It’s only in the last few years that we’ve seen robot vacuums come on the market that are truly worthy of the title “robot.” In our mind, that term implies some level of autonomy – the ability to see and understand the world around it and make intelligent choices. Well, the Roborock S6 is here and this is a robot vacuum worthy of the name. Have a look at three of the technical features of the S6 to understand what we’re getting at.
1. The Adaptive Routing Algorithm
First and foremost, a robot vacuum needs to navigate around your home. To do this, it needs to “see” and the S6 has an array of sensors that help it with that. However, the next step in moving around a space is understanding what it sees. This is where the S6 comes into its own. Using a proprietary algorithm, it maps not only the shape of the room but every object resting on the floor. Then, with all that information, it plots the most efficient path around your home so that it cleans faster without missing a square inch of floor space. This stands in stark contrast to other models of robot vacuum who’s method of navigation either depends on running into walls and objects seemingly at random, or higher priced vacuums that use cameras to orient themselves – something that basically stops working as soon as it finds itself under a piece of furniture like a couch or your bed.
2. Automatic room recognition
On top of seeing your whole home and understanding how to move through it most efficiently, Roborock S6 can also understand the difference between the rooms in your home. The first time it leaves the dock to clean, it maps and stores your floorplan. This ability to understand the separation between rooms is the result of countless hours of AI training that we have put it though, both in the lab and real home environments. The practical application of this is that the S6 sees things like doorways and other features in a home and can distinguish between various spaces. Using that gained understanding, it can then be tasked with cleaning specific rooms, so if one part of your home gets dirty on a predictable schedule, it’s easy to have that area cleaned daily, or even many times a day as needed. Alternatively, you can customize this process even further by breaking out rooms into multiple sections or combining two areas into one so that the messy half of your kids’ bedroom is always cleaned at the same time as another room nearby.
3. Specific Room Scheduling
Building on the previous feature, now that your robot vacuum understands the dividing lines that separate the rooms of your home it’s not a stretch to have it clean those various rooms on different schedules. Not only can you schedule your S6 to clean different rooms at different times, but you can instruct it to do those different cleanings at different power settings as well. For example, you can set it to give the kitchen, bathroom, and hallway a quick and quiet clean before everyone wakes up in the morning. Then, after everyone has left for school and work, set it to do another pass of the kitchen on full power to pick up the inevitable breakfast debris that come after a rushed exit for the school bus. And, of course, you can always set whole home cleans as often as you want too.
4. No-go Zones
For any situation where your S6 is getting into trouble (even with all those smarts packed into it), there’s a great feature in the Mi Home App to solve sticky situations. The Roborock S6 uses a virtual barrier system to keep it out of rooms or areas that you like it to steer clear of; no magnetic strips, finicky lasers, or additional hardware required. Simply mark an area or a barrier in the app and watch it avoid that section of your home. This feature is perfect for cable clutter, piles of toys, or pet homes that need to be left undisturbed. Just go in the app, drag and drop a No-Go Zone, then leave it to its business and come home to a perfectly clean floor every time.
All in all, the Roborock S6 packs in all the cutting-edge features of any robot vacuum on the market (with a couple you’ll see nowhere else), and it comes at a budget-friendly price. Take a look at the Roborock website to get a look at pricing and features; you’ll see that we’ve got everything you’d find in a top of the line model from another brand, at lower price.