The Roborock Saros Z70 ($2,599) has one of the coolest innovations I've seen in years: A retractable arm that can pick up socks and other items on the floor and put them back where they belong. Its robotic appendage has the potential to truly advance the category, but in its first iteration, it's more of a party trick than a useful tool. This high-end robot vacuum and mop hybrid otherwise offers an extensive feature set, including support for self-emptying, automatic mop washing and drying, built-in voice controls, security camera functionality, and the ability to lift itself over obstacles. While attractive to early adopters willing to pay for the bleeding edge of robotic technology and deal with its growing pains, the Saros Z70's exorbitant price makes it a model to skip if you're simply looking for practical cleaning help. For $1,299.99, the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni is a better all-around cleaner and remains our Editors’ Choice winner for hybrid robot vacuums.

The Robot Arm: Cooler in Concept

Humanoid robot butler demos have long been a staple at CES, complete with arms that can recognize and grab objects and put them away, but the Roborock Saros Z70 isn’t a concept. It’s real and available for purchase. Having a functional robotic arm that can transport objects is a watershed moment for robot vacuums.

And the robot arm is indeed functional. In testing, it successfully grabbed socks and transported them to the correct bin in a different room before resuming its vacuuming. As of now, the Z70 can only lift objects as heavy as 10.58 ounces. Moreover, it can only recognize and pick up certain items, including sandals, small towels, socks, and tissues.

For it to work properly, socks or paper must be bundled into a ball. For sandals or slippers, the opening must be facing toward the center of the room, not toward the side. Any object you want picked up has to be on a hard floor, not carpeting, and can’t be too close to a wall or in too narrow of a space.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

By the time you get objects suitably prepared for the Z70 to grab them, you could have picked them up yourself several times over. You can manually control the robot arm from the Z70's companion Roborock app (available for Android and iOS) to have it grab any object under the weight limit, and while doing so is a fun novelty, it’s not exactly a quick process. At the moment, the robot arm is unlikely to actually save you any time or effort when it comes to picking up your place, but it's cool to watch in action.

With further development to expand its dexterity, object repertoire, and weight limit, the robotic arm could someday become a real utility of robot vacuums. Roborock has promised to expand the small list of items the Z70 can recognize and transport through future software updates, but the object weight limit is likely due to hardware limitations and will thus remain.

Features: Plenty of Bells and Whistles

Besides the robot arm, all of the Saros Z70's features can be found on more affordable models in Roborock's lineup. It sits alongside the Saros 10 and the Saros 10R, both of which are priced at $1,599.99, with the main differences being their mopping and navigation systems. In terms of suction power, the Saros Z70 and the Saros 10 have a class-leading 22,000Pa, slightly beating the 10R (20,000Pa), the $999.99 Eufy Omni E28 (20,000Pa), and the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni (18,000Pa).

The Saros Z70 and the 10R mop with dual-spinning pads, whereas the Saros 10 is the only member of the trio with the company’s old semicircular VibraRise mopping system. All three support automatic mop detaching, a new feature for Roborock models we first saw on Dreame robot vacuums last year.

For navigation, the Saros Z70 and the 10R feature Roborock's new StarSight 2.0 system, which ditches the common LiDAR tower in favor of embedded dual time-of-flight sensors for a shorter build, while the Saros 10 features a retractable LiDAR sensor. All three members of the Saros series offer notable features of Roborock's previous flagship models, including the AdaptiLift Chassis for clearing obstacles and thresholds that debuted on the Qrevo series and the home security camera functionality first introduced on the MaxV Ultra series.

Otherwise, the Saros Z70 and its included base station offer all the capabilities you’d expect of a premium robot vacuum and mop hybrid. The dock empties the robot's dustbin into a bag that can hold about seven weeks' worth of debris. It washes the mop pads with water heated up to 176 degrees Fahrenheit to remove grime, then dries them with 131-degree heated air. It even refills the robot's mopping tank with warm water and detergent from a separate compartment.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

While cleaning, the robot can lift its own chassis up to 0.39 inches to clear obstacles, and raise its mop pads 0.87 inches to avoid carpeting. Both its side brush and one of its mop pads extend to the side to clean along walls and in corners.

For home surveillance, you can view a live stream from the robot's camera and send it on automated security patrols via the Roborock app. It can even send you photos of your pets or be sent out to look for your furry friends specifically. You can control the robot through voice commands issued directly to it via the wake words “Hello Rocky," and it’s compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant for further voice command options. As with previous models, I struggled to control the robot using the built-in voice assistant without precise phrasing. It does not respond to natural language, but did accurately follow my instructions when I said a supported command word-for-word.

