Roborock's been a favorite of the robot vacuum game for a while. Here at WIRED, our reviewers are longtime fans of the affordable Qrevo line, but it was left without updates for for years. The company has been more focused on more unique designs, such as the Saros Z70, which has an entire arm attached to it to grab your socks. These have a way to go before they're actually useful.
But this year, the Qrevo line is finally getting some love again. The Qrevo Curv line got a new model that we reviewed back in January, and there's now the Qrevo 2 Pro that just launched at the end of August. After a living with it for the better part of two weeks, it's easily one of my favorite sub-$1,000 robot vacuums, especially for its corner cleaning, and has the power to rival my current budget pick, the Eufy Omni C28. My only complaint is little things. I mean that literally: this robot is great at spotting furniture and navigating large obstacles, but it won't spot your cords or cat toys laying on the floor.
The Roborock Qrevo 2 Pro has a nice range of specs. It comes with a 20,000 Pa digital motor, 200 RPM rotation speed for the mop pads, LiDar navigation to map your home, a FlexiArm mop that promises to get in hard-to-reach spots (and it delivered in my tests!), and an easy-to-use app. It also has Matter support if you wanted to voice command it with your smart home speaker and an AI-powered “SmartPlan” to better clean your home. I haven't noticed a difference in using SmartPlan compared to just running a regular cycle, but I've only been using this robot for about two weeks. Hopefully, the robot will learn more over time and improve—at least, in theory. It's not the kind of AI that's going to spot spills and stains, though, so keep that in mind when you run this robot vacuum.
Most of all, I was impressed by the edge cleaning with the FlexiArm mop, and the reversible side brush. Both work together to dislodge debris and make sure furniture and wall edges are clean. The vacuum was able to knock out one of my trickier Cheerio tests—specifically a Cheerio I stash in a corner next to my fridge—with the help of the side brush and mop. It didn't achieve a perfect corner score, missing one of the three Cheerios, but I've yet to meet a robot vacuum that can achieve all three. The slim 3. 8-inch high design lets this vacuum squeeze underneath many kitchen counter toe kicks to suck up all the debris hiding under your counter, and clean right up into the edge.
The suction level also worked well on carpets and rugs alike, though it worked better on pet hair than my long hair. My low-pile rug downstairs had a nice fluff to it after a run of this robot vacuum, but more importantly the tufts of cat hair were nowhere to be seen in my carpeted bedrooms after this vacuum ran through the top floor of my home. My hair was vacuumed up, but I found it rolled into a massive ball near a corner of the bed. I'll caveat that it had been a handful of weeks since my last good vacuuming upstairs, and I doubt you'd see this with regular cleanings. My husband didn't notice the hairball at all, and immediately complimented how nice the upstairs looked.
The Qrevo 2 Pro comes with a nice low profile base station, with containers at the top for clean and dirty water, easily accessible to carry to and from the sink and toilet. (That's where dirty water should go—don't channel my husband and clog your kitchen drain with your dirty mop water.) It will self-clean at 149 degrees Fahrenheit, and uses 113 degree Fahrenheit air to dry the mop pads.
But what I like most of all is how quiet the base station is, and the vacuum to boot. The Qrevo 2 Pro's base station's noisiest stage is refilling and draining the vacuum's water, like most robot vacuums. It's still reminiscent of a jet engine taking off like most robot vacuums, though, maybe for a much smaller airplane, and the drying stage is very quiet. The vacuum itself isn't too loud either. It wasn't distracting to work in the same room as the robot vacuum, particularly on mop mode—and I couldn't hear it running at all when in the other room. Vacuum mode is a little noisy, and it’s the loudest on carpets and rugs. But it never sounds like a little airplane buzzing around the house as some other vacuums do.
While there's a lot I liked about this vacuum, it didn't ace every test. My sticky spill test was its weakest point, taking two tries to clean the spilled spots. It doesn't have any AI or features to spot stains (which is very normal for this price point), so it's not a huge surprise. But I would've liked to see it clean it up in one swoop. I'd also recommend spot cleaning sticky spots; doing an all-over clean that happened to include a big spill gave area around the spill a stickier feel than normal.
It also still struggled with thresholds, which is an issue we've seen before on Roborock vacuums. It can roll over them just fine without getting stuck, but I noticed this vacuum would usually leave some debris behind when crossing certain thresholds. It was particularly noticeable when moving between hard floors and carpet. My former colleague Adrienne So noted it when she tested both the Qrevo Curv 2 and the Saros 20 this year. It's not a dealbreaker, but I don't like needing to take out a cordless vacuum to finish the job. For what it's worth, this issue didn't happen on smaller thresholds, such as when moving from hardwood floors to a rug.
Finally, it doesn't always see the small things in front of it. It was likely to try to suction up a cord I had laying around, but it never actually got stuck on any cords in my house, unlike the similarly-priced Eufy Omni C28. It did, however, take a cat toy for a ride around the room sitting in front of it, and shredded up a loose tissue all over my son's high-pile rug instead of vacuuming it up successfully. It's excellent at the true obstacles, but you'll want to walk around and clear the small stuff before running the vacuum. It's also able to lift itself out of tricky situations; it couldn't see the low, flat table legs one of my side tables has, but was table to lift itself off of them without any assistance from me.
Even with my quibbles, I really enjoyed my time with the Roborock Qrevo 2 Pro vacuum. While I’ve found plenty of notes to nitpick, my husband had only compliments for the vacuum as someone who doesn't test them for a living. I’d say it's best for the daily cleans more than a deep clean, but you can also amp up the water levels and vacuum path when you know your home needs it. This vacuum retails for $800, but it's already been spotted on sale for $500 since it launched a few weeks ago. It's headed to my guide to the best robot vacuums as a runner-up budget option against my current affordable pick, the Eufy C28 Omni. Don't miss that guide to see how these two differ and which one's on sale, aka which one's the better buy at a given time.
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