The Roborock Saros Z70 is the first-ever robot vacuum with a claw arm. Which the company has branded as OmniGrip technology. This OmniGrip by Roborock is changing the way robot vacuums work. Now, your robot vacuum will be able to pick up items. The Z70 can organize the shoes around my house all by itself. The Roborock claims that the Saros Z70 can lift objects with a weight of 300 grams. However, in my testing, this robot was able to lift 400 grams of weight.
At CES, Roborock said we would be able to use our phone to manually control the arm like a little remote control. So of course, the first thing I did when I set up the Z70 was use that claw arm. It’s surreal watching an arm pop out of the robot vacuum in my house. You know in the movie Alien when it pops out of him in the dinner scene? It’s like that. It’s crazy.
Remote Controls
Of course, there are the standard remote controls to drive the vacuum around. But there are now arm controls too. It has four different movements: rotate the claw, move the arm up and down, move it forward and backward, and the ability to close and open the claw.
I was using it with my kids, and it was so much fun. Cleaning up the toys is like playing a video game. We were fighting over who gets to clean up.
There’s a camera on the end of the arm so the vacuum knows what it’s grabbing. I can also change that camera view while controlling the arm. It’s pretty sweet. Plus, it comes in handy to check on the house while away.
I’ve done this on my previous Roborock vacuums when we’re out of town, and it comes in clutch. So this extra camera angle on the arm is a great bonus.
Not only that, but there’s a light on the arm too. So seeing in the dark is no problem at all.
Arm Grip and Sensors
The claw is actually pretty strong. It can pick up items up to 300 grams. I was curious to see if I could manually pick up heavier objects — and I could. So the arm is stronger than Roborock gives it credit for.
Additionally, there are sensors to keep everyone safe. There’s one on top of the vacuum to stop the arm from popping out. And there are sensors on the arm joints, so if something is getting pinched between the folding arm, it will stop.
I also tested this — and I still have all my fingers. So I’m not worried about it being dangerous for my three little kids.
The hardware also feels very solid. Roborock says the arm only takes up 10% of the vacuum, so they were still able to fit everything in here.
There is one main thing that Roborock did not do on the Z70 that they did do on the S8 MaxV Ultra and S8 Pro Ultra. I’ll get to that in a minute.
First, we have to test how good the arm is at automatically picking up shoes, socks, and anything else around the house.
Smart Avoidance and Reliable Grabbing
One of the biggest criticisms I hear about a vacuum with a robot arm is, “I already clean up before my vacuum goes around.” And that’s a completely valid point. I also try to clean up before my vacuum goes around.
But I have three kids, and one of them has a personal mission to leave every pair of shoes and socks she has around the house. At any given point during the day, there are about 10 pairs of shoes and 10 pairs of socks scattered around the house.
Even though Roborock vacuums have been getting better and better at object avoidance, they’re not perfect. Sometimes it recognizes a sock and avoids it, but then it bumps into something else that pushes the sock into the way — and then it jams on the main brush. It’s super frustrating.
Well, the Z70 has a much better approach. It’s much less likely to get stuck. When it starts cleaning and it spots a sock, it immediately grabs it and moves it to a safe spot. That way, it doesn’t get too close to the sock and accidentally get stuck. So much better.
Saros Z70 Storage Bin
Roborock provides a storage bin with the vacuum, and you can set where it is on the map. Then the vacuum will put the socks and tissues in the storage bin so they’re safely out of the way. It’s pretty cool that it can just automatically do this all by itself.
If the storage box is in the corner of your house, it can take a while for the vacuum to bring the sock all the way to it. So I would think about putting the storage bin in a central location.
And if you don’t like how the storage bin looks, you could just have it drop it off in a certain spot in your house.
After the vacuum is done cleaning and it’s moved all the socks and tissues out of the way, the vacuum does a follow-up cleaning — where it moves the shoes a short distance to a spot where it’s already cleaned — and then it finishes cleaning where the shoes were.
This is great because it doesn’t take a lot of time to move the shoes, and it gets the entire floor clean.
