Shark AV2501AE AI Ultra Robot Vacuum – Powerful HEPA Cleaning with Smart Mapping & 60-Day Bagless Base
- 💨 Incredible Suction: Shark’s signature high-performance suction tackles dirt, dust, and stubborn debris on both carpets and hard floors.
- 🧠 Matrix Clean Navigation: Uses precision grid pattern cleaning, making multiple passes to ensure a complete whole-home clean with no spots missed.
- 🗑️ HEPA Self-Empty Base: Holds up to 60 days of dirt and debris with a HEPA filtration system that captures 99.97% of dust and allergens (down to 0.3 microns).
- 📍 Smart Precision Mapping: Equipped with 360° LiDAR navigation to map your home in real-time and navigate efficiently while avoiding obstacles—even in low light.
- 🐾 Pet-Friendly Design: Combines ultra-powerful suction, a self-cleaning brushroll, and HEPA filtration to capture pet hair, dander, and allergens effortlessly.
- 🗣️ Hands-Free Control: Compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, allowing voice-activated or app-based cleaning control on demand.
- 🔋 Extended Runtime + Recharge & Resume: Runs up to 120 minutes and automatically returns to recharge, then resumes cleaning where it left off.
- 🔧 Built for Quality: Engineered and tested to ensure long-lasting, dependable robotic performance.
- 📦 What’s Included: Shark AV2501AE Robot Vacuum, XL HEPA Self-Empty Base, and 2 Side Brushes.
Brand: Shark
Model: AV2501AE
Color: Black / Bronze
Special Features: Smart Mapping, LiDAR Navigation, Bagless, HEPA Filtration, Pet Hair Removal
Dimensions: 13.08″L x 8.43″W x 13.9″H
One thing I've struggled with, so far, is setting boundaries and getting them to work. It seems like even when I set boundaries the robot still goes to those places if I don't block them off. This could be user error, as I'm still learning the app.
The suction doesn't seem as good as my iHome, either, but it still does a good job. We have lots of older kids and toddlers and it does good cleaning up after their crumbs and things at the end of the day. It has had quite a few times where something doesn't get through the door when it's emptying so we have to remove that before it will do anything again, and we make sure to pick up anything big on the floor so it can't get stuff stuck, so these are not usually items that should cause this issue. I don't feel like it gets close enough to the edges of cabinets and walls, either.
A positive is that my iHome robot had a bag that had to be replaced when it was full, so I like the fact that this Shark robot doesn't need a bag. You just empty it into the garbage can. I'm still learning aspects of it and how to use the app, but, so far, so good. I do like the spot clean aspect, too, that comes in very handy with small messes throughout the day.
Overall, very functional and easy to use once you get the hang of it. It's nice to use the app to send it on it's missions instead of getting up to turn it on. I think the app also has scheduling function, but I haven't tried that, yet, because it just doesn't work well for my house.
Pros:
Not too loud.
House mapping and targeting single rooms is great.
“Matrix Clean” mode does a great job cleaning.
Cons:
We have cats and dogs so there’s a lot of fur which can ball up and wrap around the brush roll and get stuck. Thankfully they make it easy to pop out the brush roll and unclog it because I have to do it after every few cycles. It will get clogged/stuck over things my regular vacuum won’t.
I wish there was more customization for scheduling cleans. Like different rooms at different times and with “Matrix mode” would be nice.
App was easy to install and easy to use.Vacuum was easy to setup and operate
Vacuum works very well. Does not miss a spot.
Mapping in app works well. Easily changed.
Have had no issues with self emptying or charging.
Brushes are a bit flimsy
We determined that from a feature/price standpoint, the Shark AV2501AE AI Robot Vacuum would fit our needs...
1. Good suction
2. Programmable defined areas to clean
3. Self cleaning dirt bin.
4. Wifi connected
Upon receipt, the first order of business is to turn the Shark loose and map out your entire floor area. It will determine the perimeter and transfer the result to the app. Depending on the size of your living area, it may take an hour or two.
Once the floor plan is completed, you can then specify rooms. This is a great feature. Instead of sending the vac out to clean the entire space, you can limit it to any of the one or more rooms you have specified.
Then comes the test run. We instructed Rosie to go forth and clean the most heavily trafficked area and specified Max Suction and Matrix cleaning mode. It took about an hour and half. During that time, she will periodically return to the base to empty the dust-bin, then go back to where she left off and resume her duties.
