Roborock H6 review: Your robot vacuum's perfect companion

I've been using the Roborock S5 Max for the past few months now, and I can definitely say it's changed my life. Every day at noon, thanks to its scheduling feature, Robbie wakes up and gives my entire house a good cleaning. Cat hair no longer piles up under my kitchen table. Leaves and dirt tracked in no longer sticks to the bottom of my bare feet. It's like I have a personal house cleaner that only does floors. The thing about a robot vacuum, however, is that it's really not a replacement for a standard vacuum. You can't send it into the two-inch gap between your dresser and your bed. It doesn't clean couches. Even though the Roborock is pretty dang efficient at cleaning floors, it can't reach narrow spaces. That's where the H6 portable stick vacuum comes in.

I've been able to put the Roborock H6 through its paces to see if it picks up where the S5 Max left off. How well does it perform under pressure?

Robo companion

Roborock H6: The features

The H6 is Roborock's first cordless stick vacuum. For a company known for its robot vacuums, this is a new dimension, but one that makes complete sense. Robot vacuums can do one thing: clean floors. It can't clean stairs or couches or baseboards. No matter how good your robot vacuum is, you need something else to clean non-floor surfaces. Why not a Roborock stick vacuum to go with your Roborock robot vacuum?

This stick vacuum has a powerful suction container with three speeds, eco, standard, and max. The entire thing can be taken apart to one, empty the dust bin and two, clean each part individually for performance longevity. It has a built-in air purification system that supposedly captures dust mites, pet dander, mold, and pollen. The 150AW suction, 420W brushless motor, and tested 800-hour battery life sets this up as a strong and long-lasting addition to your cleaning household.

The three modes of suction — eco, standard, and max — make it possible to save on battery if you don't need a strong suction. Dusting furniture, for example, will work just fine with eco mode, while standard mode should be used for basic floor and fabric couch cleaning. Max mode should be saved for such things as ground-in dirt messes or trying to clean out those dust mites from your mattress. In eco mode, the battery is estimated to last about 90 minutes on a single charge. In standard mode, it should last about 45 minutes. In max mode, you're only going to get about 10 minutes, at most, and in my testing, it worked out to be more like six minutes.

The vacuum trigger has a locking mechanism so you can keep the suction going without having to hold down the trigger. If you know you'll be running for a few minutes without stopping, hit that lock button for a more comfortable experience. If conserving battery life is more important to the task-at-hand, keep it unlocked so you're not wasting unnecessary power.

The canister's handle has a very nice status display that keeps you informed on whether the trigger is locked or unlocked, how much time you have remaining at the current power speed before the battery runs out, and what mode you're currently using. You'll also see the percentage of battery remaining when you're not pressing the trigger and how much the battery is charging up when it's on the charger.

The H6 comes with a stick tube and five attachments: a floor brush, dusting brush, motorized mini brush, crevice tool, and flex tube. The crevice tool and dusting brush can be used with either the flex tube, the stick tube, or by connecting directly to the canister. The floor brush and motorized mini brush can be used with the stick tube, or by connecting directly to the canister.

All of this can be easily stored with the included wall mount, which has special connectors similar to those on the stick and flex tube so you can store all of the accessories in an organized way.

Versatile vacuum

Roborock H6: What I like

I can't stress enough what a joy it is to use the H6 simply because of how lightweight it is. I can easily use this one-handed and even switch out accessories with one hand while the other continues to vacuum. The handy button connectors make it easy to replace cleaning heads without any work. It's a snap. Though it's lightweight, the overall feel of the H6 is not cheap. When an accessory needs durability, it's there.

It comes with both a stick tube and a flex tube, which automatically makes the H6 more versatile than most stick vacuums. That flexible tubing is a must have for at least 50% of what I need a portable vacuum cleaner for, like cleaning the interior of my car or dusting my electronics (front and back). The package comes with a floor brush, which is a rotating roller bar with soft short bristles that don't scratch your hardwood floors, but there is an optional additional accessory (not yet available) meant for thicker carpets. You don't even need to have the full carpet brush attachment. You can slide out the floor brush from the mechanism and slide in the carpet brush and go from there.

When you need to clean out the debris canister, there is a switch on the back that makes it easy to pop open the bottom and dump it out. You can also twist off the canister, which gives you easy access to the various filters you can wash out whenever you think it needs its own cleaning. Removal and replacement of the canister for dumping the debris is so easy you can do it with one hand.

I love the status display. It keeps me well-informed of how much time I have left to clean before needing to recharge the battery. I took the H6 outside and cleaned out the entire interior of my car (seats, floors, dashboard, sides) and I was completely aware of how much time I had before I needed to take a break to recharge. If I'm in Max mode and see that I don't have much time before the battery reaches zero, I can switch over to standard, or even eco mode, and get a few more minutes of cleaning done.

For the amount of power the H6 has, it's got a relatively quiet motor. I was able to listen to a podcast on my iPhone SE, not with headphones, while the motor was running and could hear what was being said while in eco mode. Of course, the motor gets louder as you increase the suction, but the decibel level is relatively low.

The wall mount scratches my organization itch. It's designed specifically to fit all of the included attachments in their own special place. The accessories clip to the mount the same as they would to the vacuum stick or flex tube, so there are no loose accessories that might accidentally get knocked out. You can easily mount it in your utility closet, garage, or even your bedroom closet so it's out of the way until you need to use it.

Short life

Roborock H6: What I don't like

This is a portable cordless vacuum, which means it's got a short battery life. Now, Roborock claims it's longer than most with "the world's first lithium-ion polymer battery in a cordless stick vacuum," so it has the capability of going the distance if the standard distance is about 45 minutes. But the nature of battery-powered vacuums requires a lot of power, of which a rechargeable battery only has so much.

What I'd like to see is the ability to plug directly into the wall for extended use. I realize this would make it less portable, more awkward, and probably a bit heavier, but it would also make it last as long as you needed it to in any situation. I was only able to clean about three-fourths of my car before the battery took a powder and I had to set it back on the charger for a half hour before I could go back out to finish the job. A wall plug adapter would have been perfect for this situation.

The H6 is really designed to be a companion to a robot vacuum, not as your only household vacuum cleaner, so the price is a bit steep when you consider that you're also going to (or already have) spend a couple hundred on the robot vacuum, too.

Bottomline

Roborock H6: The conclusion

Though it's pricey, the Roborock H6 really is the perfect companion to a Roborock robot vacuum. It's incredibly lightweight, has a variety of accessories, making it very versatile, and can be mounted inside your utility closet up and away from everything, organized and out of sight when it's not being used.

There is still a way that Roborock could design an aftermarket wall plug adapter for the H6, which I would buy in a heartbeat. Having that option for longer vacuuming needs would be invaluable, especially if you're nearly finished with a cleaning job and don't want to take a break to charge up again before it's done.