Sorting Objects
But the Z70 takes things to another level. It will sort certain objects on the ground, like shoes, for you. That’s right — it will take the shoes and carry them to the shoe storage zone — aka the shoe pile in the house.
So instead of nagging my daughter all day to put her shoes away, the vacuum will just handle it. It’s insane.
We still have our kids do chores around the house and learn responsibility, but I’m not going to complain if a robot is going to do annoying tasks around the house that no one wants to do.
What’s really crazy is that it can pick up my kids’ toys and put them away for me too. What?! It almost feels wrong seeing this little doll being carried away with this claw arm. But I’m so happy a robot is finally picking up my kids’ toys for me and putting them away.
And if you have a dog with a lot of dog toys that get left out, the Z70 should also be able to pick up a lot of those too. The vacuum only picks up the soft, stuffed animal-type toys right now — and it just throws the toys in with everything else, like the socks and tissues.
Eventually, Roborock says it will be able to sort different types of items into separate storage areas. That will be pretty sweet.
We’re pretty close to being able to have a robot like Rosie from The Jetsons automatically putting things away for us.
Related: How Do Robot Vacuums Work?
Beta Software
I want to point out that this Z70 robot vacuum is running beta software — so there are some hiccups I’ve run into. So far, the arm’s been working great, and it hasn’t gotten stuck or had any issues. The only problem I had was when the vacuum tried to grab a sock that was under the fridge. It tried to go for it a few times but couldn’t get it. Eventually, it gave up and left it there. It didn’t get stuck, though, which was nice.
Even if the sock is underneath something like a chair or a table, it will still reach in and grab it. I was impressed by how good the arm is at finding socks and grabbing them quickly and reliably.
I also wanted to try the vacuum in a really messy room and see what it does.
So I put it in our guest room that kind of turned into a laundry pile disaster. There were socks, shirts, towels, and shoes all over the floor.
It was kind of interesting to watch what it would do. It didn’t grab everything, like some of the towels and shirts, but it did pick up the socks and shoes and even some of the smaller stuff.
I thought it was really cool that it was smart enough to avoid vacuuming near the big towels and shirts so it didn’t get stuck. It just went around those areas, which was impressive.
Saros Z70 Cleaning Abilities
This has all the same vacuuming and mopping tech as the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra — so it’s really good. The suction power can go up to 22,000 Pascals, so it has plenty of power to clean your carpets and floors. There are dual spinning mops, which is what I prefer for mopping. And the mops can also automatically detach in the dock if it’s just vacuuming. The vacuum can lift up to not get stuck, and it has star sight instead of lidar to map out the house. For mapping, it’s pretty much the same, but it’s more accurate at detecting objects to not get stuck. So, I like that. Plus, without a LiDAR sensor on top, it keeps a really slim profile to go under furniture. Of course, it has a self-cleaning dock that can wash the mop, automatically empty the vacuum dustbin, and add cleaning solution to the mop water. As I mentioned earlier, Robbo Rock did something different on the Z70 compared with the other Soros vacuums.
Instead of the Duo Divide, they added the Freeflow main brush. It has these little grooves that can cut hair as the brush spins since there’s a little blade that moves back and forth, similar to an electric razor. Even though the DuoDivide has a 0% tangle rate, Roborock went with this design instead so they could fit the arm inside the vacuum. The side brush is similar to the other Soros 10 and 10R.
It can lift up to be tucked away if needed, extend out to clean the corners, and it does a great job at not getting hair stuck in it.
Final Thoughts
In short, the cleaning is great — just like the S8 MaxV Ultra. Except for one big difference: the water tank.
This vacuum only has a small water tank inside the robot, not a giant one like the S8 MaxV Ultra. That’s because the arm takes up a bit of room inside. It’s not a dealbreaker, because the dock automatically refills the robot’s water tank when it gets low. But it does mean the robot has to go back to the dock a little more often to refill, especially when mopping. You’ll notice it go back a few times during a mop job, especially on a big floor like ours.
I think it’s a fine tradeoff though, considering all the new features the arm adds.
It’s one of those things you didn’t know you needed until you tried it—and now I don’t want to go back.