Upon completion we checked the recovery bin and were amazed at the volume of dust and dirt that this little worker vacuumed up! She's hired!
We're so satisfied with the cleaning result of this Shark AV2501AE AI Robot Vacuum we decided to buy another unit for the upstairs main living area.
Any deficiencies we've observed are with the app. For instance: you can set a schedule for cleaning, but you specify individual rooms. It will only schedule the entire mapped area. Rosie would have to run 6 or more hours and most of the time, we don't want her running that long.
It would be great to be able to set a schedule so that on Monday, clean the main living area. On Tuesday, clean the main bedroom. Wednesday, clean the office and 2nd bedroom.
Why Shark has not included this feature in it's software is a real regret with the software side of this unit. As a consequence, we send Rosie out manually to do a specific room or area. It's not a deal breaker by any means, but it's the only reason I knocked off one star.
We bought this on sale, and it made for a very affordable and attractively priced robot vac. In fact, we bought a second one to take care of the upstairs main living floor. Rosie is responsible for the lower level, which comprises 1,500 square feet. Cleaning the Family Room takes a good 1-1/2 to 2 hours.
"Carson" takes care of the upstairs. That is 2,500 sq. ft. and, as you can imagine, cleaning the entire floor space would take up most of the day. Hence: manually specifying specific rooms on alternating days.
When all is said and done, the Shark AV2501AE AI Robot Vacuum deserves a solid 5 stars, but gets a demerit for the limited software. Here are the basic reasons that make this vac a satisfying purchase...
1. Does an excellent deep-cleaning of your floors and carpets.
2. Operates in a matrix grid pattern for precise coverage.
3. Self cleaning bin is great. You just have to remember to empty the main collection bin regularly. (It's easy to forget to do this.)
4. You can tell it what room to clean and when, all from the comfort of your recliner.
We are very happy with the Shark AV2501AE AI Robot Vacuum, and think you will be, too!
The cons have been that recently I will get an error saying the bin is not installed correctly...but it is and the vacuum continues to run and works just fine. It's annoying that the app sends the notification while it is in fact working fine. The other complaint is about the app as well. If the vacuum does get stuck the app will not show where it is. You must activate the beeper on it to locate the vacuum. Not a big deal, unless of course the battery has died and it is unable to beep. Fortunately, we are aware of the three possible spots that it gets hung up and can check those if we are unable to locate it by sound. I do think the battery could last longer. It runs for about 45 minutes on normal power before it needs to return to recharge.
Besides its cleaning ability the next best thing...our dogs completely ignore this vacuum! I don't know if the older one made a sound that only they could hear and find annoying or what. But they have paid zero attention to this since its first run!
The path finding is great. You can move furniture and whatever else around, the vacuum will change how it's going accordingly. Having the bin is handy and I've never had it fill completely full in a weeks time. Does a pretty good job emptying from the vacuum, though some things may stay behind (fur :). The drive is pretty strong too and the little bot will definitely do some off roading stunts if it gets the chance.
The app scheduling is great. I don't have a lot of issues with controlling the vacuum there and the floor diagram is handy to have. The no-go zones work pretty well too, I've been able to keep the vacuum from getting intimate with my bike and then getting scared thinking there's a cliff (yes, the app says 'cliff detected'). Depending on how you place your arrangements, it can get stuck and call out for help but it doesn't seem to have an app alert. I may have the alert disabled. You can set up different rooms and either have the robot spot clean, go to specific rooms, or do the whole floor plan.
Don't let it suck up water. You don't want to deal with that mess.
Battery life is good. My apartment only takes it about 50 minutes to run through, and it says it has anywhere from 20-30% after that. So probably an hour to an hour and a half run time. You'll end up having to rely on third party filters and parts. Shark doesn't seem to ever have anything in stock and if they do, the prices...
Being able to walk through the apartment barefoot and not worry about picking up a bunch of litter every day has more than justified my purchase. Easy recommend.
However, the user interface is hideous. It took us several days to get it to work AND only my hubby can run It. It has never let me in, even though I set up the credentials and I have the app on my phone also. 🤷♀️
Another thing to note is if you have pets that shed a lot, you will have to empty and maintain the base and shark itself more than usual. I have all hardwood but have a couple entry carpets. When the shark runs over a carpet, it leaves behind a huge clump of hair that its picked up. Not terrible, but things to keep in mind. All in all even with its short comings I think this was a great addition to my household and do not have regrets in purchasing.
