I crouched down and unclipped the plastic top off of the vacuum mop. A sigh silently fell out from my chest as I watched dirty water gently pool around the unit—hair and grey drops of water quickly wiped away before I tugged the damp roller loose from its fitting. The surprisingly good Tineco FLOOR ONE S5 Extreme needed more care and attention than I often gave myself, but it has to be done else it’ll begin to grow mould. Much like myself, I thought, thinking I hadn’t showered for a few days.

My left knee popped as I straightened up, placing the lid and my cloth along with the almost-full dirty water tank into the sink. I watched as the basin strainer filled up with the dirty water and mulled over the thought that I was growing weary of having to do this dance every time I wanted to have a nice and shiny floor. You know, the kind of floors that bankers walk on towards their heavily salaried jobs, or the floors from a marvellous hotel somewhere far from here. But lurking at the edges of my mind, like a background extra angling for more screen time, was the thought of robot vacuums. Small little guys that whizz about, cleaning autonomously, like something from the year 3000. After cleaning, drying, and clipping the various parts back onto the Tineco, I placed it on its charging base. Then I sat down, cracked my knuckles, and went searching the world wide web for answers.

I’d have gotten fewer results if I had typed “the” into Google. The sheer number of vacuum robots—different shapes, styles, colours, prices—felt like a tidal wave of options, drowning any sense of direction thought I had. I picked up my coffee absentmindedly, only to realise I had the wrong cup. Cold. A thin layer of oil slicked across the surface. I looked away from the screen, grabbed the right cup, and took a sip. Still cold. I sighed, rubbed my temples, and pressed on. The research continued. Models blurred together, specs clashed like rival data in a binary war. Balance versus budget. Features versus common sense. In the end, it all came down to a coin flip. The winner? The Roborock Qrevo S.

Self-washing. Self-drying. Self-refilling—though, let’s be honest, from tanks I still had to manually fill and empty. Spinning mop pads that twirl like a flamenco dancer’s dress before lifting away from carpets and rugs. Obstacle avoidance. Precision navigation. On paper, this thing did everything but pour me another cup of joe.

I bear-hugged the box against my chest as I fumbled through the door, knocking a few coats off their hooks in the process once inside. The package was bigger than I expected—though, truth be told, I hadn’t known what to expect. I set it down, took a breath, and reached for the box cutter. A few quick slices, and the cardboard peeled open like a ripe banana. I lifted its robotic contents out, placing the unit into the spot I’d prepared the night before. The new tenant had arrived.

I crouched down, plugged in the Roborock’s base unit, and—right on cue—my knee popped in protest. I ignored it, swiped open the app I had been instructed to download, and tapped the go button. A small whir and a digital beep bounced off of the walls.

I stepped back as the robot announced its intentions in a clipped, sterile voice. Then, like a plastic tongue tasting its new world, it inched out of the dock and began mapping its walled existence.

Like a bloodhound searching for a scent, it snuffled along the corners of each room, its laser scanning every wall, door, and piece of static furniture. I followed, but at a safe distance. It was investigating me. I was investigating it. We both pushed ourselves through the heavy air of uncertainty. For twenty careful minutes, we danced this silent waltz—me watching it, it watching everything. Then, with a final sweep, the Roborock Qrevo S completed its mission. A chime played out. A notification telling me to check the telephone application for its report, as if briefing me after a stake out.

I tapped the icon, and there it was—my apartment, digitised and now filed away in some far-flung digital filing cabinet somewhere. The layout was eerily accurate. Walls, doorways, furniture—etched in cold pixelated precision. But something was off. The mirrors. The spinning LiDAR had been tricked, bouncing its invisible laser into the reflection creating phantom spaces. Ghost rooms. I shuddered at the thought of these mirror rooms being inhabited with the true versions of ourselves in some twisted alternate version of reality. I wouldn’t like to meet me there.

I peeked over my handheld telephone, eyes shifting between the screen and the robot, waiting silently in its plastic tower of a base. I looked back at the app and found the setting to rename it. Enrique. "Pleased to formally meet you," I thought, as if naming the machine would somehow soften the reality of sharing my home with an all-seeing, all-mopping sentinel. With a few taps, I digitally cordoned off the mirror rooms and the tangled nests of cables under tables. Easier for him. Easier for me I decided.

