Roborock says that a vacuum of the robot with an arm will cost only a few hundred dollars

Roborock was the first company to market Roborock Saros Z70 Make a strong impression on us when we tested it. We liked his capacities (despite some bugs) and he won a place on our list of the best robot vacuum cleaners, with the warning that the high price of $ 2,600 put it out of reach for most people.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Quan Gang, president of Roborock, suggested that robot vacuum cleaners with the arms will not remain so expensive. According to CNBC, Roborock expects to see a consumer version of a robot vacuum with one arm in five years that will only cost a few hundred US dollars. “If we focus only on the premium segment, in the end, except to be the best robotic emptiness in the world, we will have nothing,” said Gang, in a translation provided by CNBC, stressing the importance of reducing the price of premium robot vacuums to increase adoption.

CNBC, citing an EUROMONITOR estimate for 2025, said that China, although it is the largest vacuum market for robots per value, has only a penetration rate of 5.6%, which means that the vast majority of people do not or do not use robotic emptiness. Even the United States, which is the second largest market, has only a penetration rate of 22%, which means that hundreds of millions of potential consumers remain unexploited on the two markets. According to CNBC, Morgan Stanley estimates that humanoid robots will be a market of 5 billions of dollars by 2050 and a market of $ 800 billion alone in China.

In our own tests of the Saros Z70, both at Louisville Testing Lab de Cnet and in the respective houses of our testers, we liked its capacities but we found it at best capricious. During my tests, the robot has often tried to deploy its arm to pick up dispersed cat toys, but because it was not one of the objects for which it was formed, it was generally not able to grasp it. He worked successfully with towels, crumpled papers, shoes and slippers. In the end, I found the limited feature and I ended up using it mainly as a vacuum and a robot mop rather than for sorting the elements.

“The arm is an interesting feature to look at, but personally, I do not find it very useful,” said Jared Hannah, main technical project manager of our Louisville Testing Lab, who used the Saros Z70 at the same time as me. “I have the impression that if the robot is intelligent enough to avoid obstacles such as shoes and socks, I don’t need it to try to pick them up and move them. As long as the robot is not stuck during its cleaning cycle, it’s good enough for me.”

Of course, it should be mentioned that the aspects of the Saros Z70 have improved over time with the software updates that made the sorting functionality more reliable. For example, it was more likely to finish a sorting task and move a sock or a shoe to the designated location without abandoning. This is something that Roborock also told CNBC, saying that the challenge to improve the robot arm powered by AI and making it cheaper was mainly in software and data, not in the hardware.

Another challenge that could have an impact on Roborock’s ability to reduce prices on its most premium robot vacuum cleaners is prices. The company originally provided for the price of the Saros Z70 to $ 1,899, which puts it more in accordance with other premium first -level vacuum cleaners such as the Drene X50 Ultra, which can cross thresholds and certain obstacles. Unfortunately, prices led to a price increase of $ 700, at its current price of $ 2,600, a problem which is unlikely to be solved soon. Despite various 90 -day breaks, there is still no pricing agreement with China.

For our part, the high price of Saros Z70, alongside its case use cases, was one of the main factors that prevented us from recommending it to most people. However, if the ability of the robotic arm to sort the items improves and develops, and the price drops accordingly, which brings it more with the robots that we recommend in the range of $ 500 to 600, as the Yeedi M12 Pro Plus And EUFY 3-in-1 e20 We could recommend it more freely.

It is easy to imagine these types of robots equipped with arms for wider adoption. The next big challenge would be to get them to set up the stairs, a problem that various companies are trying to tackle.