Roborock Qrevo Curv Review: Literally Climbing to the Top of the Robot Vacuum Rankings

A vacuum is only as good as where it can go and how deep it can clean. While recent years have seen cleaning robots get better at obstacle avoidance and route planning thanks to the addition of features like LIDAR and cameras, that doesn’t help much if there’s a hump it can’t get over. The Roborock Qrevo Curv has solved this problem with independently extendable wheels, allowing it to climb over the edge of a threshold or a thick carpet up to 4 centimeters (1.57 inches) and keep on going. Pair that with industry-leading suction power, a tangle-free brush that devours hair, dual extendable mops, a self-emptying dock, and an excellent app, and you get the most versatile (and useful) robot cleaner to date.

Roborock Qrevo Curv Review: Specs

The robot itself looks a lot like most other robo-vacs out there. It’s a 14-inch round disc that stands 4.1 inches tall and weighs 8.6 pounds. It has a little LIDAR turret on top, a camera up front, Home and Power buttons, and nothing else really stands out. However, when you flip it over, you start seeing some of the unique features. It has a DuoDivide main brush with spiral blades designed to whisk up hair and funnel it into the vacuum inlet without getting clogged. That vacuum inlet features up to 18,500 Pa of suction, while the most I’ve seen from other brands is 12,000 Pa. It has a “FlexiArm Arc Side Brush,” a little sweeper extending out of the bot to bring debris from hard-to-reach places (like corners or under couches) into its vacuum path.

Last but not least, it features two spinning mops that rotate up to 200 RPM, have 30 water flow options, and can extend out from under the bot to ensure edge-to-edge cleaning. The mops lift when the bot goes onto the carpet to keep things dry. Under the hood is a generous 6,400 mAh lithium-ion battery, which means it can cover a significant amount of square footage before returning to its dock to recharge (it will vary depending on the settings you select).

Speaking of, the Multifunction Dock 3.0 is no slouch either. Unlike most boxy docks, this one is a rounded dome at 17.7” x 17.7 x 17.7. It has a softer look than the competition, which I prefer, but it is a bit wider and makes me think of a robotic litterbox. [Note: If you prefer the more traditional dock shape, the Qrevo Edge is coming out soon. It has the same vacuum but a taller, narrower dock.] It automatically empties the bot’s dustbin and moves it into a garbage bag, which allegedly allows for up to seven weeks without emptying (depending on how often you vacuum, how big, and how dirty your floors are). It also has auto tank emptying and refilling for your dirty and clean mop water. It washes your robot’s mops at 167 degrees F, which is hotter than competitors and which the company claims eliminates 99.99 percent of bacteria. Then, it dries the mops with 113-degree F air to prevent mold from growing. It can even recognize if the mop needs extra cleaning and automatically re-wash it.

The last major component is the Roborock app, which is excellent overall. Pairing your robot with it is as simple as scanning a QR code on the bot. You can then set the bot to drive around and map your house with its LIDAR. Once done, you can label rooms, add furniture, delineate floor types (though it usually figures this out), and set off-limits zones. It also gives you granular adjustments for the different vacuum and mopping settings, allows you to set routines, and even lets you use it as a robotic pet monitor when you’re away. The robot has a voice assistant built into it, which you can activate by saying, “Hello, Rocky,” it recognizes more than 40 different commands. It also works with Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Apple Siri. Those third-party services don’t have as much nuance as the built-in voice assistant, but being able to say, “Hey, Google, clean the kitchen,” and the robot hops to it, that’s the kind of AI I want in my life!

© Brent Rose

Roborock Qrevo Curv Review: Performance

The initial setup was fairly intuitive, if a bit time-consuming. When you first set it up, you’ll have the option to map your house or clean and map it simultaneously quickly. I’d recommend starting with mapping alone. I went for the clean and map option and found that the robot was meandering around too slowly and seemingly getting confused. So, I restarted it in mapping-only mode, and it went quickly and smoothly. Once I had the map in the app on my phone, I labeled the various rooms, and we went off to the races.