For the next half-hour, I traced my way through the app’s labyrinth of options—colour-coding rooms, adjusting cleaning intensity, dictating how often Enrique should return to base to wash his mops. The customisation was top-notch. Every parameter was mine to tweak. But in the end, I reset everything back to default. I wanted to see what it would do with no leash, no orders—just instinct and cold, hard programming.

Each room could be individually targeted for a solo clean, but I went all in. Full service. But first, a choice. Vac & Mop. Mop. Vacuum. Custom. Smart Plan. I hovered over the options and chose Smart Plan. It was marketed as using AI, but these days everything claims to use AI. A toaster probably has AI now. I wasn’t impressed.

The Roborock Qrevo S rolled out of its dock like it meant business—motors humming, corner brush twirling, mop pads spinning with purpose. I’d prepped the scene. Deliberately let the place go for a few days. Floors untouched. Crumbs casting long shadows on the floor. My dog had been moulting like a dying Christmas tree—fur strewn everywhere, clinging to corners like cobwebs in an old detective’s office. This wasn’t just a cleaning cycle. This was a test. And Enrique was about to earn his badge.
I stood back and watched Enrique do his thing. He brushed breadcrumbs and tufts of dog hair into his path with that little spinning arm—efficient, almost smug—then sucked them up like they’d wronged him. Behind him, the twin mops spun in lazy, deliberate circles, scrubbing the floor clean like he was erasing a crime scene.

Every so often, he’d announce, cheerfully, “Going to clean the mop,” and roll himself back to HQ. There, unseen and unbothered, he’d rinse, wash, refill—no complaints, no reminders. Just pure, programmed efficiency. Magnificent stuff.

I pictured the Tineco, alone and cold in some dark cupboard, slowly gathering dust—the ghost of manual labour past. It could clean, sure. But it needed me. Roborock? He did it all with barely a whisper.

As the robot neared the rug, it slowed—suspicious, careful—like a thief casing a joint. It edged up to the lip, paused, then lifted its mop pads the full 10 millimetres, and clambered on board. That’s when the vacuum motor kicked up a gear: carpet mode. A big promise whispered through small plastic parts.

But dreams die quickly.

Beneath the Roborock, the brush rotor was made of rubber—certainly a choice. Maybe a traditional brush would get clogged up along the way, but I had reservations as to how well rubber can lift anything on a fabric floor. The moment Enrique hit the rug, I knew it was over. My hopes of it pulling up the now-matted tufts of dog hair were about as solid as the walls it sometimes tries to go through.

Sure, the suction fired up to full blast, but then—like a rookie trying to prove something—it sped across the rug like it had somewhere better to be. Rushing the job. Or at least that’s what it seemed. I didn’t check if it actually moves faster on carpet and I probably won’t. But it felt faster. And if its moving faster and sucking up more, then what difference does it make if it travels at normal speed with normal suction? Maybe I was well of the mark. Maybe the robot wasn’t racing the quarter mile. I don’t know anymore.

When Enrique rolled off the rug and shifted back into hard floor mode, he travelled a good stretch before lowering his mop. The transition was smooth, elegant even—but somewhere in that moment, a line of floor was left untouched. A narrow, neglected strip, running parallel to the rug. A no-man’s land where no Roborock mop, as it turns out, will ever touch. For all his talents, it seemed Enrique still had blind spots.

I’m sure—buried somewhere in that labyrinth of settings—there’s a way to change how he handles rugs. Tweak a setting, nudge a parameter, fine-tune the path. But me? I’m not getting involved. The robot is doing its Smart Plan and I’m gonna let it run.

Enrique would often glide around chair legs, boxes, and furniture with the grace of a ballroom dancer who’s seen things—his sensors quietly adjusting, his movements deliberate and composed. Other times, though, he’d throw subtlety out the window and just drive face-first into an obstacle like it owed him protection money. He’d bump once, pause, bump again—then finally, with the reluctant wisdom of someone realising they’ve made a mistake, he’d go around. But cables? Cables were another story.

For reasons unknown, Enrique treats loose wires like a stage. He spins on them. Twirls. Pirouettes. And then, inevitably, throws a tantrum. “The mop mount fell off,” he announces, half-ashamed, half-accusing, before pinging a notification to my phone like it’s my fault he got tangled in the first place.

