Roborock debuts robotic pool cleaner and smart mower at IFA 2026

In Hall 9, the company demonstrated the P1 autonomously cruising in a water pool set up on the exhibition floor, while the RockNeo Q2 LiDAR showed cordless, boundary-free lawn mowing, Leiphone reported. The pool cleaner uses adaptive path planning for complex pool shapes, including diamond and kidney designs, and the mower integrates 360-degree lidar with a binocular vision system to eliminate blind spots. Roborock has applied navigation and perception technologies developed for robot vacuums to the new machines, the report said.

The new product categories come as Chinese companies dominate the global household cleaning robot market. According to IDC data cited by Leiphone, global shipments of household cleaning robots reached 32.72 million units in 2025, up 20.1% year on year. Roborock ranked No. 1 with 5.8 million units and a 17.7% share. It was followed by Ecovacs, Dreame, Xiaomi and Narwal, giving Chinese companies the top five spots and a combined market share of more than 54%. In the first half of 2026, Roborock remained No. 1 in global robot vacuum shipments and revenue, said Leiphone. The company has been the leading robot vacuum brand for three consecutive years and achieved the No. 1 market share in the robot vacuum category in seven countries during Amazon Prime Day 2026.

The ascendancy of Chinese makers marks a sharp reversal from a decade ago, when iRobot, Dyson and Philips dominated such exhibitions. The former global leader iRobot applied for bankruptcy protection in December 2025 and was taken over by Shenzhen Shanchuan, its Chinese contract manufacturer, according to the report. Leiphone described the cleaning robot sector as a condensed history of Chinese manufacturing going global, evolving from OEM work to cross-border e-commerce and then to brand building.

For Roborock, the strategy has involved local teams in Europe, North America and Japan/Korea taking the lead in product definition. The report cited differences in household needs: Western homes value carpet cleaning and hair tangle prevention, Japanese homes focus on low-space coverage, and Southeast Asian homes care about moisture resistance and odor prevention. More than 65% of Roborock's European sales come from self-operated channels, and its products have entered brick-and-mortar retailers including Costco, Target, Sam's Club, MediaMarkt and Yamada Denki.

The move into pool care and robotic lawnmowing targets fast-growing segments. IDC data cited by Leiphone show that robotic pool cleaner shipments reached 2.747 million units in 2025, with cordless models accounting for 55%, while robotic lawnmower shipments reached 1.992 million units, up 63.8% year on year. These categories are in a transition from wired to wireless and from bounded to unbounded operation, similar to the shift in robot vacuums from random navigation to lidar-guided systems around 2016, the report said.

Geopolitical and supply-chain pressures are also part of the picture. Roborock started contract manufacturing in Vietnam in the fourth quarter of 2024 and added a Malaysian factory in 2025. Ecovacs has also said it would advance overseas production planning, Leiphone reported. The report said tariffs, certification, data security and geopolitics have become a second battlefield for Chinese appliance brands operating overseas.