530

Hi all, I wanted to share a bit of my experience with robot vacuums, as i've been testing some new models recently and struggled to find the perfect fit for me. Sorry for the very long post :) Hopefully some people will find it interesting! # A bit of history first, as I've been owning those machines for the last 18 years: \- It all started with a **Roomba 541**, kind of an antiquity now with its random bump-and-go navigation, but working great at the time and I kept it a few years. \- Then when the "Lidar" models were raising, i replaced it with a **Neato**, I'm not sure of the model, maybe the D3. Navigation was indeed impressive coming from the old style Roomba, but after a week I noticed that the edges of my rooms was visibly dirty. This models didn't have any side brush and clearly the D-shape main brush was absolutely not picking up dirt at the edges. I was quite disappointed and returned it. \- As I was very happy with the first Roomba and disappointed by the Neato, I decided to go back to iRobot and bought the way too expensive **Roomba 980.** It did a very very good job at cleaning, navigation was clearly not on par with the Neato (as it was a VSLAM navigation), but it did the job and i also kept it a few years. \- Then a new brand emerged, it was called **Roborock** ;) I got the **S5 Max** and it was my first robot vacuum/mop combo. It was absolutely great, so great i even upgraded to the **S7** when it came out. Also a great robot, navigation was very good even if it bumped into many furnitures given its simple IR front sensor. I also got the auto empty dock when it came out a few weeks later, also great, leaving the dustbin and the filter perfectly clean every time. # So happy with the RR S7, but... I kept these robots a few years too, but here it is: the S7 was the top of the line when I bought it, and only a few weeks later, Roborock released the Routine feature... on some lower end new models (Q5/Q7 I think), without releasing it to the S7. I kept resentment towards Roborock since that, as my top of the line model was purely deprecated in a few months, got almost zero updates after that, and never got the Routines. # And here we are in 2025 me being thrilled to see all those new tech on robot vacuums and thinking about upgrading to a model with a fully automated dock. And that's were it become complicated as many of you already know... Being a bit angry with Roborock after the S7-non-update-gate, and seeing that they are on course to release 15 new models every year, so probably not updating and supporting them on the long run, I decided to try another brand. # To understand my choices, here are the most important things i was looking for: \- **A perfect navigation**, and I mean, **perfect**. I have **very high expectations** on this, and I know most of the people will not agree with me as a robot doing its job is "good enough", but I really am obsessed with it (and I'm not saying I'm right), like i can't stand an almost 1k€ robot to even seems to get lost, or touch anything. \- **I love the tech**, and I'm very interested in the sensors and the way the robot navigates and avoid collision. I was eager to try new sensors replacing the traditional Lidar turret for navigation, but of course i was not sure it was going to work well, as well as structured lights, tof and other fancy tech. \- I expect the **auto empty to work perfectly** and the bin to be clean, **as well as the filter** \- **Anti tangle brush** \- **A detergent tank** in the station, i don't want to add that to the water myself \- I want it **white**, I can't with the black robots and especially with the washboard being black, it's impossible to see if it's clean or not \- **I don't want a roller mop** for some reasons, from the maintenance to the complexity of the hardware, or the (imo) bad edge and corner coverage # Things i don't care about: \- Threshold capacity: i don't have any \- Carpet performance: I have only two small carpets \- The ability to leave the mop pads at the station: i never vacuum and mop at the same time I'm probably forgetting things but those are the main kpis. # 1st try: Mova P50 Ultra After watching like hours of robot vacuums reviews and videos, I decided to go with Mova and bought the P50 Ultra + optional detergent tank + tricut brush. I bought this one and not the P50 Pro Ultra because the Pro Ultra was too high to go under my kitchen cabinets. Bought it for €600. To be fair, it was working okay, but: \- Navigation was not so great, it was regularly turning in circle like it needed to position itself quite often, sometimes at the end of a job I noticed on the map that it forgot one or two furnitures legs. Nothing serious but as i explained I have very high expectations on that regards. \- Collision avoidance was good, it was very cautious and the structured light was doing a good job, way less bumping than with the RR S7 (which is expected), but still some bumping \- Also the dustbin was never perfectly clean after an auto empty, the filter was definitely not, and I also noticed some dust getting trapped around the dustbin auto empty port. Defintely not a good design. \- The auto cleaned washboard was great however, always staying clean without having to manually clean anything except the filter from time to time In the end I decided to send it back: i wanted a better navigation and i was very interested by the Starsight system of Roborock. But again, I was still not sure about RR... # 2nd try: Mova P50S Ultra and that's when i discovered the Mova P50S Ultra which was using (apparently) the same system and sensors as the Saros 10R. Bought it for €799. It was a nightmare: i think the hardware was good, with the same auto empty flaws than the P50 Ultra however, but