Roborock F25 Ace Review

Introduction

As good as robot vacuum cleaners have become at mopping, stubborn stains and a deep clean still require a bit of manual effort, so why not make that job easier with a wet and dry floor cleaner, such as the Roborock F25 Ace?

Powerful to use, and with clever motorised wheels, this hard floor cleaner is a dream to move around. It does rely a little too much on its app for full control over all of its features, though.

Design and Features

• Self-clean and dry dock
• Motorised wheels
• App gives more control

I first came across Roborock’s hard floor cleaners when I reviewed the Roborock Dyad way back in 2022, followed by the excellent Dyad Pro in 2023. Now the company is back with a new range of cleaners, with some advanced features. I’ve got the model at the top of the range in the F25 series, the F25 Ace, which adds a few extra features, including self-propelled wheels, a DirTect Smart Sensor and an auto-detergent dispenser.

Stylistically, the Roborock F25 Ace reminds me a lot of the Dreame H15 Pro, and both have a very similar chunky charging stand, which also fast dries the rollers after self cleaning has been used.

Both devices look similar, too, although that could also be said of the majority of wet and dry vacuum cleaners.

With the F25 Ace, the clean water tank is placed just above the single roller. This holds 740ml of water, and also has a separate 100ml detergent tank. The F25 Ace then mixes detergent automatically on the fly. I like a hard floor cleaner that does this as it saves wasting detergent, and you only use the amount you need.

Roborock says that you should only use its detergent, and a sample is provided in the box.

Water is automatically added to the roller, and dirty water and solids are sucked up into the large 720ml tank. This has a washable filter and a solids separator, so only dirty water makes it to the bottom of the tank. It’s a very similar tank to those used on similar devices.

Using the Roborock F25 Ace is easy. Press the power button on top and it starts in Auto mode. This uses the DirDetect Smart Sensor to detect the amount of dirt on the floor, and adjust settings automatically.

A bar runs across the screen, showing the level of dirt (more red is dirty, blue is clean), so you can keep cleaning until the sensor tells you that the floor is clean.

There are also additional modes, selectable by pressing the button on top: Max uses maximum power; Eco reduces power; and Sponge mode, which I couldn’t immediately understand, and had to check the manual to find out that this is for suction only, for lifting spilt liquids.

With the mode selected, the Roborock F25 Ace uses SlideTech 2.0 to automatically power the wheels forward and backwards for easier movement. It really works and, like the similar feature on the Dreame H15 Pro, makes this one of the easiest hard floor cleaners to push around. Just be a bit careful of how you use the F25.

Pausing during cleaning, I lifted the handle up and locked it vertically, but left the Roborock F25 Ace turned on. The weight of the handle pushing forwards kicked the wheels into action and the Roborock F25 Ace rolled off by itself across my kitchen. It’s something to watch out for, particularly if you’re cleaning near stairs or anything breakable, and it’s worth powering down the mop before folding the handle up.

While the floor cleaner continues to move after the handle is lifted may sound like a problem, it’s actually useful. One of the main issues with other floor cleaners is that as soon as the handle gets past a point, the brush roll stops spinning and you can’t mop, which makes it very hard to clean small areas. With the G-Tech Orca, it’s almost impossible to clean anywhere with little clearance.

As the Roborock F25 Ace is designed to keep cleaning, even with the handle up, I could even use it when standing vertically, letting me clean everywhere. It just took a while to get used to turning the cleaner off when I wanted to pause cleaning, to avoid the F25 Ace from running off on its own.

For cleaning, it’s helpful that the Roborock F25 Ace can go completely flat, allowing it to fit under most low pieces of furniture with ease.

Once done, the Roborock F25 Ace can be popped into the dock and the self-clean mode used to clean the roller. Self-drying then dries the roller and prevents odours and mould growth.

If you do want to clean the roller by hand and clean out the floor head, the roller simply pulls out from the side of the cleaner.

Connect the Roborock F25 Ace to the Roborock app, and you get more options, including changing how the Auto and Sponge modes work, and controlling the powered wheels, selecting if you want more or less power to them.

There’s also control over the docking station, with the option to change the self-drying mode to a fast (but noisier) five minutes, down from the standard 30-minutes. And, I could tell the dock to start self-cleaning as soon as the Roborock F25 Ace was returned to it, which is a very useful feature.

There’s also a remote control mode. Lay the Roborock F25 Ace flat on the floor and you can use the app to drive it backwards and forwards. That might be handy if you’re not very mobile and want to clean under a sofa, but the hard floor cleaner is hard to control and it’s fiddly

All of these options are good, but the F25 Ace is quite reliant on the app to get the most out of it, whereas most hard floor cleaners don’t require an app at all and all features are selectable via physical controls.

Performance

• Quickly cleans most stains
• Doesn’t get tangled with hair

I put all hard floor cleaners through the same basic tests, putting stains on the floor and then allowing them to dry.

With the easier stains, the Roborock F25 Ace did a brilliant job. Starting with my coffee stain, I only had to make a couple of passes to suck up the mess and leave a clean floor.

The same was also true with the dried-on red wine stain, which was easily removed in just a couple of sweeps.

With the dried-on ketchup stain, I found that the initial few sweeps didn’t do much to lift the stain. This is quite normal, and this kind of sticky mess is best served by leaving a hard floor cleaner on top of the stain for ten seconds or so, to soak detergent into the mess, and then leaving it for a few minutes.

Doing that, and coming back to the stain, I found that six forwards and backwards sweeps did the job and removed the stain.

My dried on mud stain was easier to remove, with the suction action pulling up the loose debris, and the roller removing the mess in four sweeps.

Moving on to different tests, I found that the Roborock F25 Ace collected a teaspoon of rice with ease, without dropping any back to the floor.

I also put human hair on the floor, as the Roborock F25 Ace is designed to collect this without tangling. That’s true, in that the hair was removed from the floor and didn’t wrap around the roller brush.

However, when emptying the dirty tank, there was a lot of hair hanging out of it that had to be removed. I normally see this kind of behaviour with these kinds of floor cleaners, which is why I suggest vacuuming dry messes first, particularly hair (pet and human), and then tackling stains afterwards.

I measured sound at 65.8dB, which makes the Roborock F25 Ace quieter than your average cordless vacuum cleaner.

Battery life is rated at 60 minutes on Eco mode. That drops down on Auto mode, and the actual time will vary depending on how dirty the floor is; after using the Roborock F25 Ace extensively, I’d say that the battery lasts long enough to clean a single floor of an average home thoroughly; if you have some carpeted rooms, then one charge will last for the entire house.

Should you buy it?

FAQs