Roborock S4 Max – Review

This post contains affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure here.

All Image Credit: Roborock

If you are looking to have more time to listen to vinyl or watch movies this might just be the review you have been needing. Off on a tangent, well almost. What has a robotic vacuum cleaner got to do with great sound and amazing video? More than you would think!

Our house is not huge by any standards being about 2200 sqft, with 12 rooms and two hallways but all that wood, tile and carpeted floors have to be be kept clean and dust free, and that takes several hours each week. More importantly keeping the dust down reduces contamination and cleaning of my projector, its lens, the screen and all of the home theater’s equipment. On top of that not cleaning floors allows more time to listen to music and watch movies. So a robotic vacuum cleaner is actually quite a boon to the audiophile and videophile. Yes, I know, it’s a tenuous connection!

After what felt like weeks of exhaustive research by the tech savvy daughter and I, she decided that the Roborock S4 Max  not only met our cleaning needs with a good blend of carpet and floor cleaning, but had the performance, consistently good reviews and was the best value for money.

Roborock currently makes nine models starting with the basic E4 and rising to the dizzy heights of the S7 Max5 series. They basically all do the same thing, mapping out each room/floor level and then go about cleaning them. The big differences between the models are the bells and whistles like:

• Guidance and mapping technologies plus SLAM (Simultaneous Location And Mapping) – ultrasound, infrared, LiDAR, camera, pressure
• Go and no go zones including floor levels and invisible walls
• Charge duration and cleaning area
• Sensor sophistication
• Suction force
• Floor surface type recognition
• Dry and/or wet cleaning
• Ultrasonic cleaning
• Self emptying
• Room scheduling
• 2D or 3D control app
• Alexa/Google Assistant voice control
• Remote voice and camera communication

All models have an E11 rated filter that is claimed to catch 95% of all dust particles, dander and mold so its also going to help with any respiratory issues.

The S4 Max hits that sweet spot in the Roborock range if you do not need/want the wet or ultrasonic cleaning features and are happy to empty its dust catcher yourself, it takes about 30 seconds. Plus its app is unbelievably user friendly and easy to use.

Key Features:

• LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) navigation and floor/level recognition
• Sensient™ Sensor Array for objects and stairs
• Multi-Level Mapping – Up to 4 floor maps
• 10 No-Go Zones
• 10 Invisible walls
• Three level adjustable suction strength up to 2000Pa
• Comprehensive App and Voice Control
• Auto Carpet Boost
• Advanced Clean Scheduling
• Selectable problem-area cleaning
• Room naming
• Auto charge
• 460mL dustbin
• 5,200mA/H battery provides up 300 sq. m (3,229 sq. ft) or 180 minutes of cleaning.

Once you have loaded the free app, wirelessly connected it to the robot and installed its dock, you need to send the robot to its dock to fully charge. This can be done through the app or using the home button on the robots top front surface. Keep the dock area clear of any obstructions for about 18″ front and side and then when fully charged the top light will change from red/flashing white to steady white.

Now you’re off. First you need to instruct the robot to map all areas on your floor(s) (the first clean) or again using the app you can tell it what rooms/areas you want to map or exclude. It has sensors to detect stairwell openings but ideally you should close off any stair openings, just to be safe! When cleaning, it handles wooden floors, tiles and short/long pile carpets with ease, plus it’s great at picking up pet or human hair. Even though our floors are visually clean I am continually shocked at just how much dust/debris etc. it picks up, meaning that you need to be attentive about regularly emptying the small dust catcher container and cleaning its filter. We empty the dust container once, halfway through the cleaning and then again at the end. Remember to clean the main and side brushes and small front wheel on a regular basis to remove hair etc. that will get caught around them (takes about 5 minutes and needs a small cross head screwdriver). The re-usable E11 filter is washed and fully dried after every 3-4 complete house cleanings.

The S4 Max does a good job of edge cleaning, cleaning around furniture legs and will clean under any furniture that clears the LiDAR hood. Being round it doesn’t quite get into tight corners, but that is a very minor issue.  If you have multiple floors, the LiDAR will also recognize each one once you set it down and send it on its way. After the robot has determined the boundary of the room(s) and the position of its contents it doesn’t care if you move chairs etc. around or add additional items, it will just use its sensors to navigate around them. Also if you have a large floor area and the battery runs low the robot will automatically return to its dock, recharge to approximately 80% and then return to where it left off and continue with its cleaning tasks. If you are worried about it being loud, it is not, registering approximately 70dBA at 3 feet on medium suction power.

The app is very easy to use to select all rooms, individual rooms, no-go areas or spot cleaning. It also lets you adjust suction power and receives reports from the robot as to when it is starting or completing a given task or it gets stuck. It is interactive in real time showing you exactly where the robot is and a complete path of where the robot has already cleaned. For those of you with a connected house the robot also accepts voice commends. Finally multiple apps may be connected to the device and it may be controlled from virtually anywhere.

I have to be honest and say that I haven’t been this impressed with a piece of technology since I purchased my Oppo 205!

MSRP: $429.99 – (Roborock special – $309.99)

Highly Recommended.

UPDATE 2/23/22

It is not advisable to try to have the Roborock series clean carpets that have adjacent wide black lines in them. My AV room has a golden carpet with black diamonds covering it measuring 8″ long with 1/4″ wide sides and the Roborock will not reliably clean in there. This is because the the underneath cliff sensors think that the diamonds black sides are actually cliff/stair edges and having detected a drop-off the robot pulls back only to be confronted by another black line pulling it back again. This sometimes results in total confusion and the robot just shuttles backwards and forwards then gives up.

There is no way currently to disable the cliff sensors, so it looks like I will have to continue to clean my AV room carpet the old fashioned way (or maybe its time to replace it!). Fortunately it works just fine on all our other short and long pile carpet patterns, vinyl, dark wood and tile floors.

See the Roborock S4 Max website here.

Purchase from Amazon here.

Purchase directly from the Roborock store here.

Check out Toms Guide for an in-depth review of the S4 Max.