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The Verge
20-05-2025
- The Verge
I tested a robot vacuum with an arm, and my dog may never forgive me
I suspect my dog does not like the Roborock Saros Z70. Unlike the dozens of other robot vacuums that Gus happily lets clean around him while he sleeps, the Z70 keeps stealing his treasures. Not his dog toys — although that could be a future feature — but my family's socks that he loves to collect and carry around the house with him. Since the Z70 arrived, he's had competition. The first robot vacuum with a mechanical arm, the Z70 features a five-axis arm, branded the OmniGrip, that uses onboard sensors and a camera to see, pick up, and tidy away a small list of light items, including the aforementioned socks, footwear such as slippers and sandals, tissues, and paper. In theory, this means I should spend less time picking up after my kids or rummaging in Gus' bed to find the socks he's stolen. In practice, it's nowhere near achieving this goal. Yes, the arm can pick up items and put them away, which is seriously impressive. It collected my son's discarded socks and a few balls of paper, putting them where I asked it to. But the Z70's limitations are deal-breakers at this point, and its lack of consistency also lets it down. For example, while the bot would detect footwear, it nearly always opted not to pick up any shoes, only once retrieving a slipper or sandal of its own volition. It also consistently struggled to place more than one item in the correct spot each time it cleaned. Still, this is the first consumer robot vacuum to venture into appendage territory, and even in this beta-like stage, it's remarkable. But for an eye-watering $2,599, the Saros Z70 needs to pick up more than a few socks. The Saros Z70 is a flagship robot vacuum that's a big step up from my current top pick floor sweeper, the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra. With over twice the suction power, a more advanced navigation and obstacle detection system, and dual spinning mops that it can automatically remove, it's an impressive cleaner. However, aside from the arm, it's essentially the same vacuum as the $1,599.99 Saros 10R that launched with it earlier this year — with a few modifications made to accommodate the mechanism, including a different roller brush and a smaller onboard bin and water tank. For $1,000 less, the 10R is a better bet right now. While cleaning my house, the Saros Z70 used an AI-powered camera on the front of the robot to identify potential pickable objects, then returned to 'sort' them. This process, which was very slow, involved scrutinizing the object for a few moments, then shuffling around, pausing to unfold the arm from the body of the robot, extending it, twisting it horizontally or vertically, and using its pincer grip to grab the item. A camera in the 'hand' sees the item and determines how to pick it up, then a grip sensor measures the weight of the object — 300 grams (0.66 pounds) is the max. Sensors along the arm also detect if anything is in the way, to stop it pinching an object or banging into something. At one point, it tried to pick up a rug tassel, realized it was too heavy, and let it go. When it did manage to pick something up, it'd hoist the object high into the air and triumphantly carry it toward the zone I'd designated in the app. Socks or paper went into a Roborock-provided bin, with about an 80 percent success rate. The robot always dropped stuff, just not always in the bin. Sometimes just alongside it, and once or twice, when it got confused, absolutely nowhere near it. Footwear was supposed to go to the shoe storage area, but it only managed to pick up one sandal during my testing, studiously avoiding the slippers, flip-flops, and Crocs I left strewn around. Even then, it deposited the sandal just outside the shoe storage zone. Roborock suggested trying the manual control option in the app, which gives a live view from the camera on the arm to see if the bot could accurately identify and pick up one of the shoes it had been ignoring. This worked on the flip-flop, with the arm picking it up when directed. It just wouldn't do it autonomously. (Sidenote: The camera in the arm can be used as a roaming home security camera, providing an additional vantage point to the forward-facing one.) The Z70 did a good job with large socks, small fabric toys that looked like socks, and paper, but it didn't like small socks. However, in most cleaning runs, it only picked up one or two items, even if there were half a dozen shoes and socks scattered around. It also can't pick up items on carpet, so those socks my husband slipped off and hid under the coffee table while watching telly will go untidied. Speaking of tables, the arm can't reach under low furniture; if it detects anything above it within 45cm (17.7 inches), it won't deploy its arm. All of this illustrates the technology's promise versus its current reality. The robot uses AI to identify obstacles and determine whether to avoid them (like pet poop), clean around them (like cables), or pick them up. The logs in the app revealed that its success was comparable to that of a preschooler