Roborock Saros Z70 Model RRE0R50 arms itself against obstacles (review)

The Roborock Saros Z70 is unique in that it has a unique articulated ‘OmniGrip’ arm that can lift small objects out of its way. It is also one of the better and most expensive robovac/mops.

Actually, take the cost as a badge of pride because its RRP of $3999 (seen as low as $3299), technology, and performance make this the aspirational choice of robovacs with dual-rotation mops.

Let’s explore OmniGrip

It is a five-axis mechanical arm that lives inside its svelte 79.8mm body. In conjunction with the camera, it can recognise socks, hand towels, gloves, paper balls, and light slip-on shoes up to 300g. It can simply move the item or return it to a defined collection area. Roborock says that as it encounters more obstacles and feeds this telemetry back, it will expand its repertoire.

For it to work at all, socks or paper must be bundled into a ball. For sandals or slippers, the opening must be facing toward the centre of the room. It can only pick up objects from a hard floor, not carpet, and can’t be too close to a wall or in a narrow space.

It is definitely a work in progress, having passed only two out of ten tests. Our panellists agree that it is currently more of a gimmick than a must-have, and that it does impact the robot’s internal design with a smaller dustbin. Before you go too much further, it is essentially a Roborock Saros 10R – new Gen 5 mapping and obstacle avoidance tech (review) with the arm. If you don’t need an arm, then the 10R is the one to buy.

Quick specs – Saros 10R and Z70

	Roborock Saros 10R	Saros Z70
Navigation	3D ToF solid-state StarSight 2.0	Same.
RGB camera	Yes	Same
LED headlight	Yes	Same
Obstacle recognition	108	108
VertiBeam Side sensor	Yes	Same
Coverage	200m2	215m2
Clean water tank ml	69	69
Battey mAh	6400	6400
Run-time minutes	180	220
Size	350 x 353 x 79.8mm	Same
Mop type	Dual Rotating	Same
Mop rise mm	22 plus Mop Drop	Same
FlexiArm extendable right mop	Yes	Same
FlexiArm Riser Side Brush	Yes	Same
22	22000	Same
Internal water tank ml	69	69
Roller brush	DuoDivide Brush	FreeFlow Brush
Internal Dustbin ml	270	180

Both share

• Brush lift
• Same app and voice control
• 30mm thresholds

Dock (essentially the same as Sauros 10R, and all features are automatic unless specified)

Size	488 x 381 x 475
Free area around the dock.	1.2m front and .75m side
Mop washing	80°
Mop Drop	Yes
Mop drying hot air	55°
Dirt detection	Yes
Floor cleaning solution dispenser	590ml
Dustbin Litres	3
Clean water Litres	4
Wastewater Litres	4
Maintenance	Automatic Deck Cleaning
Power	240V/3A Dustbin empty 240V/6A mop wash and dry

Australian Review: Roborock Saros Z70 (Firmware 02.55.42 as at 30/8/25)

Website	Product Page Manual
RRP	$3,495, but seen as low as $3,198 at Harvey Norman. If you are not in a hurry, Roborock has occasional event-related sales.
From	Roborock AU online Official Store, Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi, Good Guys, Bing Lee, Amazon – see grey market warning*
Colours	Black
Warranty	2-years. It has a Sydney service centre.
Made in	China
Company	Established in 2014 with support from Xiaomi, Beijing Roborock Technology (Roborock) specialises in the research, development, and production of robotic home cleaners and other cleaning appliances.
More	CyberShack cleaning tech news and reviews CyberShack Roborock news and reviews

Ratings

We use the following ratings for many of the items below. CyberShack regards 70/100 as a pass mark. You can click on most images to enlarge them.

• Fail (below expectations), and we will let you know if this affects its use.
• Pass(able) rating that is not as good as it should be.
• Pass (meets expectations).
• Pass ‘+’ rating to show it is good, but does not quite make it to Exceed
• Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader).

