We were at the Roborock stand at IFA: the vacuum cleaner company jumped straight into the pool

Hall 9, stand 111. Roborock brought what is expected from a robotic vacuum cleaner manufacturer to this year’s IFA: robotic vacuum cleaners. But next to them stood a pool. A real one, filled, with a robot at the bottom. And a few meters further, a machine that looked like the result of crossing a robotic vacuum cleaner with a spider was moving up a staircase. The rest of the stand was made up of a lawnmower and two wet-dry vacuum cleaners, which almost served as background. The Berlin exhibition had a clear message: Roborock no longer wants to be defined by the floor.

RockAqua P1: a robot that won’t get lost in complex shapes

Pool robots are nothing new; they have existed for decades. Most of them, however, solve a single task — to traverse the bottom and suck up what lies there. RockAqua P1 has ambitions elsewhere. It can climb walls, clean the waterline, and even reach shallow areas and steps with water depths from 15 centimeters. The waterline, in particular, is the most annoying part of the entire pool, as limescale, grease from sunscreens, and algae accumulate on it. Anyone who has ever scrubbed it with a brush on a pole knows what we’re talking about.

The numbers look good. The suction flow is 6,800 gallons per hour, which is approximately 25,700 liters, the dirt basket holds four liters, and the filtration is two-stage — a coarser sieve with a fineness of 180 μm catches leaves and larger debris, while a finer one with 70 μm handles sand and fine turbidity. Roborock states a battery life of up to 3.5 hours, and recharging takes the same amount of time, so the robot essentially alternates one shift after another.

More interesting than the parameters, however, is the behavior. The robot has a monocular camera for obstacle recognition and dynamic dirt detection, which allows it to prioritize dirtier areas instead of mechanically traversing the entire surface. When it encounters a larger piece of dirt, it first reduces suction so that the water flow doesn’t push it further away, and only increases it when it is close to it. This sounds like a detail, but this is precisely where most cheaper pool robots fail.

The second thing Roborock emphasizes is the Auto Waterline Parking feature. After cleaning is complete or when the battery is low, the robot rises to the surface and waits there. This eliminates the need to retrieve a twenty-kilogram machine from the bottom of a two-meter depth, a task that pool robot owners dislike. Furthermore, when lifted, the device quickly drains water from its body, making it significantly easier to carry.

It should be added that Roborock is entering a market where others have long been present. Standards have been set for years by the Dolphin brand from Maytronics, Zodiac and Bestway hold strong positions, and in the last two years, direct competitors from the robotic vacuum cleaner industry — Beatbot, Aiper, Ecovacs, and Mova — have also plunged into the water. Roborock brings its know-how in autonomous navigation and dirt management. Whether this will be enough underwater, where LiDAR doesn’t work and reflections and surface movement complicate the camera’s life, only practice will show.

Why pools specifically? The answer lies in Czech gardens

A pool robot might seem like an exotic accessory for villa owners in Mallorca, but in Czech conditions, it’s a surprisingly well-chosen market. The Czech Republic is, in fact, a pool superpower. According to available estimates, there are approximately half a million permanently installed pools here, and per capita, only Spain and France surpass us in Europe. Given what the domestic summer looks like, this number is almost absurd.

Většina těchto bazénů má rozměry kolem 3 × 6 nebo 4 × 8 metrů a čím dál častěji i víceúrovňové dno s mělčinou pro děti. A přesně tenhle tvar dělá jednodušším robotům problém. Pokud tedy Roborock nasadí rozumnou cenu, má u nás nachystanou cílovou skupinu, kterou nemusí nijak přesvědčovat, že věc má smysl.

Saros Rover: the star of the stand that still has no price tag

However, the largest crowd at the stand was not formed by the pool, but by the Saros Rover. Roborock first showed it at CES in January and celebrated its European premiere in Berlin. It is a robotic vacuum cleaner built on a combination of wheels and movable legs that can raise and lower independently. The goal is the staircase — not to go around it, but to climb up it and clean individual steps along the way.

Last year at IFA, brands like Dreame, MOVA, and Eufy came up with a similar idea, but they relied on separate elevator modules that transported the vacuum cleaner between floors. Roborock wants the robot to move on its own axis. It looks impressive and works in demo mode. There remains one problem, and it is fundamental: eight months after its unveiling, the Saros Rover is still a product in development. No price, no release date, no final specifications. It’s an attraction at the trade fair, but nothing in stores yet.

The rest of the exhibition: chassis, steam, and a wireless lawnmower

The classic flagships were represented by the Saros 20 Flow Complete and Saros 20 Neo models. Both feature a HyperForce motor with a suction power of 36,000 Pa, a new LiDAR with a retractable turret, and an AdaptiLift 3.0 chassis, allowing them to overcome two-step thresholds up to 8.8 centimeters high. The Flow Complete relies on a cylindrical mop with 15 N of pressure and sixteen water nozzles; its docking station washes it with 100 °C water and dispenses cleaning solution automatically. The Neo, on the other hand, is slightly lower and targets apartments with complex layouts, capable of cleaning almost 350 m² on a single charge.

Wet-dry vacuum cleaners were represented by the F25 Ultra Steam Gen 2, which produces 180 °C steam after thirty seconds of heating and, according to the manufacturer, generates two and a half times more steam than the previous generation. Next to it stood the F25 Pro Turbo Combo with a 5-in-1 system, meaning it has a detachable power module and interchangeable heads. And the garden was served by the RockNeo Q2 LiDAR lawnmower for areas up to 800 m², which operates without a perimeter wire or RTK antenna, handles slopes up to 45%, and can pass through a gap 60 centimeters wide.

The list also includes two marketing-friendly items. Selected devices from the Saros 20 series received Allergy Friendly certification from the European Centre for Allergy Research (ECARF), a seal awarded based on tests of their ability to remove allergens. And Roborock in Berlin highlighted its partnership with Real Madrid, which is purely sponsorship-based and has nothing to do with technology.

Six new products and not a single price tag

We left the stand with a clear impression that Roborock has stopped competing in Pascals. The company is taking its navigation and automation and looking for where else to cram it — onto the lawn, into the pool, onto stairs. This makes sense, because competing for another five thousand Pascals of suction power is a battle that the consumer won’t even notice anyway.

The catch is elsewhere. For none of the new products did Roborock state a price or a European sales date in Berlin. The RockAqua P1 will arrive first in Australia and New Zealand, and not until January 2027, months before the pool season could even be utilized here. The Saros Rover is still in development. Other models will gradually go on sale during the autumn. Seeing it all together was interesting. Very little is available for purchase yet.

Would you let a robot into your pool, or would you rather scrub it yourself?

Source: Roborock (IFA 2026 press releases), own report