The Roborock SAROS Z70 has an arm that picks up things

In the last week I have I got a little taste A lot of smart technologies are presented at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). But the one technique that made me jump up and clap with excitement was this Roborock Saros Z70: More specifically, the moment the top of the Z70 opened to reveal a long robotic arm. This arm can gently pick up a shoe, sock or toy in the robot’s path and then elegantly place it in a location of your choice.

Over the last 18 months, I haven’t hesitated in how much I like Roborock vacuum cleaners and robot mops when choosing top models like the one S8 MaxV Ultra and the QRevo MaxV or QRevo curve. One of the reasons I’m dedicated: Roborocks are more autonomous than other robot vacuums – they don’t clog, get lost, or get stuck as often as other brands. They also seem to get the floor cleaner.

Yes, Roborock has many models, but the company wants to ease the confusion a bit with a brand new naming convention: Saros. Roborock has already released two robots under this new naming convention – the Saros 10 and 10R – but the Z70 will be the flagship.

The arm (officially called the OmniGrip) can pick up about six different items at once, from socks to toys, and then drop it in a predetermined location depending on what the AI ​​identifies the item as. While it already recognizes 108 objects, the open-source AI model allows users to identify and name 50 more objects. In other words, the Roborock can now come after your family. You can ask the Saros where they last saw your child’s missing sneaker.

If the idea of ​​a robot arm coming out of your vacuum scares you, it won’t work until you set it up. One of the nice things about the Arm is that future improvements to the Arm are simply software updates. I asked if the arm could help free the robot from a stuck spot, like an excavator would. Although this is not currently possible, future updates could make it possible.

As exciting as that is, it’s not the only upgrade in the Z70. Every brand I spoke to this week insisted that their vacuum cleaner would have “the highest suction power in the industry,” but Roborock will win this battle at 22,000 Pa. To put it in perspective, many robots I’ve tested in the last year have performed admirably at less than 10,000 Pa. The question arises as to how much we benefit from this continuous increase in suction power: does it actually help dirt, especially large dirt, move through the rollers so that it doesn’t get stuck?

The Z70 uses the technology we saw with the QRevo Curv, where the chassis can raise its front end to overcome obstacles like cords and rolled carpet ends, but now it uses the same technology to put more pressure on the robot’s rear end to exercise The rotating mop brushes are located. This pressure has been missing from all robot vacuum cleaners released to date, and I for one couldn’t be more excited. This could mean finally getting indentations on tiles or grout or cleaning up general dirt.

With Saros, Roborock is consciously moving away from LiDAR, which has been a navigation standard for a year or two. LiDAR uses light to measure distances, but requires a “tower” on the top of the robot, which is why most robots you see these days have a circular “button” on the top of the machine to house the LiDAR. Roborock relies on AI-supported cameras when navigating – in particular the Starsight Autonomous System 2.0. The Saros is equipped with cameras on the robot and the OmniGrip, and these cameras measure the distance between the robot’s location and the space in front of it, both vertically and horizontally. LiDAR “guesses” the distance and is therefore less accurate. This new navigation includes Vertibeam, a side obstacle avoidance feature that allows the robot to vacuum around obstacles like power cords.

The Saros Z70 is also very thin, just over three inches tall, so it can fit under your furniture, and has all the features I love on previous Roborocks: large water tanks on the docking station, a place for cleaning fluid in the docking station, and very fast charging (only 2.5 hours for a full charge). Among the news I’m less excited about is that Rocky, the onboard voice assistant, will still be present. I find Rocky isn’t that developed yet, and he tends to often respond to random sentences from my TV while not listening to me at all.

The Saros Z70 is expected to appear in the first half of 2025; There is no pricing information yet.