When I was sent the Roborock F25 Ace Combo, I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with it. It's essentially a motorized mop (the Roborock F25 Ace, specifically) that comes bundled with a lightweight stick vacuum. The two share a battery – which can be swapped between machines – and a dock. While I could test the vacuum part in my small, mostly carpeted house, I felt a tougher challenge was required for the mop.
So I lugged the whole thing to a friend's house, which is home to three hairy dogs and lots of hard flooring. I spent a morning vacuuming and mopping their floors, and it was one of the most satisfying housework sessions I've had in a long time.
I'll preface this by saying I haven't been able to personally test most of today's best wet-and-dry vacuums (bar the Dyson Wash G1, which I thought was pretty decent), but I was instantly won over by Roborock's Ace cleaner. So much so, I might start inviting myself to other pet-owning friends' houses and offering to clean up for them.
I started by using the vacuum part to clear up any pet hair. I haven't done an in-depth comparison with the rest of today's best cordless vacuums, but on first impressions it felt impressively lightweight and easy to use, and was more than up to the task of sucking up lingering clouds of hair from the tiled floor. But the really useful part was the green lights that Roborock has added to the front of the floorhead.
It's a feature that's clearly nicked from inspired by Dyson – the Dyson V15 Detect and Gen5detect come with a laser-equipped floorhead. The light not only illuminates dingy corners, but also creates shadows on even the tiniest specs of dirt, so none gets missed.
Roborock's laser isn't as effective as Dyson's, but it still immediately highlighted about a pillow's worth of hair caught in various corners of the floor. Any pet owner will know that this stuff gets everywhere – if you want an idea of how much is still lurking on the floor when you think you've cleaned it, you need to get yourself a laser.
After a satisfying vacuuming session, I moved on to the mopping. It was a dream. The floorhead maneuvers smoothly and nimbly, distributing the water evenly as it goes. Oh, and the F25 Ace can auto-dispense detergent from a smaller tank on the main water reservoir, so you don't need to worry about that either.
Although the F25 Ace is naturally on the heavier side for a floor cleaner, it propels itself forwards when switched on, lessening the effort required from you – even if at times it did feel a little like it was trying to run away from me. There's an Auto mode or various water level settings to choose from, if you'd prefer to manage it yourself.
Action stations
With wet floor cleaners, the cleaning is only part of the job. The other important bit is machine maintenance. (It's all well and good getting the dirt off the floors, but not if it then means an hour de-gunking the cleaner afterwards.) Here, Roborock has helpfully given the dock self-clean capabilities. It'll clean the mop pads and then gently dry them with warm air – essential for avoiding bad smells and mildew.
It's tricky to tell exactly how effective a self-clean cycle is, but I will say that I emptied the dirty water tank both before and after the self-clean cycle, and it was impressively grey and disgusting both times – a solid indicator that everything is working as intended.
Roborock has plenty of expertise to draw on when it comes to self-clean stations – this is the brand behind some of the best robot vacuums on the market, many of which come with advanced docks designed to take care of various maintenance tasks.
Usefully for pet owners in particular, the dirty water tank has a couple of grilles for catching larger debris. When I went to inspect it, it was matted with plenty of hair that I'd somehow managed to miss, despite my best laser-powered efforts. It was easy – if rather disgusting – to peel it off and flick it into the trash. The rest of the tank is smooth-sided and very easy to rinse off and keep clean.
Currently, the Roborock F25 Ace Combo seems to only be available in the US. The standalone F25 Ace (with just the mop part; no stick vacuum) is also available in the US and Australia.
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