Roborock H7 Review

With its mid-range price and high-end power, the Roborock H7 gets plenty right. It made short work of all of our tests, too. It comes with some clever options, including magnetic accessories and optional dirt bags. Battery life is quoted at 90 minutes, but with the standard floor head it’s around half this – which is still sufficient to cover a decent area.

The Robrock H7 is available for pre-order in the US from Roborock’s website.

Introduction

After taking the robot vacuum cleaner market by storm with the likes of the Roborock S7, Roborock has turned its attention to the traditional cordless stick market. The Roborock H7 is actually the company’s second cordless vacuum cleaner, but the first that I’ve reviewed.

Plenty of power, decent battery life, optional bags and, coming soon, an optional mop attachment ensure the Roborock H7 stands out from the competition. It’s a little unbalanced, and you can’t turn off the carpet sensing mode – but these minor issues aside, the H7 is a well-priced rival to the big names. It will be available from July in the US, priced at $499.

Design and features

• Can use with bags
• Magnetic accessories are a nice touch
• Balance could be better

Taller than it is wide, the Roborock H7 sports a design that’s reminiscent of an oil can. There are advantages to this design, primarily that the short body makes it easier to get accessories closer to where you want them.

The downside is that the large (non-replaceable) battery pack at the back naturally pushes the vacuum cleaner down. That’s not so much of a problem when you’re tackling hard floors, but if you’re cleaning up high, you’ll need a bit of wrist action to keep the vacuum pointing where you want it. Fortunately, the vacuum cleaner is very light at 1.45kg.

In the box, you get a good range of accessories. These include a crevice tool, dusting brush, flexible extension tube, motorised mini-brush (great for stairs and sofas), and a motorised floor head. There’s also a wall dock that can charge the vacuum cleaner when it’s dropped into place.

Cleverly, all of the accessories are magnetic, so you can stick them to the side of the dock, giving plenty of storage space. It’s easier than fiddling about trying to insert accessories into holders.

You can even stick accessories to any magnetic metal, which can be handy when cleaning, temporarily placing a nozzle onto a fridge, for example.

That said, the vacuum cleaner could do with an accessory clip for the wand, so you can carry your most-used nozzles with you as you move around cleaning.

Coming in the future is an optional mop head, so that the H7 will be able to wet-clean hard floors, too.

Controls are on the back, with a standard trigger control. Squeeze this in and the vacuum turns on; let go and it turns off. Trigger controls can be fatiguing, so Roborock has also included a Continuous Mode button. Tap this and the vacuum cleaner will stay on until you hit the button again.

With the motorised floor head in place, the vacuum cleaner will sense when it’s on the carpet and up the power automatically. It’s a useful feature to have, but there’s no way of turning it off, so even dealing with a lighter spill will potentially drain the battery faster than you might expect.

It’s an easy head to manoeuvre around, and you can get the vacuum cleaner pretty close to the floor for cleaning under furniture.

At the back is a mode button that lets you cycle between the three modes: Eco, Standard and Max. There’s an LCD that displays the current power mode, as well as a live battery life reading in minutes. That’s something that I haven’t seen outside of Dyson cleaners – such as the Dyson V15 Detect –before.

Dirt drops into the 0.5-litre bin, which is big enough to take a full cleaning session’s worth of mess. There’s a simple eject button to open the bottom flap to send dirt tumbling into a bin, but you can remove the bin entirely for cleaning.

Uniquely, the H7 can have the multi-cyclone assembly removed, and you can add the dustbag connector instead, using disposable antimicrobial bags. If you have a house with allergy sufferers, or you’re tackling a particularly dirty spill, this will be a welcome option.

There’s also a HEPA filter on top, which you can take out and wash – you’ll need to do this periodically to keep the vacuum cleaner in good operation.

Performance

• Long maximum battery life, but cleaning surface can affect this
• Good performance on carpet
• Deals well with hard floors

I started out with my raw tests, checking the Roborock H7’s power in AirWatts (a measure of suction and airflow). On Eco mode, I measured the cleaner at just 16AW, which is good enough for light surface dirt. On Standard power, the H7 came in at 44.32AW, which is a little behind other cleaners I’ve tested. Max mode boosts the figure to 206AW in my tests, which is very powerful indeed.

I measure AirWatts at a 2.5-inch opening to let me compare vacuum cleaners, but raw power alone only provides an indication of performance. Efficiency and the quality of tools can impact cleaning quality, too, so I also put cleaners through some real-world tests.

I started with the vacuum cleaner on carpet, sprinkling a teaspoon of flour onto the floor. Since the H7 automatically adjusts power to compensate, it ran at the speed it had decided. A single sweep through was enough to clean out a path through the mess. The same was true for pet hair.

Next, I moved to the edge test, throwing flour right up against the skirting board on carpet tiles. This can be hard for vacuum cleaners to deal with, but the H7 (again, adjusting power automatically) managed to suck up the majority of the mess, bar a very fine amount right at the edges. This result is up there with the best cleaners.

Finally, I went for the hard floor test, sprinkling a teaspoon of rice on the floor, then giving the cleaner a single sweep through the mess. On Standard power, I got good collection, with no rice falling out at the end.

Battery life is rated at up to 90 minutes on Eco power, thanks to a large lithium-polymer battery. However, this assumes that you don’t have motorised accessories attached, and you’re not running on carpet. As such, battery life can be quite variable. Expect around an hour to 90 minutes on Eco, 25 to 40 minutes on Standard, and around 10 minutes on Max. 

These are fairly average figures for a cordless vacuum cleaner, and you’ll only see that maximum battery life if you’re using non-motorised tools on the most gentle power setting. Recharge times are quick, though, with the vacuum topping up in just 2.5 hours.

In terms of noise, I measured the Roborock H7 at 69.2dB on Eco, 71.3dB on Standard and 77.5dB on Max – again, these are pretty standard for cordless vacuum cleaners.

Conclusion

For a newbie to cordless vacuum cleaners, the Roborock H7 is an impressive bit of kit, especially for its price. The latest Dyson V15 Detect cleaner offers more power and more efficient floor heads, with dedicated options for hard floors and carpet, and it can manage power settings based on the level of dirt detected. It’s far more expensive, though. 

A regular cordless upright cleaner, such as the Shark ICZ160UKT, may make sense for people who don’t want a stick cleaner, and you can find other alternatives in my guide to the best cordless vacuum cleaners.

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Verdict

With its mid-range price and high-end power, the Roborock H7 gets plenty right. It made short work of all of our tests, too. It comes with some clever options, including magnetic accessories and optional dirt bags. Battery life is quoted at 90 minutes, but with the standard floor head it’s around half this – which is still sufficient to cover a decent area.

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