the software is just crap imo. It was bumping into furnitures the P50 Ultra was avoiding correcly, taking forever to clean, and just seemed sooooo dumb. It also has a small wheel at the back that was bumping into the floor when the robot go on a carpet, making a horrible sound everytime. Returned it the next day. At that time I thought: you know what, let's trust RR again... # 3rd try: RR Saros 10R and I bought the Saros 10R for €850 (black friday). New mistake! \- Didn't like the color (but i knew it beforehand), however the glossy dock was really horrible with fingerprints \- The removable washboard seems like a dated and inefficient design when compared to the Mova washboard which i liked a lot \- Auto empty not great, filter still not cleaned well \- It did a bit better at navigation and collision avoidance than the P50S Ultra with the same sensors so definitely a better software, but far from perfect, and it was still bumping some furniture, and bumping hard! I was so disappointed... I sent it back. # So what do we do now So you're thinking what the f, he sends every thing back and that's true, I was a bit tired of this. That's when i heard about the **DJI Romo** that just came out in Europe. I was instantly sold by the navigation they promised, I looked at many videos, including chinese ones as there was few videos in europe at the time, and mostly by influencers that don't know nothing about robot vacuum. At that time i also considered the **Narwal flow**, but i didn't want the roller mop as I said, plus i found the navigation pretty bad (by my standards) in the videos i saw. However i give them credit for designing/engineering something different: dock design, dustbin design, omnidirectional wheel... some things are clearly made differently compared to Roborock/Dreame/Mova... That's also what I liked about DJI, they seemd to have designed something different and I liked that. Also I thought that maybe - just maybe - given their reputation, they will support the robot longer, update it and not launch 15 new models in the next couple months. But only time will tell. # 4th and last: DJI Romo S I bought the Romo S version as i was not ready to pay the crazy amount they ask for the transparent one. To be honest the regular price of the S version at €1299 is also way too high. I bought it at black friday for €799 which was a correct price imo. First one arrived with a broken wheel - with all the robots I bought, I'm not surprised I finally got a bad unit! Sent it back and DJI sent a replacement the next day, **very efficient customer support**. I'm now using it since two weeks and it's been absolutely great, I'm finally so happy with my robovac! \- **Navigation has been flawless**, really meet my expectations: it's just perfect. On a video I saw, i heard that it was "like it's flying on the floor", and I can't agree more. It never need to reposition itself, the lines are perfectly straight, it never miss a furniture leg. Plus it's using the solid state lidars that i was looking for (two rgb cameras + 4 lidars on the front, one lidar on the back). \- **Collision (and obstacle) avoidance is also absolutely great**, it doesn't touch a thing where the Saros 10R and Mova P50S where bumping. Also meet my expectations. \- There is a **mesh prefilter protecting the filter** in the dustbin, I think Narwal does that too. Thank you! The filter stays way more clean. \- The dustbin/auto empty design is way better i think, very different design, **it's emptying perfectly** without leaving any residue in the way to the dock. \- The washboard design is reminding me of the Mova one, very good, stays clean, with the bonus of not having a filter to clean, again a different design than on the other brands. \- Vacuuming performance has been great, as well as mopping, no complains on that \- Sure **the app misses some features**, but nothing that has troubled me, we'll see if they update it in the near future, I surely hope so. The app design is very polished with beautiful animations, I like that. \- And... **it's cute**, I don't know, I just like the overall design and in particular the front sensors which give it a sort of "cute animal" face. \--- I'm of course not writing all this to say that this one is the better one for everyone, **but it is for me** and I know i don't have the same expectations as many. It's been truly tiring to try all those models and to see that the **high end models, costing so much, has become so bad on some aspects.** Hope this will be useful for some people, and happy to answer any question regarding the DJI Romo as there are not so much reviews and videos out there for now! **If you read it until here... congrats and thank you!** I'll probably update later as i surely forgot some things. And I'm french so sorry for my english :) Some pics of my Romo: https://preview.redd.it/tpb8tx3de85g1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a92cb8ab943256dfac585ce4c0afd2154b63a80b https://preview.redd.it/pka2bu3de85g1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=251c90f6a46b2c5c9b78ff98282e477157cdf1c3 https://preview.redd.it/ycrxtt3de85g1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66067595033a0dc97d9029020f02ab297776a64c https://preview.redd.it/dzljfu3de85g1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2f7e3853572ccd188e74d2fc3df8e11408cde6d https://preview.redd.it/vk96xt3de85g1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2a1624ecbd5fb4f13971d1ccccf34c8bdb9b5a3 https://preview.redd.it/7vz1zy3de85g1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1348971e762a83e1e574f0c318134b19c4509bb0 https://preview.redd.it/w0ug0u3de85g1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f527bcec9e4c84810f4fc2e18d32e70dd2ef8d9e

