Roborock S6Pure Robot Vacuum, Robotic Vacuum Cleaner and Mop with Adaptive Routing, Multi-Floor Mapping, Selective Room Cleaning, Super Strong Suction, Extra Long Battery Life, Works with Alexa(White)

I wanted to wait for the Roborock s6 Max but realized that I did not need the s6 Max camera as we don't have pets or children. I've had this vacuum for just over 2 weeks and it (named Nikola as in Nikola Tesla) is amazing and much better than the iRobot i7 it replaced! I will update if I notice any issues in the next few months.-Mapping-Only requires one run through an area to develop a complete map of the floor. I have two floors and it mapped both floors perfectly. My previous vacuum required 2-3 practice runs to develop a map and even then it still considered a downstairs room which was about 80% of the size with a different configuration to be the same as an upstairs room. Via the phone application, one can place no Zones for vacuuming and no Zones for mopping on the same map. Sizing the no Zones takes some trial and error. For my no mopping zones, I had resize the no go Zones 3 different times to perfect this for one area.-Navigation-It is very efficient and takes less than 1/2 time to vacuum a room/floor from the iRobot i7. A room that took the iRobot i7 37 minutes takes the Roborock s6 16 minutes. The application allows you to see in real time the vacuum path that Nikola is taking. It also does not bump into walls or furniture like other robotic vacuums, which the i7 did; so I named it Mr. Magoo. Also, because it uses Lidar, I can vacuum the entire downstairs at night without turning on the lights.-Battery life-It is said that the battery life is up to 180 minutes. This is true only if one is using it on the lowest suction. If you have all medium pile carpet, the battery life is closer to 90 minutes. The vacuum will return to the docking station when the battery gets to about 20-25% of its charge. When it charges up to 75%, it will restart from the area it left to finish that area. My downstairs, approximately 1,200 square feet, is a combination of medium pile carpet, 15% of the area, low pile area rugs, 35% of area, and hardwood floors, 50% of area, and this takes the vacuum 71 minutes. Upstairs, 1,500 square feet, is 90% medium pile and 10% tile and this takes about 93 minutes of vacuum time which does not include time to recharge as it drops below 20-25% charge.-Quiet. It makes so little noise compared to other robotic vacuums. I am able to keep the tv on normal volume and Nikola can vacuum away.-Software-The updates are great. With the latest update, you can map and save at least 2 different floors and I believe up to 3 floors. The vacuum can now clean over carpet that has black patterns or color whereas before this was not possible. My favorite part of the application is the "Maintenance" screen that shows how much time left to replace/clean certain parts of your vacuum. For example, I have 131 more hours left and then I should replace my filter or in 11 hours more of vacuum time, I should clean the bottom cameras/indicators on the vacuum, etc.-Mopping-I was not looking for a mop in a vacuum but I'm pleasantly surprised at how well the mop function works. The mop tank is not large but it can mop about 1,000 square feet of flooring. I used mostly water and some Bona to mop the hardwood floors and it seems to do a good job.-no Handle-My only suggestion would be to include a built in handle for the Roborock s6. It takes me 2 trips to move the docking station and the vacuum from one floor to another only because the vacuum unit does not have a built in handle that I can carry with only 1 hand.-6-5-20 Update on Rugs with black patterns. After my review, I noticed a number of others indicating that the s6 does not vacuum over rugs with black patterns. I read the same on various forums before I purchased Nikola. In fact, in the Facebook Roborock group, there was an entry on October 2019 that showed an s6 user with the same rug that I had (shown in the above photo) where he said the s6 could not navigate over his black patterned rug. So, I purchased a non-black patterned rug at the same time I purchased Nikola. (I hate needing to purchase one thing after buying something else; just like there is no such thing as a "free" dog.) Both the s6 and the new rug were supposed to arrive on the same day. Unfortunately, the rug arrived a week later but I was anxious to use Nikola. Over the week, he easily vacuumed 3 different times over my rug with the thick black patterns.Thus, I’m assuming there was a software update that arrived after viewing the October 2019 entry in the Facebook Roborock group forum that allows for the s6 to vacuum over rugs with thick black patterns. Or, the hardware that came with my white s6 is a later version to allow for this.

I have a Roborock S5, so I'll compare the S6 with it. Both are great cleaning robots, probably much better than any other brands out there. They have LIDAR and sensors that give them superior navigational abilities. The S6 is slightly quieter than the S5, but not by much. They market the S6 as having better navigational algorithms than the S5; for example in a rectangular space the S6 is supposed to prefer navigating along the longer axis instead of going back and forth in the shorter axis. But in reality, I really haven't noticed any improvements in efficiency between the S5 and S6; it might be subtle since the S5 was already quite efficient already. Suction is about the same in both. I have rug and I sometimes have to run it 2 or 3 times before the S5 and S6 pick up everything. The main advantage of the S6 for me is the app since it can use the Roborock app instead of the Mi home app. The Roborock app allows you to designate rooms so that you can clean specific rooms instead of having to draw out zones each time. Other than this, the functionality of both apps are about the same. I suspect eventually the S5 will move to the Roborock app. RIght now the seller is making alot more money off the S6, in part due to the app advantage. It shouldn't really be that hard to move the S5 to the Roborock app, they just don't have the incentive yet. Once they do, is the S6 really worth $200 more than the S5? I'm not sure about that. Either way, they're both great robots and they beat any of the competition out there. One thing though, the Wifi setup for the S6 is ridiculously hard in the Roborock app; it just wouldn't connect to wifi. I tried it with the Mi home app and it connected no problem. The trick in the Roborock app is that you have to connect to the robot's SSID directly in the android settings, and then proceed with the setup in the app. It took a few tries but it finally worked. I thought I got a defective unit at first and almost returned it.