Roborock’s Qrevo Curv 2 Flow is the ultimate mopping robot, if you don’t have corners or walls

Yes, it’s a new season for automatic vacuum cleaners! After a couple of years of making robots with gripping arms and legs that can (maybe) climb stairs, Roborock went back to basics and updated its line of mid-level robovacs. He Qrevo Curve 2 Flow It’s similar in appearance to the original, but has some spec upgrades and, most importantly, adds the company’s first roller mop. And you know what? It’s the most powerful mop I’ve found in a robot vacuum, but only as far as it can go.

Let’s back up quickly. The original Qrevo curve It was positioned as Roborock’s flagship model at the time of its release, and cost $1,600. It distinguished itself by being able to scale thresholds up to four centimeters (about 1.58 inches) and by having a beautiful curved docking station (from which it derives its name) that looked smaller, sleeker, and integrated better than the squarer docks out there. The Qrevo Curv 2 Flow is more affordable at $1,000, leaving room for the upcoming flagship Saros 20. Despite that, it’s noticeably better than the original model in many ways.

The vacuum of the Qrevo Curv 2 Flow has been increased to 20,000 pascals of suction power, up from 18,500 Pa of the original. It still uses the excellent DuoDivide Anti-Tangle brush, which is split in half and channels long hair and thread into its little vacuum center. It can still overcome 4-centimeter thresholds, it still uses a combination of LiDAR and cameras to navigate, and the dock still mops with 167-degree Fahrenheit water to reduce bacteria.

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Extra powerful scrubbing

The biggest update is the new mopping system, which Roborock calls the “SpiraFlow Roller Mop.” It’s actually quite slippery and features a 10.5-inch wide roller mop (which doesn’t look like a paint roller) that spins at 220 rpm and exerts an impressive amount of downward pressure. The circular pad system of the original Qrevo Curv pushes down with approximately 6 newtons of force, while the Curv 2 Flow pushes down with more than twice as much force, at 15 newtons. The mop can also extend a couple of inches outward from the right side of the robot, allowing it to mop about 0.4 inches from walls and furniture (supposedly).

One of the most attractive features of the mop is that it has a built-in scraper on the back, which channels dirty water into a built-in dirty water tank. To put it in context, most robovacs mop for a while, return to their base to wash the mop, and then return to clean more. The Curv 2 Flow system means it doesn’t just push dirty water, which can cause streaks and other messes. Instead, it cleans itself as it goes and the width of the roller makes it more efficient, so it requires fewer passes and mops faster.

It even has sensors that can detect when you need to return to an area and, in theory, will pay more attention to you until the job is done. When it detects it is going over the carpet, the mop is raised a little over half an inch and the “Roller Shield” cover extends around the roller to keep the carpet dry. Overall, it is a very innovative system.

See roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Flow on Amazon

putting it to the test

So how well does it really work? I found the setup quick. Simply use the app to scan the vacuum’s QR code, fill the tank with clean water, and tell the robot to map your home.

In my one-bedroom apartment, the scan took about five minutes. The mapping is generally very precise, although the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in my closets and the sliding glass door to my balcony made me think there were spaces that didn’t exist. It’s not the biggest problem, as it’s easy enough to edit those things off the map, which you’ll want to do anyway because you’ll need to draw boundaries between rooms and name them (thus enabling voice commands like “vacuum the bedroom”). It also didn’t nail where my rugs were, so it’s worth checking them manually so the robot doesn’t try to mop them. You can also add furniture to the map, but it’s a bit cumbersome and I’m not entirely sure what the point is since it will avoid anything it finds anyway. It’s worth noting that unlike the Saros line, the base of the Curv 2 Flow does not have a separate tank for detergent. You just have to remember to add a couple of tablespoons to your freshwater tank each time you refill it, which is easy to forget.

