Roborock F25 Ace Pro reviewed: fantastic overkill

With a name like the F25 Ace Pro, Roborock’s latest contraption sounds like a jet engine, and it even comes with a concept called “JetFoaming”, but this pricey electric mop is all about keeping things clean. Is it worth the price?

Cleaning your house is one of those chores that few people really like doing. And in all seriousness, why would they? It’s time out of your day making sure floors are swept and cleaned, when you could be doing anything else.

No wonder people turn to automated robotic cleaners for the maintenance of cleaning. It’s just easier when you take the Homer Simpson approach of “can’t someone else do it”.

But sometimes, someone else can’t do it. Sometimes you need to do it yourself.

That could be why Roborock’s F25 Ace Pro exists. A gadget that combines vacuum, mop, and self-cleaning system all in one, it’s a cleaner that feels like it could run itself, and unbelievably, almost can.

While the $1299 price is hefty, the F25 Ace Pro might just win you over because it makes cleaning quick and surprisingly fun. Is it worth it?

What is the Roborock F25 Ace Pro?

One part vacuum and another part mop, the Roborock F25 Ace Pro is something a little unexpected from a brand more well known for robotic vacuums, a point you can take from its name.

The model sounds like a fighter jet, but what it actually is will simply let you jet around the home, sucking up gunk and physical debris while also cleaning the floors using a rolling mop, water tank, and a small compartment for liquid cleaner that turns into foam spray.

What does it do?

The idea is simple: it’s a vacuum with a small chamber and a spent mop container that’s slightly bigger. As you go around the house, you’ll suck gunk and debris up, all while mopping the floor.

Like so many other gadgets put out by Roborock, this one is designed to clean, though it differs from the automated vacuums and mops we’ve seen in the past. Rather, this is more like the Roborock H60 vacuum in that it’s a conventional cleaner you’ll need to use in a more DIY capaciity.

There’s nothing wrong with that, it just means the system is less automated than an automatic robotic vacuum cleaner.

But it doesn’t mean it’s completely manual. Far from it.

The Roborock F25 Ace Pro will need you to fill up the water tank at the base and the compartment for cleaning product, of which Roborock includes something for you to work with initially.

You’ll need to get more if you run out, with the Foam Cleaning Solution a $40 extra for this appliance, and it doesn’t really work without it.

Once it’s in place, you go around the home, cleaning, squeezing the trigger to spray foam, a process the company calls “JetFoaming”, and cleaning as debris and dirty water are both sucked into the canister.

When you’re done, you empty it out, and there’s even a built-in cleaning station that’s more of a charger to trigger the self-cleaning. It’s all quite easy, particularly when it’s left on auto.

There are other modes, with a max mode, an eco mode, and a simple sponge mode, and you can scroll through them using one of the three buttons.

Does it do the job?

In terms of a cleaner, the Ace Pro does an on-brand “ace” job, rolling cleanser and water around your home, and sucking up bits and bobs into a small tank.

The moment you power it on and unlock the cleaner to do your bidding, the whole thing whirs into action as if it was a robot. Technically it’s not a robotic cleaner, but the F25 Ace Pro responds like one, giving off that vibe. You can even lay it flat to get to hard-to-reach places.

Watching it do its thing, it’s not a dramatically different system to how the robo-vacs work, only there’s one compartment combined here: the liquid sits alongside the gunk, with minor separation, and a filter sitting up top.

You should be able to clean the house easily, with the battery running longer than expected. By the time the battery ran out, we would have emptied the spent water tank at least twice. If anything, the debris and water tank could be better, and the battery is fine.

There’s just plenty of life, and even plenty of spray cleaner in the system, which comes out in a pattern for an extra second or two after you squeeze the trigger, an action that’s both satisfying and surprisingly fun.

Foam vs steam

At the crux of Roborock’s argument for this cleaner is the cleaning solution, which might be the preferred option for some people.

The argument basically goes like this: for years we’ve been told that cleaning solutions kill germs and odours, while hot water turned into steam can also do that, as well.

In practice, both are capable cleaning approaches, with Roborock really giving you the choice.

There are obvious differences, too.

The cleaning product is technically being spread over what might be described as more areas, and does use bacterial killing chemicals, which is something many of us have largely grown up with for cleaning.

