Shark AI Ultra Robot Vacuum with XL Self-Emptying Base – Smart, Powerful, Hands-Free Cleaning
- 🌀 Incredible Suction: Advanced suction technology removes dirt, dust, and debris from all floor types, ensuring deep and effective cleaning across your home.
- 🧹 Matrix Clean Navigation: Uses precision grid cleaning with multiple passes for comprehensive, edge-to-edge cleaning. No spot is left untouched.
- 🗑️ 60-Day XL Self-Empty Base: The bagless base holds up to 60 days of dirt and debris, eliminating the need for frequent emptying or costly replacement bags.
- 🐾 Self-Cleaning Brushroll: Engineered to remove hair and debris without tangling. Perfect for homes with pets, as it captures hair with ease.
- 📍 Precision Home Mapping: 360° LiDAR sensors quickly map your home and adapt to changes, ensuring precise navigation and effective object avoidance—even in the dark.
- 🐶 Ideal for Pet Owners: Captures pet hair, dirt, and allergens efficiently with strong suction and anti-hair wrap technology, making it ideal for multi-pet households.
- 🗣️ Smart Voice & App Control: Works with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Use voice commands or the SharkClean app to schedule, start, or stop cleanings with ease.
- 🔋 Recharge & Resume: Automatically returns to the dock when battery is low, recharges, and resumes cleaning right where it left off.
- 📦 What’s in the Box: Shark AI Robot Vacuum, XL Self-Empty Base, 2 Side Brushes, and 1 Filter.
Brand: Shark
Model: AI Ultra
Color: Cool Grey
Special Features: Smart Mapping, Bagless, Self-Emptying, LiDAR Navigation, Obstacle Avoidance, Pet Hair Pick-Up
Dimensions: 8.43″L x 13.08″W x 13.9″H
These things may seem like easy assumptions, but of the 4 other robot vacuums I have owned over the years, this is the first and only one to complete all of the above successfully.
This is the first Shark robot that I have purchased and I am so glad I did.
I am hopeful that this robot will serve me well for many years to come.
I recently purchased a cheaper version of this vacuum with a generic brand. And it was definitely subpar compared to the Shark robot vacuum.
I have two French bulldogs that have mild shedding. I have allergies & asthma , so daily vacuuming is a must. This picks up so much of the pet hair and other things they drag in from grass to dirt. On top of the great suction it also vacuums in perfectly straight lines, and if for some reason it feels like it missed something due to an obstruction. It will go back over that spot again. I could not be happier with this purchase it took a daily chore of vacuuming off of my hands. And that makes me a very satisfied customer. Overall shark products are the best. I Will buy more from them in the future!!!
First review, damn it’s cool. We mapped the house at night and our place is pretty dark already so I did put a ring light underneath lifted furniture to help it see when it first explored the house. It was stupid accurate for only having gone through the house for a brief period.
Ankle biter is also so quiet, especially compared to the roomba we had that was approaching 5 or so years in age…. Eek!
As for the first cleaning, we have a dog who sheds constantly and a long hair cat who is also shedding constantly, so think allergy central and “I will never have clothes not covered in fur again…” Ankle biter did LAPS around what our roomba, even when we first got it, was able to collect. It also travels in a super organized manner which satisfies me greatly, I was tired of getting woken up at 9am to the ungraceful sounds of the roomba trying to remodel the kitchen with its battering ram.
We have a dining table that is a nightmare to traverse unless you move all the chairs out of the way, not only did Ankle biter map it as floor space but it also vacuumed there without trying to eat the legs off all of our chairs!
Our house has some not so sharp ledges and bumps that are a little hard for a regular robot to try and get over, but ankle biter has big wheels to help get over ledges. (Not gracefully but it sure does get its way around.)
So far so good! I love this, bought it on sale as a Christmas gift for my family and everyone loves it. Even the cat, who was too scared of our thunderous roomba to go near it but wants to play with Ankle biter super badly.
(Jindo, think husky — and a cat — lots of fur and dander). Picks up hair & dirt easily off of both.
Cons:
-Not the greatest at obeying “do not go areas” I recommend physically blocking off so it does not get registered on the map. You’ll need to keep things there the first few cycles as it’s “learning”.
-You need 3 feet to each side of the robots docking station. I only have 2 spots that’s really feasible, and one of those is a walkway and it’s very inconvenient.. so just know you might need to rearrange furniture.. I think this is because of the high suction / self cleaning function.
The first run, it learns the floor plan of your home. At first, it did not generate a good floor plan at all, so I left the house and had it try mapping again (this time with no humans or pets walking in front of it), and it mapped my floor plan very well. I like that it allows you to click and drag different areas to designate the rooms. I've had it do two full cleans now and I'm impressed. I have carpet in a couple rooms and hard wood in the rest of the house. It transitions nicely between the carpet and hard wood, and also can go over area rugs easily. You can schedule it to clean on specific days at specific times which is really nice, and also select specific rooms you want it to clean.
