Welcome to Home Appliance Review, and you are here because we are gonna compare the differences between the all-new Roborock S8+ and the S8 Pro Ultra and help you make the best decision for you. Because we’ve talked about how Roborock’s vacuums have just changed our life since we bought our first one back in 2019, and Roborock is partnering with us to make this review. We’re going to cover everything that is new with the Roborock S8 models.
But right off the top, it’s important to tell you that with the S8 series here, you cannot buy the Rock Docks that bring more functionality after you make your purchase. It’s important that you make the right decision right from the start because you just won’t be able to upgrade or change which stock you get later. Let’s jump into it, and this is really where it all starts here with the Roborock S8.
Overview of Roborock S8
Here’s just like a quick refresher if you’re new to the whole robot vacuum world. This is the Roborock S8 Robot vacuum that vacuums and mops all in one unit. It’s the same size as the previous model; it has a good hefty weight to it. Its 13.8 inches by 13.9 by 3.8 inches in height, and it comes in black or white like you see here.
There’s a bumper on the front side That it won’t damage itself or anything it might bump into when it pushes against edges. There are also, if we flip it over here, six Cliff sensors around the edges of the vacuum. That’s It won’t tumble downstairs or off an edge of a multi-level home. And then on top here, this is its Lidar sensor that you have here that is for navigating your living space and mapping out your home. This thing is constantly scanning as it moves around.
Internal Components
Inside here it has a dustbin, and this is where it will collect all the debris while it’s vacuuming. Let us just pop it out. This is what it looks like, all the dust and, you know, stuff it picks up from the floor that’s going to be right here. And then over here on the front side, it has a water tank, and this can pop out. We’ve actually already filled it with water, but this allows you to wet the mop that’s on the front here, and this here, if we look at it, this is what scrubs the floors for you. The S8 brings all the improvements from the S7, which was last year’s model, and that was incredible.
New Features in Roborock S8
Duo roller brush
But the first new feature is its Duo roller brush that’s underneath we are going to show. Instead of a single roller like the S7 and previous models, you have two rollers that are moving in different directions, picking up debris better on both floors and carpets. And then what it also does is that it avoids the hair tangles a lot of them that you would occasionally have, sometimes you have to manually cut them to free it up on earlier models. But this dual roller brush, this is all new. Those hair tangles won’t happen nearly as much with the S8.
Increased Suction Power
The S8 also increases the suction power by 140 percent, that’s from 2500 Pas of suction power, a whopping 6000 Pas. PA stands for Pascal pressure unit, and the higher the number, the higher the suction. This is strong enough to pick up something that’s heavier than a double-a battery. So everything you can think of, from coffee grounds, cereal dust, hair, it goes over it, it’s gonna get it. And you’re just getting significantly better vacuuming performance with the S8 this time around.
Vibra Rise mopping system
The Vibra Rise mopping system has its Sonic mopping feature that’s moving 3000 times a minute for high-speed scrubbing. It’s moving really fast, and it can handle harder stains like dried-on dirt or water or coffee marks. And there were even some residue drops from cooking in our kitchen that it handled just as well. This is an intelligent mop also because when a carpet or rug is detected, it lifts up five millimeters.
It can vacuum and mop on hard floors, and then all of a sudden, it sees a carpet that it can go over to vacuum, and it lifts over something like our doormat and then also our rug at the entrance. It just handles most rugs with ease, but it won’t be able to handle maybe some of these thicker ones like our big main rug that’s about one inch. We think you can see it’s pretty shaggy, It won’t be able to clear that, but everything else, it’s going to be fine with.
Another key feature here is its obstacle avoidance. It uses 3D structured light and infrared imaging technology for its 3D reactive obstacle avoidance system, and that’s going to allow the vacuum to avoid items that are left around the house. You know, you have pets or you have kids; you’re going to have stuff around. It sort of allows it to avoid them in both bright and dark rooms. That means you don’t have to clean up your floor and clean everything up constantly before you turn it on. It won’t suck up something like a random sock on the floor that gets sometimes stuck in a vacuum or if it’s going over cables or other things, it can actually see potential objects or hazards like toys, trash, shoes, power strips, and it can detect up to 42 different objects.
One thing to point out is that the new Roborock S8 does not have an RGB camera. That was a feature in the S7 MaxV model from last year, and it allowed you to also remotely see what your vacuum sees from your phone wherever you were. That is not in any of the S8 Vacuum models this year. We just want to be clear with that. And personally, we just never used that remote camera feature, but if you have pets at home, maybe it could come in handy, but that’s just really a personal preference for how important it is for you.
Mobile App Features
Now, there’s also an easy-to-use app that you’re just going to sync up with the S8, and it has a quick mapping feature to map out your living room space for the first time without doing a cleaning. It’s going to save you a whole lot of time when it first does that. And again, it uses this Lidar scanning and its camera system, so you can do so much on the app. You can set routines for cleaning just the whole house.
Maybe you want to pick certain areas or certain rooms, and you can also create these no-go zones to prevent your S8 from getting stuck in certain areas or places that you want to avoid. In the app, there’s also a nice feature for off-peak charging where the robot vacuum will only be charged to 30 percent during peak charging hours and then go to full during off-peak hours to just help you save on power as well as the cost for using peak time electricity. There you go. This is the main unit for the Roborock S8 vacuum cleaner, and it comes with its own charging dock. Just a quick note, the base model S8 has a slightly larger internal dustbin at 400 milliliters versus the S8+ and the S8 Pro Ultra that have a 350 milliliter dustbin. But let’s get into the specific differences between the S8+ here and then the S8 Pro Ultra here.