* Grey Market Warning

There is substantial parallel importing (grey marketing). Roborock can only offer an Australian warranty for purchases made from its official store or approved retailers, typically including Harvey Norman (and its sub-brands), JB Hi-Fi, and Bing Lee, but this varies by product. See its website for authorised retailers.

First Impression: Wanna arm wrestle?

It is a Saros 10R that has developed an appendage and, in the process, lost some of its function. A smaller internal dustbin is not a significant issue, as it requires regular cleaning of the mop. The Free Flow roller brush appears less efficient on carpet and with longer hair.

And I am prepared to call it. The Omni-Grip arm is a solution to a problem that does not really exist if you do even basic house preparation. What it does is to give Roborock bragging rights.

More important than first impressions are the last impressions of our four panellists and me, which you will find at the end of the review.

What is StarSight 2.0?

Claim: StarSight Autonomous System 2.0 is a cutting-edge AI navigation system. It replaces LiDAR LDS with a dual-light 3D Time-of-Flight (ToF) technology, delivering an ultra-precise 3D environmental map and real-time obstacle detection.

Well, that says a lot, but does not mean a lot. Here is what we could find.

QVGA 320 x 240 pixel, dual-transmitter solid-state LiDAR (not strictly LiDAR) utilises two optical phased arrays to steer the IR pulsed light beams. It has a range of 1- 5 metres.

Then you add 3D Time-of-Flight (ToF) with 21,600 sensor points to measure the distance to objects by calculating the time it takes for light to travel to and from a target. These usually have a range of about 50-60 cm and can see objects as small as 20 x 20 mm.

Add an RGB camera, 3D Structured light sensors, crossed IR sensors and ToF, and you have the latest in navigation and close-up obstacle detection with both systems.

Our panel noted that the Saros Z70, like the 10R, tended to spin around to get its bearings.

Sensors – Yes, it is Gen 5

It has all the Gen 5 features as defined in Five tips for choosing a robovac/mop (2025 cleaning guide), which we recommend you read first.

• Front StarSight 2.0 Sensor (dual solid-state phased IR laser)
• ToF
• RGB camera and one on the OmniGrip arm.
• LED fill light
• Right side lateral structured light laser floor/wall sensor
• Rear docking sensor
• Cliff sensor
• Carpet sensor
• Bumper

AI Features – Pass+

It is a smart Gen 5 robot in every sense. It has been trained on a large language model (LLM) that enables it to identify rooms by name, set zones, re-clean, navigate, identify objects and obstacles (in 108 categories), and floor types, allowing it to clean as efficiently as possible.

In other words, you can expect it to perform unattended whole-home cleaning, avoiding obstacles, adjusting suction pressures, and adding more cleaning for dirty patches, among other features.

Panellists found that, over four runs, the robot became smarter and faster, meeting or exceeding all Gen 5 expectations.

We found quite a difference between AI clean and standard speeds.

App – Pass

The app is comprehensive, but it is apparent that AI makes more basic decisions, so it lacks some of the granularity of other brands’ apps. This is not a bad thing—default settings are fine.

It uses 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and appears to be mesh aware.

Home Prep (or lack thereof) – Pass+

Our guide outlines the best practices for house preparation. Follow this for at least the quick map and first one-pass clean.

We tested various states of ‘laziness’, leaving the home as is, where is, and Roborock Saros Z70 managed to clean regardless.

Quick Map – Pass

Quick Map was considerably slower than usual, sometimes covering the same area multiple times from multiple angles. The map was accurate, and room names were about 70% correct.

It only recognised four furniture items – two beds and two couches. On later runs, it recognised several more types.

Navigation – Pass

It initially cleans the room edges and then uses a U-shaped pattern to clean in between. Panellists were amused that it usually selected the shortest cleaning path instead of a more logical, longer path. For example, in a hallway, it cleans at right angles to the walls. Navigation improves over time.

But we found that it often stopped, looked around, and the robot voice said, ‘Location found’, as it moved on.

