Welcome to CES 2026, where the pinnacle of human innovation isn’t a cure for the common cold or a sustainable energy breakthrough, but a vacuum cleaner that has finally mastered the art of the step-up. Roborock has unveiled the Saros 20 and Saros 20 Sonic, featuring the “AdaptiLift Chassis 3.0.” Because apparently, the greatest obstacle to a clean home in the mid-2020s isn’t pet hair or fine dust—it’s the architectural equivalent of a medieval moat.

The flagship claim here is that these bots can now scale thresholds up to 3.3 inches tall. Let’s pause and reflect on that. If you have a three-inch vertical drop between your kitchen and your living room, you don’t need a smarter vacuum; you need a licensed contractor and a structural integrity check. Roborock is marketing this to people who apparently live in houses designed by M.C. Escher. While the tech is impressive from a robotics standpoint, it ignores the reality that most modern homes have thresholds measured in millimeters, not “climbable terrain.” We’ve reached the point where we are buying all-terrain monster trucks to drive across a polished marble floor.

Then there is the “dynamic chassis elevation” for carpets with a 1.2-inch pile. Roborock is very excited that your vacuum can now lift its skirt to avoid getting bogged down in Shag Rug 2.0. But let’s be honest: if your carpet is over an inch thick, a robot vacuum isn’t “cleaning” it; it’s just lightly massaging the surface-level crumbs deeper into the abyss. There is a fundamental law of physics that these manufacturers ignore: no matter how high you lift the chassis, a spinning side brush is still just a plastic finger tickling a deep-pile rug. It’s “theatre of cleanliness” at its finest.

The most audacious claim, however, is that these bots “don’t need help getting out of tricky situations.” We’ve heard this song every CES since 2018. They promise “total autonomy,” yet every robot vacuum owner knows the inevitable 2:00 AM notification: *“Saros 20 is stuck near a cliff.”* Except now, with the ability to climb 3.3 inches, the “tricky situations” are going to be significantly more creative. Instead of getting wedged under a low-profile sofa, your Saros 20 can now successfully mount the base of a designer floor lamp, climb onto a stray thick-soled sneaker, or vault itself into the dog’s water bowl with newfound vertical mobility.

We are effectively giving a device—one that already struggles to distinguish a stray USB-C cable from a piece of lint—the power of parkour. By increasing the obstacle-clearing height, Roborock hasn’t eliminated the “stuck” problem; they’ve just expanded the list of household items the robot can attempt to colonize.

The Saros 20 is a marvel of over-engineering. It’s a solution in search of a problem, wrapped in a sleek plastic shell that will inevitably end up high-centered on a child’s Lego set despite its “industrial-grade” lifting capabilities. If you’re looking for a vacuum that can climb a small flight of stairs just to prove it can, the Saros 20 is your champion. For the rest of us living in homes with flat floors, we’re still waiting for the innovation that actually matters: a robot that can empty its own hair-tangled brush roll without making it look like a crime scene.