Roborock's handsome Flexi Lite claims 17,000 pascals of suction, 40 minutes of battery, a self-cleaning and drying roller-mop, a lay-flat mode for getting under furniture, and right-to-the-edge cleaning on one side. How's it go, then?
First off, here's what it's not: a vacuum. The wet/dry vac category name needs to be taken out the back and shot; 17,000 pascals of suction or not, this thing will do very little for you on a carpet or rug. It's a power mop for hard floors; the suction is there solely to pull dirty water off the roller mop as it goes around.
With this understanding in place, it's a reasonably well-featured power mop, and I've been using it for a couple of months now. Here are some thoughts.
Does it clean? Yes it does, merrily pulling itself forward by the force of its spinning roller. In the name of science, I just threw a cupful of ground-up coffee beans, a bowl of grated cheese and some leftover spag bol on the kitchen lino, then let the Flexi Lite loose on it. Moving reasonably slowly, it seldom needed a second pass to completely soak up the mess.
Having said that, fresh mess is one thing, and caked-on stains are another. You can't really put much elbow grease through the Roborock, or get extra pressure down onto the floor to move a well-established or super-sticky bit of gunk. For jobs like that, you'll want a regular old 'acoustic' mop as opposed to this electric. These things are for regular cleaning, not for deep-clean situations.
The lay-flat capability comes in handy getting under chairs and coffee tables – it can get a fair way into a gap just 60 mm (2.4 inches) high before the broad barrel section starts getting in the way.
Battery-wise, I can't really say I've got enough hard floor area to ever challenge Roborock's 40-minute claim, but extrapolating from the remaining battery left after my 15-minute floor cleans, it certainly seems to be in the ballpark. It's worth noting here, I don't run the suction in Max mode, as it seems to do just fine in Auto.
As for edges, well, the Lite version will only clean to the edge on the right hand side, so you'll need to plan accordingly near corners. If you want to hit both sides, you'll need to step up to the Flexi Pro, which is a decent hike upwards in price. Roborock claims just a 1-mm (0.04-in) gap to the wall on the right side ... That might be a little bit optimistic, but in general I have no complaints here.
The missus finds this machine's cheerful audio comments annoying and switches them off – but I don't mind them personally, and I reckon it's good to be audibly reminded about things like cleaning out the dirty water tank. Choose your own adventure, friends.
On that note, does it self-clean? Well, sort of. You place it back in its little charging stand, and hit a button, and the Flexi Lite rotates its roller around spraying fresh water onto it, then scraping and sucking it away in a fairly noisy self-cleaning routine. This goes for as long as the machine decides is necessary, and then the stand gently blows warm air on the roller brush for the next hour or so to dry it.
Meanwhile, you'll need to go clean out the dirty water tank, by removing it from the back of the machine, pulling out the cap and filter, and manually washing all the gloop out in the sink. This is about as much fun as it sounds, but fairly straightforward.
Annoyingly, the roller often leaves a bit of a slop behind, right where you stop it on the floor, and even in the charging base itself. You can mitigate the former by dragging the roller back as you lift it off the floor, and the latter by running the self-clean cycle several times.
Weighing in at 4 kg (8.8 lb) dry – and about 25% more than that with both clean and dirty water tanks full – it's fairly substantial, if not heavy, and a bit unwieldy to cart around the house. It's probably best suited to being based close to where you'll use it if you've got the space. It looks nice enough to live in many kitchens or laundries, and while the self-clean is on the noisy side, it's over pretty quickly and the air drying routine is nice and quiet, so it's not too antisocial.
Normally retailing for US$399, it's currently on a half-price deal in the USA at US$199. Australians can expect to pony up AU$699.
Overall, the Roborock Flexi Lite does a pretty decent job and is handy to keep around for spot messes. In that regard, it pairs pretty well with a robot vacuum/mop arrangement, ready to go in case of a spill. And Roborock is uniquely well-placed to sell you one of those, up to and including its remarkable Saros Z70, complete with a robotic arm capable of grabbing socks and other mess off your floor as it goes.
Of course, it does cost hundreds of dollars, and at the end of the day, its chief competition is probably not other wet/dry power mops ... It's your old-school 20-buck mop and foot-bucket. Up against that, the Flexi Lite certainly feels more high-tech and civilized, and scoops up gunky messes that a regular mop would mainly distribute around the floor.
On the other hand, it's not really set up to deal with tough stains, so you can't exactly just throw out your regular mop – and you'll have your own opinion on whether the price tag makes this a compelling offer.
I think it's got something to offer – I just wish they didn't call it a vacuum cleaner!
Source: Roborock