Here are some minor drawbacks I've found: First, that circle thing sticking up on top of the robot is just high enough that it prevents it from being able to go all the way under some furniture. Second, it is kinda loud and squeaky. Not a big deal. I'd rather have a loud vacuum that's good than a quiet vacuum that does a bad job, but that's just me. Third, it misses some edges. Again, not the biggest deal. I'd rather it not ram into things like the roomba did. The shark stops just before it would run into something, turns, and continues, which causes it to miss some edges. Over all though, I think it's great and will keep my floors pretty clean. I am mostly impressed with the home mapping part. I will report back with an updated review when I've had it for a bit longer. We'll see how she holds up!
We let our 3 dogs stay inside some of the day on beds, they don’t roam and other than that we don’t have a lot of dirt tracking. But this thing went under counters, couch as you see in video, and seems to provide a pretty good suction at the basic level.
It’s louder, but if it bothers you maybe run it when not home, it’s not near as loud as our vacuum. I like to be able to schedule certain rooms.
Lastly it did suck up part of my leggings then it let me know lol but that’s on me, so it will take a sock and then tell you it has something in it.
All in all I think the quality is so far well worth it! I got it on sale, so I’m fairly happy with it, will see in the coming weeks how it continues.
Setting up was easy. We worked out the best and most out of the way place its base would be situated and then we just followed the clear setup instructions.
Carson did his mapping and we ensured prior to that we had as much stuff off the floor as possible in order for as complete as possible mapping of our home would be done. It’s something I’d highly recommend be done before it’s sent out to map.
Carson we have scheduled to clean three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Every Monday we remove as much stuff off the floor as possible so we get a thorough clean. Especially after the weekend.
We are amazed how much dust and hair is collected when we empty the base station each week. Our floors have never looked cleaner. We have hardwood floors with some area mats. We also have a dog that sheds a lot and no longer do we find a tumbleweed of dog hair lurking along the skirting.
As the main level of our property is 1500sq ft Carson does have to go and recharge for a few hours ( you can opt to turn this off ) half way through, but it’s no drama. We also have it periodically empty itself during the cleaning process which only takes a matter of a few minutes.
We purchased a few spares just in case but we do clean the filters each week to ensure maximum efficiency.
The noise level is minimal and not a problem. The dog whilst scared of it at first has no issues with it now.
Things we would like to see improved with Carson
1 It could be slightly shorter to enable it to get under more units.
2 More brushes, there are two, might be better if four. But I’m sure the designers would have looked into thar.
3 The scheduling in the app could be better. You can only schedule it once a day. Whilst it can be sent out to clean separately via the app it would be nice to have a few more scheduling options.
4 We take it to the other floors on the house where it does its own thing, and it does a good job but it doesn’t map the floor areas on those levels or generate a report for those areas. It would be good if it could generate a report and produce a map not just for the main level. It does however let you know when it’s completed the clean of those areas so we can go and take it back to the base station.
Overall we are delighted with Carson and we highly recommend it. Our home is a lot cleaner as a result.
I recently deep cleaned the house and I’m trying really hard to maintain it, so I decided to upgrade our robo vacuum. I got this on sale and it’s quickly become my new favorite thing! Here are my favorite things about it (in no particular order):
1) It works! I thoroughly vacuumed with our Dyson upright before I started using it, so I didn’t think it would have much to pick up (although we do have 3 pets, 2 little boys, and me who makes a mess in the kitchen). I just emptied it after a couple days out of curiosity and was amazed by the amount of stuff it has been picking up! The pictures are from when I emptied it after about 4 days. It makes me feel so much better about walking around.
2) On that note, my feet feel so much better! Between the cats tracking litter around, the kids dropping crumbs, and the dog tracking dirt and grass from outside, our floors were always full of different textures that were not fun to walk on. Now I just feel the floor!
3) I love the app and the map feature! After reading reviews (and the manual), I let it charge fully before running it the first time. It mapped my house perfectly in one go and I was able to immediately label the rooms. It’s really nice because if one room is a mess, I can still run it in other rooms.
4) The self emptying feature is awesome. I love that I don’t have to remember if I emptied it already before running it.
The only real issue is that it doesn’t seem to connect to Echo devices like it claims. Apparently I’m not the only one who has this issue. For me it’s not a deal breaker, but I understand how that could be an important feature for some, particularly those with certain disabilities. But for our ADHD family, it is a very welcome addition!
