Roborock’s Rover vacuum robot has real legs

Roborock went and did it. The company announced a robot vacuum cleaner with legs to CES 2026. Called the Saros Rover, it appears to be an impressive feat, involving articulated legs with wheels on the end. Thanks to them, the robot can jump, balance on one leg and pivot on the spot, all without falling. Roborock’s most important claim, however, is that it can not only climb stairs, but also clean them.

In a press release shared with Gizmodo, the company assures that this is “a real product in development with an unconfirmed launch date.” I can’t stress this enough: what do you imagine when I talk about a robot vacuum cleaner with legs? That’s pretty much exactly right.

Roborock claims that the Saros Rover uses AI and a combination of motion sensors and 3D spatial information to prevent the robot from falling and “make its wheels react precisely.” According to the company, the robot “excels” in homes with stairs, whether straight or curved, with square edges or protruding, often rounded lips of rounded steps. The Saros Rover will apparently also be able to handle other surfaces, including slopes or thresholds of multi-level rooms. It’s best to take all of these claims with a grain of salt: I’m sure the Rover works well within the controlled confines of a laboratory, but even the most advanced robot vacuums designed only for flat surfaces are often confounded by the unpredictability of a real human family’s floor.

In the real world, the closest robot vacuum cleaners to stair climbers are those that sit on little stubby legs and collapse on very short ground transitions. In September, we saw robots with little mechanical costumes for climbing stairsbut don’t clean them as you go. These haven’t even hit the market yet and Roborock is already promising something better. If the Saros Rover performs well, it would be the whole-house robot vacuum we’ve been waiting for. But in the still-young world of domestic robots, that’s a very big “if.”

Gizmodo is on the ground in Las Vegas all week bringing you everything you need to know about the technology revealed at CES 2026. You can follow our CES live blog here And find all our coverage here.