Roborock S5Max Robot Vacuum Cleaner

We are lucky to live in a time when the level of technology development allows us not only to minimize the amount of manual labor, but also to minimize participation in those things that can hardly be called pleasant activities. Especially if these classes are repeated from day to day, from week to week, and become a bland routine. One of these activities can be safely called cleaning.

It is much more pleasant to go to the park with the children on a sunny Saturday morning. Or meet with friends you haven't seen for a long time because of the heavy workload at work. If you are a workaholic, it is much more useful to work an extra two hours on a fresh head. The list goes on and on, but there is only one solution – a robot vacuum cleaner. They have existed for so long that natural selection among these devices has supplanted the mapping of the planet using gyroscopes and radio waves and replaced them with more advanced lidars (detection and range determination through light identification). Their autonomy today will impress even those who are not going to pay attention to dust at all, their work time will be enough for the most impressive apartments, and the quality of cleaning has long been not accepted to compare with their wired / hose forefathers. The market is saturated with a variety of offers from leading manufacturers. One of the most balanced options with a large number of advanced technologies and innovative technical solutions is the Roborock S5Max.

Exterior

Externally, the S5Max has the classic appearance of a round washer for a modern robot vacuum cleaner: diameter - 35 cm, height - 9.65 cm, including a small elevation on the upper plane. In this elevation, which resembles a command post, and makes the robot itself look like a miniature of a peaceful tank on guard of cleanliness, and hidden is the very lidar (the technology really came to vacuum cleaners from the military industry), which allows it to build the most accurate maps of the premises and choose the shortest path to cleanliness. Closer to the front edge is the most easy-to-use control panel, consisting of two buttons: the first – start/pause in the cleaning cycle, the second-send to the charging station.

The semicircle behind the lidar turret is a close-fitting lid, which can be lifted to access a special brush for cleaning components and a 460 ml dust collector with a HEPA filter. It, like all parts of the S5Max, is easy to remove, clean and return to place. The second container – the water tank, which has a volume of 290 ml, is located at the bottom in the back of the device. The water supply is provided by an ultra-precise peristaltic pump, analogs of which are used in medicine for intravenous infusions (another impressive borrowing). Directly to this tank, you can attach a wet cleaning module and a removable semi-circular microfiber, which are also supplied in the kit.

Turning the robot vacuum cleaner over, we will see two rather large wheels that allow it to overcome thresholds and climb on the carpet up to 2 cm high, and two brushes: a side brush in the form of petals, the purpose of which is to rake up garbage from corners and hard – to-reach places, and a central brush, which consists of alternating rows of bristles and rubber ribs.

Another important thing, designed specifically for those who plan to use the floor cleaning function often – is a silicone mat, which is recommended to be fixed on the floor directly in front of the charging station. It will help the floor not to get wet, even if you do not rush to remove the raw microfiber after each wet cleaning. The last components of the Roborock S5Max configuration are the charging station itself and a small set of instructions. All the magic (11 sensors for detecting obstacles, accelerometer, odometer, infrared port, compass, as well as bumper and much more) is inside the robot itself.

How it works

In addition to starting cleaning and sending home (the button on the surface is just in the form of a house with a roof) directly from the device itself, you can start the robot vacuum cleaner from your smartphone via the Mi Home app. And this method is much more convenient. First, when you turn on the S5Max after unpacking and installing the charging station and let it prove its worth for the first time, it will build a detailed map of the room.

Afterwards, you will be able to manually divide the apartment/house into rooms and run it to clean only one of them. In addition, you can use the app to select a specific area on the room map and send the robot to clean only within it. Imagine that right after you just finished wet cleaning the entire apartment, you accidentally spilled some flour in the kitchen. I don't want to clean it up again, do I? This is very convenient. You can also use your phone to select one of four suction power modes (from night, which the vacuum cleaner automatically switches to after 22: 00, to a maximum power of 2000 Pa) and one of four water supply levels for wet cleaning-depending on the floor covering and the level of contamination. The quality of wet cleaning is also ensured by the fact that the microfiber on the spring-loaded module is under a pressure of 300 g.

The autonomy and operating time of this model is also at a height. Powered by a 5,200 mAh battery, the Roborock S5Max can clean up for 180 minutes on a single charge. Even a water tank is enough for three cleaning of an apartment of 65 m2 or a house of 200 m2. On carpets, you can turn off the water supply on thanks to the same virtual zones from the app, and when cleaning small areas, the supply is automatically turned off where the floors have already been washed. The 32-bit quad-core processor helps this model to understand the shape of the room and clearly identify obstacles, so that the S5Max is able to build an optimal route for each room in terms of quality and operating time.

Conclusions

Being quite compact (especially when compared to wired vacuum cleaners for manual cleaning), robot vacuum cleaners impress with how much advanced technology can fit into a single device. And in this way they fully correspond to the demands of the time. Even if you are not too interested in the technical characteristics, you can understand one thing: this brisk and so simple-looking device gives the potential owner a lot of time. And what else can we do with it?

Ron Amadeo
(23/06.2021)