Roborock S5 Max Robotic Mop and Vacuum Review

Cleaning the floor isn’t something I like to do, but it’s a task that must be done to keep the house clean. Instead of sweeping, vacuuming, or mopping myself, I’ve automated the process with my Roborock robot vacuum. I named my vacuum Rosie and she does a great job, so when I was asked to test out the new Roborock S5 Max Robotic Mop and Vaccum, I was excited to see what upgrades it had.

The Roborock S5 Max looks just like my Roborock, but under the hood it’s received a few improvements. It has a larger water tank, precise water control so you can adjust the volume of water that hits your floor when mopping, and more intense suction than previous models.

Here’s my look at the Roborock S5 Max and how well it will clean your floors.

Appearance and features of Roborock S5 Max

• High-precision laser navigation and 32-bit quad-core processor will scan the room at 300RPM to create a map of your home’s floors
• Strong 2000Pa suction with HEPA filter picks up every speck of dirt
• Designed with accelerometer, odometer, infra-red, compass, and bumper to keep Roborock from sliding downstairs or getting trapped under furniture
• 290ml water tank with peristaltic pump will precisely distribute the amount of water you’d like to use to mop your floors
• Water tank large enough to clean up to 2600 square feet in one session
• Rechargeable battery charges via an included docking station and will clean up to 3 hours depending on setting you’re using
• Mi Home app lets you control your robot vacuum to set up selective room cleaning, schedule daily cleanings, change the water flow or suction levels of your vacuum, and add virtual barriers

Testing the Roborock S5 Max robot mop and vacuum

I’ve been using the Roborock S50 for a year so I’m used to how Roborock robot vacuums work. Because I’m already a Roborock owner, the numerous upgrades on the Roborock S5 Max really impressed me.

Improved room mapping

The Roborock S5 Max has a lot of technology onboard to intelligently map your home’s layout. Along with a 32-bit quad-core processor, it has an accelerometer, odometer, infra-red, compass, and bumper. It also has high-precision laser navigation to scan the room at 300RPM and create a real-time algorithm. Your home’s map, when complete, will be 98% accurate.

I had to run it a few times for it to figure out what to clean and what not to clean, but once it did it followed a very precise plan every time it set out.

That floor plan is important for a few reasons. First, when your robot vacuum knows where to clean, it stays out of areas you don’t want it in. I wanted it to clean my main floor area in the kitchen and the living room, so I shut the bedroom doors as I didn’t want them mapped. The vacuum bumped into the doors a few times, but once it had the map set it didn’t even glide up against them when cleaning.

The other reason why it’s important your robot vacuum is able to map out your home is so the robot can converse battery power. I had the Roborock mopping at high water output and Turbo setting, and because it had the map and knew how much space it had to left to clean, it went back to the dock to recharge before setting out again.

Powerful suction and wide opening pulls in every bit of debris

I didn’t intend for the Roborock S5 Max to suck up Lego, but I found a few pieces in the dust bin on more than one occasion. It even picked up a long piece that I never would have thought would fit in a robot vacuum.

The Roborock S5 Max has 2000Pa suction and a HEPA filtration system on board. You can tell the suction has improved on this Roborock, because nothing is left behind when it is cleaning. I liked how it would pick up dust and dirt, but it was smart enough not to suck in my computer cable when it rolled over it. It would pull it halfway into the dust bin and then stop until I dislodged it.

The Roborock S5 Max will vacuum carpets, but it won’t vacuum the one carpet I have that is a very high pile. I don’t have any low pile carpets in the house so I only tested it out on my floors.

It easily cleaned up a mess of juice powder left on the floor by my kids, and I found it thoroughly removed most of the pet hair from the floor. A few spots were missed while the S5 was initially making its map of my house, but it became more thorough every day it cleaned.

The Roborock easily glides around my furniture, bumping up against it slightly to ensure it cleans every spot, and the rotating brush on the front of the vacuum pushes debris toward the dust bin. The dust bin can really hold a lot too, and that was one of my favourite features when I tested out the first Roborock robot vacuum. It easily cruised around my house, picking up everything, without asking me to empty the bin.

Mopping with the Roborock S5 Max

When you put the mop attachment on the Roborock S5 Max, it will intuitively know it’s time to mop the floor. The water reservoir on this model has been upgraded to hold 290ml of water, and that’s enough to clean up to 2600 square feet at one time.

The Roborock S5 has an ultra-precise peristaltic pump. It’s the same type of pump used in hospital IV drips, and that gives you the ability to control the water flow during mopping. To adjust water flow, you just need to login to the app and choose how intense you’d like the water to be.

This robot vacuum is pretty impressive when it mops, and I say that as someone who’s already been using a robot mop for a long time. It definitely cleaned up the dirty spots, and there were only a few spots I decided to pre-soak before the robot ran over them.

I had it set to full water flow and on Turbo mode when it was mopping. Because the robot knew it still had floor to clean but the battery was running low, it went back to the dock to recharge so it could finish it all. On the way back to the dock it told me to remove the mop liner and replace it with a fresh liner so the rest of the mopping was as efficient as possible.

The Roborock S5 Max will turn the water off if it knows it has already mopped one area, and it will shoot out a large amount of water when it starts to clean so it will wet the mop liner. You can definitely see where the mop has been before it dries. It dries clean, not streaky.

Mii app and voice control 

The Mii app is pretty simple and easy to use. You can tap to turn your vacuum on or send it to a specific zone. You can set different zones in your house so your mop will only spot clean if you want it to. You can also use the app to navigate the Roborock like it’s a remote control vehicle, which I think is kind of fun.

Scheduling your cleaning, changing the suction, and changing the water pressure are all easy to do in the app, and as long as you keep the firmware up to date, you should never have connection issues.

You can add your vacuum to your Google Home or Alexa and use voice control. If you set up zones you can use commands like, “OK Google, tell Roborock to vacuum kitchen” and it will send your vacuum to your kitchen. It’s a nice feature to have if you really use your voice assistant, but I generally have my vacuum set on a schedule so I don’t use voice control that much.

Should you choose the Roborock S5 Max?

I’m a Roborock owner myself, and I enjoyed using the Roborock S5 Max. It efficiently cleans my floors, picking up pet hair, dirt, debris, and even Lego along the way. The dust bin has more than enough space to hold debris from my main floor, and it can cruise over small bumps and keep cleaning.

The S5 Max rarely got itself into a jam when cleaning, so I didn’t have to pull it out from under a bed or untangle cords caught up in the brushes. When it’s done cleaning it will head back to the dock on its own to recharge, and I like how it will sense how much more it has to clean and head back for a top-up before starting to clean again.

It’s easy to clean the filter included with the Roborock S5. I usually shake it clean at the same time I’m emptying the dust bin, but you can run it under water and let it dry to really remove the excess dust it collects.

The mop function is best for damp mopping to remove excess dust on the floors. It won’t sense that there’s a spill it needs to work on, but you can control the water and that does make mopping more efficient. I recommend changing out the mop cloth mid-mop to ensure you don’t have streaky floors.

If you want a hands-free way to keep your floors clean, the Roborock S5 Max delivers, and now that I’ve tried it I’m an even bigger Roborock fan than I was before.