So now this thing is working better. You've got to let this thing charge like 100%. Let it map the house. Then it works pretty good. It got stuck a couple times on some obstacles but I'm not going to knock that. Once you vacuum proof AKA childproof your floor. It'll work fine. Every time it's done vacuuming it dumps itself which is The first time I've ever had a dumping vacuum. It is definitely nice not to bend over and pull that dust bin out all the time with dogs. All in all I'm pretty happy with it. I'm knocking off a star because this thing is clunky. Even brand new it sounds like it's breaking. It's got like a grinding crunching noise when the bar spins underneath the machine. You also can't zoom into maps and see little tracks where the unit has run. Other vacuums has little trails on where the unit went. This just tells you it did that room in general. It would be nice to see the exact route this thing took so I can see if I have to put a no-go zone somewhere. Make sure you get it on sale and it's worth the money. End of story unless it breaks and I'll report back.
Update:
Let it charge over 50% before you use it. When I set it up the app kind of let me run it right away and instead of mapping the house it just started cleaning. I put it back on the charger and let it go to 100%. It seems to charge very very slow compared to my last one.
Once it was 100% charged it did map the house in about 15 mins and then it dumped itself and I set it off to clean. Seems to work pretty good over all. Lots of dog hair and dirt in the hopper. I will report back after a few weeks. So far I am happier than I was when I first got it so we will see.
I think it's important to log your first impression so here we go. It was well packaged I was pleased to see that. It takes up a good bit of space in your house so find a nice piece of wall. It had 30% charge when I set it up and for some reason it wanted to get started mapping my house so I let it. I'm coming off of a wyze vacuum cleaner. I had bought it twice from Amazon and I like it but some reason after a year the suction just seems to die down and no matter how much air I blow through it it doesn't seem to clean it out. Thus this replacement. My first thoughts is it's like watching Grandpa walk around when he's lost at home. The thing bumps into everything with no hope of actually having a plan. It still mapping my house so I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt. Right now I'm not so impressed with the suction. I don't know if it slow suction down while it maps the house or what. It might be a little early to leave a review but I think it's important again to explain this in detail. Right now I've got a lot of doubt but will give it a couple days and I'll report back. One thing I really don't like is right now when I press dock it went the complete wrong way and decided to not dock. I liked the Waze vacuum cleaner because it went right to its home and knew everything was. I hope this works out better than my first impression.
This vaccum sports state of the art 360° LiDAR vision. This makes the vaccum easily navigate your home with almost zero hassle. With this vaccum, you will be able to fully map your house where the vaccum has access to. Connect the vaccum to the SharkClean app on Android or IOS, and activate the "Explore" mode. This mode will retrieve an almost completely accurate reading of the floor your vaccum is on, enabling you to later have the capability to select 1 room at a time!
This vaccum also offers a "Matrix" mode. This option provides grid-like coverage to the area being cleaned! I tested this lastnight and it worked beautifully.
There seems to be no lack of suction when it comes to this vaccum! So far, it had exceeded expectations. I went to clean the dust bin on my vaccum station and the Shark itself this morning, when I noticed the vaccum's dust bin had a grape tomato in it. That to me, shows this vaccum is more than capable of competing with other products.
The only thing I wish this vaccum features was an on the go mapping update. While cleaning, this vaccum will not update the saved map to the device's profile. With this being said, if the map needs to be updated, you must delete the current version, and re-explore your house. However, the time to map a roughly 800sqft apartment is approximately 30 minutes. It is very reasonable.
If you are on the fence about purchasing this product, make the jump! It will be worth every penny!
[This is not a paid promotion/review of this product. This is a personal review of my purchase on this product.]
The vacuum goes under tables and chairs and beds easily, but not under my couch and chairs and ottoman or dressers that have a lower profile.
I don’t have problems so far. I’ve had to replace a brush after it got caught on a rug, which was simple, and I’ve had to clear the brush roller a couple times. All was easy to accomplish. I’ve used the matrix clean room cleaner and the no-go zone feature. Both worked well. (You need the app for these functions)
If you accidentally kick your vacuum or it gets knocked off the base, it will return on its on. You can easily use your vacuum without the app, there are controls for cleaning and docking on the top of the vacuum. The app helps you program daily vacuum or a certain time. That is convenient for me. The only thing that could be a problem is where you locate the vacuum. There should be 5 feet of clearance on both sides and the front for the vacuum to have space to realign with the base.
When I bought this it was not reviewed yet, and in spite of my hesitation, I do not regret my purchase. I paid just under $400 for my vacuum and I highly recommend this product.
- General cleaning power
The Shark seems to be right up there with the Roomba. Suction power and brushing is very similar (even though the Shark has only one brush to the Roombas two), with the Shark having a minor edge in suction power.
- Mapping
The Shark seemed to map my house much faster than the Roomba. It apparently uses its lidar to do so, while the older Roomba had to physically travel over the floor area to include it in the map. The Shark map appears a bit more accurate than the Roomba's.
- Cleaning style
The Shark, like the Roomba, cleans in neat parallel rows, and they both do it well. But the Shark has the advantage of Matrix Cleaning, which covers the area twice - in two directions - and that's a great option. And I also like the spot cleaning option, as well as the ability to set keep-away zones with the Shark.
