros 10 models. Roborock presented the Saros 10 as an entry-level version at CES. However, it does not rely on rotating mops, but continues to use a vibrating mopping plate - which has always performed slightly worse in my tests so far. However, the new plate is said to be 26 per cent larger and works with more vibrations and increased pressure on the floor.

The laser tower in the Saros 10 can be retracted, which means that the robot hoover is only 7.98 centimetres high and can also clean under sofas and beds with low floor clearance. Roborock has also integrated a vertical laser to enable even more precise vacuuming along and under furniture.

As with the Z70, the suction power is 22,000 pascals; with the Roborock S8 it was just 6,000 pascals. The climbing system is also installed here, which can overcome thresholds of up to three centimetres. The base station has also been updated: The mop is now washed with water heated to 80 degrees.

Price and release date of the Saros 10 have not yet been finalised.

Saros 10R: new navigation technology

The Saros 10R offers similar functions to the Saros 10, but has some key differences. For example, Roborock uses rotating mops that can also be extended to the side - in my opinion the better choice for mopping the floor when it's wet. The mops can be dropped in the station, which was previously not the case with Roborock.

The new StarSight Autonomous System uses AI and 3D cameras for navigation. This means that the Saros 10R does not need a laser turret and remains just 7.98 centimetres high in any situation. However, the 10R does not have a height advantage over the retractable laser turret of the Saros 10.

According to the manufacturer, the advantage of the new navigation lies in the 21 times higher scanning rate, which enables faster orientation and more precise obstacle detection. This should make cleaning faster and more thorough, especially along irregular edges.

The suction power of the 10R is 19,000 Pascal and is therefore slightly lower than that of the Saros 10, but the base station and the climbing system up to three centimetres are standard in this model series.

Price and release date of the Saros 10R are not yet known.