The Roborock Saros Z70 is a flagship robot vacuum with an industry-first feature: a robotic arm that picks up objects. Roborock uses AI to recognize certain kinds of objects to pick up and drop off in a box or organize in another location. The arm folds away into a bay with a cover when it's not in use. The rest of the robot vacuum offers features typical of Roborock flagship robot vacuums. It has a low profile, with solid-state LIDAR sensors embedded in the body rather than a tall LIDAR sensor on top. The AdaptiLift system raises the drive wheels and front wheel in order to clear thresholds, and it has a self-emptying multifunction dock that washes and dries the twin rotating mop pads.
Our Verdict
The Roborock Saros Z70 offers very good performance in a household with multiple floor surfaces. It's better for households with more hard floors since its performance on hard floors is far better than on carpet, where it retracts its side brush, missing material from edges and corners. But its pet hair pickup and obstacle handling are good. It also has a great mopping system and a multifunction docking station that empties the dustbin and washes and dries the mop pads, easing daily maintenance chores.
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Outstanding hard floor pickup.
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Very good obstacle avoidance system.
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Great mopping performance.
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Can fit under very low furniture.
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Retracts its side brush on carpet, leading to poor performance along edges and in corners.
The Roborock Saros Z70 is a good option for pet owners. It has good pet hair pickup performance and is even better at cleaning up stains your pet may leave behind. Its advanced obstacle avoidance system means it won't touch any pet waste deposits. It's also quiet enough not to disturb your pet. Though there are a lot of parts to clean and maintain, the multifunction docking station takes care of most of the day-to-day maintenance activities, including emptying the dustbin of pet hair. Long pet hair will tangle around the brushroll, however.
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Good pet hair pickup.
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Easily picks up hair sitting on carpet.
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Great mopping performance.
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Obstacle avoidance system is great at avoiding pet waste.
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Brushroll gets tangled with hair.
The Roborock Saros Z70 does a remarkable job picking up debris from hard floors. It vacuums nearly all material up, including along edges and in corners, where its side brush proves quite effective. It leaves virtually nothing behind.
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Outstanding hard floor pickup.
The Roborock Saros Z70 delivers overall inadequate performance vacuuming up debris from carpet. It performs better on high-pile carpet, where it cleans nearly all debris from its path, but struggles more with low-pile carpet as it leaves some fine material behind. On both types of carpet, it retracts its side brush, leaving almost all material along edges and in corners. Its brushroll isn't wide enough, and its suction isn't high enough to pull in material from its sides. So, without the side brush, it can't vacuum any debris from edges and corners.
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Retracts its side brush on carpet, leading to poor performance along edges and in corners.
The Roborock Saros Z70 does a good job picking up pet hair. Its brushroll provides sufficient agitation to loosen hair sitting on top of the carpet, and it even picks up most embedded hair, leaving only a little behind.
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Good pet hair pickup.
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Easily picks up hair sitting on carpet.
The Roborock Saros Z70 is good at handling household obstacles. It easily gets under low furniture and cleans without getting stuck. It navigates well around furniture and mirrors, though it may be too cautious around chairs with horizontal legs and miss cleaning the area underneath them. Its obstacle avoidance system keeps it clear of most obstacles, but it can fail to detect USB cords and rug tassels, getting stuck on them and requiring intervention.
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Very good obstacle avoidance system.
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Can fit under very low furniture.
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Can't detect USB cords or rug tassels.
- 7.8 Multi-Surface Household
- 7.5 Pets
Performance Usages
- 9.0 Debris Pickup: Hard Floor
- 5.4 Debris Pickup: Carpet
- 7.5 Debris Pickup: Pet Hair
- 7.5 Obstacle Handling
Changelog
- Updated Jun 06, 2025: Review published.
- Updated May 29, 2025: Early access published.
- Updated May 16, 2025: Our testers have started testing this product.
- Updated May 12, 2025: The product has arrived in our lab, and our testers will start evaluating it soon.
- Updated Apr 25, 2025: We've purchased the product and are waiting for it to arrive in our lab.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
There's only one variant of the Roborock Saros Z70, though it's available in two colors: Black and Silver. We tested one in Silver. Here's a photo of our unit's label.
