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One robot vacuum, more than one floor
Updated
No robot on our list climbs stairs. You carry it. What differs is whether it remembers each floor. Both roborock picks list multi-level maps, so the roborock Q10 S5+ is the one we'd get for a two story home. Upstairs it cleans without its dock, so you empty the robot's own bin by hand there.
How multi-floor maps work
Roborock's support site describes it like this. The robot makes its first map from the dock with map saving turned on. For floors 2 to 4 you turn on the multi-floor setting in the app, create a new map, and carry only the robot to that floor. You do not move the dock. The robot goes back to the spot where you started it and stores the new map. Steps differ a little by model and firmware, so follow the app.
What the listings say
| Robot | More than one floor |
|---|---|
| roborock Q10 S5+ | "Supports multi-level mapping" in the bullets |
| roborock Qrevo S Pro | "Multi-Floor Mapping" in the spec table |
| Shark AI Ultra | Home mapping. We saw no multi-floor claim on the listing |
| iRobot Roomba 105 Vac | Lidar map with rooms and keep-out zones. We saw no multi-floor claim on the listing |
| eufy 11S MAX | No map to save, so any floor is the same to it. Carry it up and press the button |
What changes on the floor with no dock
- No self-emptying. The bag is downstairs. The robot's own bin is far smaller than the dock bag. We did not see the onboard bin size on either roborock listing, so we cannot give you runs for it. For scale, a 0.6 liter bin fills in about 19 runs on an 800 sq ft floor with hard floors and no pets, and about 6 runs with one pet and carpet.
- No mop washing. The Qrevo S Pro washes its mops at the dock. Upstairs we'd run it as a vacuum only.
- No recharge and resume. The charger is on the other floor. The robot has to finish the floor on one charge. Listed battery life on our picks runs from 100 to 200 minutes, and those are best cases.
Stairs and drop sensors
Every pick here names drop or cliff sensing, or is sold as safe near stairs. The Roomba listing says sensors prevent falls down stairs and the eufy names drop-sensing. Keep those sensors clean, and never cover them. Dark carpet at the top of a staircase can confuse them, which we cover in robot vacuums on black carpet. No robot cleans the stairs themselves. You still need a handheld or a stick for those.
Our take
Put the dock on the floor that gets dirtiest, often the one with the kitchen and the pet. Carry the robot up once or twice a week. If carrying it sounds like a chore you will skip, a second simple robot upstairs, such as the eufy 11S MAX, is the other route. Its caveat is the one it always has: no map, and you empty it yourself.
Compare the picks in the roundup and size the emptying job in the calculator.