Once you enter the robot’s menu, you can choose whether to do a full cleaning of everything it has mapped, select individual rooms, clean a specific expandable zone, or start a routine you’ve set up. You also have a ton of cleaning options to choose from. SmartPlan enables Curv’s AI to determine the best way to clean as it goes, utilizing dirt detection to create “the optimal cleaning plan,” but more on that in a minute. There’s the Vac & Mop menu, which utilizes both tools somewhat simultaneously and gives you some control over the vacuum’s suction power and the flow rate for the mop. You can also choose Mop-only or Vacuum-only; the latter allows you to crank up the suction power to its highest level. There’s also the option to use the app like a remote control and guide it to a specific area for spot-cleaning if you just spilled something. Once you’ve selected the cleaning program you want, you just hit start, and the robot springs to life.

I was somewhat shocked to find that this robot is genuinely very good at cleaning. The vacuum is terrific, pulling dirt up from bare floors and my moderately thick rug without a problem (even sand on the carpet wasn’t an issue). The Flexiarm brush works as advertised, pulling dirt out from corners and under my fridge. The mops work admirably, washing stubborn stains off my kitchen floor using water alone. Roborock also sells a cleaning solution, which I haven’t tested yet, but I haven’t really needed it so far.

The Snack Gaunlet

Even when the vacuum is cranked to full power (Turbo+), it’s quite quiet. Every night, I have it vacuum and mop everything outside of my bedroom, and it hasn’t ever woken me up, even with my bedroom door open (though I do sleep with a white noise machine). It even has a built-in headlight, so you don’t need to leave any lights on for it. In the four years I’ve lived in this apartment, my floors and rugs have never been cleaner.

While the SmartPlan and the Vac & Mop modes work fine for your average daily cleaning, bigger messes need more intervention. I created a “snack gauntlet” in my kitchen where I spread out things like a pub mix, goldfish crackers, pistachio shells, spices, coffee grounds, Tic Tacs, and spilled milk. While this is a fairly extreme scenario, neither of the aforementioned modes fully got the job done. Both sucked up the majority of the products, but the problem was that on hardwood, it was trying to vacuum and mop at the same time. The wheels crushed the more delicate items like the mini-pretzels and goldfish crackers, and the wet mops actually made the crumbs and spices stick to the floor more. In a situation like that, you really want to vacuum first and then mop, which I wish the robot were smart enough to understand.

This is where the app’s customizability comes in handy. It only took me about 90 seconds to create a cleaning routine that would first vacuum the area at the highest level of suction and then go back and do a Deep+ mopping routine. That picked up virtually every particle of the mess. It worked so well that I switched most of my routines to vacuuming first and then mopping. This uses a bit more battery power, but the battery life on this robot is excellent.

I live in a 665-square-foot one-bedroom apartment, so vacuuming and mopping my entire place barely puts a dent in its battery when I use the stock cleaning modes. So, I decided to stress-test the battery by creating a more power-intensive routine that vacuumed my entire apartment on Turbo+ (the highest level) and then mopped it on Deep+ (which makes more passes). It vacuumed 366 square feet over 68 minutes (basically everything that didn’t have furniture on it), then mopped 161 square feet of bare floor over 38 minutes (washing the mop four times), and at the end of all that, it still had 31-percent of its battery left. That’s very impressive. If I lived in a much larger space, I might want to break that routine up a little or dial back the power unless I’d just thrown a party, but for my space, it’s perfect.

The obstacle avoidance on the Qrevo Curv is decent but still a long way from perfect. It generally does an okay job of navigating around furniture without bumping into large objects (though sometimes it head-butts things it should be able to see), it weaves nimbly between the legs of my dining room chairs, and it was only confused for a moment when I moved my coffee table from one place to another—it just charted a new path around it. Unfortunately, I’ve had it get tangled up in power cords on one occasion, and it pulled a power strip out of the wall and nearly managed to pull a lamp over. Once, it got stuck when it sucked up the strap of a canvas tote bag I’d accidentally left on the floor. Occasionally, it wraps itself up in my curtain, though it’s always managed to free itself from that one. Three times now, I’ve woken up in the morning to find it trapped between the horizontal legs of my computer chair. It just powered down to save battery and waited to be rescued. That’s disappointing because the promise of this robot is that it cleans for you without needing intervention.