using flashcards. On one run, it identified the black flip-flop as a cable, a piece of paper as a plastic bag, and a brown slipper as pet poop. But on the next run, it picked up the same ball of paper with no issues. The arm is an impressive novelty, but not functional enough to be worth your money Today, the arm is an impressive novelty, but not functional enough to be worth your money. However, the hardware feels solid, and if the software can be improved, it could be very useful. I'm constantly picking up and relocating footwear that my family discards, and having a robot do it reliably would make my life easier, not to mention help with the Monday morning panic when we can't find my daughter's Crocs. If it could pick up larger items like clothes, deal with phone charging cables, and other common household clutter, I'd love to set it loose on my teenage kids' rooms to tidy up before cleaning. Roborock claims to have a slew of updates in the works for the bot, beginning next month, which it says should improve reliability and expand its object repertoire, crucially to heavier items like sneakers. The bot is currently limited to 300 grams (0.66 pounds) but is capable of handling up to 700 grams (1.5 pounds), according to Roborock. Hopefully, this will make the arm more confident when picking up footwear. Currently, it's very specific about what it will collect, largely as a safety feature. It did pick up the occasional small cat toy and stuffed animal, but mostly opted against trying to grasp an item if there was any doubt. Speaking of safety, both Gus and my cat, Boone, tried playing with the arm, and it immediately stopped moving, so I felt confident that they were safe. The arm is also surprisingly sturdy, although I'm not sure it would hold up to 70-pound Gus if he were determined to retrieve a sock. (There is an emergency stop button for the arm should something go wrong.) Arm issues aside, the Saros Z70 excels as a robot vacuum. Its StarSight 2.0 navigation system (a combination of solid-state lidar, 3D sensors, and cameras) navigated smoothly, dodging obstacles and ably avoiding common robot traps thanks to its ability to lift itself up 10mm and cross thresholds of up to 4cm. It's the first robot vacuum I've tested that never once got stuck on my rug, under my sofa, or between my lounge chair's spindly legs. Its 22,000Pa suction power demolished my oatmeal and Cheerio tests, and the dual spinning mop pads efficiently dispatched small spills of milk, juice, and dried ketchup. If you love the latest tech and are willing to pay (a lot) for potential, the Saros Z70 is a fascinating peek into the future — not to mention a fun toy (yes, you can remote control the arm). But if you're happy to pick up your own socks, Roborock's Saros 10R ($1,599.99) offers all the same floor cleaning abilities, minus the arm, for $1,000 less. (The Z70 was initially priced at $1,899.99, but Roborock recently raised it to $2,599 due to tariffs.) Are robotic arms the future of home cleaning? Probably. With the speed of innovation in home robotics, a Rosie the Robot-like autonomous cleaning machine in our homes is starting to feel less like science fiction. Roborock may have shipped the first robot with an autonomous arm, but it won't be the last. For now, the Z70 is an impressive, if flawed, glimpse of what's to come. Data privacy: Saros Z70 Bringing connected devices into your home also brings with it concerns about how the data they collect is protected. The Verge asks each company whose smart home products we review about safeguards it has in place for your data. The primary home data a robot vacuum like the Roborock manages are the maps it generates and video and image data from its onboard cameras. Roborock says that all map / cleaning data is encrypted before being sent to the cloud. Additionally, it says data only leaves the device if you view the map on its smartphone app. Otherwise, it stays locally on the device. The company says a maximum of 20 cleaning maps are stored at any one time, and any maps stored in the cloud are deleted after one year. A factory reset of the robot will remove any locally stored map information. The remote viewing and obstacle photo features are optional, not enabled by default, must be physically enabled on device, and can be turned off in the app. Remote viewing is live-streaming only (no video is recorded or stored). When viewing is enabled, the device collects your 'user ID, network IP address, and video information captured via the camera,' according to Roborock's Privacy Policy for Remote Viewing. This is in addition to Roborock's standard Privacy Policy. Photos of obstacles are governed by an Obstacle Photo Privacy Policy. Roborock says they are encrypted and stored on the robot vacuum and only sent to the cloud if you click on an icon on the map to view the image on your phone. Then it's secured with Transport Layer Security. It will be deleted from the server within three working days and from your phone when you exit the app. The robotic arm requires a camera to function. It is disabled by default and must be manually activated by the user. Once activated, it can be deactivated in the app.