I have a 2000 sq ft home and it mapped it great! I would give one advice for this! The battery life’s does not last long and it is programmed to vacuum your whole house when you start it. Therefore, it will do one 1/2 of my home, self empty and then have to charge, then do the rest of it. My lesson learned, my experience the second time running it is that I started the vacuum around 6pm, it stopped after vacuuming the first part of the house and then it had to charge and it takes sometime to charge (I have no timing yet) and then it finishes the programming and vacuums the rest of the house. Well, it scared me and woke me up as it started at 11:30pm! I just put it back on the charger and it didn’t come off.
Therefore if you want something that does not stop in between to vacuum and you have a bigger home this is my experience of what it does. Now I have not looked into it to see if I can re-program it, but even if I can, it would not change the battery life of it. It would still run out after running for about an hour! Unless I have a defective battery! I do not like returning electronics if I do not have to! I am just happy with the self emptying part of it and it not continuously getting stuck on the smallest things on the floor! It is a great vacuum and I still love it.. it’s not back breaking which means when you run it you consistently have to empty it out or take it off things it vacuumed up or was stuck on!
The setup for the Shark AV2501AE was straightforward, and I set a cleaning schedule right away. This morning, I checked to see how well it had done overnight. At first, I saw a bit of dust and hair on the floors and thought, "Is that really all it picked up?" So, I ran it a second time, but an error message alerted me to a blockage. When I checked the dust bin, I found it packed with cat hair and even a couple of stones, proving this vacuum's impressive power.
The Shark AV2501AE is noticeably quieter than my old Shark IQ, and it’s especially great to have it run in the middle of the night without disturbing anyone. It’s powerful, efficient, and clearly able to keep up with my household's cleaning needs—especially with two cats shedding white fur everywhere. Overall, I'm impressed with this upgrade, and it’s nice to see the floors looking consistently cleaner without the daily hassle.
I run him every day on eco mode to get the cat hair. And every other day on the carpet in matrix mode. The cat hair is not a problem anymore. It makes my place look so much better/ cleaner.
I have a 2 bedroom apt and after the initial few runs I only empty out his bucket once a week. Once a month you need to rinse off his filters and such and there are directions for that in the box. But once a month rinsing off robot parts is much less work than every other day vacuuming if you have pets.
He is quite, sounds like a white noise machine. So no issues there. The only time he sounds like a proper vacuum is when he empties out at the end of a run and then there is a out 5-10 seconds of vacuum noise as he empties into his station.
The only real downside is if you move around big furniture like a couch he has to re map the entire place. It cannot just do one room at a time
Second one was older and didn’t have the Matrix laser mapping, which is a must so it can run in the dark. It also had a problem emptying the dust cup- it got clogged. Back it went.
I believe this one is current 2023-2024 product, on the Shark website as of Oct. 2024. It has no such problems- it starts per schedule, cleans well and empties. It was a refurbished Costco model, so beware with units not sold by Amazon.
Earlier this year I fell in love with a similar Roomba but returned it when I lost my job the following week after it arrived. This Shark is less than half the price and truly does the exact same great job. The only thing Roomba's app had better was the ability to schedule days and times to vacuum each individual room. Shark's app let's you schedule but only the entire house.
This mapped our house well on the first try and gets every room every day.
This is a solid 5 Star rating and I do recommend this unit.
I write honest reviews based on real life experience with each item to help others make informed purchases. I read reviews too, and appreciate how helpful they can be. I hope that you find this review helpful!
Well, we followed the instructions, downloaded the app to our smartphones, and away we've gone! 4 months of running 3 times a week automatically, and usually another spot clean or two during the week. It has performed flawlessly! The only issue we have is that it has an affinity for cleaning under the bed and hooking the underbed light cord. It even cleans under the dining room table without any issue.
I did buy a spare parts kit for new brushes and roller, and at 6 months, I'll evaluate whether any parts need replacing. The side brushes will probably be replaced at that time, as well as the filters.
Setting up the device was a breeze. The instructions were clear, and within no time, I had it charged and ready to map my home. Compared to older models, this one really impressed me with its near-perfect mapping accuracy. It was able to learn the layout of my house with minimal issues, and the smart navigation system has made a noticeable difference in its cleaning efficiency. It reaches all the nooks and crannies without getting stuck, and the mapping precision is definitely a major upgrade from older versions I’ve used.
