Roborock Saros 20 Review: A powerful and flexible flagship robot

Design and Features

• Can climb thresholds of up to 8.7cm
• Rotating mop pads
• StarSight Autonomous System 2.0

Last year saw Roborock deliver two, near-identical flagship robots, the Saros 10R and the Saros 10. This year, we get just the one, the Saros 20, which takes the best bits of both previous robots and builds from there with some clever new features.

Externally, the Saros 20 looks more like the Saros 10R, ditching LiDAR in favour of the front-facing StarSight Autonomous System 2.0, which uses 3D ToF sensors to build a view of the world around it. 

With no LiDAR dome, the Saros 20, like its predecessor, is just 79.8mm tall, so it can easily slip under most low bits of furniture (think sofas and sideboards). The LiDAR-based Saros 10 could lower its sensing dome to achieve the same thing, but that’s another moving part; the simpler setup of the Saros 20 is probably a better bet and, in my testing, I’ve seen no real difference in navigation performance between the different navigation systems.

Cameras at the front are used in conjunction with the navigation system to help spot and avoid common household obstacles, too.

Flip the robot over, and the underneath is quite similar to that of the Saros 10, too. Mopping is handled by the dual microfibre mopping cloths, one of which has a FlexiArm attachment, so that the pad can swing out to clean up to the edges of cupboards or under overhangs, such as on a fridge door.

There’s also the DuoDivide main brush, which is a split roller with a gap in the middle. The idea is that hair is channelled towards this gap and sucked up into the bin, rather than getting tangled.

For edge cleaning, there’s a FlexiArm side brush that can swing out when required and even reach into corners.

The Roborock Saros 20 has the new AdaptiLift Chassis 3.0, which lets the robot do some quite clever things. This new version lets the robot lift its chassis by pushing its main wheels down, but there are also additional legs that give the Saros 20 a bit of extra height.

When faced with a double threshold, the Saros 20 can lift up to 4.5cm for the first step and 4.3m for the second, giving a total climb of 8.7cm. That’s not enough to make the sizeable step in my Victorian home, but the extra lift will let the Saros 20 go places the older robot couldn’t, and it gives it more options for climbing over obstacles to avoid getting stuck.

AdaptiLift also lets the Saros 20 tackle carpets with a pile height of 3cm, letting it clean them; handy if you’ve got lush carpet or deep rugs in your home.

A combination of technologies allow the Saros 20 to better manage your floors. In vacuum-only mode, the robot can drop its mopping pads off at the dock; in mop mode, it can lift its floor roller off the ground to prevent dust from staining the floor. 

When carpets are detected, the robot can lift the mop pads and, if necessary, its body, so it can cross over soft flooring to get where it needs to go. This combination makes the Roborock Saros 20 powerful for homes that have mixed flooring, although to be fair, the previous generation was equally as good, as is the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete.

There’s a brand-new RoboroDock in the box, the new self-cleaning, self-emptying dock. It washes mop pads in up to 100°C water, and has a separate detergent tank for floor cleaning solution (sadly, none is provided in the box).

Specs weren’t available at the time of review, but judging by previous Roborock docks, I’d say that this one has the same 3-litre tanks for clean and dirty water.

As well as cleaning the mop pads with fresh water (how often depends on the level of dirt detected on the floor, but also occurs at the end of the cleaning cycle), the dock can now soak pads in water for deeper cleaning. At the end of cleaning, the dock uses 55°C air to dry the pads.

This dock also takes replaceable bags (again, no specs, but I believe it’s a 2-litre bag), which can hold up to 65 days’ worth of dirt. There’s a spare bag in the box, along with two fresh mop cloths.

There’s a small bin inside the robot that you won’t have to touch often, but it is worth cleaning out once a month (or so), and washing the filter.

Control over the Roborock Saros 20 is via the brilliant Roborock app, which continues to evolve and grow in power. After connecting the robot to the app, it needs to perform a quick mapping run, which takes a few minutes, automatically suggesting rooms and adding any furniture that the camera has spotted.

Mistakes can easily be corrected, with rooms split or merged, and furniture added or removed. It’s well worth getting the main bits of furniture added, as they can be used as quick-select zones; for example, I often clean up around the dining table after having guests round.

There’s also the option to add thresholds and set no-go areas for places you don’t want the Saros 20 to venture into. And, there’s an option to add a pet area, where the robot will give extra cleaning focus.

