Bringing connected devices into your home also brings with it concerns about how the data they collect is protected. The Verge asks each company whose smart home products we review about safeguards it has in place for your data.
The primary home data a robot vacuum like the Roborock S7 MaxV manages are the maps it generates and video and image data from its onboard camera. Roborock says that all map / cleaning data is encrypted before being sent to the cloud. Additionally, it says data only leaves the device if you view the map on its smartphone app. Otherwise, it stays locally on the device.
The company says a maximum of 20 cleaning maps are stored at any one time and any maps stored in the cloud are deleted after one year. A factory reset of the robot will remove any locally-stored map information.
The remote viewing and obstacle photo features are optional, not enabled by default, and can be turned off in the app. Remote viewing is live-streaming only (no video is recorded or stored). Photos of obstacles are encrypted and stored on the robot vacuum and only sent to the cloud if you click on an icon in the app to view the image. During this process it’s secured with Transport Layer Security.
It is possible to use the standard vacuum and mopping functions of the S7 MaxV without ever connecting the robot to Wi-Fi, keeping everything local. However, without the app, you lose advanced features such as room-specific cleaning, scheduled cleaning, and suction power strength selection.
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