When it comes to performance, I couldn’t be happier. The vacuum does a fantastic job cleaning my floors, and I especially love how it leaves those perfect vacuum lines in the carpet. There’s something so satisfying about coming home to freshly cleaned floors with neat, even strips. It does a thorough job of picking up dirt, dust, and pet hair, leaving my home looking spotless without any extra effort on my part.
The noise level is pretty reasonable as well. While it’s not whisper-quiet, it’s not overly disruptive either. That being said, I rarely run it while I’m home—I usually schedule it to clean while I’m at work. That way, I can come back to a clean house without having to hear it in action. The suction power is impressive, especially for a robot vacuum, and it handles both carpet and hard floors with ease.
Another small but enjoyable detail is how sleek and modern it looks when it’s docked. It blends into the room nicely and doesn’t look out of place sitting on its charging station. It’s a great addition to the home, both in terms of function and design.
Overall, I’m extremely happy with this purchase, and I would definitely recommend this model to anyone considering a robot vacuum. Despite being used, the condition was excellent, and the performance has far exceeded my expectations. If you’re on the fence about buying a used one, don’t hesitate—this product proves that you can get great value without sacrificing quality.
I recommend 100%.
It has great suction but it’s pretty quiet. It does a thorough cleaning job and gets the corners decently. The battery life is decent. On the normal mode, it’ll do my 1000 sq ft condo in one charge. There are also MAX (stronger) and ECO (lighter) suction modes, but I haven’t tried those. The vacuum doesn’t “clean by braille” like older robot vacuums used to do, bumping into everything to determine where walls and obstacles were. This guy seems to be able to “see” his surroundings.
The app works great and I love that I can see the battery life and tell my Alexa to send my robot to clean a specific room. The vacuum starts by making a map of your home and then you label each room so it knows where to go. There is one drawback: it has to sense the whole house in one trip. This means you can’t map multi-story homes (not a problem for me, but it is for friends who have 2-story homes). When it made the map of my house, I had a room closed off for storage that I didn’t need it to clean, but I’ve now made the room into an office. Instead of adding the room to my map, I have to erase the old map and send the robot around to map the whole house again, and then reassign the room boundaries.
Another drawback is that the Alexa integration is a little clunky, in that it always asks for the robot name even though I only have one vacuum.
“Alexa, ask Shark to start cleaning the living room.”
“Which robot?”
“Bruce.”
“Okay, your robot is now cleaning.”
Alexa doesn’t recognize the request if you ask using just the robot name (“ask Bruce to clean the living room”). I wish they would eliminate the extra question when you only have one robot. Not a big deal but it is annoying.
Overall I’m very happy with my vacuum and it’s saved me a lot of time and effort that I used to spend keeping dog hair under control.
The "no-go" areas are meh for me - I wish I had the option of making them smaller, they are minimum 2ftx2ft it seems. I'd like to use the no-go feature to avoid the fringe on the runner but alas, the runner just doesn't get to be robovacced because that mapping feature isn't delicate enough.
Overall pretty satisfied. Unsure of how she's going to hold up.
One note of caution, if you buy. Make sure you pay attention to obstacles and deep shag carpets. The spinner arms can get snagged easily. After several cleaning runs, the mapping software does a pretty good job of knowing what to avoid. First few times, pay attention!
First review: I have a 5 year old Shark Ion robot, Dusty, that I loved. After all these years I’m noticing issues. I’ve replaced the battery and that helped solve a big issue with charging. But I do notice Dusty gets stuck quite a bit more than it used to, stops working randomly, or doesn’t charge when on the charger, so I have to readjust so he will charge.
I decided to try this new Shark robot, PigPen, because I loved Dusty so much. This one is so much better! I love the lidar that keeps PigPen going around objects. It cleans quite well. I’ve had it for a couple weeks now and just emptied the bin because it looked full of fur. I have two cats and a small dog, so I run it about 4 days a week to keep the fur under control. The picture is after the week and a half ish I’ve been running it. Pigpen has picked up lots of fur and covers way more area than the roaming Dusty does. So Dusty has been moved downstairs to the kitchen and PigPen is now upstairs in the living area. When Dusty does eventually die, which I think is coming sooner than I’d like, I’ll invest in a second PigPen.
The LIDAR mapping is really nice as it allows the vacuum to avoid bumping into furniture and walls, and get a very accurate floor mapping. And as advertised, the vacuum does indeed not get stuck. It is able to detect and avoid cords and other wires, so you don't have to worry about those either.
