Roborock S8 Pro Ultra vs. S8 vs. S8+

The Most Feature-Rich Robot Vacuum Yet

It's the latest flagship product from Roborock and it could be considered the most advanced robot vacuum ever released. 

The basics

The Roborock S8 is the name of the robot vacuum only with a standard charger. 

The S8+ version comes with an auto-empty dust bin and the Pro Ultra version comes with the Ultra dock which is an auto-empty dust bin and an auto-mopping dock. 

The S8 also comes with two different color options a black and a white version.

Roborock S8 Pro Ultra

A self-cleaning, auto-emptying docking station places it a few notches above other robot vacuums, ensuring a mostly hands-off cleaning experience. 

 

$1599.99 on Amazon

Pros

1. Debris pickup tests
2. Mopping features
3. Ultra dock
4. Navigation, obstacle avoidance
5. App and map features

Debris pickup tests

It's a good robot vacuum in our various pickup tests it excelled at pickup on both hard floors and carpets.

Picking up various types and sizes of debris on both surface types with no issues. It also excelled in its mopping capabilities with all of its many mopping-related features. 

Mopping features and tests

Roborock has introduced the new Viberized 2.0 system with the S8 which means that it now vibrates. At two points instead of one on the mop pad for enhanced scrubbing intensity. 

This improvement was evident in both our dried-on mopping tests and wet mopping tests where it delivered some of the best results. 

The S8 Pro Ultra is one of the few robot vacuums on the market with a mop pad that automatically raises when it senses carpet. 

This feature enables it to vacuum and mop homes with a mix of hard floors and carpet in just one run which is a significant game changer in the industry.

Was tested its mop-raising capability on both high-pile and low-pile carpets and aside from occasionally getting the edges of carpets wet. Because it would try to cover both surface types at the same time the S8 Pro Ultra was otherwise flawless with keeping carpets and rugs dry when raising its mop pad. 

One new mopping feature in the app is that you can now choose which way the floors in your home lay. So that it will mop with the grain to reduce streaks and it's the only robot vacuum. 

Ultra dock

The rest of its mopping features have to do with its newly designed Ultra dock. 

So it's still an auto-empty dock where it empties the contents of its dustbin automatically and it still automatically washes its mop pad and refills and empties its mop tank.

Which is the pinnacle of automated floor care systems. 

But it now comes standard with an auto mop pad drying system in which over the course of hours it drives the mop pad which makes it much more sanitary.

Navigation and obstacle avoidance

Roborock is one of the best in the business when it comes to navigating around your house and that seems to only have gotten better with the S8. 

In our new navigation tests where we run it several times on a fixed floor plan on different modes and different power settings, it was the most efficient robot vacuum of any other flagship robot including shooting the previous S7 MaxV.

It was also extremely good with its overall coverage.

Its fast mapping system was also amazing creating a map of the floor plan in only four minutes faster than any previous robot we tested. 

There was a big change in the obstacle avoidance sensors from the S7 MaxV to the S8. Because they left out the camera on the new S8.

Instead relying on structured light and infrared images to help it see and avoid obstacles.

But in any case, it didn't affect the obstacle avoidance performance much if at all in our now standardized tests it scored a 9 out of 12 which is a little better than the previous Roborock S7 MaxV and it's tied for the best score we've seen so far. 

The obstacle avoidance sensors are not yet perfect but they are certainly better than not having it as a feature. 

App and map features

The app and map features are very extensive there are lots of extras like:

• no-go lines 
• room select 
• zone cleaning 
• specialized scheduling features 

And you can program it to clean some rooms with different power or mop settings. 

It has 3D maps and multi-floor maps you can adjust the frequency of the mop pad cleaning or auto-empty. 

One highly anticipated feature of the S8 is its dual brush roll design. 

iRobot has had a patent on this two-brush concept for 20 years that ended not coincidentally. Around the release date of the Roborock S8 Pro, it's supposed to help with vacuuming carpets and hair tangles. 

Cons

1. Carpet deep cleaning
2. Power
3. Battery life

Carpet deep cleaning

I was really hoping that the dual brush roll system would translate to better carpet deep cleaning scores. 

But in the deep clean test that we do where we embed send into medium pile carpet, it wasn't all that impressive. It was above average but nothing to write home about and even less than the Roborock S7 MaxV.

Though this could possibly be explained by it having seemingly lower than the S7 MaxV. 

Power

We test suction and airflow and it seemed kind of low on both it was also pretty bad with the crevice pickup test not even as good as the previous Roborock. 

Which I don't really have a good explanation for other than it having lower power.

Battery life

Another thing is that it has one of the best battery specs in the industry using a large 5200 milliamp-hour battery rated at 180 minutes per charge on low power.

It was slightly less efficient than the previous Roborock in tests. 

Though we still calculated its range at a little over 1200 feet per charge which is a huge amount. 

Conclusion

So despite its mildly disappointing carpet deep clean scores its other features and general performance were enough to have it the best robot vacuum yet. 

And it's by far the best and most advanced mopping system on the market.

It has all the possible features and upgrades that you would expect from a robot vacuum in this premium price range.