Did I mention that I am a smart home enthusiast?
I am operating robot vaccums since the Mi Robot Vaccum came out. Actually I stayed with the Mi Robot Vaccum quite a long time until I decided to upgrade to a Roborock S7 Pro Ultra (white). I bought it right at its release and I was very satisfied with the cleaning it was doing.
Lately I read about the S8’s new feature: It can dynamically extend it’s side brush to better reach edges and corners. Some research later I noticed the Qrevo Master which has two rotating mops instead of one vibrating mopping pad. I think on a tile floor the rotating mops could probably do a better job.
When I finally read that the Qrevo Master can even extend one of it’s mops I decided to buy one. So now, let’s see if it was worth it…
First impression of the Qrevo Master
I am not an unboxer so we will skip the images but I can say as always Roborock did a very good jop packaging the device. It comes in a cardboard box with tons of packaging material. So it should be super safe even if it gets dropped from the delivery car.
Then attaching all the parts together I notiec the dock is quite a bit less wide but higher than the S7 Ultra dock. Also the dust bag has moved from the top to the “middle floor” and is about twice as big. The tanks for fresh and grey water seem to be a bit bigger, too. (This is not a tech comparison advert review but an experience report so forgive me, I did not check the technical details)
The dock now also features a hot air mop dryer as well as hot water washing just as the S8 one does, too.
Most important features for me
As I already said, for me the “killer features” were the ability to extend the side arm(s). I was hoping to get the area at the kitchen base cleaned (which the S7 failed on). It is always these last few – about 10 – centimeters below the drawers. They are exactly 1mm higher than the robot itself so the robot does not drive below them.
Also another feature I wanted was the reactive AI as I always had issues with the S7 getting stuck on the base of my bar stools and the feet of the clothes horse which is only a horizonal 15mm pipe.
First try
So after unboxing and assembly (whch took me just about 10 minutes) I placed the dock where the S7 dock was before. I removed everything that was laying around to give the bot a fair chance for its first journey.
That said, I should probably also say that I did not clean up the floor for a few days at all for the robot to have a challenge.
I allowed the bot to map my ground floor and then I started a first cleaning eith its default settings. The cleaning took about as long as with the S7 but the bot is a lot more silent. I observed parts of it’s work and took some pictures to describe the issues I am seeing (next section).
After the Qrevo master finished its first cleanup, I reviewed the results and I unfortunately have to say: It does not look more clean than with the S7.
Problems observed with Qrevo Master
#1 Doors
The first thing I noticed, was that while the robot has its extendable arm, it handles it wrong. What I mean is, that it does unextend the arm when driving abround a “sharp angle” and extend it again too late. This causes a “blind sport” as you can see in the picture below.
#2 Outside Corners
I put a box on the ground. Same issue as with the door so it does not matter if its a door or an actual 90 degree corner.
#3 Door stopper
Whoops… This one is even worse! Guess it’s the same issue in the navigation logic
#4 Bar stools
This one is bad. The reactive AI feature detected my bar stools as posts and decided to omit them. While this is a wise choice, as my S7 always got stuck as it tried to climb the bases, I don’t understand why it does not drive through the corridor between them. There is plenty of space for the bot to pass through
#5 Kitchen dirt
This was left over by the bot (after I left it over for him actually). It did not detect this and did not try to clean it again. A manual second cleanup with higher suction power solved this.
#6 Kitchen base
Uh oh! The Qrevo master does sweep dirt under the table. Well not actually the table, but the kitchen base. The picture might make it look as if the space is very deep but the dirt actually is laying just about two centimeters beneath the front edge.
How the Qrevo Master performed
In the end I have to say all these issues are not worse than the S7 pro ultra performed for me. But it is not what I expected from the Qrevo master.
Why? The extendable arm does not reach its full potential in its current state. I think a firmware update can solve this but roborock will have to invest more into the navigation code to make this valuable in my eyes.
The Bar stool thing is probably a result of the camera viewport and could also be improved by software. Unfortunately I only have the option to totally ignore this.
The Kitche Base issue is the thing that really annoys me. I was hoping that an extendable side brush as well as an extendable mop would make this much better. But it does not. The result is actually exactly the same as with my S7 pro ultra here.
The only thing that is noticably better is the room edges or edges around furniture (except the corners) as well as the cleaning under the hanging toilet. The S7 always left a small spot which the qrevo “master”s perfectly well.
Worth it?
If I would sell my S7 pro ultra combo I’d probably have a chance of getting it sold for about 400-550€. The Qrevo master costs 1099€ at the moment so the invest is about 600€.
Actually I am not sure if the upgrades are actually worth the 600€ they cost. If the arm would perform better and the AI would do a better job on the bar stools I’d say yes. Unfortunately there will probably be no way to get the robot driving a few centimeters unter the kitchen base. The LIDAR is higher than the edge. To clean up the floor completely it would need to allow the bot’s main shell to go beneath tha. I guess I won’t get this with any new model right now.
A positive finding I have to share is, that it did not get stuck anywhere at all. Except the main brush when it tried to eat a clothespin. (AI? Where have you been? 🙂 )
Also the carpet cleaning works noticably better than with the S7 Pro. The stronger suction power of 10.000 pa ist a great upgrade.
I will be writing to roborock, showing them this article to see what they say about my observations. Maybe this helps in deciding if I will keep the Qrevo master in the end.
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