Roborock Saros 20 Neo review

Roborock Saros 20 Neo: Introduction

• Type: Vacuum and mop
• Docking: Self-clean, self-empty
• Navigation system: Retractable LiDAR

Roborock gave its robot vacuum range the Saros name to make things simpler, but has immediately muddied the water with the Saros 20 Neo. It sounds like a newer version of the Saros 20, but it’s actually a slightly cut-down version, albeit at a lower price.

The Neo uses a retractable LiDAR dome instead of the Saros 20’s front-facing StarSight Autonomous System 2.0. It’s also marginally less advanced on paper, but my tests found little difference in practice. So, is the Neo the smarter buy? Mostly, yes.

Design and features

• Retractable LiDAR dome
• Self-cleaning, self-emptying dock
• Flexible, powerful app

The Saros 20 Neo’s black, curved dock looks more like the one supplied with a Qrevo model, such as the Qrevo Edge 2 Flow, than the Saros 20’s smarter-looking station. It still handles the important jobs: emptying the robot, cleaning its mop pads and keeping them fresh.

There’s a 4L clean-water tank and a 3L dirty-water tank. The dock heats water to 100°C to wash the mop pads, then uses 55°C air to dry them, preventing odours and bacteria.

Detergent goes in a separate tank beneath the water tanks, while a 2.7L dust bag can hold up to 65 days’ worth of debris. That means for the majority of the time, the Saros 20 Neo is a hands-off experience.

This setup is similar to the Saros 20, but the Neo’s dock isn’t quite as convenient, and getting to the detergent and dust bag means lifting out the water tanks. On the Saros 20, both are easier to reach. It’s a small annoyance, but one you’ll notice when it’s time to refill or replace something.

While the standard 20 uses the front-facing StarSight Autonomous System 2.0, the Neo uses a LiDAR dome. This can be retracted into the robot’s body, bringing height down to 79.8mm (the same as on the regular Saros 20).

That said, LiDAR isn’t quite as good for navigation, and when the Saros 20 Neo meets low furniture, such as a sofa, it has to plan and retract the dome. This makes it a little slower to move around in my experience.

The Saros 20 also has more powerful object detection on paper, combining 3D sensors with a camera. In my tests, though, the gap was hard to spot. The Neo navigated obstacles confidently, using its cameras to spot and avoid the obstacles in its path.

Underneath, two microfibre mop pads apply 14N of downward pressure, up from 13N on the older model. A FlexiArm mop swings out to reach corners and edges, while a second FlexiArm extends the side brush to tease dust from tight spots. The mop reaches well, although it doesn’t swing as far as the one on the Dreame X60 Pro Ultra Complete.

Roborock’s Duo Divide roller brush is designed to pull hair towards its centre and vacuum it up without tangles. The Saros 20 Neo also gets the same AdaptiLift climbing system as on the Saros 20, which can tackle double thresholds up to 8.7cm high: 4.4cm for the first step and 4.3cm for the second. It can raise its body to cross and clean deep-pile carpet, too.

For carpet cleaning, the robot can lift its mop pads or leave them in the dock for a vacuum-only run. Basic start and stop buttons sit on the robot, but the app is where the useful controls live.

After connecting to Wi-Fi, the Neo makes a quick mapping run. The app suggests room divisions, which you can split or merge to suit your home. You can add no-go zones and place furniture on the map, turning a dining table or sofa into a handy shortcut for targeted cleans.

Choose to clean the whole home, selected rooms or a specific zone. Then pick vacuuming, mopping, a vacuum-first clean or a mop-only run. You can let the robot decide the settings or adjust suction, water level, route speed and the number of passes yourself.

There are four main vacuum modes, plus a higher-power option for vacuum-only cleaning. Mopping has 30 selectable water levels. That’s a lot of choices for something that could be much simpler.

Performance

• Excellent vacuuming
• Powerful mopping
• Confident navigation

Cleaning performance is excellent, with plenty of suction power: 36,000Pa. Quickly moving over carpets, the Roborock Saros 20 Neo picked up deep spills with ease, and did just as well on hard floors.

In vacuum-only mode, it left some mess against the skirting board, but did better when mopping was used afterwards.

The Neo picked up all the human hair I put on the test carpet, and the Duo Divide brush came away without a single strand tangled around it.

Mopping was just as strong. Two passes removed both coffee and red-wine stains. For mud, the robot vacuumed up the loose debris before mopping away what remained.

Dried ketchup proved tougher. With stain recognition on, the Neo made several passes and significantly reduced the mess, but didn’t remove it all. After I sprayed the stain with kitchen cleaner and left it for five minutes, the robot cleaned it completely.

Navigation was excellent. I set out a shoe, fake pet mess and cables, and the Saros 20 Neo steered around them. It also made it under my sofa, though it had to plan when to lower its LiDAR dome. The Saros 20’s permanently slim profile gives it a slight advantage under furniture.

Roborock rates battery life at up to 256 minutes. In my lab, which is the size of a large home floor, the Neo had enough power for two passes and still had charge left for spot cleaning. I measured noise at 58.3dB, making it pretty quiet for general vacuuming.

Final thoughts

The Roborock Saros 20 Neo gets remarkably close to the Saros 20 where it counts: cleaning performance and navigation. Its dock is a little fiddlier and detergent and bags harder to reach, and the retractable LiDAR dome means it needs to plan a bit more to get under low furniture. But neither issue undermines an otherwise excellent robot vacuum.

If you want most of the Saros 20 experience for less, the Neo is an easy recommendation. The Saros 20 remains the more nimble option, while the Dreame X60 Pro Ultra Complete offers a few extra cleaning tricks. For more options, see my guide to the best robot vacuum cleaners.

How we test

When we publish our reviews, you can rest assured that they are the result of “living with” long term tests.

Robot cleaners usually live within an ecosystem, or a range of products that – supposedly – all work in harmony. And they are designed to offer a range of different cleaning options. Therefore, it’s impossible to use a robo cleaner for a week and deliver a verdict.

Because we’re testing smart home kit all day, every day, we know what matters and how a particular smart cleaning machine compares to alternatives that you might also be considering.

Our reviews are comprehensive, objective and fair and, of course, we are never paid directly to review a device.

Read our guide on how we test robot vacuum cleaners to learn more.

FAQs

Roborock Saros 20 Neo: Specifications