Roborock H6 review

Finder score: 3.5

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A brand name like Roborock sounds like it belongs in a 1980s cartoon, but it's actually a Chinese brand perhaps best known for partnering with Xiaomi on a range of robot vacuum cleaners under that company's Xiaomi Smart Home platform. The Roborock H6 isn't a robot vacuum cleaner, but instead a stick model, designed pretty clearly to take on the likes of Dyson.

The question that inevitably pops up whenever these lower cost equivalents come to market is whether it's worth betting on them or sticking with a known quantity. The Roborock H6 delivers quite a lot of performance for those with smaller spaces to vacuum, although it's not without its quirks.

Design

Design

• Looks a lot like its Dyson equivalents
• Decent OLED display
• Range of accessory heads included

• Read more about the Roborock H6's design

  Nobody I've shown the Roborock H6 to hasn't had the same initial thoughts about its design, namely that it looks a lot like many of Dyson's stick vacuums. There's only so much you can do with a clear barrel and vacuum head of course, but the use of a red colour scheme with silver accents does rather suggest that Roborock's designers knew who they were taking on in the competitive stick vacuum market.

  The main body of the Roborock H6 is encased in clear plastic, with a notable diagonal line that runs around the attachment connector. It's so noticeable that Roborock puts a sticker on the casing to point out that it's not a flaw, but part of the manufacturing process for the dust compartment itself. At the back, there's an OLED display that shows your current vacuuming mode, alerts you to any issues and displays a rundown time relative to the mode it's being used in.

  While there are some stick vacuums that sell with a single head and expect you to drop extra cash for accessory heads, that's not what Roborock has done with the Roborock H6. It comes with a range of accessory heads; aside from the primary wide carpet/hard floor brush, there's a smaller motorised carpet head, dusting brush and crevice tool.

  You're also provided with a stick baton head that works with all four tools and a flexible tube head that only works with the dusting brush and crevice tool. That does mean that if you need that flexibility, you're stuck vacuuming rather small areas with it because you can't fit any kind of wide head to it by design.

  Finally, in the box, there's a standard charger and wall mounting plate so that you can more easily mount the Roborock H6 to a wall for easy storage. Like most stick vacuums in this class, you can charge the Roborock H6 while in the mounting plate or in a standalone fashion.

Performance

Performance

• Good variable speed
• Small dustbin can get hair stuck that won't drop out

• Read more about the Roborock H6's performance

  The Roborock H6 is designed for use across carpets and hard floors, and I've been testing it out over the past couple of weeks in my busy suburban home to get an idea of what it's good for, and where it could use some improvement.

  The key thing you want out of any of this class of vacuum is the ability to clean your carpets, and the Roborock H6 handles this quite well. By default, it spins up its motor into what it calls "Carpet Boost" mode if it detects it's running over carpet, giving it a little extra oomph to pick up dust, hair and any other particles residing within your carpets. You can really pick when it's detected carpet because the noise level also rises just a little.

  Like many of its competitors, the Roborock H6 also features a more intense mode, called MAX in this case, that fires up the turbine as fast as it can go for maximum cleaning. It's generally tempting to use this all the time except on delicate surfaces because who wouldn't want cleaner carpets faster? The price you pay for this is in battery life – more on that shortly – but it does do a generally good job of picking up even more dust and debris from even quite old and worn carpets or carpet-style surfaces.

  I've tested it across standard hardwood floors, some standard indoor carpeting, rugs and even carpet tiles with few complaints about its ability to do its primary job of cleaning up my house. With three kids and three cats, there's usually something that needs vacuuming, and there's little doubt that the utility of a stick vacuum is quite welcome in these circumstances!

  Controls on the Roborock H6 are relatively intuitive, with a standard trigger that you can use for short burst vacuuming. If you're using it across a wider area, there's a power button on the side that switches the Roborock H6 into "sustain" mode – or in other words, "always on" mode. The OLED display makes it simple enough to work out your current performance mode and whether it's locked on or not. It's a nice inclusion for those who don't want to always have to hold down a trigger to get their vacuuming done. The light weight of the Roborock H6 is also quite welcome, making it easy to hold for a fair amount of time without fatigue.

  There are some downsides. The flex tool only has a short neck, and because it works only with the dusting brush and crevice tool, you end up somewhat curled up down near the floor in order to reach those tricky areas, which isn't always ideal if you have creaky knees or a bad back.

  MAX power mode does what its name suggests, but it's also quite noisy, which isn't great if you don't want to freak out your cats and have them go and hide behind your collection of retro games consoles. OK, maybe that last bit is just specific to me, but the point remains that at full power, this is a fairly loud device.

  The other side of any vacuum cleaner is how you deal with the debris it collects, and here I was distinctly less impressed. There's an easy-to-access release catch that drops the bottom of the dust compartment so you can in theory drop waste into a bin. However, the thin nature of the entire body doesn't give it a lot of capacity, and what often happened in my experience is that I'd end up with sections of hair and other debris effectively "stuck" up the sides.

  At first, I used a pencil to gently nudge out the excess matter before realising that there's also a release catch for the whole bin at the bottom of the vacuum body. That does work because you can then tip out the entire contents, and clean the dust tray while you're at it if you're keen. However, it's more work than I'd like to do at the end of a vacuuming cycle and easily the one thing I hope Roborock works on for future models.

Battery life

Battery life

• 90-minute battery capacity
• Eco mode is very low powered

• View test results and read our full review of the Roborock H6's battery life

  Roborock's big claim with the lithium polymer battery is that it can last for up to 90 minutes after only 4 hours of charging time, which sounds pretty magical for lightweight stick vacuum cleaners. It's not exactly fibbing when it makes that claim because if you pop it into eco mode, you can get around 90 minutes of use out of its integrated battery.

  However, in most cases, you're not going to want to.

  Eco mode doesn't provide all that much suction at all, so it's best suited for hard surfaces or carpets where you're really just doing very basic maintenance cleaning. In my own situation, I found eco mode underwhelming and nearly always opted for standard or MAX modes of operation.

  Taking it to the max does introduce a serious hit on battery performance, dropping from that 90-minute runtime to just 10 minutes of operation. If you've got a larger area to vacuum that isn't going to cut it, although standard mode can run for around 30-40 minutes and does a fair job across most surfaces.

  Recharging does take some time, although the OLED display slightly cheats, jumping from just a few percentage points into the mid-teens only a few minutes after you plug it in. Don't be fooled, however, because if you unplug it, it'll instantly start complaining about a low battery again.

Should you buy the Roborock H6?

The Roborock H6 isn't exactly shy about taking on the likes of Dyson's V11 range as well as stick vacuum options from the likes of LG or Samsung. With a light carrying weight and good optional tools at a price point a little lower than its competitors, it makes a compelling case if you want the convenience of a stick vacuum without the heavy hit to your wallet.

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