Despite the enthusiasm of actors in Swiffer commercials, few people are smiling at the workout that is manually mopping their hardwood and tile floors.
If even plain old vacuuming dredges up that same type of dread, consider automating both sweeping and mopping by investing in a robot vacuum that mops.
Are robot vacuums good at mopping?
I’m not saying you can expect a hybrid robot vacuum to scrub your kitchen grout with the same tenacity you would get with a toothbrush. But mopping robots have gotten much better at mopping over the past few years.
Since 2020-ish, most top robot vacuum brands have added a few automatic moppers to their lineup, spanning the pricing spectrum from as affordable as $200 to well over $1,000. Expectedly, the mopping technique gets more meticulous as the price goes up, so the soil level of your floors on any given day will play a big part in how much you should be spending on a 2-in-1 robotic cleaner. Are you mostly concerned with wiping up easy spur-of-the-moment spills, or will you be a stickler about dried-on stains that call for more heavy-duty scrubbing?
Fortunately, both ends of the pricing spectrum provide way more bang for their buck in 2025 than they did in the early 2020s. In the early days, a hybrid’s “mopping” wasn’t much more than lightly dragging a damp cloth across the floor — I wouldn’t exactly call it “scrubbing.” While that simplified approach is still present in many cheap robot vacuum and mop combos, the more premium moppers are armed with advanced mechanics that better mimic the elbow grease that a human with a mop or Swiffer would provide, like pressurized, vibrating, or spinning mopping pads.
Most premium mops can also mop with real germ-fighting cleaning solution rather than just water. That has been crucial in upping my own personal confidence in walking around barefoot.
But arguably, the most pivotal shift 2-in-1 robot vacuums saw in the past year is related to their docks. Past automatically emptying the dust bin, the best robot mop combos now also automatically wash and dry their mopping pads, then refill themselves with clean water from the dock. (Some high-end hybrids can even dispense cleaning liquid on their own.)
With one of these fancy self-cleaning stations, your robovac will be ready to mop again almost immediately. This is a clutch improvement over the outdated, basic design that required you to deal with the dirty mopping pads by hand and refill the water tank almost daily. In theory, mopping pad maintenance should be nearly as automated as the cleaning itself. If it’s too involved, you may subconsciously save yourself the hassle by avoiding mop mode — and then what was the point of getting a robot vacuum that mops in the first place?
Not sure if it’d be worth it to get a robot vacuum that mops? I’ve tested more than 15 hybrid cleaners in my own apartment, from basic cleaners to the most advanced on the market. As more 2-in-1 vacuums come through my doors, my list of the best robot vacuums and mops to buy gets adjusted. As of spring 2025, I’ve narrowed it down to these top four robot vacuums that also wash your floors.
Other robot vacuums I’m testing
I’m currently testing the Roborock Saros 10 — the obvious foil to the Roborock Saros 10R. The Saros 10 is nearly just as strong a contender, but does a few main things differently than the 10R. (Some better, some worse.) It was announced at CES 2025 along with the Saros 10R and has the same retail price of $1,599. I ultimately think the Saros 10R has a slight edge over the Saros 10 because of its superior edge mopping.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
First things first: Larger homes with 10 or more rooms would fare much better with the Saros 10 than the 10R. For some reason, Roborock put a cap on the number of rooms that the Saros 10R’s app can hold in a floorplan, which has been maxed out in my three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment when the back corridor, kitchen, and living room are also included. (I wanted to split the kitchen into two to designate the dining room, but I got a “room limit reached” notice.) The room limit is doubled with the Saros 10.
The main differences between the Saros 10R and Saros 10 are related to cleaning mechanisms and navigation. The Saros 10 has slightly more powerful suction, cleaning at 22,000 Pa of suction power compared to the Saros 10R’s 20,000 Pa. The 2,000 Pa disparity isn’t anything drastic when you’ve already hit the 20,000 Pa mark, and I haven’t noticed the Saros 10 necessarily doing a better job on cat hair, fine kitty litter dust, protein powder, or large debris like kibble.
Upon flipping the Saros 10 over, you’ll see that it trades the spinning mopping pad setup of the 10R for a D-shaped mopping pad. That singular pad scrubs by vibrating and exerting downward pressure. While the active mopping area is apparently 26 percent larger than that of the S8 MaxV Ultra, I still don’t think this sliver of a pad provides the varietal scrub that two spinning pads do. For dried-on stains, especially, the extra physical agitation that comes with spinning is more thorough than a straightforward wipe.
On top of the Saros 10, you’ll notice a small, retractable LiDAR tower that the Saros 10R doesn’t have. Roborock carried its Reactive AI small obstacle avoidance over from most of the 2024 Roborocks to the Saros 10, while the Saros 10R ditches the laser turret completely for what Roborock calls StarSight navigation. Both are more accurate than most other robot vacuums you could buy, but the Saros 10R’s StarSight has a better track record with cords and pet toys in my home.
The Saros 10R is also not available in white like the Saros 10 is. That feels like an odd design choice considering white blends in with many walls, and I think that the white Saros 10 looks so much more sophisticated in my living room than the Saros 10R does.
I also recently tested the $1,699.99 Dreame X50 Ultra. It grabbed attention during its CES 2025 debut for its ability to “climb,” though the fine print is that it can’t scale thresholds taller than 6 milimeters (about 2.36 inches). The Roborock Saros 10 and 10R were able to hoist over the few thick doorway thresholds in my apartment just as well as the X50 Ultra. Its mopping and vacuuming capabilities are better than most mid-range robot vacuums, of course, but they weren’t impressive enough for me to suggest the X50 Ultra in this list over either Saros model.
iRobot announced multiple new mopping Roombas in March 2025. I’m in the process of getting my hands on them for at-home testing and will update this guide with any standouts.