Compared To Other Robot Vacuums
The Roborock Saros Z70 is a flagship robot vacuum whose headlining feature is its robotic arm. Essentially a Roborock Saros 10R with a robotic arm, this model touts object removal and not simply object avoidance. Unfortunately, the robotic arm doesn't work all that well. The objects it can recognize are very limited, especially on carpet; it's not always successful in picking up objects, and it sometimes misses when it tries to drop an object off in Roborock's special box. In addition, you'll have to pay a hefty premium for this new feature and deal with the compromises in battery life, dustbin capacity, and increased brushroll hair tangling.
If you don't use the arm, it will operate as a Roborock Saros 10R with some limitations. Though the Roborock Z70 improves on the Roborock Saros 10R's pet hair pickup, if you have pets, you'll find the twin rubber brushrolls on the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra, Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra, or Roborock Q5 Max+ do an even better job, and the S8 MaxV Ultra cleans carpet better too. You can also find the same great mopping performance as the Z70 in the Roborock Qrevo Curv, since it's the same mopping system, but you'll miss out on the superior obstacle avoidance system and low height clearance of the Roborock Saros 10R.
If you want to see other alternatives, take a look at our recommendations for the best robot vacuums, the best robot vacuums for carpet, and the best robot vacuums for pet hair.
The Roborock Saros 10R is a better robot vacuum than the Roborock Saros Z70. The Saros Z70 is really a Saros 10R modified to accept a robotic arm. The arm bay takes up space and forced Roborock to use a much smaller dustbin and brushroll on the Z70. The Z70's smaller dustbin means it will have to return to the dock much more frequently. The Z70's brushroll gathers hair tangles much more easily. And the robotic arm consumes battery power, leading to lower battery life from the same battery. The Z70 also retracts its side brush on carpet, delivering worse performance here. On the positive side, the Z70's brushroll provides more agitation and is better at picking up pet hair.
The Roborock Saros Z70 is a better robot vacuum than the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra. The Z70 offers better hard floor pickup, has a better obstacle avoidance system, can clear higher thresholds, and can get under lower furniture. The Z70's rotating pad mopping system is also better than the S8 MaxV Ultra's vibrating pad mop. However, the S8 MaxV Ultra's twin rubber brushrolls do a slightly better job of cleaning up pet hair, and it performs a lot better on carpet as well.
The Dreame X50 Ultra is a better robot vacuum than the Roborock Saros Z70. The Dreame can clear high thresholds just as well as the Roborock can, and can get under furniture almost as low as the Roborock does. In addition, the Dreame's obstacle avoidance system performs even better than Roborock's. The Roborock does a better job cleaning hard floors, stains, and pet hair, but the Dreame performs better on carpet. With the Roborock Saros Z70 costing so much more than the Dreame X50 Ultra due to its mediocre robotic arm, you will probably find the performance tradeoffs worth the much lower price.
The Roborock Saros Z70 is a better robot vacuum than the much older Roborock S8 Pro Ultra. The Z70 can climb taller thresholds and get under much lower furniture, offers better hard floor pickup and mopping performance, and has a very good obstacle avoidance system. The S8 Pro Ultra, on the other hand, is better on carpet and delivers outstanding pet hair pickup.
Test Results
The Roborock Saros Z70 has great build quality. The body is premium plastic in matte black and silver finishes. The sensors are covered with very high-quality transparent material. The backlit buttons feel much better than those on the Roborock Saros 10R, with a much firmer click and a shorter travel distance.
The robotic arm seems sturdy and folds away neatly in its bay, covered by a hatch that pivots backward to deploy the arm. Unfortunately, the hatch is a flimsy transparent plastic that scratches easily, just like the magnetically attached silver plastic cover. The robotic arm hatch latches down so loosely that it will fall open if you turn the robot vacuum upside down. The dustbin's self-empty port door springs are also quite weak and can lead to material jamming the door open, reducing suction.
You'll have to clean and maintain a large number of parts on this robot vacuum, but the process is easy for the most part. Removing and cleaning the brushroll is quite simple; you shouldn't even need scissors. You'll have to clean the brushroll fairly often—its hair anti-tangle system isn't as effective as the split brushroll design on the Roborock Saros 10R, so hair tangles around it frequently. Hair doesn't get tangled quite as much around the side brush, and wiping it away with your hand is very simple. However, you can remove the side brush with a screwdriver if required.
You can easily remove the omnidirectional front wheel with a pry tool and clean it with water. Use a dry cloth to clean the main wheels, charging contacts, and sensors. The magnetically attached top lid covers the dustbin, which you can remove by using a latch so you can clean the filter. You can tap the filter against a garbage bin to dislodge dust or clean it with water.
