S7 Max Ultra

Both. It’ll mark it in the app as pet waste and skip it. The biggest reasons people don’t buy these is dragging pet waste everywhere. It’s a great robot. It gives me all the features I want without costing a million dollars. I had an S7 Max Ultra before upgrading and I switched in large because it didn’t detect a pet accident. Clean up wasn’t hard actually, but I have a senior dog so I needed to upgrade. It goes on sale for $850 regularly and that’s a great price for it. Full price isn’t worth it anymore given what’s coming out

I would push you towards either Roborock or dreame as they both have the best robots in the game and some of the best apps. I would also suggest you to consider using the mopping feature as a lot of new vacuums now are able to smart detect carpet and other things to keep your floors safe. IF you’re not using the mopping feature then it’s super easy to keep you probably under $1500 for three of them without even thinking about it. The other thing I’m going to suggest is keeping all three of them in one ecosystem so you can set up smart schedules through your app and let it handle almost everything. What I would do personally (if I had to buy 3) X1 [Dreame L40 Ultra AE](https://a.co/d/13v1INz) ($999 each): put this in your highest traffic area and you will be blown away by how clean your floors get. [Review](https://youtu.be/0tDHbOp-WjY?si=igaZKjPZlbNyogeJ). x2 [Dreame L40 Ultra](https://a.co/d/gHy9S4I) ($599 each). You could also just get three of these and be very happy. The L40 Ultra a phenomenal robot tha will do anything you could possibly think of asking it while also being able to handle tougher situations. [Review](https://youtu.be/51YlbWSDGDs?si=IoUXFZaR8w-rV58i). This is a steal at $599. Personally, I would just buy two of the L40 ultra AEs and put the Rooma in that unfinished space you were talking about. I would also consider two [Roborock S8 ultra maxes](https://a.co/d/5n5nCQq). I have the S7 ultra and I would die for it.

Here is my review of my S7 Max Ultra, which we lovingly call Rocky. Primarily I'm going to talk about the overall experience of having Rocky, with the frame of looking back on years of having it and hoping that a new robot would improve and fix a lot of these problems. I should start by saying that I struggle with pretty severe depression and ADHD. That combination can make cleaning extremely difficult. It is not that I do not want to clean. It is not that I cannot clean. Sometimes the motivation simply is not there. When I am in a bad depressive episode, something as basic as brushing my teeth can feel difficult. A couple of years ago my fiancée and I were walking around Target and passed the robot vacuum section. Something about them caught my eye. When I was a kid someone once gave us an old first generation bump and run Roomba. We never really used it because it was not very smart, but I remember thinking the concept was amazing. The idea that a robot could just clean your floors felt like the future. Walking past the Roborock display brought that feeling back. The S7 Max Ultra looked futuristic with the LiDAR turret on top and all the technology packed into it. I had just gotten my tax return and we were struggling to keep our condo clean. A few years earlier we had bought a Litter-Robot, which quickly became the hero of our condo because it meant we always had a clean litter box. We thought maybe a robot vacuum could do the same thing for our floors. I did a little research right there in the store and realized the S7 Max Ultra was easily the best model available. I bought it and brought it home. I have never looked back. Rocky has been one of the best purchases I have ever made. Knowing that every single day at one in the afternoon the robot will vacuum my condo, return to its dock, clean its mop pad, and then mop the floors has been a massive upgrade to my life. Even when I am struggling mentally and do not have the energy to clean, my home still looks clean and smells clean. We have three cats and a dog. Before Rocky, our floors were constantly covered in litter tracks, hair, mud, and general chaos. Now our floors are consistently clean. My mom even commented the last time she visited that she could not believe how clean our floors always were. When I told her it was the robot, she ended up buying a Roborock herself because of how good our experience had been (she named hers "rocky 2" which is hilarious to me) Of course, Rocky is not perfect. The S7 Max Ultra is getting old now and you can definitely feel that. The auto empty dock is an essential part of the robot vacuum experience. These machines work best when they are as hands free as possible. Whether you are at work, depressed, or simply busy, the house should still get cleaned. Rocky’s dock works well, but it is loud when it washes the mop pad. My mom’s newer Roborock is almost silent during this process. Rocky sounds like it is running a tiny car mechanic shop in there. The lack of hot water mop washing is also noticeable. The mop pad stains easily and can start to smell if it goes too long without a proper wash. I usually end up throwing the pad into the washing machine every couple of weeks just to keep it fresh. The dock dust bag is also fairly small. With three cats, a dog, and two people with long hair, the bag fills up quickly. I usually have to replace it about once a month. It feels like the dock was Roborock’s first real attempt at a fully self maintaining system and they have clearly improved it in newer generations. There are a few other signs of age as well. The battery is not amazing anymore and sometimes struggles to finish both vacuuming and mopping the entire condo in one run. The suction power was impressive when the robot launched, but newer robots are significantly stronger and we have to run it on lower suction levels to ensure the job is finished in one run. Obstacle avoidance is another weak point. Rocky does its best, but it has definitely eaten its fair share of socks and cables. My fiancée actually made a joke sticker sheet like the roadkill markers on the side of trucks so we can track how many victims Rocky has claimed. Hair tangles are also common since the brush roller does not have any anti tangle technology. Cleaning the brush takes about thirty seconds once a week, which is not terrible, but it is another reminder that the robot is from an older generation. The VibraRise mop system works and our floors are clean, but newer mopping systems perform better. The vibrating plate can be fairly loud when running on its highest scrubbing intensity, and the scrubbing area itself is not very large. Along the edges of the room it sometimes feels like the robot is just dragging a damp cloth rather than actively scrubbing. Even with those flaws, the overall experience has been incredible. After more than two years with the S7 Max Ultra, I can say without hesitation that it has been the single best purchase I have ever made for my home. For someone whose depression and ADHD can make cleaning feel overwhelming, having a machine that quietly takes care of the floors every day has been life changing. Even on days when I cannot bring myself to clean, my home still feels clean. For that reason alone, Rocky has been worth every single penny. Since this is about the next generation of Roborock, I should probably talk about my expectations for a flagship as well. A true modern flagship like the Saros 20, the biggest thing I would want is even more hands-free maintenance. Rocky already changed my life simply by vacuuming and mopping every day, but I would love a robot that manages even more of the process itself. Better dock automation (especially the ability to get plumbed in even with an after market kit), larger dust capacity, automatic solution dispensing, and hot water mop washing would make the system feel even more like a self-maintaining appliance rather than something I still have to occasionally babysit. I would also want massive improvement to the mopping system as is. Even if roborock doesn't go with a roller style system on their next flagship, they would need to have the ability with dirt detection and smart stand avoidance to tell when it needs to remap an area to get the floors truly clean. I would also expect improvements in the core performance. Better battery life so it can vacuum and mop my whole condo without struggling. Stronger suction so our carpets finally get those clean vacuum lines everyone loves. Smarter navigation so it can slide under more furniture and avoid cables instead of treating them like Rocky’s personal roadkill collection. As a flagship device, I would hope for modern smart home features like Matter connectivity and deeper automation options. After living with Rocky for years, I know how life changing a robot vacuum can be. My expectation for the next generation is simple. I want it to take everything Rocky already does for my home and make it even more effortless. In short I guess my feelings on the next flagship should be take what Rocky already does and turn it up to 11- or 20 in this case.