When this happens, The Roborock Qrevo S doesn’t try to fix things. He doesn’t limp back to base or send a heartfelt apology. He just stops. Sits there like a crime scene chalk outline—waiting patiently, stubbornly—for someone to reattach the magnetically affixed mop.

The first time it happened, I was at work. I checked my phone between meetings and saw the message. No other context. No follow-up. Just a flatline in the middle of a cleaning cycle. There he was—stranded mid-room like a wounded cop, silent and still, surrounded by unfinished work. I stared at the screen just as he was staring at the floor.

All that tech, all that AI, and the minute a mop pad falls off, the Roborock becomes useless. Just another expensive piece of furniture waiting to be made whole again. Since then, I’ve drawn a digital red line under the TV unit—a no-go zone. Not for safety. Not for efficiency. But because I didn’t want Enrique to see the chaos. A tangle of forgotten HDMI leads, extension cords, and wires that snake across the floor like something out of a crime scene photo. It wasn’t about him getting stuck. It was about shame. I didn’t want my robot to judge me.

Enrique’s not without his moments, however. One morning, in what I can only assume was an act of rebellion, Enrique snagged the charging cable of a laptop and yanked it off the desk. It hit the floor with a loud crack. I spun in my chair and ducked, half-expecting gunfire. Instead, I turned to see the Roborock trundling away, dragging the upended laptop behind him like he was taking it for a reluctant walk. Left quite a doozy of a dent in the floor, too.

Another day, he skyed himself up on something he should’ve easily avoided. Couldn’t go forward. Wouldn’t go back. Just sat there all day while I was at work, doing nothing, thinking about nothing, existing purely as a monument to failure. When I got home, I noticed it immediately. A faint smell, the kind that sits low in the air. The kind that makes detectives suspicious. I followed my nose.

My dog trotted over, looking worried. She glanced nervously toward the main room like she’d seen something she couldn’t quite process. I moved in front of her, instinctively—quietly—like something might be waiting in the dark. Down the unlit hallway, the smell thickened.

And there he was. Enrique, The Roborock Qrevo S. Half-mounted on a forgotten dog toy like he’d tried to ride it out of town and failed. He was still. His mops, once full of clean purpose, had dried stiff with defeat and dirt. The stink coming off him was awful—damp fabric, stale filth, and the lingering scent of abandonment.

It eventually took four full cleans before the warm smell of that failed case was fully gone—in one day, I must add. Once the robot was back on solid ground, he went to wash his mops and dutifully carried on, leaving an awful stink about the place. I had to tell him to mop the floors again and again until that lemony scent of the floor cleaner came back.

It’s been a while since I shadowed the Roborock Qrevo S on his first case, and I’m now almost not scared to let him loose around the joint. I’ve had to unlearn old habits—like leaving things lying around—and start living by his rules. If it’s not bolted down, it gets moved. If it’s a nest of wires under a table, it gets covered. I clear his path like a man prepping for a visit from royalty who also happens to get tangled in shoelaces. I’ve had to accept the flaws. The stumbles. The moments when he finds himself wedged between a chair leg and a bad decision. But like any grizzled partner, I’ve stopped expecting perfection.

Because despite the tantrums and the dead-eyed stare when he’s stuck on something dumb, the place always ends up sparkling.

That fresh shine on the tiles. The faint scent of artificial citrus wafting from the air. The kind of clean that makes you second-guess if you’ve ever actually cleaned anything properly before. It’s impressive.

That said, the rug—an old, loyal thing on top of my wooden floor—still doesn’t get the attention it deserves. The Roborock gives it a once-over and calls it a day, barely disturbing the matted animal hair embedded in its fibres. I still have to pull out the old Dyson like a retired detective dragged out for one last case. Between the two of them, the job gets done. Not perfectly. Not without frustration. But done.

The bottom line is, the Roborock Qrevo S is my first small step into the future of robotically forced unemployment. Sure, I’m still needed to empty the tanks and untangle it from the odd cable, but let’s be honest—my relevance is hanging by a charging cord. It cleans better than I ever could, doesn’t complain, and never forgets.

It’s only a matter of time before it learns to judge me properly. After that, I suppose it’ll clean me up too.