I stared at the scene before me with that familiar feeling of dread. My two-year-old daughter had once again transformed dinnertime into performance art – complete with grand gestures that sent sticky rice flying in all directions. It formed a Jackson Pollock-esque masterpiece across our textured vinyl plank flooring, with grains sticking into every groove. If you're a parent, you know exactly what I'm talking about: wet rice is the nemesis of clean floors. Paper towels? They just smush it around. Traditional mops? The rice refuses to stick to them. Regular vacuums? They get clogged and cleaning them afterward is its own special nightmare.
But this time was different. Instead of the usual 20-minute ordeal involving multiple cleaning tools and increasingly creative swear words muttered under my breath, I reached for our new Roborock F25 ACE. One pass – that's all it took. The rice was gone, the floor was clean, and I stood there slightly dumbfounded that something had actually delivered on its promises.
As a family of six with four kids all under age six, our home is essentially a 24/7 mess laboratory. We've tried countless cleaning solutions over the years, but nothing has transformed our cleaning routine quite like the Roborock F25 ACE. What started as an intimidating new gadget has quickly become our household hero.
Before diving into the specifics of the F25 ACE, let's clarify what makes wet/dry vacuum mops different from your standard vacuum or mop. While the Roborock F25 ACE markets itself as a wet/dry vacuum cleaner, it's more accurately described as a powered mop with vacuum functionality. Unlike traditional vacuums that just suck up dry debris, or mops that just push water around, these hybrid machines do both simultaneously – they spray clean water (with optional cleaning solution) onto your floors, scrub the surface with a roller brush, and then vacuum up the dirty water along with any debris.
This combination is revolutionary for hard surface cleaning, especially for families with young children. Those impossible messes that used to require multiple tools and considerable elbow grease – dried juice spills, sticky peanut butter smears, muddy footprints, or yes, scattered rice – can now be handled in a single pass without pre-sweeping or post-mopping.
The category itself is still relatively new, which explains why many (myself included) weren't exactly sure what these devices could tackle when first encountering them. One important clarification: despite the "wet/dry vacuum" name, these machines are designed primarily for hard surfaces – not carpets. Think of them as the ultimate solution for kitchens, bathrooms, entryways, and any other hard-floored area where life gets messy.
The Roborock F25 ACE has a sleek, upright design reminiscent of traditional vacuum cleaners but with a distinctly different layout. Its water tank configuration is unique – the clean water tank sits at the base, while the dirty water tank is positioned at the front. This arrangement shifts more weight toward the bottom, creating a different balance and feel compared to other wet/dry vacuums I've used. Overall the build quality is high and the materials feel premium, it's about as attractive as a vacuum can be.
The brush roller (which Roborock calls their "JawScrapers Roller") is one of the F25 ACE's most effective components. It features a specialized design with constant-pressure scrapers that prevent water streaks and shark-tooth shaped blades that capture hair effectively. As someone with several long-haired family members, I've been impressed by how rarely I need to clean hair from the roller.
The vacuum's low-profile design is particularly useful in a family home. At just 4.92 inches in height when fully reclined, it can maintain full suction even when lying nearly flat against the floor. This allows it to reach far under beds, couches, and cabinets – areas that previously collected dust and debris because they were simply too hard to reach with traditional cleaning tools.
The F25 ACE differentiates itself from the standard F25 ALT model through its smart features. It includes a dirt sensor that detects mess levels and automatically adjusts cleaning intensity. Initially, I was skeptical about this feature, but it's surprisingly effective – when moving from our relatively clean hallway to the disaster zone under the kids' dining chairs, the machine audibly shifts gears and increases cleaning power.
Another practical feature is the auto-dispensing detergent system. Rather than having to measure cleaning solution each time, the vacuum releases it precisely as needed. The company claims a single fill can last up to 30 days with daily use – while I haven't been counting days, we've definitely gone over two weeks without a refill despite heavy daily use in our kitchen.
The maneuverability system (branded as SlideTech 2.0) uses dual brushless motors to control each wheel independently. This engineering choice makes a noticeable difference – the vacuum feels almost self-propelled, gliding with minimal effort and making tight turns with surprising ease. It requires so little strength to operate that my 6-year-old son can push it around without difficulty, which has turned cleaning into an unexpectedly popular family activity.
The F25 ACE also comes with companion app functionality, which I found surprisingly useful and easy to set up. Connecting via WiFi was straightforward – scanning the QR code through the app took seconds, and even the firmware update process was quick and smooth. The app provides access to a variety of settings including voice alert language options, monitoring the life of consumables (roller and filter), checking device status, initiating self-cleaning and drying cycles, and adjusting cleaning settings like roller speed and suction force. You can even schedule automatic roller self-cleaning. That said, I've found the device so well-balanced out of the box that most users probably won't need to make many adjustments through the app.
The charging dock doubles as a cleaning base, saving space while adding functionality. When you return the vacuum to its base, it automatically begins a self-cleaning cycle that flushes the brush roll and internal components with hot water. This process is guided by voice notifications – a helpful feature, though it's worth noting that there's no way to adjust the volume of these announcements without the app.