Basic cleaning settings are simple and powerful: I can select to clean everywhere (a room or rooms) or a zone.

From there, there’s a choice to let the Saros 20 decide how to clean using AI SmartPlan, or I could take control and choose to Vac & Mop, Mop, Vacuum or Vac followed by Mop. The latter is a relatively new option that was conspicuously missing from the last generation; however, this feature is retrospectively applied to older robots, too.

The options then give a choice of four vacuum modes (plus an additional MAX+ mode in Vaccum-only mode) and up to 30 water flow levels for the mop. For the mop option, Roborock seems to be following Dreame, but I don’t think it’s a good thing: 30 levels is too many to choose from, and the granularity doesn’t make a lot of sense. Is level 27, for example, really better than level 26? 

Most modes, bar Vac followed by Mop, give the option of one or two passes, and then a choice of three routing options, depending on how carefully you want the Saros 20 to cover your floor.

Routines are still helpful, as they give even more control. I’ve got one set up for my kitchen that gives a single pass for vacuuming, and then two mopping passes.

It’s well worth getting into the deeper cleaning settings, too. I turned up the FlexiArm extension options to clean under furniture and into corners, and added Automatic Re-Mopping and Deep Cleaning, which will use the camera to spot stains and pay them extra attention.

There’s also an option to get the Saros 20 to revisit areas that were blocked by people/pets, and give them an extra clean.

If you don’t want to use the app, the robot has shortcut buttons to start a clean and send the Saros 20 back to its dock. And, there’s voice control, using either ‘Hello Rocky’, which is built-in, or via the Alexa/Google skill. I quite like the built-in voice assistant and its ‘clean here’ command, where the robot leaves the dock, finds you in the room and then does a spot clean.

Performance

• Excellent suction
• Powerful mopping
• Brilliant navigation

To test the Roborock Saros 20, I put it through my standard tests in the Trusted Reviews Home Tech Lab. I started with the carpet test, adding a teaspoon of flour to my rug. With 36,000Pa suction power, this is the most powerful robot vacuum (on paper) that I’ve tested.

That certainly shows up in testing. After two passes on the highest power setting and the carpet boost option, the Roborock Saros 20 completely cleaned my carpet and it looked as good as using a regular handheld vacuum cleaner.

It was the same on the hard floor, with dust in the middle picked up easily and removed.

Moving on to the edge test, the Roborock Saros 20 did a good job of getting most of the dust at the edge, but it did leave a bit of a mess further out. This was collected during the mopping phase, so the overall result was excellent.

Next, I moved on to my mopping tests. I turned on all of the advanced settings, including remopping and stain detection, and then let the Roborock Saros 20 do its job. It’s noticeable that the robot moves about in a different way, and goes over the stained areas several times.

To increase pressure, the Roborock Saros 20 can lift its front wheel to increase pressure at the back.

My coffee stain was completely cleaned up, and was gone with just a single pass of the robot, when it was set to mop after vacuuming.

It was the same with my red wine stain, which showed no visible trace after the Roborock Saros 20 had mopped over it once.

With my mud stain, the initial vacuum cleaning session picked up the loose debris, and then the following single mopping pass removed the ground-in stain.

My ketchup stain is the toughest to remove. After a single mopping pass, the stain wasn’t diminished but dramatically reduced. 

I then set the Roborock Saros 20 to perform two more mop runs, with the first pass (image on the left), which got rid of most of what was left; after an additional pass (image on the right), there was barely any trace left. One more mopping run cleaned up the mess.

That’s brilliant performance, and shows that, even though it might take a few passes, the Roborock Saros 20 can deal with even the toughest stains. The Narwal Flow did slightly better in the ketchup test, but its overall vacuuming performance, particularly edge cleaning, isn’t as good.

I also left some strands of human hair down, which the Saros 20 collected without any getting tangled around its brush bar.

Navigation is excellent. The Lab has plenty of cables around, which the Saros 20 neatly skipped around, and it managed to climb over the sled feet on some of the desks without getting stuck, lifting its body to climb over the obstacle. Lying some other traps (shoes and fake pet mess), the Saros 20 moved around these.

I measured the Roborock Saros 20 at just 58dB, making it quiet enough to use while sitting in the same room as it.

Battery life is rated at 200 minutes on the lowest setting, but even upping suction power and performing multiple passes of vacuuming and mopping, the Roborock Saros 20 had battery life enough for spot jobs. Battery life really isn’t something you have to worry about.

Should you buy it?