The well-equipped multifunction docking station handles most of the maintenance tasks. It empties the robot vacuum's dustbin and refills its mop water tank, adding detergent. It also cleans the mop pads with hot water and dries them with hot air. It even cleans its mop tray, though the tray is removable if you want to clean it manually. To clean and maintain the docking station, you should change the dirtbag, empty the dirty water tank, and clean and refill both water tanks. You'll also need to wipe off the docking station's charging contacts.
The User Manual on Roborock's website shows the complete maintenance procedures.
The Roborock Z70 has many replaceable parts and a high operating cost. Most replacement parts are available on Roborock's website.
- Brushroll: This should be replaced every six to 12 months, but a replacement isn't available at the time of publication.
- Side brush: The side brush should be replaced every three to six months and is available in a pack of two.
- Filter: Roborock recommends you replace this every six to 12 months. It's available in a two-pack.
- Mop pads: The mop pads should be replaced every one to three months and are available in a pack of four.
- Multifunction docking station dust bag: Replace this when the dust bag is full or every seven weeks. It's available in a pack of six.
The Roborock Saros Z70 is an extremely low-profile robot vacuum since it lacks a protruding LIDAR sensor tower. Although Roborock states that it has the same height as the Roborock Saros 10R, the front section with the robotic arm sits slightly higher, giving the vacuum an overall height of 8.04 cm (3.17 inches). It will contact furniture 8 cm (3.15 inches) or lower.
The Roborock Saros Z70 has a very small dustbin. Its robotic arm takes up a lot of the space that the dustbin occupies on similar models, like the Roborock Saros 10R. Because the dustbin is so small, the multifunction docking station's self-emptying capabilities are essential to the operation of this robot vacuum. If you've turned off auto-empty in the app, you'll get a reminder to re-enable it, but the robot vacuum doesn't have a sensor to tell you when the dustbin is full.
If you overfill this dustbin, the vacuum will still operate, but you'll find debris in the auto-empty channel, the chute from the brushroll to the dustbin, and the dustbin vents.
The docking station is nearly identical to the one used with the Roborock Saros 10R, except for the color of the front covers. It should store 2.7 L of material in its dirtbag, but it plugs up well before this, even though there's still space at the top of the dirtbag. The clean and dirty water tanks store 3.7 L of liquid, not far off their rated 4 L capacity.
The docking station washes the mop pads with 176 °F (80 °C) water for sanitary reasons and enhanced cleaning performance. It then dries them with 131 °F (55 °C) air. It also washes the mop cleaning tray and collects solids washed off the tray with a filter to prevent clogging.
For the Roborock Saros Z70:
- Roborock Z70 body
- Robot vacuum access panel
- 2x mop pad holders
- 2x mop pads
- Dust bin
- Dust bin filter
- Brushroll guard
- Brushroll
For the docking station:
- Docking station base
- Docking station ramp
- Mop cleaning tray
- Mop cleaning tray module
- Mop cleaning tray filter
- Cleaning solution cartridge
- Clean water tank
- Dirty water tank
- 2x dirtbags
- Dirt compartment front cover
- Power cord
Printed documentation & miscellaneous items:
- User Manual
- Quick Start Guide
- Safety Pamphlet
- Roborock storage box (stores items retrieved by the robotic arm)
While the robot vacuum has incredible battery life and an impressively short recharge time, the robotic arm can consume a lot of the battery charge since it also requires increased computing power. The battery life with the robotic arm deactivated and the vacuum on maximum power is roughly equivalent to the battery life with the robotic arm active and the vacuum on minimum power.
Since Roborock calculates that each movement of the robotic arm consumes 1% of the battery's charge and the robot vacuum returns to the docking station for recharging at 14%, the robot vacuum could pick up 86 objects if that's all it had to do. But if its vacuum and obstacle avoidance system is also operating, the number of objects it can pick up before running out of battery will drop much lower. For maximum battery life, you should disable the robotic arm. The robot vacuum delivers 140 minutes of battery life with the robotic arm picking up objects, the obstacle avoidance system active, and the vacuum at maximum power.
The Roborock Saros Z70 is a flagship robot vacuum with many features. You can let the robot vacuum decide the appropriate cleaning settings for your home using AI SmartPlan or choose settings manually. Like most other robot vacuums, you can customize the suction power and water flow settings for vacuuming and mopping, and select the order in which you wish the robot vacuum to clean. You can set the number of cleaning passes from 1x to 2x in any cleaning mode other than Vac, followed by Mop. There are also a variety of route settings, including Fast and Standard for vacuuming, as well as Deep and Deep+ in Mop mode.