Rock Docks
Now, the biggest difference, we mean, you can see it from the start, and it’s going to be their different Rock Docks that they come with to just bring you even more capabilities. And remember, you cannot buy these Rock Docks separately after your initial purchase. Like you can see them here side by side, the S8+, this is the Rock Dock Plus, which is smaller in size, but this is an auto-emptying dustbin. So up here, it has this chamber, and it empties the dustbin on the S8 Roborock without you doing anything. The dual rollers will clean the cells while you’re emptying.
And then you can see here it has a 2.5-liter capacity dust bag that can go about seven weeks before you have to replace it. It can hold a whole lot. It’s an E12 rated dust bag that filters out pollen, cat and dog allergens, dust mites, and more. And the beauty with the S8+ and The Rock Dock Plus is that you’ll never have to manually empty the dustbin from the S8 after cleaning. You don’t have to go in here, you know, pop it out; you won’t want all these dust particles flying out all around you above the trash can. But you will have to fill out the water tank over here, right? You pop it out like we showed you before, take it to the sink whenever it gets low, and that’s what keeps the mop wet as part of this whole thing.
But if you want to go to the next level up, right, we’re talking about the bigger and even better Rock Dock Ultra that comes with the S8 Pro Ultra configuration. And when they say Ultra, like they really mean Ultra because this stock, you can see here, not only is that wider, it has three chambers. It has a 2.5-liter dustbag over here, it has a 3.5-liter water tank here, and then also a 2.9-liter dirty water tank here as well. This Rock Dock Ultra, it has a system that’s going to self-wash the mop for you.
It also self-dries the mop by having warm airflow across it when it docks, and that is new to the Rock Dock Ultra with the S8 Pro Ultra. It still is going to self-empty the dustbin for you like the S8+, but it also self-refills the water tank for you. This thing does it all. This also has fast charging, um, it charges 30 percent faster compared to the S7 when it’s connected to this Dock. And then if you had a larger living space, we think it would typically take us like around 45 minutes of recharging or even more before our previous Roborock would go back out to finish the job.
This Rock Dock Ultra charges faster in between, you know, when it comes back to recharge, and it just makes things a lot quicker, a lot more efficient. And we just believe that this Rock Dock Ultra lives up to its Ultra name and really does everything. We mean, the only thing that you’re gonna have to do is refill this clean water tank once in a while, maybe one out of every four or five cleanings. Also, you know, empty out the dirty water, throw it out into your backyard, but it really just depends on how big your living space is and how often you run the robot vacuum.
Read more: Roborock S7 Max Ultra: Self empty, refill, clean & dry
Additional Improvements in S8 Pro Ultra
The S8 Pro Ultra here also has some other improvements over the S8+ that we talked about. This Pro vacuum has Vibra Rise 2.0 mopping right; this is their new mopping system. And what’s different here is that it has two times the vibration modules that essentially are scrubbing the same area twice as much, at the same 3000 times per minute for just really fast high-speed scrubbing. So you’re getting even cleaner and more efficient mop with this. And we will say that the S8+ already does a really great job, but this S8 Pro Ultra is just giving you that extra oomph with the Vibra Rise 2.0 system. Plus, this mop will still rise five millimeters to clear most rugs.
You’re getting the improved 6000 PA vacuum suction power; you’re getting that new dual roller system here as well. You’re getting the obstacle avoidance that is going to be the same with both the S8+ and the S8 Pro Ultra here. But the Vibra Rise 2.0 system and The Rock Dock Ultra that pretty much does everything for you make the S8 Pro Ultra really that top-tier S8 Roborock package. And, of course, you know, the pricing is going to jump up as you move up to each different model.
But we will say as a long-time owner of the S5 and then the S7 MaxV Ultra, you might be wondering is it worth it because it can get pricey, and yes, it is a big investment, but our Roborock vacuums have saved we can’t tell you how many multiple hours of time each time we use them. And we are someone who’s always busy, we are always on the go, and we bought our first Roborock S5 on our own before we ever partnered with Roborock for review articles. And we can just confidently say that it’s been worth every single penny over the years.
Reference: Roborock Q REVO: Perfect mid-level Robot vacuum choice
Pricing and Promotions
Now remember, the configuration that you buy from the start, that is the one that you’re going to keep. You cannot upgrade to any of the different docks later on. So you’re going to really have to choose wisely based on what you think makes the most sense for you. All right, let’s break down the lineup and the entry-level new S8 with the normal charging dock. That’s going to retail for 749 dollars. The S8+ over here with its Rock Dock Pro, that’s the self-auto-emptying dustbin.
This is going to retail for 999. And then you got the top-of-the-line S8 Pro Ultra with its do-everything dock here. It empties the dustbin, changes out the water tank, cleans the water tank, cleans the mop, dries the mop, this entire package retails for 1599. There’s also a promo to save 300 if you’re getting the S8 Pro Ultra and the Diad Pro bundle right now on the website. It’s just up to you to decide which one of these makes the most sense for you.
But look, the Roborock S8, whichever one you go with, whichever one if you never had one, we mean, it’s going to change your life. If you’ve already had one and you’re gonna upgrade, they’ve made so many improvements year after year, but these things we don’t know, we can’t live without them.