There are a few features I would like to see on the app, such as the ability to schedule individual rooms to clean. However there is always the chance those are added in the future.
I hope to see a lot more of this kind of stuff from Shark in the future, I think they have a really great product right now that is very underrated.
Let me address some of the negatives I read in reviews. Noise- not too noisy, when emptying it’s a little loud for about 6 seconds, no big deal. Battery life- no problem for me. I can spot clean any time I want. I have it scheduled to do a full clean at 12:00am every night. As a result it doesn’t matter if it stops to charge in between cleanings. App limitations- not a problem for me, I prefer the simplicity. You can on demand have it clean one room or multiple rooms with the touch of a button. You can have it spot clean an area by touching the area on the map. Scheduled cleaning- only lets you schedule all rooms, you can’t schedule just 1 room. Not a problem. I select rooms as needed throughout the day, for example if kids were messy at lunch I select kitchen. But I like that it cleans my entire first floor every night. Also while it’s cleaning you can alternate the power which is nice. Bin storage- some people say it won’t last 45 days, I’m not gross enough to let it sit for 45 days. But there is more than enough space to not worry about it overfilling if I’m on vacation for a while. Otherwise we tend to empty it every couple days because we love seeing how much dirt it collected lol.
In review, this is the best product at the best value. Anything more expensive isn’t needed because this gets the job done (amazing cleaning without getting stuck on things). Anything cheaper I wouldn’t have confidence in cleaning power/navigating. I rarely leave Amazon reviews but based on all the research I did I felt I should pass this info along to all of you.
I have a chocolate lab who is always shedding (year round it seems) and so I needed a vacuum with self-emptying capabilities to help me out between my bigger vacuum sessions. I've had a couple of Roomba vacuums that used to leave clumps of hair all over the rug and this Shark cleans perfectly. No clumps, empties itself, and cleans my 1000 sq ft first floor in about 75 minutes. It is not perfectly quiet, but more quiet than the iRobot and I am just genuinely really impressed with this robot vacuum. Of course it's best to schedule it to vacuum when you are not home so you don't even hear or think about it. There are "no go" zones to help out if there is a tricky room or area you don't want the vacuum to travel to. You can also map and send it directly to a specific room if needed (very helpful for the kitchen or bathroom).
Honestly my favorite purchase from Prime Day.
Cannot believe how much better this one is. Doesn't run into anything, the map it did it my house is fantastic, I can send it to specific room, or even specific spots in those rooms. I hate feeling things on the bottom of my feet when I walk around inside so I usually just wear socks. I'm barefoot and I love it.
I think it's also more quiet than my last one but I could just be biased now
Here are my likes and dislikes. Keep in mind I have two dogs, a Golden Retriever (otherwise known as a hair shedding machine) and a lab mutt.
LIKES:
1. My (****all hardwood and vinyl****) floors stay consistently vacuumed clean due to the 2 day vacuuming cycle I'm on. I like it that it keeps the areas below my bed clean as well. There is NO WAY I can keep the floors so clean manually. I'm older and besides, I don't want to dedicate hours each week to that task.
COULD BE BETTER:
1. Battery charging. I had a older unit from a different manufacturer and it would clean the same house and floors and have at least 30% charge still remaining after completion. The Shark ALWAYS must pause and go to charge mode for at least a couple of hours with every use cleaning my 700SF space. It's like Shark used a small battery.
If you think this is no big deal because it returns to the dock and self charges, you'd be wrong. Although it does in fact recharge flawlessly. While it is recharging it sits quietly..... BUT...
But the vacuum also sometimes needs manual cleaning if hair wraps around the brush or isn't fully expended during docking cycles. So, more times than I'd like (a couple a week I'd say), I stop hearing the unit running thinking that it completed the cleaning and is now charging... but it didn't. Said another way, I may be thinking it's charging when in fact it's ill from ingesting too much dog hair!
It's not the end of the world, I deal with it. But it is ANNOYING after the 20th time. Granted, a notice comes to the app. But you have to remember to open the app.
I don't mean to make this sound worse than it is. It's the difference between a vacuum that overall does a better job than vacuuming manually, and one that is perfect. The shark is NOT perfect.
2. Speaking of cleaning - mine is the 45 day version which only manages a week or so because of my 2 dogs. So I make it a habit every couple of vacuums to empty the canister. It's not a huge deal. But if you have dogs, don't expect 45 days. At all.
