Robot vacuums are certainly a moving target at CES 2025. Roborock has debuted a cleaner with a robotic arm – the Saros Z70 – that will launch this year, designed to pick up discarded socks or toys that stand in the way of giving your home a good clean.
It won’t be alone for long though, since Dreame has also been demonstrating a cleaner with an arm that will launch this year.
The OmniGrip Mechanical Arm is a five-axis arm that folds back into the vacuum’s body by bending back on itself. That’s quite a feat in itself, since the Z50 is under 8cm tall in order to go under as much furniture as possible.
At present, the arm is designed to pick up light objects like socks and sandals under 300g, but Roborock says it will release software upgrades to try and support the recognition of different types of objects.
Interestingly, the arm won’t be turned on by default in the app, so you can choose what kind of objects can be picked up and where it should put them. The vacuum also features a child lock and safety stop button on the cleaner.
During a cleaning cycle, the cleaner will mark objects it can lift. It will then return to them, move them and then clean the missed area.
The vision is that future cleaners will be able to help with more ‘home assistant’ type tasks including tidying and some manufacturers have been talking about how to use robotic arms to reach small areas that a robot cleaner can’t traditionally go. Perhaps future robot vacs will also be able to clean on the top of skirting boards, too.
Also at CES, Roborock also launched the Saros 10 and 10R robot vacs as well as handheld wet-dry vacs – the F25 series. Plus there are three new washer-dryers, too – the Roborock Zeo One, Zeo Lite and Zeo Mini.