I recently came back from a trip and still had a fair amount of items on my bedroom floor (a suitcase, a bag, and some random clothes strewn about), so I thought that would be a good test to see how it does when you don’t tidy up first. As it vacuumed and mopped, it approached the various objects, inspected them like a small dog sniffing something new, and then went around them. I was impressed! And then it turned around, smacked into a shoe, rolled over a sock it had just been looking at, and dragged it halfway across the room before disgorging it. Had that been, say, a dog turd, that would have been a true disaster. The Curv is supposed to be able to recognize and avoid these things, so more work is needed here.

I also found that the robot makes some mysterious choices regarding routing. Sometimes, it returns to areas it’s already cleaned (and which appear to be spotless) three or four times during one cleaning cycle. Other times, it appears intent on taking the long way to get anywhere when it could just use its LIDAR and camera to find a better route in real-time. This extends the cleaning time and makes it less efficient.

Also, while it is supposed to lift its mops out of the way while vacuuming carpet, I found that they still do drag a bit on my medium-pile rug. That only got my rugs a teeny bit damp, but it’s still not ideal, especially if you have a light-colored rug and just mopped something dark and stainy, or if you have a higher-pile carpet. If that’s you, it might be worth looking into the Dreame L40 Ultra, which can leave its mop behind in the dock when it’s just vacuuming.

I was extremely impressed with the AdaptiLift Chassis, the unique mechanism it uses to climb over things like thresholds. The rug in my living room has a thick pad under it, bringing the total height to 0.75 inches (2 centimeters). It also has long tassels on two of the edges. These two things have meant that most robo-vacs can’t clean my rug unless I lift them onto it. The Qrevo Curv recognized that there was a ledge and asked me via the app if it was a threshold. I said sure and marked it. Now whenever the vacuum approaches the rug, its front end lifts up, getting it over the hump, and then the rear raises to match. It hurdles it with ease and prevents it from accidentally sucking up the tassels (though it does still muss them up).

Maintenance has been extremely minimal, too. Despite all the snacks and sand, I’ve been intentionally throwing in its path, I haven’t had to change the bag in the dock yet. I’ve refilled the water twice (you just lift the tank out and fill it in your sink) and emptied the dirty water twice (which I just dump into my toilet), but that’s it. It’s extremely easy. I could also use it as an additional security cam and/or pet monitor while I’m away, and you can have the robot automatically take pics of your cat or dog if it encounters them while cleaning.

Roborock Qrevo Curv Review: Verdict

I won’t beat around the bush; this is the best robot cleaner I’ve used. It cleans better than anything from the iRobot’s Roomba series, and it’s more versatile and adaptable than anything else out there. The app is head and shoulders above the competition, too. Its suction power is second to none, its unique roller brush design doesn’t get tangled, its mops are capable of deep cleaning (and self-cleaning!), and it can lift itself over small obstacles. That’s all incredible, but it doesn’t come cheap. The Qrevo Curv is priced as Roborock’s new flagship robot vacuum at $1,600. That’s roughly on par with the flagship products from other manufacturers, but it’s still a hefty price tag.

And, of course, it’s not perfect. Obstacle recognition and avoidance really need to be improved. The SmartPath mode could be smarter, charting a more efficient route and better recognizing when it still has more cleaning to do. It could also be better at lifting its damp mops away from my carpet. But ultimately, I hate vacuuming and mopping, and because of that, I don’t do it as often as I should. Now, suddenly, my floors and rugs are always pristine, and I barely ever have to lift a finger. This is the first robot vacuum that has handled my surfaces without intervention (most of the time), cleaning virtually every edge and corner in my apartment. It certainly isn’t cheap, but it’s worth it.