Grew up with a Roomba 401 and 530. I just recently purchased a Dreame L20 Ultra and have been extremely happy with it. Just make sure to go and set each individual carpeted room as "vacuum only" on the map. Learned that the hard way lol. If you have hardwood floors be sure to set the floor direction for mopping too in the app. Once I got past the initial frustration of sorting through the plethora of cleaning options available in the tedious app menus, it's been a great buddy so far. I don't think our hardwoods have ever shined this much before!

We have three dogs and one being a Golden Retriever. Our 15 year old 500 series Roomba has zero issues cleaning that.

Neato XV series for being awesome and being the first robot vacuum to feature a lidar sensor roomba 500 series, for a while they were the most popular robot vacuums ever made and still the most reliable, other than battery replacements they can last more than 15 years without issues Roomba 980, the thing is still a beast at cleaning and the navigation is good enough. No keep out zones or anything but it does its job well

We have had an iRobot Roomba for 17 years. We initially bought the 535, it’s been upgraded with the new bin (aero vac 2) and running gear from the later 600 series It has had two battery replacements in its life, and has had a replacement main board once, which added the schedule feature. It cleans better than the 780 models relatives have. This Roomba, with replacements when things wear out, has outlived most other appliances we have. You can still buy the 600 series which is based on the same platform, and if ours ever became unrepairable, we would buy one. Heck, considering you can change all of the parts with a screwdriver and a bit of basic knowledge (how to plug/unplug things), a second hand one would be fine.

I just bought the 505 a couple of weeks ago. And I’m returning it. The side brush keeps falling off while vacuuming. This is our 4th or 5th Roomba. And this new model is the only one where the side brush snaps on, instead of using a screw. Our house is new, we don’t even have furniture yet, and still the Roomba keeps losing the brush mid job. I’m bummed because I was really liking the way it avoids obstacles and how good the vacuum feature is, but without the side brush it just leaves all the corners and edges dirty. I can’t be looking after it monitoring where and when the brush falls off.

I was torn between this and the 505 but it seems like all the 505 has is heated pad drying which I don't really think is all that important. But yeah It goes back constantly to refill like every 10 minutes for about 6-700 square feet. So it works but definitely adds time.

Just exchanged my 405 for a 505 and I gotta say the object detection is much better. The 405 did pretty well but the object had to be tall enough to get detected by the lidar. The 505 was able to completely avoid a sock, cord and flip flops I threw on the ground. Also shows avoided obstacles in the app.

It's much much quieter is the first thing I noticed the 900 was so freaking loud on carpet. I couldn't hear anything and had to scream just to hear what I was saying. I could easily be on a phone call while 405 is going on carpet and barely be bothered. Can't tell how well it vacuums yet it has 4 different settings of suction. It defaults to the third highest and I just left it at that. It did pick up some test things I threw on the floor just to see. So I think it's probably pretty good at least as good as the 900. Might try out the high suction tomorrow to see if it's really loud. The mopping I'm undecided so far. I've never had a mopping robot so nothing to compare it to except good ole elbow grease mopping. Which I know is going to always be 10x better. But it seems like it doesn't store water it just wets the pads because it starts off out of the machine with decent wetness but then as it goes you can see the water decrease that it leaves behind. My floor is also reasonably clean right as I used my bissel vac mop the other day. But I did clear out the dirty water and it was pretty dirty so it's doing something haha. Will it lift up some caked on mess I don't know.

I upgraded to the 505 shortly after this. But the 405 was great the whole time I used it the 505's been really good. I had to replace it once because one of the mop spinning motors stopped working but it was pretty seamless replacement process