- Flexibility
Both machines allow the user to direct them to clean certain specified rooms via their apps, and both do it well. The Shark seems to go to rooms faster, while the Roomba has to think about it a lot before proceeding. Both apps are intuitive and work well.
- Noise levels
Sound levels are about the same to my ears, although they sound different. The Roomba has a sucking whine, while the Shark has a slightly rattling sound.
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Some negatives for the Shark:
Maintenance - The Shark uses a bagless sytem, whereas my Roomba uses a tidy throwaway bag. While bagless may seem like an advantage, it requires you to clean the dust collection container instead of just pulling out the bag and tossing it. The bag also serves as a filter, meaning that the Shark has to have multiple internal filters (3 in fact), which have to be periodically cleaned or replaced.
Object Avoidance -While it doesn't bang into walls and objects as much as some vacs, it can be too cautious and stop 3-4" from baseboards, leaving an uncleaned zone along walls. Looks like I'll have to pull out the old upright vac every so often and vacuum the perimeters.
Profile - Its lidar module on top extends higher than on many vacs, making it tend to get stuck on low clearance furniture. It makes a very good effort to avoid these situations, though, so it's not a major issue.
Dock - While it's a lower-profile dock than some vacs, it's also wider, so it takes up more wall area. Leaving the recommended amount of free space on either side is hard to do, so placement might be challenging.
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All in all, this Shark self-emptying smart vac is a great tool. At full price it might seem a little pricey, but it's on sale from time to time, and might be worth waiting for a good price. In today's smart vac world it's a solid contender, and it earns all 5 stars from me in spite of some minor shortcomings.
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*Update* - I've used the Shark for a month now, and I'm very happy with it. It seems to avoid getting stuck better than all my other vacs, and it has no trouble finding its dock and docking itself like some vacs. I can send it to rooms clear across the house and it just obediently goes there and does its job, then comes back.
Matrix clean is awesome. Cleaning our carpet in one direction and then coming back in the other direction is genius. What it doesn't get going north-south it gets in the east-west direction. It doesn't seem to allow me to select more than one room at a time for matrix, but I can deal with that.
I've been a Roomba fan for years, but this Shark is changing my mind!
First, there are few directions within the app. Thus I had to search through the various menus and randomly press buttons in an effort to find something. Then on several occasions I found the item I wanted to find wouldn't show up at all until the robot completed it's first full cleaning. It's a learning curve I know, but they could have helped a lot more than they did.
Then after the robot completed the first cleaning, magically, a map of the house appeared and once I got the image turned rightside up, it was simple to name the rooms. But herein lies a small issue. The app provides a list of room labels to choose from, but there appears to be no provision for customizing names. Hence, my wife's sewing room became the "Playroom."
I knew there was a place to set the robot's suction power (Eco, Normal, Max) and after 20 minutes of re-searching, I found it. However the setting appears to apply to all the rooms to be cleaned. This is fine if you have all carpet or all smooth surfaces. Most of our floors are smooth but the master bedroom is a rather deep pile carpet.
The app allows you to name each room and send the robot off to clean all, several, or just one. This is nice. But having that capability without the ability to set the suction level for each room separately seems rather brain-dead!
That's my compaints so far. Lets move on to the more positive aspects of the robot.
I mentioned, the fairly deep pile carpet in the bedroom. The robot handled it with aplomb. There was a noticeable change in speed and ease of operation but it pushed through without a whimper. I had it on normal power and would prefer "Max," but will try that later.
The map it produced was remarkably good for a single cleaning run and I could easily determine which room was which, once I got it rightside up.
" a single cleaning run" could be misleading. Two full charges were needed to complete the cleaning. The app does provide a decent report of the robots activity. It started cleaning at 9:56 am, then briefly docked 30 min. later (orientation ??) and resumed cleaning after emptying its dust bin. The battery ran low (about 30%) after 83 minutes of cleaning time. 3 hr. and 15 min. were required for the battery to recharge. It then cleaned (with an intermediate docking) for nearly 2 hours where it died in our bathroom with 5% charge showing in the app. We carried it back to the docking station where it exhausted the debris and began recharging. 6.5 hours were required from staart to finish. This isn't good, or bad, It;s just information for you.
The app says 2276 sq ft were cleaned. This is about twice too much. About 1350 sq ft (gross outside dimensions) were available, but that includes closets, furniture, bathtubs, etc that block the robot. I did notice that it systematically recleaned numerous areas on the second charge, So I don't think their numbers are wrong, just duplicated.
Its ability to navigate appears to be excellent. It does travel in long, precisely straight lines when it can. Though it seems to turn around at about 20 ', regardless. When it approaches a wall or furniture, it will slow and gently tap the barrier, or turn just before reaching the item. It typically turns corners around furniture efficiently, though there is sometimes a bit of wasted spinning around.
