roborock Q5+ Robot Vacuum with Self-Empty Dock, Hands-Free Cleaning for up to 7 Weeks, 2700Pa Max Suction, 180mins Max Run-Time, Compatible with…

Still haven’t figured out how to remote control. Cleaning is pretty good.

I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out which robot vacuum to get for our cleaning needs. You know, none of them are perfect or can clean like we do, but this little guy does a pretty good job at getting most of the dirt off the floor.

Just a heads up, this robot needs a 2.4GHz network to connect. My network was 5GHz, so I had to grab a dual-band router (2.4 and 5GHz) to make it work. Be sure to check that before you buy.

Also, my house has multiple levels (four floors, including the basement), and the robot sometimes gets a bit confused. It can’t always tell which floor it’s on, so it ends up doing a not-so-great job cleaning and bumps into stuff.

But, like I said earlier, for the money I spent, it’s a decent helper, and I’ll keep using it as long as it keeps working.

UPDATE: I bought this vacuum almost a year ago and initially it was a little problematic, as you’ll see in my initial review below. Over that time, though, the company has released several firmware updates that really do seem to have fixed most of its issues. Its pathfinding *without* a saved map is much improved, for example – I did have to delete my saved map at one point (it was my fault) and when I set it loose to create a new map, it only took marginally more time to clean my whole house and create a new map than when it had a saved map to go on. Its work on rugs is also improved; it’s still not the greatest in that area, but it’s much better at immediately recognizing that a certain angle it’s taking isn’t working and trying something else. It can get through all of my rugs now… not quickly, but without getting stuck or taking a totally random route through them.

In fact, it generally almost never gets stuck anymore unless I mistakenly leave a cord lying on the floor and it gets twisted up in it. (This is a problem all robot vacs seem to have; I feel like there should be some way to avoid this, because how can you ever have *no* cords on the floor? We all have lamps, air purifiers, TV’s, stereos, etc.) It’s become smart enough through its newer firmwares to recognize furniture it’s not going to fit under or areas it’s too small to get into or out of. It’s also better at getting out of areas it might have previously gotten stuck in, if it does happen into a place it probably shouldn’t go. And it’s a lot better at figuring out when a tapered or contoured object’s actually an obstacle that it can’t get around (it no longer tries to climb my speaker stands or bar stools for 15 minutes each, which each have tapered bases).

So at this point I’m pretty happy as long as it keeps working. The current version of this vacuum on this page looks different than the one I bought, so I can’t say if it works the same. And I still can’t give it 5 stars because it’s still not perfect and will probably just never be *great* on rugs. But it’s better than it used to be. If my previous review score was really like a 3.6, the new one would be more like a 4.4. Both rounded to 4, but it’s definitely improved.

Original review is below.
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I have an 1800 square foot ranch style (single level) house. The floors in common areas are stone, which if you’re not familiar is really just like tile. It’s totally flat and hard. For comfort and acoustics we have a couple of rugs in these areas. These aren’t shag rugs or anything, just regular rugs, albeit with an uneven texture (ie. the design has no pile at all in some parts). Our bedrooms are fully carpeted.

I bought this model because it was the cheapest I could find with laser navigation and real AI pathfinding, and the reviews I’d seen had said it works on carpet, rugs and flat tile floors. Some reviews said rugs had been a problem but that it was fixed in a firmware update. So I took a chance on a brand I didn’t have any previous experience with. (I now know it’s really Xiaomi, same folks who make cell phones under that brand.)

When I got it, I followed all the instructions and first installed the Roborock app on my phone (which it tells you to do) and then later the MiHome app (which it doesn’t explicitly say to do, but only the MiHome app has some of the features referenced in the manual). I immediately updated the firmware. Then I let it loose.

The first run through the house was kind of a disaster! I had expected it to have to figure out where everything was and consequently take a little extra time, but it only made it through about 1/3 of my house because it kept getting stuck on my area rugs and trying to figure out ways up onto them (which it never did). It also kept trying to climb up my bar stools and speaker stands like a dog humping someone’s leg. This would have been comical if it wasn’t so annoying. It just never figured out that there was an obstacle there. In the end it died before it even made it back to the dock and it didn’t come close to fully vacuuming my house.

Since it never made it through the house, that also meant the map wasn’t saved and I couldn’t even mark off “no-go” areas. So I had to just let it try again. The second and third times, I tried as hard as I could do make things easy for it, by removing *any* obstacles (including my stools and speaker stands) and by making my house “smaller” by closing lots of doors and blocking off any under-furniture areas (it also has a tendency to get stuck under my TV stand). That at least allowed it to finish mapping and save it, and then I could mark off no-go zones in the app. It’s taken me about 3 weeks of trial and error, but I’ve now finally gotten it to the point that it’s avoiding stuff it should be avoiding and cleaning the rest of my house properly.

And generally, it’s doing that pretty well now that it’s set up. The laser mapping is quite accurate and the AI is such that it’ll go around the edges first, then go back and do an efficient grid-based pattern over the inner sections of each room. Now that I have everything running reasonably well, it usually finishes my 1800 square foot house in about 90 minutes with about 50% of battery remaining. And I mean, in the areas it cleans, that’s really finished – it’s not just doing a random pattern and missing a bunch of stuff.

BUT. And this is a big “but”. Among the no-go zones I’ve had to mark are my area rugs. It just can’t deal with them. Actually, one it sort of can and I’ve had to allow it a small path through on it to get to an area of hard floor that needs to be done. But it takes like 20 minutes just to get through that. The other rug it can’t handle at all. And again, these are not high-pile rugs; they’re just a little irregular, but I’m 100% confident that there are other robot vacuums out there that would tackle them with no problem. This is a big disappointment, and I almost returned the vacuum over it – I still need to manually vacuum these rugs.

Even low-pile wall to wall carpet it’s not all that happy with. The vacuum motor noticeably slows down, as does the wheel motor. It sounds like it’s straining.

I actually emailed Roborock support over this, and they flat out told me this vacuum is only intended for hard floors. And that’s not what it says right here on Amazon; it says low pile carpets are among its “optimal” uses.

I’m giving it four stars because I still don’t think you can find a cheaper option with laser mapping and app-based control. And that’s really cool, and not something I would want to be without. As long as it takes this thing to finish with its efficient patterns, I can’t even imagine trying to get the house properly clean with a random pattern vacuum. But I’m definitely taking off a star because it really requires a lot of babying to get set up right – it’s like trying to housebreak a pet – and because it just does not work on area rugs, and it works only somewhat well on carpet.