- Roborock Saros Z70 unveiled at CES 2025
- First commercial robovac to have a retractible mechanical arm
- Due to go on sale in the first half of 2025
Robot vacuums are getting smarter and smarter, and today's best robot vacuums can do all kinds of magical things. Unfortunately, those innovations are often in software, meaning they can be a little lost on the average consumer. That is not the case with the Roborock Saros Z70 – which has a whole extra limb.
Yes, the Saros Z70, which has been officially unveiled at CES 2025, has a retractable robotic arm that takes care of tidying for you. It's called the OmniGrip 1.0, and it's a world-first for a mass-produced robovac.
I got a sneak preview of the Z70 a month ago, and it was absolutely mesmerizing. The bot looks much like any other robovac, except for a mysterious shiny hatch that sits on the upper surface. When requested, this hatch majestically opens and from it emerges a mechanical arm with a pincer on the end. The bot then scouts about for objects it has been told to clear – for example socks, or shoes – picks them up, and moves them to a new location. This pincer can extend and twist both horizontally and vertically to reach its prey.
You'll be able to set default behaviors in the app, so you might specify that everything the bot recognizes as a sock needs to go next to your laundry basket, for example. Similarly, discarded shoes could also be relocated to a specified 'shoes area', and ditto things like clothes or trash.
Not only is that a win in terms of being one less task for you to take care of yourself, it also means a more complete clean, as the bot has a clearer floor to vacuum.
If the idea of autonomous robots with limbs is making you feel a little uncomfortable, be reassured that Roborock has built in a few safety features. All of the OmniGrip 1.0's functionality is entirely disabled by default; the owner needs to specify exactly how it wants the arm to operate, via the app. You choose what objects the OmniGrip should interact with, and where they need to go. If you don't do that, it'll just stay behind its door permanently.
There's a child-lock and a safety stop button, plus the pincer has a relatively low-tension grip – the maximum weight is apparently roughly equivalent to a pair of shoes. That means that even if it did try to haul away your cat (and to be clear, it shouldn't), it wouldn't be able to.
Speaking of which, Roborock is apparently working on a function where the Saros Z70 will actually be able to play with your cat while you're out. If the cat deigns to get involved, of course.
There's always plenty of wacky tech at CES, so you'd be forgiven for assuming (as I did) that this was little more than an attention-grabbing prototype, rather than something consumer-ready. Apparently not. Pre-production samples are due to go on sale this month, retail samples are scheduled for March 2025, and open sales scheduled for H1 (i.e. in the first half of the year, before the end of June).
Is this the future of robot vacuums? Maybe…
I saw a slightly older generation version of the Z70 – in fact, not even the latest version at that point, but rather a touring press-event model that had picked up a war wound to its hatch as a result of some over-zealous handling in New York. Even without the latest software updates, and a few glitches during the demo, it was undoubtedly impressive, and certainly like nothing we've ever seen before in the world of robotic vacuums.
Is this the way robot vacuums are heading? Maybe. I'm encouraged by the fact that this bot is coming from Roborock, a brand that consistently impresses us with its new launches, and can be relied upon to deliver useful innovations that actually work. We loved the Roborock Qrevo Curv, which came with quad-bike-like suspension to bounce it over tall thresholds, for example.
While it's exciting to see something totally new, realistically, I suspect that for the moment, sister models the Saros 10 and 10R will be the ones that people actually buy. The three options are being positioned as joint flagship models, and all three have the latest and greatest tech from the rest of the Roborock fleet.
The 10 and 10R are similar, but the former uses a traditional LDS module for navigation, while the latter uses the newer StarSight system (introduced with the Qrevo Slim, and notable because it doesn't rely on a raised central puck, meaning the overall bot profile can be slimmer). The Z70 is again similar, but with the all-important addition of the robo-arm.
TechRadar will be extensively covering this year's CES, and will bring you all of the big announcements as they happen. Head over to our CES 2025 news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI.
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