Roborock is also planning to add Matter support to this robot and other recent high-end models for improved interoperability with third-party smart home devices. The feature is expected to arrive via an upcoming over-the-air update, so I could not test it for this review.

Design: Shiny Style

Since the robotic arm is retracted by default, the Saros Z70 looks like a relatively ordinary, puck-shaped robot vacuum at a glance. The panel covering the arm is tinted and semi-transparent, but reflective at an off-angle. An emergency stop button sits on a silver, plastic rim surrounding the panel.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

There are two other physical buttons, both backlit, sitting just above the arm’s compartment. The top power button boots up and shuts down the robot with a long press, or you can tap it to start or pause a run. The lower home button returns the robot to its base.

A plastic panel behind the arm’s compartment lifts away to reveal the dustbin for manual emptying and filter cleaning. Just behind this panel is an upward-facing VertiBeam laser with its own indent. This laser supplements the time-of-flight navigation sensors and RGB camera in the front bumper by helping the robot avoid lateral obstacles and letting it sense when it can fit under furniture.

The back section of the robot holds its internal mopping water compartment. On the bottom, cliff sensors surround the perimeter, an omnidirectional caster wheel sits in front, and two retracting main wheels flank the center brush roll.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

The main brush roll is removable and combines rubber fins, bristles, and metallic slots to keep the system clear of tangles. The mopping pads snap into their own hexagonal slots on the bottom of the robot and pull free easily for manual washing. The left pad has a slot to the side, allowing it to extend. The side brush on the bottom can also lift out of the way when needed or extend to the side.

Since the Z70’s navigation system uses embedded time-of-flight sensors instead of a raised LiDAR, it’s distinctly shorter at 3.14 inches than models with a sensor tower like the 3.8-inch Dreame X30 Ultra ($1,699.99). The Z70's rounded body is slightly longer than it is wide (13.9 by 13.8 inches). It’s shorter than the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni, with matching length and width dimensions (13.9 by 13.8 by 3.9 inches).

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

The Z70’s mostly rectangular base station measures 19.2 by 15.0 by 18.7 inches (HWD). The clean and dirty water reservoirs are visible from the top. They lift away with recessed handles and have pivoting lids that latch closed. The front of the base is black and reflective, with a centered indicator light. The bottom third pulls away to reveal the dust bag and detergent compartment. Beneath the panel is the robot's bay for charging and self-cleaning, with an attachable ramp extending the length in front.

I prefer the Saros 10's base, which pivots open to reveal the dust bag instead of having the whole panel detach, and also has a simple lid covering the water reservoirs on top. The Saros Z70's base has a more modular look than its sibling's, but it's still stylish. Minor quibbles and taste preferences aside, Roborock continues to nail it on the style front.

Setup: A Couple of Simple Steps

The Saros Z70 box holds the usual fare, including the vacuum itself, the base station, a ramp for the base, the power cord, mop pads, and one extra dust bag in addition to the one already installed. Inside the box, you'll also find a quick start guide, instruction booklets, and a fold-out page on card stock listing all of the robot's supported voice commands. When you need more dust bags, you can buy a three-pack for $31.99.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

In addition to the usual pieces, the box includes a flattened cardboard box that assembles into what looks like a small trash can with the Roborock logo. You can set this up as a sorting area for the robot arm, and it assembles quickly as you simply unfold it and then affix it in place with the included 3M adhesive. The bottom has rubber pads to stop it from sliding on hard flooring.

Roborock recommends placing both the bin and the base station on hard flooring. The base needs 2.46 feet of clearance on top so you can access the water tanks, 1.31 feet of clearance on each side, and 3.94 feet of free space in front so the robot can easily come and go. You’ll also want a spot near an outlet and with good Wi-Fi coverage.

Once you get the base in place, snap on the ramp, plug it in, and fill the clean water reservoir and, optionally, the detergent dispenser. Roborock says to use cool tap water for the former and first-party detergent for the latter. You can buy a 16-ounce bottle of floor cleaning solution for $18.99.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

At this point, you’ll need to install the Roborock app (for Android and iOS) on your phone and create an account if you’re new to the brand. Boot up the robot by holding the power button for three seconds, and follow the instructions in the app to add the robot and connect it to your home Wi-Fi network. During this process, you'll need to hold the power and dock buttons simultaneously for a few seconds to reset the robot's Wi-Fi.

Once connected to Wi-Fi, press the robot's home button to send it to the dock to charge. The app will walk you through configuring a few settings like hours for Do Not Disturb mode, which dims indicator lights and disables automatic cleaning and fluid top-ups. You can optionally enable extra obstacle vigilance by indicating that you have pets, and turn on a setting that will sense and boost suction power over carpeting. Finally, I recommend you turn on both map saving and the embedded voice assistant, which are off by default, as both add a lot to the robot's functionality.