New York Times
20-05-2025
- New York Times
This Robot Vacuum Has a Claw That Tries (and Mostly Fails) to Pick Up Your Socks
The Saros Z70 mostly works like any other robot vacuum-mop combo, sucking up debris and wiping up light grime. But the main attraction is the OmniGrip arm, which promises to grab and sort the type of clutter that robot cleaners, until this point, haven't been able to tidy up on their own. The arm spends most of its time tucked inside the robot, behind a hatch. It's programmed to recognize socks, slippers, small towels, and tissues (that's all, for now), extend the claw, pick up the items, and then drop them off in designated areas. Socks, towels, and tissues go into a cardboard bucket that comes with the robot, and slippers go to another floor-level spot of your choice. Setup took me about 10 minutes. You need to start by sending the robot out on a training run to draw a map of your home's floor plan, a process that's quick and mostly automatic. Then you coach it, through the smartphone app, so that it knows where you've put the sock bin and where you want the slippers to go. Depending on which settings you have enabled, either it'll sort your things as it finds them or you can set it to finish cleaning first and then go on a separate sorting-only run. If it comes across other obstacles, it'll just steer around them. It also has a remote-control mode that lets you peer through the bot's camera, drive up to obstacles, and then tell the claw to do its thing. The claw isn't exactly a piece of heavy-duty precision machinery, but it doesn't strike me as flimsy, either. When it pops out of its hatch, tiny motors whirring, sometimes I stop to marvel at how far robot vacuums have come. Other times it strikes me as cartoonish and over-the-top, and occasionally I shudder, as though I'm gazing upon a techno-dystopian torture device from an H.R. Giger painting. My dog hates it. The Saros Z70 clamps down on socks, tissues, and slippers with a crablike pincer grip and then carries the item to a designated sorting area. Liam McCabe/NYT Wirecutter Down to business: The claw doesn't collect stuff as reliably as advertised. I gave it a few chances to pick up a normal mess that my dog and my 7-year-old leave out on any given day, but it grabbed only about a quarter of the items. If a sock was anywhere near a piece of furniture — as it often is when you live with a first-grader who reflexively tears off their footwear as soon as they plop down on the couch — the Z70 wouldn't even attempt to pick it up. It's probably a good thing that the robot is smart enough not to snap off its own appendage while driving under a coffee table. But even when I carefully staged a bunch of socks and slippers that didn't seem like they would cause the Z70 any obvious problems, it still worked only about half as often as I thought it should. It didn't accurately identify every piece of detritus, even from its approved-item list. One of my black socks blended in with my navy blue rug, and the Z70 couldn't spot the sock. A Roborock representative told us that the vision system struggles to spot objects on dark carpets in general. The vision system later mistook that same sock for a dog turd, even though it was on a bare wood floor that time. It didn't register my slippers at all. The AI vision system on the Saros Z70 sometimes misidentifies objects, like when it thought my black ankle sock was dog poop (left). You need to spend at least a few minutes coaching the robot through the rich but busy smartphone app (center) to take advantage of all the features. Most of the time, it offers tips along the way (right). Liam McCabe/NYT Wirecutter Then again, it did pick up a Birkenstock sandal, which I guess it had pegged as a slipper (it must be hard to train AI on those subtle differences). It's a positive sign that the arm is strong enough to handle that much weight, and I was impressed when the bot set the sandal down exactly where I had coached it to. The other half of the Birkenstock pair wasn't so lucky, though; it sat sole-side up on the floor, and the Z70 stared at it for a second and then left without attempting to lift it. Sometimes, when the Z70 did identify a sock correctly, the arm just couldn't quite grab it. Considering the slew of cameras and sensors built into the arm and the main chassis, you'd think it would find the right angle, but it's not there yet. The Z70 was also way too conservative around furniture and fixtures for my tastes. It wouldn't even try to pick up socks that were within a foot of my TV stand or toilet, and it balked at grabbing a sock under my dining room table, where there's ample height for the arm to do its thing. Then there are other obstacles that it should have steered clear of but didn't. It promptly tried to pick up a sock next to my dog's wire playpen — and ended up hooking itself to one of the crossbars and not letting go until the front of the bot had risen a few inches off the floor. Occasionally, it just looked lost, twitching in place with its claw hanging out, calling out 'sorting items, sorting items' over and over for about a minute at inconsistent intervals, before retracting its arm and moving on. Here's the claw cavity inside the Saros Z70. It doesn't feel like cheap machinery, though it's not exactly heavy-duty, either. Liam McCabe/NYT Wirecutter I tested it for about three weeks. It remains to be seen whether the claw will hold up over time, what with all its moving parts and all the crevices where dust and grit can gather. My sense is that these robots are not easy to repair. When I've spoken to Roborock representatives about the durability and repairability of the company's products in the past, they've told me that it doesn't plan to offer major replacement parts because it expects customers to upgrade every three years or so anyway. The Z70's arm is very much a work in progress, and Roborock has a big challenge on its hands. Getting the arm tuned correctly, across all the image recognition, mechanical engineering, and choices about risk management and bot behavior, will be quite a feat of engineering. And the solution probably won't come to this first-generation model: In an email, a representative from Roborock said that the company probably won't be able to solve some of the pickup and image-recognition problems with software updates alone. For now, it falls well short of being Roborock's promised panacea for all your floor-level messes. You shouldn't count on Roborock (or any company) to catch up with its promises through software updates over time. It might — but I've seen too many examples of gadget makers not delivering on their promised improvements to navigation systems and other features.