Except for the time where it ran out of juice, it effortlessly relocated the dock to recharge and empty the onboard dust bin.
We have a pet cat with 2" fur, very fine fur, that sheds constantly. There is no reason that cat isn't totally bald! The roller brush and side brushes seemed to handle it well. Both were relatively free of her fur. I know I will have to clean the axels and the roller every few weeks but it should be tolerable.
If I think of it, I'll add to this review at a later date.
So here is an update. It's now April 21, 2023 and I'm still very pleased with the machine. It seems to do a good job on our hard surfaced floors as it seldom misses visible debris. The degree of cleaning on our carpets is harder to know, but the dust bin always contains an abundance of cat hair. Speaking of cat hair, the roller NEVER clogs with cat hair. However, the axles on the roller do collect hair. I have to clean them every 2-3 weeks as the machine stops and says "my roller is clogged." That said, the roller axles are very easy to clean. No tools are needed since the roller cover just snaps in and out and the roller then lifts out nicely exposing the axles and housings. Though a small pick is needed to clean one end of the axle.
The shark never gets caught in a corner or tight spot when there is a path out. Our Neato used to get caught frequently for no good reason. The shark has gotten caught a few times on cords, shoe laces etc, and twice has run up on the track of our patio door and gotten stuck but it is vastly better at returning to the base station than our Neato.
I have the "Extended Clean" option turned on which tells the Shark to continue cleaning until it needs charging. Lately it has run out of power a few times and had to be manually returned to the base station . I will try it with extended clean "Off." This may cause it to take longer to clean the house but may increase reliability.
The attached photo illustrates the depth of pile in our carpet as well as the manner in which it cleans. The shark is quite systematic when cleaning but it does sometimes cover some areas twice.
We have some open grates on our floor and the Shark traverses them without issue. The Neato would stop on them and discontinue cleaning so we had to use the magnetic strips (supplied) to avoid this issue. The shark recognizes the magnetic strips, but they aren't needed for the grates.
I empty the dust bin on the base station probably once every 3 weeks which works fine. That's all for now.
Here's another update,. It is now January 10, 2024 and the Shark has 11 months under it's belt. It started doing weird things/errors after about 6 months so I replaced the battery which was needed with our Neato and it took care of our problem. It continues to perform well until it picks up a small rock or pea sized chunk of dog food, which happens frequently now that we were forced to change our little dog's food for medical reasons. The shark does pick up these items but they fail to exhaust into the dustbin and lodge either in the throat of the dustbin or get stuck in the spring loaded door on the Shark. When that happens an error occurs and the shark ceases operation. This issue is simple to fix. However the most annoying thing is after clearing the blockage, the Shark doesn't pickup where it left off. I have to select the rooms that were missed (very nice capability by the way) and tell it to start cleaning again.
May 14, 2024
The shark, as near as I can tell continues to function normally. However, the dustbin's failure to empty and subsequent error messages that prevent the unit from continuing to clean has finally pushed me over the edge. It is rare that the entire set of rooms get vacuumed. Most days I have to restart the machine at least once during the cleaning cycle and then it "forgets" where to restart. The bottom line is it's too frustrating to use now and it's going in the trash.
ORIGINAL REVIEW: This is my first robot vacuum so I can’t really compare it against other models. We have had it for a few weeks now so I feel like I can give a proper review. I will update if my feelings change. We had been skeptical of robot vacuums for years but I wish we didn’t wait so long. This has been a game changer! Our house has multiple pets (dogs, cat, cockatiels) and we live in the country. To keep the floor clean, I needed to sweep at least once a day if not more. I also have a lot of furniture (obstacles) in relatively small rooms so I was concerned a robot vacuum would get lost, confused, or just not do a very good job. So far, this vacuum has gone above and beyond my expectations.
Let’s start with the cleaning power. We have low carpets, laminate flooring, and stone tile. The robot does a great job cleaning all floor types. We had an Oreck vacuum for the carpet and I think the shark does a better job picking up the pet hair and dust. There is also some minor elevation changes throughout the house (0.5-1 inch high in some entryways) and the robot actually climbs over these areas really well.
The app and the map: The app is relatively easy to use but I wish it would show you where the robot had actually been while cleaning on the map. The mapping is pretty accurate but I didn’t get it right until the second try. For our first mapping run, I thought it would be best to keep all things on the floor that would normally be there so the robot would be better at negotiating around things. This made a very confusing map and the robot had a hard time properly identifying rooms. You can name rooms during map editing but it is easier to do that if the borders actually make sense. Second round, I took all small/medium things (pet bowls, trash cans, etc) off the floor. Only furniture and large appliances were left on the floor. This was a much better map and even though there are usually these smaller things on the floor, the robot does a really good job tightly negotiating obstacles. Having said that, make sure you place the base in an open area because if anything gets in its way directly around the base, it will get confused and start circling things like table legs or get stuck in a loop somewhere near the base but never make it to the base. It tells you exactly how much open space around the base you need so take that seriously.
