I recently purchased these two robots and wanted to share some thoughts on how they compare in places I don’t see reviews focus on very much.

Bath Mats: The roomba does much better at going over these, it will occasional get stuck if it catches a corner but generally it will go over fine and lower its suction to not get bogged down. The Roborock gets stuck immediately and needs no go zones.

No go Zones: Roborock wins here because of the option to make diagonal zones and invisible walls. With the roomba if you have an angled wall you have to make these staggered squares, it’s really a mess.

Mirrors/ Obstacle avoidance: Roborock does much better here. Both of them think that there is a room behind the mirror, however the Roborock actually trusts its bump sensor and moves on, whereas the Roomba tries to second guess it. With the Roomba you need to make a no go zone to keep it from trying to drive through the mirror. I have a similar problem with stainless steel furniture where it will occasionally start ramming my dish washer and chair legs like a goat, convinced the bump sensor is wrong and it can in fact clean there. (Yes the foam stoppers are removed, it backs up and tries again).

Carpet Docking: Again Roborock, this is really the reason I bought it, my Roomba refuses to dock on my carpet and is fairly picky with dock placement in general. My shark IQ can also dock on carpet and I have a theory that models with more of a pedestal on the base, with the contacts on the bottom work much better than those with just two prongs in the front.  

Pet Hair: This one is tricky and also why I will be returning the Roborock. The Roborock does much better at the actual pick up of pet hair, especially on short pile carpet where even my upright struggles. However its auto empty mechanism is terrible. I don’t even really understand how it works. Instead of a hole in the dust bin it seems to suck it back out from or around the brush roll through a very tiny channel in the bottom of the base. First time using it, the fur got stuck under the robot, second time it all got stuck in the brush rolls. I have a long haired German Shepard and Lab and a large house, so your mileage may vary but I also vacuumed very throughly the day before with my upright so the idea that you can vacuum more frequently to mitigate this is wrong.  

Navigation efficiency: Roborock is a hair better, initial mapping was much faster

App: Aside from the no go zone problem I like the Roomba app a little bit better, just feels simpler.

Voice: Roomba, personal preference but I find the Roborock voice a little annoying. 

TLDR: Roborock is a better performing vacuum in most categories but the bad dock design is a deal breaker if you have shedding dogs. I think the non-auto empty version would be great but the dirt evac is so bad it’s a complete non starter for me. 



Roomba 105 vs Roborock Q5 Max+