It also smells nice with a jasmine scent, making the floors smell nicer than simply “steamed wood”. However, it is an optional extra at $40 per bottle, otherwise you’re simply mopping with cold water.

While the cleaning product Roborock uses is jasmine scented and is apparently safe for hard floors, breaking down gunk and odours, it does contain benzisothiazolinone which can cause an allergic reaction to skin and is a poison.

So that’s one clear difference between a foam mop and a steam mop: one uses something that’s a poison, while the other is just really, really hot water. That’s handy to be aware of, since pets mightn’t fare too well with the chemical cleaner, and the same might be true for kids.

In terms of sheer cleaning power, we found the F25 Ace Pro did an excellent job, killing two birds with one stone, vacuuming and mopping all too easily.

The other major difference is that steam can be harsh to certain floor types, whereas the F25 Ace Pro’s use of water and soap (or water and foaming spray) appears to be less aggressive overall.

We didn’t find any problems using a Tineco steam mop last year, and loved it so much we gave it a Best Pick for the year, but the F25 Ace Pro is similar in that it’s simple, easy to use, cleverly designed, and just so happens to be a little gentler for more floors.

Each to their own, but this is a great unit.

App connected

One thing that doesn’t feel like is necessary is the app, which makes sense with a Roborock robotic vacuum cleaner because that’s how you control the thing. With a human-controlled mop and vac? Markedly less so.

Yet the Roborock app does exactly that, connecting with the F25 Ace Pro and providing it monitoring and firmware updates. And here we are, listening to the vacuum and mop tell us it’s updating firmware and that it’ll take five to ten minutes.

Get the idea of updates out of the way, and you’ll quickly find the app lets you tweak settings for the various modes, define what happens when the mop is on the stand, and even look at the lifespan of parts of the unit, such as the mop.

While the app is largely there for settings changes — and actually does a better job than expected — it also comes with a bit of a secret feature that’s impossible not to laugh at: remote control.

Remote control

All of a sudden, the F25 Ace Pro becomes an entertainment gadget, turning it into a remote control mop that can actually be controlled by the app.

If you’ve never seen kids leap to clean the house, this will definitely do it.

Roborock’s almost-hidden remote control mode for the F25 Ace Pro turns the vacuum mop into a remote control gadget with a directional pad in the app.

It’s weird and crazy and totally unnecessary largely because cleaning this way would just be so slow, you’d be insane to use it instead of simply picking it up.

And yet the inclusion is clever, because it turns on the Roborock charm, joining the dots from its robotic vacuum technology and making the mop more fun to use.

The speed of the remote control mode makes using it this way completely ineffective, unless you’re struggling to get somewhere that happens to be relatively far off. But the fact that it’s here is kind of cool.

What does it need?

So what does it need? Not much, surprisingly, because it does exactly what it’s supposed to. It sprays foamy soap, it absorbs water, it cleans floors, and it basically works.

There’s nothing really wrong with the Roborock F25 Ace Pro.

Except the price.

Is it worth your money?

The biggest question mark of the F25 Ace Pro is the price, because it is a lot more expensive than you’d expect.

Available for $1299 in Australia, Roborock’s F25 Ace Pro is not an inexpensive cleaning gadget, especially when there are less expensive steam mops, another technology that does something similar, albeit without the cleaning product.

Some people will prefer actual cleaning product to steam, and that’s understandable. If that’s you, the F25 Ace Pro will be more your cup of tea.

It’s also not alone on this category, with other mops lacking the robotic innards and delivering just as good a clean, such as the $699 Ryobi equivalent, which skipped the soap but saw a price tag closer to half the price.

You probably don’t need robotic parts on a somewhat manual cleaner.

There’s a better word for it: overkill. Fantastic overkill.

Yay or nay?

At a little under $1300, the Roborock F25 Ace Pro feels too expensive because it combines the experience of a $30 spray and wipe mop with a vacuum, and manages to give it some robotics and self-cleaning tech, as well.

While clever, the price is difficult to account for, making it awkward to recommend. It’s such a great cleaner, but it feels like the price should be on the under-side of a thousand, not a few hundred past it.

For folks with the spare money and a need to keep the house completely clean, the Roborock F25 Ace Pro is an excellent addition. It’s just a lot of money to get you that cleanliness, especially when a robotic vacuum is probably a better purchase.