For carpet cleaning, you can set the vacuum to Auto-detach Mop Cloth Mounts to Vacuum Carpet First. When the robot vacuum encounters carpets, it can Lift Mop Cloth Mounts to Vacuum Carpets to avoid getting carpets wet or Avoid, Cross, or Ignore carpets.
For floor cleaning, you can set the cleaning pattern to Smart, which cleans along the longest wall and reduces the robot vacuum's U-turns, Cleaning Along Floor Direction, which reduces wear along floor seams by cleaning along the direction of flooring seams, or Mixed Pattern Cleaning, which alternates the cleaning direction each time the robot vacuum cleans. This robot vacuum shares the same FlexiArm system and settings as its fellow flagship, the Roborock Saros 10R, and its premium predecessor, the Roborock Qrevo Curv, with options for crevices and mopping.
You can activate or deactivate its most important feature, the robotic arm. If you select Follow-Up Cleaning, the Z70 will return to where it picked up an object, cleaning underneath its location. The robot vacuum will pick up and drop off items automatically if you select Automatic Sorting, or wait for you to control the arm remotely if you choose Manual Sorting.
There's also the Hello Rocky voice assistant, which lets you control the robot vacuum using your voice. You can use the camera and microphone for Remote Viewing as a security camera or to make video calls with your pet. With the companion app, you can manage maps, remotely control the robot vacuum, or start a Pin N Go spot cleaning by placing a pin on the map.
The Roborock Z70 delivers outstanding hard floor pickup performance. It easily cleans up nearly all fine, medium, and large material, including along wall edges and corners. Hardly any material remains.
However, one attempt resulted in poor performance, while another was somewhat better. We found that debris had jammed open the dustbin's self-empty port on each attempt. A weak spring holds the port door closed; debris can jam it open, allowing air to leak into the suction chamber. Depending on how much air leaks, the available suction at the brushroll can differ greatly.
The Roborock Saros Z70 offers mediocre performance picking up debris from high-pile carpet. It did a good job cleaning the carpet under its brushroll, but since it retracts its side brush when it detects it's on carpet, it leaves all material near wall edges and in corners behind. You can't alter this behavior through any setting in the app, and it greatly impacts performance.
The Roborock Saros Z70 delivers disappointing performance in picking up debris from low-pile carpet. It vacuums up most medium and large material under its brushroll, leaving a little fine debris behind. However, it retracts and deactivates its side brush on carpet, leaving all material along wall edges and corners. There's no suction or agitation along the robot vacuum's sides because the brushroll does not extend this far, and the suction only pulls material around the brushroll area.
This robot vacuum offers good pet hair pickup performance. The brushroll provides more agitation than the split brushroll on the Roborock Saros 10R and delivers better pet hair pickup as a result. A small amount of embedded hair is left behind, though.
The Roborock Saros Z70's airflow is satisfactory.
The Roborock Saros Z70 is a very quiet robot vacuum on both hard floors and carpet. It won't disturb you, your family, or your pets in your daily household activities.
The Roborock Saros Z70 does a decent job navigating around a typical household room and adapting to furniture and large obstacles. It cleans thoroughly under low furniture and doesn't get stuck or snag on the underside. It detects floor-length mirrors, marks them on its map, and won't contact them.
It behaves cautiously around chairs with horizontal legs, detecting them as an unsafe obstacle and avoiding them entirely, which means it won't clean under them. It bumps and jostles tall, thin items like coat racks, but doesn't get stuck on them. Unfortunately, it sucks up loose tasseled rugs, jamming its side brush and brushroll, requiring manual intervention.
Obstacle avoidance is very good with the Roborock Z70's StarSight navigation and obstacle avoidance system. There are three solid-state, vertically-scanning LIDAR sensors mounted on the robot vacuum's front, right, and rear left, plus a front-mounted visual spectrum camera for obstacle identification. The robot vacuum detects and avoids most obstacles and is especially careful around pet waste, never touching it. It doesn't work as well on carpet, nudging objects like shoes a little, and occasionally running over obstacles like socks. It might get tangled up in extension cords, but it usually frees itself. However, it doesn't detect USB cords and often gets stuck on them.