Business Insider
06-05-2025
- Business Insider
Multimodal AI makes this robot vacuum cleaner smart enough to pick up your socks
As long ago as 1962, The Jetsons imagined the vacuum cleaner as more than a simple appliance. Rosie was a friendly, helpful, and intelligent presence in the household, helping the family tidy up after themselves. That vision is no longer some far-flung fantasy of the future. It's real and ready for mass production thanks to a specific development in AI. This May, Roborock is launching Saros Z70, the world's first mass-produced robot vacuum cleaner with an OmniGrip intelligent, foldable robotic arm that can pick up your socks and put them back where they need to be. What makes this possible is "multimodal AI" — an intelligence capable of making sense of data from multiple modalities, such as infrared cameras and sensors. Instead of relying on a single input such as a laser, it learns from a fusion of information from all sorts of data points. In the case of the Saros Z70, it uses 3D point cloud data (similar to what's used for facial recognition) to see and measure the depth between objects in your home. It then continuously updates its map of every room in real time so the device can rapidly adapt to new furniture layouts and obstacles. But as astonishing as this technology is, it didn't come from nowhere. The first big shift in this type of AI was when Roborock applied its StarSight Autonomous System, which is a navigation and obstacle avoidance system, so that robot vacuums could use a laser to navigate around the house. This next iteration of that system uses a sampling frequency that's 21 times higher than traditional LDS solutions, scanning 21,600 sensor points to identify objects as small as two square centimeters, so it can not just vacuum but actively organize your home for you. The result is that if it comes across a piece of crumpled paper on your floor, it's intelligent enough to know it needs to be treated differently than a sock. At the heart of this massive leap forward is a multimodal AI that's designed to ensure this generation of robot vacuum will continue to become even smarter, safer and friendlier than it already is. "The Saros Z70 can help users grasp the future with intelligence," said Richard Chang, founder and CEO, Roborock. "It can be a user's home helper, companion, and assistant — whatever it needs to be." The magic of AI powered by multimodal perception Robotic arms are already widely used in all sorts of industrial settings. But for a robot vacuum to operate a 5-axis robotic arm in a home, it needs to be intelligent enough to navigate not just all your furniture but also whatever surprises your kids and pets might throw its way. That takes multimodal perception - an ability to see the home in a multitude of different ways and the intelligence to make sense of all that data. The Saros Z70 accomplishes this by combining 3D Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensors and visual recognition to create a real-time 3D map of everything around it so it can detect objects, recognize spatial relationships between them, and intelligently adapt. It uses RGB and infrared cameras in the arm and on its chassis to perceive depth more accurately than previous LIDAR systems. The lateral wall sensor extends the field of vision made possible by a single-point laser to eliminate blind spots so the vacuum can keep cleaning even when it needs to move alongside something like a cable on the floor. And its AI uses a range of sensors to make sure the foldable arm is only used in the safest possible ways. For instance, it can clean areas that were previously obstructed and lift socks, small towels, tissue papers, and sandals. But its sensors also prevent potential issues. The weight sensor in the arm prevents its gentle grip from lifting anything heavier than 300 grams, the anti-pinch and pressure sensors make sure you can interact with the arm safely, and the upward spatial sensor keeps the arm from unfurling if a child, cat, or coffee table is 45 cm above it. The combination of all these different data sources ensures the device can dynamically react to the specific objects and obstacles in any given home. It needs multimodal AI to align and fuse all these different inputs into a unified view of reality that is greater than the sum of its parts. Each one of these high-definition sensors provides valuable context, but it's the AI in the middle that can turn all that data into the intelligence needed to safely clean a home that's constantly changing with kids and pets running around. A friendly robot that grows smarter all the time Remarkably, all those sensors and cameras are packed into the thinnest Roborock yet, a mere 7.98 cm (3.14 inches) tall. So it's smart enough to tell the difference between a cat and a lost slipper, but it's also thin enough to clean under the sofa. The upshot of all this intelligence is a robot vacuum that's capable of learning your habits automatically so it knows when to pick something up, where to put it and whether it needs to use suction or mopping for optimal results on all the different routes it takes. The device can also be voice-activated and used to keep an eye on your pets, using its cameras to find them wherever they are in the house and even send you pictures. It's a truly friendly assistant that is constantly becoming more intelligent the more it gets to know you. It adapts to your home layouts when they change, reacts to objects when they're out of place and is continuously updated over-the-air to detect new objects. It already knows, for instance, not to pick up a pair of scissors while being smart enough to put a crumpled piece of paper in the bin. All of which means that the vision of the multi-tasking robot tending to your home is no longer just a vision. There's already a friendly AI-powered robot you can talk to while it puts your socks away and it's called the Saros Z70.