After that, the app will prompt you to open doors, pick up junk on the floor, and send the Saros Z70 on a mapping run. Mine stopped working halfway through my first attempt to map my 1,500-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment. It succeeded on its second try, however, and finished the mapping process in 10 minutes and 16 seconds. The Saros 10 took 12 minutes to complete the same task, while the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni beat both and mapped my place in 8 minutes.

The resulting map produced by the Saros Z70 looked accurate, especially the outer borders. It also got some of the borders between rooms and flooring types within them correct. It produced a more accurate map than the Deebot X8, though I still had to manually adjust a few borders, which is customary when setting up most robot vacuums these days. This map-editing process was more intuitive and quicker with the Z70 than the X8, though both of their companion apps offer a similar set of options as far as adding flooring types, keep-out zones, and other map customizations.

Testing the Arm: Exciting and Disappointing

The Saros Z70's robot arm requires its own app setup process. To enable it, go to Settings > Robotic Arm Settings > Enable Robotic Arm, or press the button labeled Remote Control to Pick Up on the main device page, then follow the prompts.

The app lets you add the Roborock storage box location to the map, along with a separate spot for shoe storage. You can also toggle settings to have the robot either automatically sort objects or ask you where each one goes. I enabled automatic sorting for the bulk of my testing.

On my initial test, the Saros Z70 detected and picked up a balled-up sock from the middle of my kitchen floor, moved it to my bedroom, and dropped it off in the storage box before moving back to the initial spot and continuing to clean, now unobstructed by the sock. It performed flawlessly, and it was exciting to see the robot arm in action.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

On my next test, the robot arm picked up a wadded piece of paper and moved it to the correct spot. One of the fingers used to grab the paper got caught on it as it tried to drop it in the bin, so it dropped it next to the bin instead.

The rest of the tests were even less successful. The next time the robot picked up a sock, it dropped it right on itself near the base of the arm. This caused the robot to send me an error message that it detected the sock in the pinch point. After removing the sock, I had to hold down the power and emergency stop buttons to reset the arm.

Even slight deviations from the recommended usage conditions caused it to fail. For instance, when I placed a supported object like a sock on an unsupported surface like carpet, the Z70 wouldn’t even recognize it as something needing to be picked up.

(Credit: Roborock/PCMag)

From the app, you can also manually extend and control the arm. When doing so, you can position an object inside a projected blue box in front of the robot and have the arm pick it up automatically, or fully manipulate the pitch and angle of the grab, assisted by a camera on the appendage itself. Even when using the blue box to enact automated control, the object has to be on Roborock's recognized list, but you can grab whatever you want under the weight limit with the manual controls.

The app gave me the same error message about obstacles in pinch points each time I tried to manually control the arm, so Roborock ended up replacing my first unit. The second unit worked without issue. Grabbing an obstacle with the manual controls isn't a quick process, as the system isn't finely tuned for precision. It is possible, though, and within a couple of minutes, I was able to properly position the robot and have it grab one of my cats' toys. I felt like I'd won an arcade claw machine game.

(Credit: Roborock/PCMag)

While controlling the arm, you can flip the live view back and forth between the camera on the front of the robot and the one on the robot arm using the buttons in the top left corner of the app's display. As with automatic sorting, it is functional, but more of a fun gimmick than a helpful cleaning feature.

Navigation: Thorough and Customizable

The Saros Z70 capably navigated through my home when cleaning, and was one of the rare robot vacuums that I’ve tested that never once got stuck.

Despite its new StarSight 2.0 navigation system, however, the Z70 doesn't improve upon obstacle avoidance compared with previous Roborock models I've tested. I evaluate obstacle evasion on all high-end vacuums with cat toys of varying shapes and sizes intentionally scattered on the floor. The Z70 dodged a couple of these obstacles on hardwood, but it ran over everything on carpet, from small plastic mice to big foil balls. This has been a trouble spot for Roborock for a couple of generations, and the Saros 10 struggled with this test as well. For comparison, the Deebot X8 occasionally bumped the bigger toys, but didn’t run over anything and completely avoided the plastic mice.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

The Saros Z70 isn't the fastest cleaner I've tested, finishing its first combined vacuum and mopping run in 92 minutes, well exceeding the Deebot X8 Pro Omni (77 minutes) and even the Saros 10 (88 minutes). That said, my floors looked spotless when it was done. It picked up all the pet hair shed by my two cats without getting tangled, and it didn’t leave behind any dust bunnies or drop any dirt as it worked. The X8 dropped some litter when moving over a door threshold at one point.