The self emptying base is awesome. In the first few runs, we had to rescue the robot from cords and larger things like marbles and legos that sometimes got stuck but now that it is on a daily schedule and we moved all cords, there haven’t been any issues. Maintenance is really easy and intuitive on this machine. I just wish it could suck up larger things like legos and coins.
Overall, I definitely think it was worth what we paid. My only complaints are that I wish the app showed the path of the robot on the map and that it could pick up larger things without those things getting stuck. Other than that, we are all very happy with it.
The LIDAR makes all the difference.
No bumping into things because the laser sees things before it runs into them. Of course this vacuum is several iterations more advanced than my first Roomba, but WOW did this vacuum blow me away. It picked up things I never thought it would and was extremely thorough. THIS VACUUM HAS OCD. It took mere minutes to map out my main living area and was then ready to go. I went out to a restaurant and remotely sent it off to clean. Not only did it clean every square inch of my space, it made periodic trips to the dock to dump it's dirt and then went back out. In the pics attached you'll see what it picked up. Keep in mind I regularly vacuum 2-3x/week. It still found more...much much more! Also notice the vacuum lines on the carpet. That's how good this thing is. This is seriously one of the best purchases I've ever made on Amazon. A+++!!
Pros:
1) Intelligent mapping
2) Thorough and methodical cleaning
3) Smart enough to intelligently dock, empty and go back out for more
4) If it runs short of juice, will go back to the dock, charge and then go back out and resume where it left off
5) Easy to use app that lets you divide the floor up into rooms and zones
6) Did not fall down the stairs
7) Spot cleaning, select room cleaning and high traffic zone options
8) Customizable No Go and High Traffic Zones mapping
Cons:
1) No support as of yet for scheduling of specific rooms. Specific rooms can be cleaned individually, but it's a manual process in which you have to tell it to go do those zones. Support said this may come out in a future firmware update 🤞. Seems completely do-able since it can be manually told to go do a specific room.
2) Also, no way to schedule multiple times per day. Once per day only.
3) No ability to auto schedule specific high traffic zones only for cleaning. Again, you have to manually tell it to go do those zones.
My specs in looking for a robovac: Pet hair was a must item it can tackle, and hardwood floors with rugs, also an affordable price point…
After 4days, I will say GAME CHANGER. I love I can run it in different areas and rooms, and make certain rooms/spaces “ultra cleaned” — one of my other favourite things is that it goes under my bed and reaches, dust and pet hair I can’t reach with my Dyson stick vac and swiffer (picture attached of hair from first run in our bedroom).
Things to consider and note:
• You need to pick up anything you have like cords, toys, shoes etc. before running it to maximise its clean - my dogs love pulling toys out and normally have 5-10 across the lounge/entry way.
• it is kind of louder than I expected, but so is the normal vacuum, and vacuums have noise regardless and tbh, I’ll take it if I’m not the one doing the cleaning…
• I chose this model and brand due to the hair roller thing that spins, because of my long hair dogs and own hair — i like you can remove the roller and clean if needed (robovac got in a pile of pillow stuffing my dog ripped up) and it’s easy to unclog or unwrap hair.
• Battery life is actually really good
• It maneuvers really well on rugs, around objects. Couldn’t deal with something bonking into every item to get where it needs to go. It also climbs up on higher pile mats and my tiled fire place.
• it’s sensor does well to return to dock and avoid things like the dogs or items like bags that may be in the way.
• self empty bin, it does not require bags and holds a decent amount - I choose to empty daily due to dog hair - also, it has a filter too so similar to the dyson self empty.
• you do need a space in your house with nothing 3ft either side of the unit or 5ft in front of its base/home — I have an older and more intimately spaced duplex so this was kinda a struggle where the outlets are located but I made it work.
• the app, I wish you could see where it is at in its clean (tells you an eta for time to clean rooms or house) but cannot say what % it’s at of the clean — maybe they’ll make this upgrade this in the future.
This is my first week and I’ll update this review if it doesn’t live up to my expectations. But overall, for the price point (scored during Black Friday at $299 pre tax) and it’s easy usage, functional settings and smart (enough) capabilities I’m happy. I also dig that it is white/silver, not a massive fan of having a black unit in my walk way. It’s cute and works great! Definitely recommend.
Also, I read reviews and blogs to research best options… please consider your own personal expectation of these appliances. If you’re looking for a deep cleaner, hire a cleaner. If you don’t want to vacuum all the time like me, I hate the feeling of sand and dirt under my feet — this is the gadget for you!
We started years ago with a Deebot that was such a pain we threw it out. The last 2 years we’ve had an Eufy 11S that ran 1-2 times a day and we really liked it. We decided to move the Eufy to the basement and get something self emptying and easy to schedule because I now travel for work.