Once you send it on a cleaning mission, it does a pretty solid job. The vacuum did an excellent job of picking up loose hair from my laminate floor and sand from my medium-pile carpet, and worked admirably, though not perfectly, through my standard gauntlet of goldfish crackers, Tic-Tacs, spices, olive pits, and pistachio shells. The peels were the hardest for the Curv 2 Flow to suck up, but it got most of them, and only crushed one cookie, and even then it sucked up most of it.

Unlike most Roborock robotic vacuums, this one has two sweeping brushes at the front, which help drag debris toward the rotating brushes in the middle, but neither of them can extend outward from the body of the robot, as could be the case with previous models, and that seems like a mistake. The result is that it has a hard time sweeping dirt out of the corners (leaving about 1.5 diagonal inches unswept) and also doesn’t get the edges as reliably.

Mopping is where this really shines. In fact, the new roller system cleans deeper than any of the previous robots I’ve tested. I drizzled BBQ sauce, milk, mayonnaise, and jerk sauce all over the kitchen and let it dry for two hours. The Curv 2 Flow got all the mayonnaise and milk on the first pass, and was smart enough to recognize that it needed to go through the BBQ sauce again, which it did, and got most of it (but not all of it). Once I sent it back to that spot to hit it again, the robot vacuum picked up almost everything in the middle of the floor.

Dying on the edge

However, edge performance was very inconsistent. Even with the mop extending from the body of the Curv 2 Flow, there were tests where it came within half an inch of the wall and occasions where it left 8-inch gaps. It was strange because I had trouble getting it to repeat the same result twice. Sometimes he simply refused to go near a wall, and other times he managed everything. It also didn’t work well mopping the corners. I suspect some of this could be fixed with a firmware update, so hopefully that will be fixed in the future.

Another strange thing: All the other Roborock robots I’ve tested had multiple modes you could choose from, like Vac & Mop, Vacuum Only, Mopping Only, or SmartPlan (their AI-assisted mode). For the Qrevo Curv 2 Flow, even though the mop is the obvious main feature, Roborock changed the mop-only mode, which is a baffling decision. I guess the company is trying to get more people to use AI SmartPlan, but if you have a big wet mess, the robot tends to walk over it before it realizes it. In addition, the two sweeping brushes on the front drag the material. I had to turn the robot over and manually clean the brushes because they had so much BBQ sauce on them that they hardened into sticks. Not great. I’d love to see a mop-only mode that keeps the brushes as far out of the way as possible.

Object recognition has certainly improved over the years, but I’m sorry to say that it still ate a black USB-C cable off my light-colored hardwood floor and sucked a black sock off my patterned Persian rug. Cables in particular have to be the number one hazard for these robots, so they really have to get better at detecting them. Or if they’ve slurped something they shouldn’t have, they should be able to recognize that their brushroll isn’t spinning like it’s supposed to and initiate some sort of regurgitation protocol.

It’s also worth noting that this is one of the highest robovacs I’ve tested. At 4.7 inches, it’s 0.6 inches taller than the original Curv and a whopping 1.5 inches taller than the slimline Saros. I have a couple of cabinets that have doors that are too close to the floor, so the Curv 2 Flow couldn’t clean under them.

The battery life isn’t fantastic and unfortunately neither is the recharge time. The Curv 2 Flow can quickly clean my 650-square-foot apartment in one go on some of the less intense modes, but if I select “Vacuum followed by Mop” and increase the power level, it barely makes it on a full charge. If not, it takes almost three hours to recharge and then continue. That might be a deal breaker for people with larger homes, although I don’t really mind splitting up the cleaning schedule, which is easy to do in the app.

Where the dust reaches the container

Overall, I’d say the Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Flow is a pretty solid robot vacuum, with a few flaws, that’s decently priced (especially if you can get it on sale). The mopping prowess is impressive, and if you have a lot of hard floors, this could be the ideal 2-in-1 vacuum and mop for you. I just hope future firmware updates teach it to approach walls, but I can’t hold my breath.

See roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Flow on Amazon