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While watching a YouTube video, the creator asked, “Do you all have an item that you absolutely never regret buying?” Curious, I opened the comments. Phones or laptops are understandable since they’re everyday essentials, but surprisingly, two items kept popping up: food waste processors and robot vacuums.

That suddenly made the whole idea feel more trustworthy. Really…?

As someone who has lived without either of them, they always felt like “Do I really need that?” kinds of products. But seeing so many people unanimously say they’re insanely convenient… I was intrigued.


There must be a reason everyone is saying the same thing. They’re people just like me, after all.


My mom’s birthday was also coming up, and although a robot vacuum was a pretty expensive gift considering my current income, one of my philosophies is “If you wait until you’re doing better financially to be good to your parents, it’ll already be too late.” So I decided to just go for it while the feeling was there.


How I Chose a Robot Vacuum


I mean, you have to actually use a robot vacuum before having criteria to choose one… but what do I know? I simply searched “robot vacuum DC Inside,” and browsed through their typical unfiltered, brutally honest discussion threads lol.

Some models were bad for this reason, others for that reason… If one post praised a certain model, another post was busy tearing it apart. I’d start getting attached to one brand or model, then immediately lose interest when I saw someone criticizing it.


Some apps were bad,

some had weak suction,

some didn’t mop thoroughly,

some had mold issues…


Whether any of that was actually true wasn’t something I had the judgment for. I had no choice but to believe whatever I read. So after getting swayed back and forth by every single comment,

I opened Coupang and the first one that kept appearing was Dreame L40s Pro Ultra. Reviews seemed decent, so I thought about buying that one.


But then there was a problem.


Apparently, there had been a promotion until literally the day before I considered buying it—50,000 won gift card plus extra consumables. And when I checked, the price had even gone up slightly compared to usual.


No way I’m buying it at *that* price…

No way I’m buying it while losing money!


…so I kept looking around. Since robot vacuums are something you use long-term, I didn’t want a cheap one at all. Then I came across the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra — the flagship model of 2024.


I added it to Polcent without thinking. It’s a price-tracking app that notifies you when Coupang prices fluctuate. And within just a day or two, I got an alert.


“All-time lowest price! Buy now!”


The S8 MaxV Ultra that normally sold for around 1.39M KRW had dropped to 1.19M — about a 200,000 won discount. I wasn’t dead set on buying that exact model, but the moment I saw the discount, I just went “Yeah, I have to buy this.” And so I did.

Good decision. The next day, it went right back to 1.39M, and even as I’m writing this, it’s still 1.38M.


I also heard that Roborock is the most popular robot vacuum brand in Korea, so getting after-service seemed easy.


Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra Review


Long story short, I’m glad I bought it. It’s not perfect, but it’s plenty useful and plenty reliable.

My house can’t install direct plumbing, so we needed a model with water tanks — and they’re extremely intuitive to use.

IMG_4655.HEIC

▲ Roborock clean water / wastewater tanks

The left one is the clean water tank and the right one is the wastewater tank. (Whoever designed that water droplet icon deserves praise.) You just fill the clean tank and empty the dirty one — that’s it.

Was this why people said direct plumbing is better…? Human desires truly have no end…

When I say “Hello, Rocky!” it even replies, but it only understands a handful of preset commands. It’s not like Bixby or ChatGPT/Gemini-level natural conversation. That’s something they’ll probably improve later.

It once got stuck by falling into the shoe cabinet area, so I had to set that as a no-go zone in the app. (Older parents probably need help with the initial settings.)

Surprisingly, it doesn’t get caught on carpets. When it detects carpet, it automatically stops mopping and switches to “vacuum mode” with stronger suction. (Very smart.)

It occasionally returns to its dock to wash the mop, and of course returns when the battery is low.

The best part is definitely how it cleans under the bed — a place I never dared to clean properly. After one run, seeing pitch-black water in the wastewater tank made me feel like it was doing its job impressively well.

It honestly feels a bit like… a pet. It’s adorable.

When it goes into dark spaces like under the bed, it turns on its own light. My mom found that so human-like and fascinating. I work from home, so when it wanders into my room and goes under the bed while I’m working at my desk… it’s genuinely endearing.

▲ Roborock coming out from under the bed

There’s a certain dynamic in our family.

My mom has desires like “I want to try this,” “I want to replace that,” or “I want to buy this,” like any normal person would. But my dad tends to think spending money on anything besides food is wasteful, so she often becomes hesitant around him. (Not that my dad doesn’t spend money on other things himself.)

My mom said she had thought about wanting a robot vacuum before.

So using her birthday as an excuse to make that purchase for her — I think that was pretty smart of me. She’s extremely happy.