The robotic arm uses AI that Roborock has trained to recognize several objects like socks, small fabrics, shoes, and paper waste. We added paper waste to our regular testing room and positioned the shoes so the robotic arm could pick them up. We ran several tests, recording the rate at which the robot vacuum detected a valid object to pick up, the rate at which it successfully picked the object up out of all attempts, and the rate at which the robotic arm dropped off the object properly in its box. We've included videos in the relevant test boxes below.
| Test | Detection Rate | Pickup Rate | Dropoff Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bare floor | 43% | 100% | 67% | Did not attempt to pick up shoes |
| Carpet | 0% | 0% | 0% | Failed to detect any object |
| Paper added, on bare floor | 43% | 33% | 100% | |
| Paper added, on carpet | 15% | 100% | 100% |
Ran over paper rather than detected it on one occasion |
| Bare floor only | 33% | 100% | 75% | |
| Total | 27% | 78% | 79% |
This robot vacuum's ability to travel under low furniture is remarkable. Since it doesn't have a protruding conventional LIDAR sensor tower, it can get under very low furniture without getting stuck or snagging on the underside. However, its top front section around the robotic arm is a tiny bit higher than the Roborock Saros 10R, and it hits the lowest-height obstacle.
The Roborock Saros Z70 delivers exceptional performance climbing tall thresholds. When it encounters an especially tall threshold, its AdaptiLift system can lift its front or main drive wheels independently. Unlike the Roborock Saros 10R, this robot vacuum will use this system after hitting a threshold with its collision bumper, even if you haven't marked it on its map.
This robot vacuum filters out some fine particles, but many escape into the air. If you run the robot vacuum at a lower power level, almost no fine particles are filtered out. If you have allergies or are sensitive to dust, consider this model's sibling, the Roborock Saros 10R; it's much more effective at sealing away fine particles.
The Roborock Z70 does a poor job cleaning debris out of cracks, which is typical for a robot vacuum. Its suction inlet is mounted too high to form a tight seal with the floor. This robot vacuum's side brush scatters some fine debris around, leaving the majority of the fine debris in the cracks. You can clean up this scattered debris with a second pass, but almost all the material remains in the cracks.
This robot vacuum is great on stains if you set the water flow to Extreme, use its Deep+ pathing setting, and activate the mop extension arm. The twin rotating mop pads clean up nearly all the stain, leaving only a trace behind. A second pass removes the stain residue almost entirely.
The docking station washes and dries the mop pads with 176°F (80°C) water and 131°F (55°C) air. Here are the mop pads after cleaning.
The Roborock Saros Z70 can't pick up water, and the manual cautions that it will be damaged if you attempt to do so.
The physical automation controls are simple and consist of three buttons on the robot vacuum's top. You can toggle the robot vacuum's power state by pressing and holding the Power/Clean button or quickly tapping the button to start a cleaning task.
If you press and hold the Home button, the robot vacuum starts spot-cleaning a small area around itself. Pressing the Home button with the robot vacuum docked will start a self-emptying cycle. If you pause the robot vacuum while it's conducting a cleaning task, pressing the Home button sends it back to the dock to charge.
There's also an Emergency Stop button, which you can use to completely stop all movements of the robot vacuum, including its robotic arm. Pressing the Power/Clean and Emergency Stop buttons simultaneously activates or deactivates the robotic arm.
Roborock's companion app is incredibly full-featured. Here is a video walkthrough. AI SmartPlan can determine all the robot vacuums' settings for you, although you can also alter settings manually.
As is common with most robot vacuum companion apps, you can edit maps and create cleaning schedules, adjusting various vacuuming and mopping settings for each scheduled task or room.
You can toggle the obstacle avoidance system on or off in the Reactive Obstacle Avoidance menu. You can also set it to take Obstacle Photos. It will clean very close to objects and might contact them if you set Less Collisions Mode to None. If you set this mode to Sensitive, the robot vacuum will clean far away from objects it encounters, potentially missing large areas. Balanced should be much better; the robot vacuum will still avoid most obstacles but clean tightly around them, though it may occasionally contact them. The robot vacuum can automatically detect furniture and floor types with AI Environment Recognition.
You can toggle the robotic arm feature on or off. The app presents remote control buttons to control the arm using the camera mounted on the end when you activate the Manual Sorting mode.
You can alter every setting of the multifunction docking station, including the timing and intensity of the self-empty function and mop washing and drying. The app also saves cleaning history and tracks the maintenance status of various components of the robot vacuum and the docking station. You can also control Off-Peak Charging to save money by charging the robot vacuum when utility rates are low.