The shark was extremely easy to setup. It’s first run was impressive, no ping ponging around the house randomly, it worked methodically back and forth in rows. It seems to get smarter every day and the map was pretty complete after just a couple of runs. I like that I can see exactly where it ran in the app as well.
I did empty the base after The first run just out of curiosity. I emptied it again today so the picture here is from 4 days.
The picture of the bottom is today after 5 runs. I haven’t touched it. Our deebot and Eufy had to be cleaned after every run, usually with scissors to get the hair off the roller.
I have 4 dogs. One is a mastiff who sheds a massive amount and another is a mutt who also sheds a lot of undercoat. We have 3 acres and the dogs are in/out all day long tracking dirt in.
I used to run the Eufy twice a day but had to start it manually (I gave up on trying to use their app). Now that I travel for work I would get home on the weekend and find my husband and daughter forgot to run it most days. Now I can come home knowing it’s clean.
We have vinyl plank flooring. My office has an area rug. We also have a few throw rugs. It has only gotten stuck once under our plant stand which is next to its base. I think the battery just ran out. The Eufy was always getting stuck on a rug, under the fridge or on something random.
I also can’t believe how quiet it is. I run it on the highest power and am able to be on conference calls. It even self emptied while on a call and I asked and no one heard it.
I’ve scheduled it for 7am and was pleasantly surprised how quiet it is. Didn’t even wake us up on Sunday when we wanted to sleep in.
There is only an option to schedule once a day though. I think if we have a really dirty day I could run manually in the afternoon or evening.
Our main floor is around 1300 sq ft. It seems to clean 770-950 each time which makes sense with furniture (and my daughters bedroom door is nearly always closed).
This is well worth the money and I’m so happy with it so far.
So here we go...
Pros:
-it literally cleans about 95% of your floors. Hair is not a problem, tangling on the roller is not a problem, larger debris is generally not a problem (I had some things here and there get missed the first go around, but I mostly see that it has problems on carpets, which we have mostly hardwood floors so not a big deal).
-it mapped out our first floor, which is sizeable, in about 2 go cleanings. I was worried about this as a large amount of reviews stated that it took 30 or more cleanings to map their house out and it still didn't map it correctly. The one thing I noticed about these reviews is that they are mostly from from a year ago, so I'm assuming that there has been a software update since then to address this issue. It was super efficient at mapping.
- I see this as a pro, but some might not, is that it teaches you to adjust your cleanliness behaviors. You need to keep the floors free of obstacles (as much as possible) in order for this robot to do its job, which means moving your shoes, picking up toys, moving chairs, etc. It was good for my wife and i to adapt better habits anyway and this was a good way to Kickstart that for our household.
- if you have allergies, this thing picks up a ton of dust. Since we don't have a pet (yet) it mostly picks up some food, hair and dust on the floor. Man does it help. My allergies have been much better over the past 2 months.
- some people gave the app negative reviews, but I found it helpful overall. It is simple, easy and quick to make adjustments on.
-you really don't have to empty this but once a month. And, honestly, I could get away with maybe once every 2 months instead. Don't forget to do a monthly maintenance check and clean the filter, but this is a 5 minute routine once a month. Much easier than busting out the bulky vacuum all the time.
CONS
-speaking of the app, it needs a no go zone feature. The magnet strips, while great, don't effectively help in managing the bots path all the time. Make sure to tape it or use 3m sticky stuff to keep it on the floor otherwise your bot will try to suck it up and take it for a ride with it. The no go zone feature would be helpful for wire areas, furniture, or kid play areas. I hear it is supposed to come along sometime in the future, hopefully soon.
-carpet cleaning is a little bit of an issue. We have a giant area rug in our living room and it sometimes has issues with picking up stuff. Luckily, the bot does 2 or 3 sweeps, which most times gets the debris or fuzzies on our carpet, but not all the time. This is indicated on YouTube reviews that I watched before I purchased this, so I knew what to expect.
-it is slightly noisy and takes a while to clean. I advise to make the schedule while you are not home, because it can change your daily routine pattern. Generally, it takes about an hour and a half to clean our 600 square foot first floor. I keep it on normal mode, but there is a higher power suction mode that is louder. So get ready to turn the volume up on your TV. I did hear from a roomba user though that this bot is quieter, so I guess it's subjective.
-this is more if a personal gripe, it might not be a big deal for you, but I was hoping to have a meet the Jetsons vibe when I connected it to my alexa. I wanted to say "alexa, clean the kitchen" and it do just that. Unfortunately, it doesn't do different room commands, it just does its normal full routine. You can do this through the shark app, which is simple and easy enough. So designate room names and tell it to clean just that room. Still, if you have a kitchen mess and you want to use verbal commands through alexa skills to do something while you are continuing chores or cooking, it would be a nice touch if it did it. Oh well, that's just me.