Our home presents the perfect testing ground for any cleaning device, with its combination of rough tile with deep grout lines in the bathrooms, smooth laminate in the bedrooms, and textured luxury vinyl plank in the main living areas. Each surface brings its own cleaning challenges, and we've put the F25 ACE through trials on all of them.
The most impressive performance consistently comes from those dreaded wet food messes. The aforementioned rice situation is a regular occurrence, and the F25 ACE handles it like nothing else we've tried. Rather than pushing the grains around, the vacuum's combination of scrubbing action and strong suction lifts them cleanly away from the floor. Even more impressive was its performance when our 4-year-old dropped an entire bowl of spaghetti – sauce, noodles and all – onto our textured vinyl flooring. What would normally be a multi-step nightmare was handled with just a couple of passes.
To really test the F25 ACE's capabilities, I created a breakfast-time torture test that would make any parent cringe: a deliberate mess of smashed bananas, a big glob of sticky peanut butter, dry Chex cereal, and granulated sugar – all scattered across our kitchen floor. The results were impressive. The vacuum handled almost everything in a single pass, efficiently cleaning up the peanut butter (which would normally require significant scrubbing), pulverized the Chex, and even managed the fine sugar granules without leaving any gritty residue. The only hiccup was a single large piece of banana that was too big for the intake – it ended up being pushed around rather than sucked up. Still, considering the severity of this intentional mess, the overall performance was remarkable.
Maneuverability is exceptional thanks to the SlideTech 2.0 system. The F25 ACE navigates around table legs and between chairs with remarkable ease. A slight twist and the 70° swivel design helps it glide around obstacles with grace. I do notice the weight difference compared to our previous wet/dry vacuum – the F25 ACE is slightly heavier at 13.67 lbs, but the self-propelled feeling compensates for this difference.
Battery life has been more than adequate for our needs. A full charge easily handles our entire first floor (approximately 1,200 square feet) with power to spare. We typically use the Auto mode rather than Eco, and still get about 45 minutes of cleaning time – more than enough for our daily needs.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of performance is the noise level – it's remarkably quiet for such a powerful device. We've been able to use it during naptime without waking our 3-month-old, which any parent will recognize as the ultimate test of a quiet appliance.
Despite its impressive performance, the F25 ACE isn't without a few minor issues worth mentioning.
The instruction manual could definitely be more comprehensive, especially for newcomers to the wet/dry vacuum category. Without the helpful voice prompts, we would have had a steeper learning curve. The horizontal clean water tank design also makes it somewhat difficult to visually gauge water levels compared to vertical tanks in other models.
One specific frustration we encountered was with the dirty water tank. While removing the tank itself was straightforward, figuring out how to take the top half off to empty it proved perplexing at first. The solution turned out to be simple – the two halves just pull apart – but they were quite snug initially, and there were no clear markings or stickers to indicate and make this more intuitive. At least cleaning is easy and quick, you just dump of the tank into the toilet and a rinse of the tank and strainer is all it takes to get the mess out.
At $499 on sale, the Roborock F25 ACE represents a significant investment for most households. Is it worth it? For families with young children and predominantly hard surface flooring, my answer is an enthusiastic yes. The time and frustration it saves on daily cleaning alone makes it valuable, but the improved cleanliness of our floors has been the real game-changer.
Here's the unexpected reality: our floors are genuinely cleaner than they've ever been, not because the F25 ACE cleans better than anything else (though it does), but because cleaning now actually gets done. The old cycle of sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming was so labor-intensive that we'd often put it off until absolutely necessary. With the F25 ACE, quick cleanups are so effortless that they happen immediately, preventing grime buildup in the first place.
This isn't just a new cleaning tool – it's a lifestyle upgrade you can't come back from. I realized this truth about two weeks in, when I found myself reflexively reaching for the F25 ACE to handle a small spill rather than grabbing paper towels. Traditional mops and buckets now seem like relics from a bygone era – I'll thankfully never purchase another mop bucket again.
The F25 ACE delivers what I can only describe as a 10X improvement over conventional cleaning methods. It's the difference between tolerable and transformative. The floors in our home aren't just "less dirty" – they're actually, legitimately clean in a way they never consistently were before.
When your 6-year-old is asking if he can clean up a spill because he wants to use the cool vacuum, and your wife is treating you like a hero without a cape, you know you've found something special. This unexpected side effect – turning cleaning from a dreaded chore into a sought-after activity – might be worth the price of admission alone.
For our family, the F25 ACE has earned its place as an Editor's Choice product. It stands as one of those rare devices that delivers precisely what it promises and then exceeds those expectations in daily use.
The Roborock F25 ACE is ideal for:
If you've been locked in the endless cycle of sweeping, mopping, and still ending up with floors that never feel truly clean, the Roborock F25 ACE isn't just a solution – it's a revolution. While it's certainly an investment, it's one that pays dividends in time saved and cleanliness gained – and in our busy household, that's absolutely priceless.