The Z70 took even longer on the second run, finishing in 98 minutes. I did my initial tests of the robot arm during this run, though, so the extra time was warranted, as it was running back and forth to the bin to deposit a sock and a piece of paper.

In the app settings, I configured the Z70 to remove its mop pads and vacuum carpeted areas first, then pick them up and mop hard flooring. With this setting enabled, it vacuumed a single throw rug in my bedroom without its mop pads, then got confused and cleaned the entire rest of my apartment, much of which is carpeted, with the mop pads attached. It still lifted them high enough so as not to get my carpets wet.

I came away from these initial whole-home test runs impressed with the Z70’s thorough cleaning abilities, and didn’t mind that it took longer than some other models.

(Credit: Roborock/PCMag)

I did most of my testing with the robot set to AI Smart Plan so it could determine its own cleaning parameters as it saw fit. In the app, you can also individually customize suction power and water flow levels, have it cover surfaces once or twice, and set the cleaning pattern density for a quicker or more thorough job. The app also lets you send the robot right to specific rooms or zones, and set routines to have it clean at scheduled times.

Battery Life: Suitable for Most Homes

I tested the Saros Z70's battery life by having it perform whole-home runs consecutively until it called it quits and headed back to its base for a charge. It lasted 111 minutes, and it was just about a quarter of the way into its second run when it needed to stop.

For comparison, the Deebot X8 Pro Omni and the Saros 10 both lasted longer (134 minutes and 118 minutes, respectively), but the Saros Z70 still exceeds the 90-minute battery life threshold that I consider adequate to cover most homes in a single run.

Vacuum and Mopping Performance: Struggles With Stubborn Debris

I test vacuuming performance in two different 100-square-foot rooms in my apartment, one with wall-to-wall carpeting and the other with hardwood. I start with a clean floor, then spread a specific amount of rice on the floor, let the robot run, and weigh its dustbin before and after to see how much it picks up. The rice represents everyday debris particles, such as crumbs. I then repeat these tests using sand to gauge stubborn debris pickup. Check out all of the details of my testing procedure here.

The Saros Z70 did quite well picking up rice across both surfaces, scoring a perfect 100% on carpet and 93.5% on hardwood. While rice on carpet is the easiest of these four tests, mostly helping me gauge coverage efficiency, scoring 100% is still relatively rare and impressive. The Deebot X8 came close (99.99%) without quite hitting that mark. Rice on hardwood allows me to assess cleaning performance along corners and edges, and check whether the robot tends to fling dirt as it works. The Z70 kept flinging to a minimum, and posted comparable rice of hardwood scores to the Deebot X8 (90%) and the Saros 10 (95%).

With a score of 82.05%, the Saros Z70 did an excellent job of picking up sand on hardwood. It fell short of the Dreame X30 Ultra on this test, but scored within a few decimal points of both the Deebot X8 and the Saros 10.

Conversely, the Saros Z70 faltered with sand on carpet, my hardest stress test. It only picked up 29.08% of the debris, trailing both the Saros 10 (40.7%) and the Deebot X8 (37.7%). Given its lofty suction power, its performance here might be surprising, but I often find that higher Pa doesn't necessarily equate to better real-world cleaning performance. I run this test using default settings, so it’s also a measure of a robot's smarts. The Saros 10 obviously sensed more dirt than the Z70 and turned up the suction accordingly, perhaps because the Saros 10 doesn’t have to dedicate a chunk of its computing power to managing a robot arm.

The Saros Z70 was also a bit slow in completing the tests, taking an average of 18 minutes and 18 seconds on carpet and 23 minutes and 27 seconds on hardwood. The Deebot X8 averaged faster times on both surfaces.

Moreover, my first Saros Z70 unit exhibited inconsistent cleaning performance during measured testing. It had an anomalously bad result during one run of sand on the carpet and would frequently tell me that the clean water tank in the base was empty when it wasn’t. After a few days of testing, it stuck to the claim that its base was out of fresh water and stopped mopping with any liquid. As mentioned earlier, Roborock sent me a replacement unit that worked as expected.

To test mopping performance, I spread 0.25 ounces of jelly on a spot on my kitchen floor and then let the robot go to work while I closely monitor how much it picked up and spread. The Saros Z70 recognized the stain and tried to avoid it. It mopped everywhere in the room except the stain. At one point, it did a single line over the stain, perhaps losing track of it.

Despite mostly evading the jelly, it still spread a seed or two. The Z70 otherwise mopped well in anecdotal testing, and avoiding the stain could be preferable to making the mess worse, but this result pales in comparison with the Deebot X8's excellent mopping performance.

The Saros Z70's base station thoroughly washed the mops without any noticeable residue left behind.