Obstacle Detection – Pass+

It understands 108 types of obstacles and how to deal with them. It uses AI and the camera to decide how close to clean. Like the Sauros 10R, it avoided smaller obstacles and perhaps cleaned a tad closer to chair legs.

Vacuum test – Pass+ on hard floors, Pass on carpet

It has 20,000 Pascals on Max+, but this is more about bragging rights than real power. The efficiency of the rotating brush primarily determines vacuum efficiency.

While we don’t test Pascals, we did have the Sauros 10R to compare side by side, and it performs marginally better due to a different roller and a larger internal dustbin.

It has a 13cm Free Flow rotating brush.

We test with 4 x 25g sand, rice, oats and Kellogg’s Nutrigrain. The figures are for single/double passes (Sauros 10R in brackets)

• Low Pile: 52/65% (62/71%) – difficulty with sand and static-charged tissues,
• Med pile: 60/61% (59/60%) – ditto
• High Pile: 45/60% *45/51%)– Only with mop drop
• Hard floor: 92/97 (90/93%) – excellent

Our panellists noted below-average performance in vacuuming up debris from carpet. It 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 roller isn’t wide enough, and its suction isn’t high enough to pull in material from its sides.

Mop Test – Pass+

This has dual rotating mop pads that lift to 8mm over carpet. It has app settings for mop drop, where the mops are left at the base, allowing the robot vacuums to clean the carpet first.

It is hard to quantify, but the Z70 uses less water than the 10R, which may explain why the latter has a slightly better mopping outcome.

Edge and Corner clean – Pass+ on hard floors and Fail on carpet

The right mop pad extends past the robot to mop hard floor edges (not carpet).

The FlexiArm asymmetrical right whisker does well on medium to large particles but leaves sand and rice in the corners. Any round robot has right-angle corner cleaning fails.

Carpets are poor, as the 13cm brush leaves an 11cm gap. The whisker does not work on the carpet. Again, any round robot suffers from this.

Cleaning speed – variable

Our 50 m² test (default settings, one pass) took 80 minutes, or 1.6m² per minute, with three mop washes. The battery was 30% exhausted.

This is where we noticed the unit spending more time getting its bearings and seemingly revisiting the same areas.

After an initial map and clean, the robot AI kicks in and offers a Smart Plan. This added about 12 minutes to the clean time or 1.86m² per minute.

 We would rather have clean than fast, but it does affect the gross floor area you can cover with one battery charge.

Pets – Pass

Our pet-loving panellist was pleased to see a dedicated pet program, but commented that it was less comprehensive or effective than the Dreame X50 Ultra.

• Automatic Pet Recognition (and stay clear) – excellent
• Liquid recognition – no
• Pet Snaps (photos)

They commented that the free Flow brush was less effective than the 10R Duo Brush for long pet hair, and the 180ml internal dustbin fills too quickly.

Battery and coverage – Pass

It features a 14.4V/6.4A/92W Lithium-ion battery. Although not listed as a spare part, OEM equivalents cost about $150 and are relatively easy to replace if you are handy with a Philip head screwdriver.

The claim is 180 minutes, and that is in quiet mode, with a vacuum only on a hard floor. The good news is that a fast charge takes 150 minutes (Test: 167 minutes).

Panellists had different experiences. On defaults and a 50m2 hard floor vacuum and mop, it was 30% exhausted in 69 minutes. This results in a runtime of 138 minutes and a 100 m² cleaning area, with reduced coverage on carpet. Others got better results.

But the real test is how much water is used. Bottom right (hard to see) after 100 m² had just over 1.3 litres left, and the wastewater was 66% full. This means you should be able to cover 150 m².

Sill climb – Pass+

It had no issues with 20mm sill climbs. It can climb 30mm for a single layer and 40cm for a stepped sill.

However, it made a horrible noise when trying to clean a sill with carpet on one side and a 22mm rise to a hardwood floor. The hard roller comb left small marks on the sill.