Associated Press
18-03-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Roborock Remains the #1 top selling Robot Vacuum Cleaner Brand globally in 2024
HONG KONG, March 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- In 2024, Roborock, the global leader in ultra-intelligent home robotics engineered to simplify daily life, ranked once again first in global sales volume and turnover amongst Robotic Vacuum Cleaner (RVC) Brands, according to IDC on its 2024 Q4 Worldwide Smart Home Device Tracker released earlier this week. Roborock's global market share for the year in terms of sales volume was 16%, with the brand's total turnover reaching 22.3%. This represents a YoY increase in the amount of unit shipments by Roborock of 20.7%. Roborock's leading position is obvious across United States and China. Also, Roborock ranks as the top #1 selling RVC brand in volume and value in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, South Korea, Switzerland, and Turkey. According to IDC, Roborock's overseas expansion prioritizes developed markets with high demand for smart home products equipped with the latest technology. The brand also emphasizes both online and offline distribution that can provide adequate returns to its intensive R&D efforts. Also noted by IDC, Roborock's wide product portfolio covers low, medium, and high-end market segments, and its flagship OmniGrip robotic arm has become a symbol of the industry's accelerated development. The IDC paper comes a few weeks after Roborock won several prestigious global media awards at CES 2025 based on the launch of its new revolutionary Roborock Saros series, including the Roborock Saros 10R, the Roborock Saros 10, and the Roborock Saros Z70, the most cutting-edge robotic vacuum cleaner of the year featuring an OmniGrip, the first-of-its-kind mass-produced* foldable robotic arm with five-axis that can deploy itself to clean areas previously obstructed and (1) put away small items such as socks, small towels, tissue papers, and sandals under 300g (1).
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Roborock Remains the #1 top selling Robot Vacuum Cleaner Brand globally in 2024
HONG KONG, March 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- In 2024, Roborock, the global leader in ultra-intelligent home robotics engineered to simplify daily life, ranked once again first in global sales volume and turnover amongst Robotic Vacuum Cleaner (RVC) Brands, according to IDC on its 2024 Q4 Worldwide Smart Home Device Tracker released earlier this week. Roborock's global market share for the year in terms of sales volume was 16%, with the brand's total turnover reaching 22.3%. This represents a YoY increase in the amount of unit shipments by Roborock of 20.7%. Roborock's leading position is obvious across United States and China. Also, Roborock ranks as the top #1 selling RVC brand in volume and value in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, South Korea, Switzerland, and Turkey. According to IDC, Roborock's overseas expansion prioritizes developed markets with high demand for smart home products equipped with the latest technology. The brand also emphasizes both online and offline distribution that can provide adequate returns to its intensive R&D efforts. Also noted by IDC, Roborock's wide product portfolio covers low, medium, and high-end market segments, and its flagship OmniGrip robotic arm has become a symbol of the industry's accelerated development. The IDC paper comes a few weeks after Roborock won several prestigious global media awards at CES 2025 based on the launch of its new revolutionary Roborock Saros series, including the Roborock Saros 10R, the Roborock Saros 10, and the Roborock Saros Z70, the most cutting-edge robotic vacuum cleaner of the year featuring an OmniGrip, the first-of-its-kind mass-produced* foldable robotic arm with five-axis that can deploy itself to clean areas previously obstructed and (1) put away small items such as socks, small towels, tissue papers, and sandals under 300g (1). Source: IDC Quarterly Smart Home Device Tracker, 2024Q4 Based on internal testing carried out by the manufacturer. Actual results may vary depending on environmental factors. Contact: SOURCE Roborock Sign in to access your portfolio