At least they're finally recognizing it for how good it is- it's been super frustrating watching them just ignore it time and time again on their top 20. Every other reviewer has the Saros 20 on top for damn good reason. Coming from an S7 Max to this has been a night and day difference. Obviously, the performance is leaps and bounds better in almost every facet, but the part I think is still under-discussed is how genuinely hands-free it is. I do my maintenance every Sunday like I always have. With my S7 Max Ultra, it would take me about 15 minutes to fully strip it down, clean the rollers, clean the pads, clean the filters, and get everything back together. With my Saros 20, it takes less than three minutes to do the same basic maintenance. The removable board alone takes literally five seconds to rinse off, and all the little quality-of-life improvements add up fast. The filter is my favorite example, I can never fully get filter clean on my S7, by contrast within 5 seconds of spraying the one on my Saros 20 it's completely clean I’ve been using it since early April, and the difference has been ridiculous. My house is insanely clean, my hair is over 30 inches long, so is my fiancée’s, and we have three cats and a dog. I still haven’t had to pull hair off the damn thing. It’s been frustrating watching Vacuum Wars ignore a lot of these practical, real-life ownership details, in my opinion, so it’s nice to finally see them recognize how good this thing actually is.

My flair says “Saros 10R” because the mods still haven’t added a Saros 20 flair for whatever reason (mods please add it lol) Coming from the Roborock S7 Max Ultra to the Saros 20 has been an absolutely ridiculous difference. If the 20 isn’t in your budget, I’m sure the 10R gets you fairly close, but as someone who came from the exact same robot you did, the biggest differences are maintenance, hands-free operation, and just how much cleaner everything feels overall. The cleaning performance jump is huge. I actually had a moment where I let my S7 Max Ultra clean a carpet, then immediately ran the Saros 20 over the exact same spot afterward, and the amount of extra dirt it pulled out was honestly insane. Every run feels more like a deep clean than a maintenance clean. Honestly, the biggest difference for me is how little I have to think about it. The S7 Max Ultra still felt like a robot I had to manage. The Saros 20 feels like a robot that manages itself. The hot water mop washing and hot air drying make a gigantic difference too. My S7 would start getting that damp mop smell after a couple weeks because it never fully cleaned itself. The Saros 20 has yet to smell bad even once. It gets itself absurdly clean every cycle. The RockDock is also a massive upgrade. The removable tray alone is worth it. On the S7, cleaning the little roller area underneath the dock was always a HUGE pain in the ass. With the Saros 20, you just pull the whole tray out, rinse it off in the sink, and you’re done in seconds. The detergent dispenser is awesome too because I don’t have to manually measure detergent into the tanks anymore. Even the filters are way easier. I bought a pack of replacement filters from Roborock, and after rinsing the used one in the sink for a few seconds, I genuinely can’t tell which ones are brand new and which ones I’ve already been using because they clean up that well. On the S7, I never really felt confident the filter was actually fully clean. I believe this is because the pleats are wider on the Saros 20 versus the S7 Max Ultra Obstacle avoidance is the other huge one. I have done exactly zero “search and rescue” missions since getting it, and right now my house is an absolute disaster because I’m in the middle of moving. There are clothes piles, boxes everywhere, and I forgot to disable Rocky 20’s schedule yesterday. It still completed a full clean without getting stuck once (full is relative here given the fact my floor is covered and stuff right now). There is absolutely no universe where my old S7 Max Ultra would’ve survived that without immediately eating a sock within 15 seconds. If you’ve got any questions, I’m more than happy to answer them because I genuinely love talking about this stuff