Camera – Pass

The front camera is a QVGA (320 x 240) fixed-focus, RGB camera for still and video images. It utilises an LED light for low-light conditions and works in conjunction with structured light to assist in obstacle identification.

Privacy – Pass

You can disable any personal data collection, and all images are stored on the device and deleted after use.

Noise – Pass

It ranges from 45dB on Quiet to 65dB on Max+. The mop washing is 52dB. Noise levels are within spec.

Voice – Pass+

While it can utilise Google, Alexa, and Siri, Roborock now offers Hello Rocky, which features an expanded vocabulary and works both online and offline. Here are a few

• Start/stop cleaning
• Vacuum and mop, or just vacuum or mop
• Don’t clean here
• Create a quick map
• Return to the dock
• Empty dustbin
• Clean/dry or stop dry mop
• Pause and resume
• Increase/reduce vacuum
• Increase/reduce mop
• Volume up/down
• Clean ‘named room

Clean station – Pass+

The station has intelligent hot and hot air drying. The robot can return to clean the pad after each room or every 10, 15, 20, or 25 minutes.

The 4-litre clean water tank was approximately 50% used on a 150 m² area, providing a cleaning area of around 300 m² before refilling. The wastewater tank was about 30% full.

It is a premium station in all respects. The only thing missing is the UV light sterilisation found on some brands.

Omo Roborock Cleaning Solution

None was supplied, and we didn’t feel like trekking to Harvey Norman to buy a 480ml bottle for $39. The station has a dispenser that mixes the correct solution.

Our engineer panellist investigates cleaning solutions for all robots. He found it had <5% Non-ionic surfactants, detergent, fragrance, colour and benzothiazolinone (anti-microbial).

He advises that it should work with any brand of robot vacuum or mop solution, provided it has a 1:200 or 1:300 mix ratio. He also says viscous (thick) or oil-based cleaners (like Tea Tree or Eucalyptus) will damage it.

With the caveat that you may need to experiment with mop water level settings if you notice foaming, which he was unable to find in the app.

Maintenance – Pass

This requires about the same level of maintenance as any robot. You must occasionally wipe the mop base clean. Maintenance costs are more expensive than other brands.

Accessory website

• Roborock floor cleaner 480ml $39.90
• Dustbags 3 pack $39.90
• Internal filter pair $54.90
• Side whisker brush pair $39.909
• Main roller brush $79.90
• Mop pads – TBA

Amazon AU offers a generic replacement kit at a lower cost, but we can’t attest to its quality.

CyberShack’s view: Roborock Saros Z70 is a premium product

Our panellists were impressed, but they unanimously could not reconcile the extra cost over the Saros 10R sans arm.

As we review several brands, they have also experienced the new category of roller mops on

• Eufy S1 Pro, which is brilliantly redefined in the soon-to-be-released S2 Pro
• Ecovacs X8 and its advances on the soon-to-be-released Ecovacs X11.

In their opinion, the Z70 and 10R perform extremely well, not far off the Dreame X50 Ultra, the best rotary mop tested to date.

Panellist’s summary

• Mop efficiency: Hard floors – as good as any rotary mop
• Vacuum efficiency: Hard floors – excellent. Carpet – slightly below average
• Pet Poo detection: Yes
• Liquid detection: It has brush/whisker lift and vacuum removal.
• Obstacle detection: Hard floors – very good for objects larger than 20 x 20 mm
• Corner clean: Hard floor average. Carpet – no
• Multilevel map: Yes
• Strengths: Low height
• Weaknesses: Carpet, but it may get better
• Bouquets or brickbats: Seemed to get better as AI got to know the home.

Roborock Saros Z70 rating

• Features: 90 – an excellent suite of Gen 5 features
• Value: 80 – it is at a premium compared to other Gen 5’s – wait for the sales
• Performance: 90 hard floors and 75 carpet
• Ease of Use: 85 – 2-year warranty is not class-leading. The app is a little confusing
• Design: 85 – StarSight, but a round shape means it must make more passes, which makes it slightly slower.