You may be thinking “wait a minute, didn’t Roborock just release an S6 a few months ago, and didn’t they just announce the S5Max at IFA?” Yes, yes they did, and while it seems like they’re going backward with the numbers, they’re really just filling out the product portfolio to cover each and every price point possible.
We reviewed the Roborock S4 and really loved it. At a $400 price point, it has very little competition when you look at all the features and intelligence it offers. It’s essentially the base Roborock S6 package without the mop attachment, which is something that isn’t a necessity for some people. Whether or not you’d rather do the mopping yourself, have another robot mop to do the work for you, or just don’t have a lot of spaces in the house that need mopped, the Roborock S4 provides excellent vacuuming functionality without the need for an extra add-on.
Roborock was laser-focused in the design of its latest vacuum, which helps cut down on the extra cost and provides consumers with an excellent option for less money. We’re putting that laser-focus to the test in our new whole-home test to see how it performs when compared to the Roborock S5, a vacuum that launched about a year and a half ago and still retails for $100 more.
Here’s the basis of the test: our other types of tests usually focus on one thing at a time; how well does a vacuum pull dirt out of floor gaps or how functional edge cleaning might be, for example. This whole-home test is designed to see how each vacuum fares in a normal vacuuming of the entire home, instead. This presents a more natural cleaning test, as cleaning the entire house at a time is likely what most consumers will be using it for most of the time.
Here’s the test
The test setup starts with the kitchen. Here, we crushed one cracker and put it under the cabinet, while a full tablespoon of coffee grounds were placed in a mound in the middle of the floor.
In the dining room you’ll find 2 crushed crackers placed under two different chairs to account for the chair legs as obstacles.
Moving into the hall, we placed 2 tablespoons of coffee beans along the wall in the middle of the hall, while one tablespoon of hair was spread out in the far corner.
One tablespoon of hair was spread out in a small area in the middle of one bedroom, while the other bedroom has 2 tablespoons of beans against the far wall.
Lastly, the master bathroom was given a treatment of 1 tablespoon of hair spread out in the middle of the tile floor.
We’ve put other vacuums through this test before and are always surprised at the result. The Roomba i7 vs Roomba s9 video was the first of its kind, and now we’ve followed that up with the Roborock s4 vs the Roborock s5. Check out the video below!