CES 2026: I Saw a Robot Vacuum With Legs That Climbs Stairs.
Robot vacuums are a convenient way to keep your home clean without much effort, but they all share one significant problem: what if your home has multiple floors? At CES this year, I saw two attempts to solve this problem, but one turned out much better than the other.
Roborock has a robot vacuum cleaner with legs.
This is one of the most unique robotic vacuum cleaners capable of climbing stairs, and this year’s new product. At CES 2026, Roborock unveiled the Roborock Saros Rover, a robotic vacuum cleaner with two retractable, independently articulated legs, each equipped with wheels.
This allows it to work like a standard robot vacuum on flat surfaces, but when it encounters stairs, it will use its legs to slowly climb up and over them. And because these legs are separately hinged, unlike other solutions, it can clean stairs while climbing them.
Plus, it can perform fun programmable actions like dancing and even jumping. Honestly, it looks much cuter than the other bipedal robots I saw at CES this year. Perhaps that’s because it still serves a specific purpose.
What’s the problem? To ensure the new model can effectively climb stairs, you’ll need to purchase one, while competitors offer solutions that are compatible with existing vacuums.
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The Roborock Saros Rover doesn’t have a firm price or release date yet, but Roborock assured me it’s not a concept and will eventually hit the market. I was told it’s planned for this year, but the company couldn’t confirm that.
Dreame Stair-Climbing Robot Vacuum
Next to Roborock’s booth, I also saw another stair-climbing robot vacuum from competitor Dreame . This project, incidentally, was presented at the German technology conference IFA last year , but it’s still worth mentioning, if only to highlight how different Roborock is from its competitor. Essentially, instead of creating a single robot vacuum with separate legs, Dreame developed a docking station that your existing robot vacuum can drive to, and the docking station will then carry it up the stairs like a taxi.
The catch is that since the dock needs to be able to reach stairs, it doesn’t use separate articulated legs for lifting, but instead uses tread wheels that move in sync with each other. This allows it to climb and descend stairs without issue, but, unlike Roborock’s solution, it can’t clean while doing so.
However, I should note that I personally saw the Dreame dock descend stairs, which the Roborock module did not do in the demo I watched. Perhaps this is a more stable approach.
Unfortunately, while Roborock has announced plans to bring the Saros Rover to market, Dreame’s docking station, the Cyber X, remains just a concept and may never go on sale.