Robotic vacuums are a handy option to hold your home clear with out truly placing in a lot work, however they’ve all bought one main downside—what if your home has a number of tales? At CES this 12 months, I noticed two makes an attempt to repair this downside, however one in every of them was rather more fabulous than the opposite.

Roborock has a robotic vacuum with legs

That is the extra distinctive of your stair climbing robotic vacuums, and the one which’s new for this 12 months. At CES 2026, robotic vacuum firm Roborock launched the Roborock Saros Rover, which has two fold-out and individually articulated legs constructed into it, with wheels on both one.

This lets it act like a regular robotic vacuum when it is on flat terrain, however when it hits a pair of stairs, it should use its legs to slowly pull itself up and over them. And since these legs are individually articulated, not like different options, it may clear these stairs whereas it climbs.

Plus, it may additionally run by way of enjoyable programmable routines, like dancing and even hopping. Actually, it appears much more cute than the opposite bipedal robots I’ve seen littering this 12 months’s CES. Possibly that is as a result of it nonetheless serves a concrete goal.

The issue? You will must get the brand new mannequin to profit from the stair climbing, whereas rivals are introducing options that work with present vacuums.

The Roborock Saros Rover additionally does not have laborious pricing or a launch date but, however Roborock assured me it is not an idea, and can make its option to market ultimately. I used to be informed the purpose is that this 12 months, however the firm could not verify that.

Dreame’s stair climbing robotic vacuum dock

Credit score: Michelle Ehrhardt

Subsequent to Roborock’s sales space, I additionally noticed one other strategy to a stair climbing robotic vacuum from competitor Dreame. This truly confirmed up at German tech convention IFA final 12 months, nevertheless it’s nonetheless price mentioning, if solely to focus on how totally different the Roborock is. Basically, as an alternative of constructing a single robotic vacuum mannequin with particular person legs, Dreame as an alternative constructed a dock that your present robotic vacuum can drive into, after which the dock will take it up the steps like a taxi.

The catch is that, as a result of the dock wants to have the ability to drive to the steps, it doesn’t use individually articulated legs to climb, and as an alternative makes use of treads that transfer in sync with one another. This will get it up and down stairs with no downside, however not like Roborock’s resolution, it is not in a position to clear whereas doing so.

Credit score: Michelle Ehrhardt

Nonetheless, I will notice that I did personally see Dreame’s dock go down a flight of stairs, one thing Roborock’s unit did not do within the demo I watched. Possibly it is a extra steady strategy.

Sadly, whereas Roborock mentioned it is undoubtedly planning on bringing the Saros Rover to market, Dreame’s dock, known as the Cyber X, remains to be only a idea, and should not truly ever make it to customers.