The Roborock S6 Pure robot vacuum is the latest iteration of Roborock's automated cleaning devices, and it promises to be one of their best models yet. It's competing in a crowded field, but promises quiet cleaning, smart automations, and even some mopping attachments.
Is it worth the price tag, though? We had a chance to review one, so let's dig in and find out.
Design
The Roborock S6 Pure is a pretty unassuming robot vacuum, and looks pretty much like you'd expect one to. It's circular with wheels and a vacuum along the bottom, and comes in either white or black. We reviewed the black model.
The bumpers around the edges of it are designed to soften impact in case it bumps into something, and on the front you'll notice some perforations for a water tank so it can handle mopping duties.
There are two buttons on the top for shortcut controls, including powering down the unit and sending it back home. The front panel lifts up to reveal the dust bin for easy emptying.
It includes a charging dock that the Roborock S6 Pure will return to, which is another pretty unassumingly designed piece of tech. If you're looking for a vacuum that will hide away and blend in, Roborock has done a pretty good job. The white model looks like it'll stand out a bit more, which might be what you're looking for, but the black option is clean and tidy.
Roborock S6 Pure performance
Unfortunately for this little robot, I've got a setup that will choke up a lesser vacuum cleaner. I've got two dogs, and they both shed. The second dog is more fur than dog, too, so vacuuming is a pretty regular routine here.
That's the culprit behind most clogged vacuums.
Anyway, with a floor plan that includes a dining room with tile flooring and a living area that's all carpet with plenty of daily dog fur in between, I was naturally a little skeptical about how well it'd hold up, especially compared to bigger, standing vacuums. I gave the room a good vacuuming with my current vacuum cleaner, and let the Roborock S6 Pure take over from there.
The good news is that it honestly really never struggled. Roborock says their vacuum spins at up to 15000rpm and has some “advanced airflow systems” to make sure it can handle whatever you throw at it. I'll be the first to admit that I'm definitely not a vacuum expert, but it definitely seemed to hold up to those claims.
When you're running the vacuum you can actually adjust those speeds in the Roborock app, so if you don't think your house needs the extreme cleaning you can actually slow the motors down to keep it quieter. The vacuum also intelligently ramps up and down depending on where it's at thanks to a very advanced sensor array, so you'll notice it get louder as it hits carpet and quiet back down once it gets onto tile flooring.
Those sensors also do a phenomenal job of guiding the vacuum around, and mine has never accidentally gotten itself stuck. It will also dynamically route around things in your room, so if you move furniture or something it shouldn't cause any issues. It will, however, try and suction up your charging cables. Pick those up first. Trust me.
The Roborock S6 Pure uses a 5200mAh battery, which should be enough for houses up to 3300sqft, according to Roborock. My house really isn't big enough to ever drain the battery, but if your vacuum dies before finishing a cleaning, it will go back over to the charging dock to get just enough juice to finish its job. Pretty nifty.
The mopping attachment also has adjustable water flow so you can fit the vacuum to your needs, and the water tank holds enough water for a roughly 1610sqft area. Again, don't really have a big enough house to test trying to empty this thing, but I had no problems with it.
Keeping it clean and maintained is pretty simple, too. The dust bin is easily accessible to be dumped out, and you just need to rinse the filter every so often. Gently wiping the sensors on the side of the vacuum works to keep the vacuum from accidentally running into things, which isn't tough. The side brush and main brush will need to be replaced eventually, though, with Roborock saying they'll last for 200 and 300 hours of cleaning, respectively. Fortunately, they're cheap on Amazon, and should only cost $30 for the main brush and $14 for the side brush. You can also buy replacement brush covers and magnetic strips, in case anything else breaks on your vacuum.
Roborock app
The companion app for the Roborock S6 Pure is surprisingly robust. When you first run the vacuum the sensors on board will scan your house so the vacuum can get an accurate depiction of walls, floor plans, and the general layout of everything. It's surprisingly accurate, too.
From here you can fully control the vacuum. You can set up invisible walls so it doesn't go trying to vacuum your bathroom (because it will literally try and vacuum the entire home otherwise) and specify zones that you want cleaned. If you only need to clean up your kitchen after dinner, for example, just select that room or create a zone for just the area you want cleaned, and let the vacuum handle the rest.
You can set this up on a timer, too, so it'll run every day at 3PM, or in the middle of the night every Tuesday if you're feeling particularly crazy right now. It has a do-not-disturb mode so it won't yell out any voice notifications if a cleaning happens during that time. You can select different voices and volumes, too; I wasn't expecting to be able to customize a robot vacuum cleaner, but here we are.
It also keeps up with a cleaning history, so you can see exactly how many times the robot has cleaned, how much distance it's covered, and the total clean time. This plays into the maintenance part of the app, which will tell you when you need to change out the vacuum's filter, clean its sensors, or do any other maintenance.
Additionally, if you use Amazon's Alexa around your house, you can fully control the vacuum with your voice. Tell it to clean specific rooms, clean the whole house, or whatever you need. It's like the world's nicest roommate that never gets tired of doing all the vacuuming.
Worth it?
I was genuinely surprised at how useful this vacuum ended up being. I had my doubts, especially considering the dog situation, this managed to deliver a seriously good experience that completely takes care of a chore for me.
It's tried to eat a few charging cables that were left on the floor, but that's hardly the vacuum's fault. Otherwise it consistently does a very good job of picking up dirt, dust, and debris from both carpet and tile, and all I have to do is empty the dust bin once a day.
Roborock claims that the S6 Pure should last over 1500 hours of cleaning use, so long as you take care of it. Mine runs for a little less than 30 minutes a day, so if we do some napkin math… it should last about 8 years before it breaks down and stops working, give or take some margin of error. 8 years of not having to vacuum? I don't even know what to do with all this extra free time.
Roborock S6 | $649 | Amazon
Roborock S6 (Renewed) | $499 | Amazon
Roborock S5 Max | $599 | Amazon