Overall a great purchase. Currently, I got mine for roughly 315 and I am doing monthly payments with Amazon, which I love this feature of Amazon's payments. I pay it off in March in monthly installments of 64 bucks. It is worth the money compared to those roombas that cause double or triple the shark bot. I did a ton of research on different vacuums and this one is in the top 5 (as of right now). I highly recommend this to anyone with similar lay out as us (mostly hard wood floors with area rugs). I found the cons to be just nit picking at its performance, and overall it makes our life 80x easier. I give it a 4.5 out 5 for my personal home and I hope this review was helpful.
1 year update:
Dog hair: Still going strong and still highly recommend for those with mostly hard wood floors or linoleum. In fact, I recommended it to my mom and dad and now they have one and love it. We did finally get to test it with some serious dog hair. We had an Australian Shepard (which has super thick and clingy fur) and another dog that visited for several days. Both are extremely active and were all over our floors and our one carpet area. They left a ton of fur and it did take 3 or 4 cleanings to get up about 80% of the hair. Whatever was left over was bunched up on the carpet and was easily removable thanks to shark. Just be prepared to wait a few days for the fur to be cleaned up in the carpet. If it's hardwood then it is cleaned up instantly.
Hair and roller blade: I have not had any issues with the roller blades and hair tangling. I had to untangle some hair that rolled to the center twice. It is an easy fix. Take scissors and a quick snip and boom solved the problem. The big thing is that it doesn't hinder the cleaning ability of the vacuum.
Parts: I haven't had to replace any of the parts yet on it. Just keep up with monthly maintenance and it will hold up. Clean the filters and the dust cup monthly and it will run smoothly. The battery life is still the same too. No issues with battery degradation.
Errors and software stuff: so the errors are minor with this robot. It is the occasional bumper is stuck and that the dust cup needs to be emptied, which is nice if you forget to keep up with maintenance. The only issue I have with the software is that it used to be able to clean specific rooms when I originally got it, but now it doesn't allow me to do that at all. It's a bummer since sometimes I still stuff in the kitchen and I just want it to do that room, not an entire cleaning again. Also, and this is a small gripe, but I wish that I could have the robot automatically go to max suction mode every cleaning. Instead, I have to go to my shark app on my phone and change it from normal mode (which is its default cleaning mode) to max.
Overall, I would still say this is a 4.5 out of 5. Minor issues, but still totally worth it.
The Shark set-up was pretty easy and after charging I began operations. I knew that it would take many runs to map my floor plan and it certainly has. After about sixteen hours run time, it shows only 22% mapped. Part of this I caused by picking the unit up and moving it to another room. I probably confused the heck out of it. I have had two conversations with tech support about the firmware version and dropping WIFI connection. The tech support was very helpful and with my MAC address, they updated the firmware. When you get your robot, you should check the version of firmware and have them update if necessary. Mine cave with version 1. The current is (V3.4.11-20191015). The WIFI issue was addressed by simply deleting the robot from the app. and reinstalling it. The Tech advisor told me that the map is stored in the cloud and I would not loose it, but I'm not sure that that has not increased the mapping time.
The robot is well built, operates well and is not any louder than my other robot, not bad. Although the base does a good job of evacuating the robot dirt container, there is still a need to clean the screens that are in the robot dust container occasionally as they do get lint covering them. I don't know the impact of the this but it seems to me that keeping it clean helps the suction of the vacuum. The Shark is good about navigating itself back to base when the battery is low. It is my opinion that the battery should have longer duration capacity. In my house, the robot can not complete cleaning the house before needing a recharge. It takes about four hours to recharge before resuming where it left off for cleaning. We like to run it while we are away from the house so this creates an annoyance for us. I have not yet determined how well it finds the location to continue the cleaning. The robot has done a very good job at finding it's way back to base and rarely does it get stuck between chairs or under cabinets etc. I do like this the Shark very much and I do recommend it to friends. My assumption is that the unit will only improve with software updates as it seems to be built well and does a good job cleaning.
UPDATE: I have been operating this robot for about 3 months now. There has been a recent improvement to the mapping capabilities and I could not be more pleased. I knew that it had some deficiencies mapping when I purchased it. I was anticipating improvement and I am very pleased to report that Shatk came through. My robot is performing almost without flaw. It cleans very well, cleans selected rooms, rarely gets stuck and always returns to base. Good job Shark!!
Update: I have now been operating this robot for about eight months. It is operating flawlessly. The mapping has been great, defining the rooms works very well, I am so impressed that hair does not wind-up on the brush. I generally send it out to do a couple of rooms each day. I do not make any adjustments in furniture, chairs etc. I feel that the robot should work without forcing me to make any adjustments and it has worked very well. It finds it way back to base every time and just doesn't seem to ever get stuck. This has is a great asset and would not want to be without it. I have not been using it at night. I don't know if it would be able to navigate without light, I should try it.