3. This is not their top of the line model. The higher version is much more sensitive to detecting and acting on ground clutter. A babies rattle left on the floor etc. I knew that when I bought it. However, as I found out, using the app's scheduling system (e.g., vacuum every tuesday automatically) fairly useless and I stopped trying. The reason is I must properly police and prepare the house immediately before it vacuums. Instead, I do a visual and tidy of the house first and then press the clean button.
Had I known then what I know now, I would have bought the more sensitive shark.
CONCLUSION:
It may seem that I have knocked the unit, and I guess in some of the annoyances I have. But overall, I have a cleaner house because of it. And that matters in the deep south. I won't bore you with the details but keeping my floors always clean keeps the brown recluse spiders at bay. My last vacuum did that, then when it died I did not have one for a year. The spiders enjoyed a comeback because there was a lot more smaller bugs drawn to the dog hair and floor dust. Then I got shaky and after a few months, we are back in a safer house. True story.
Definitely recommend, and the self-emptying base makes cleanup a snap.
The lidar enables this to map my home in under 10min vs. over an hour with the Roomba. And I needed some type of obstacle avoidance in case it runs across a dog "mess" that I haven't had a chance to clean it up. I hope to not have to test that, but it does avoid dog toys without issue. I also have several thin area rugs that bunch up easily, but this vacuum easily climbs over them. It will actually climb over lots of things because of it's "Neverstuck" feature, so you should probably supervise it for it's first cleaning.
The downsides are minimal, especially for this price point. First, the single side brush only spins on hard surfaces -- whether it's due to a weak motor or some undocumented feature is unclear, but it's been mentioned by others online. Second, the Android app is rather barebones. You can only schedule a full house cleaning, not specific rooms. It's unclear at this time if Shark ever pushes firmware updates to the vacuum to increase performance or add features to the Android app.
UPDATE 8/15/24: it does not avoid dog feces, even in well-lit conditions. Every component underneath was soiled. It took hours to disassemble everything I could and scrub/clean. It's not built to be cleaned in situations like this, and that part of the design could be improved. Luckily once it was all put back together it works fine; but I am no longer cleaning on a schedule and instead will trigger cleanings daily after first inspecting my floor.
I was a little worried that our experience with shark might be the same. However, I figured I would give them a try after having a pleasant experience with their customer service over a blender we have with them. The vacuum has exceeded our expectations on most fronts! First and foremost, this vacuum actually is quiet! It doesn’t bother you to be in the room as it runs. Second, it can run whether it’s light or dark. Third, the base doesn’t require a bag or that you touch any of the nasty stuff that it picks up! You can just hit the button and the base evacuates into your garbage can. I find that the vacuuming is great. We have a dog who covers our floor and hair every day so I run the vacuum every day. The shark picks up the hair completely. My husband comments that he really likes how this vacuum thoroughly covers the floor, whereas the Roomba would just erratically vacuum all over the place and eventually cover the surface. It does have the feature of it returning to thebase mid-task to empty its bin then returning to the task and picking up where it left off afterward. It also will go back to the tower and recharge itself mid job and then complete the job after charging.
The only drawback of this vacuum is the app. You can’t vacuum individual rooms, it has to do the entire house. You can close doors if you don’t want it to vacuum the entire house, though. And it doesn’t have a feature that stops your dog from shutting off the vacuum. Our dog is very smart and knows how to press the buttons and turn on and off the vacuum. I wish this app and vacuum had a feature that allowed you to turn off the ability to use the buttons on the robot so my dog can’t turn it on/off. For now, it’s on us to train her to stop doing it! Overall, this cons are paltry by comparison to the roomba cons. We love this new robot!!!
So, I got one. AND I FREAKING LOVE IT!!!!
seriously, I love it.
It took about an hour to let it do its initial sweep of the main floor to draw a map (and holy moly, I was impressed with the map!!). Then I worked on creating 'rooms' on the map. Once that is done, you can use the app on your phone to schedule cleaning - or just tell it to go clean a room (or several rooms, or the whole floor). We have hard wood, carpet, rugs, and tile. This little beauty covers all territory like a champ!
We have 3 big dogs. They shed. It drives me nuts and causes more stress than it should. Now, with 1 click on the app, I can clean a room they've just managed to get dirty - with hair or dirt off their feet.
The thing I expected the least from this device is what I have grown to love the most - anxiety reduction! No more dirty floors.
Did I say I love it?! 'Cause I really, really do.
Now I need another one for the upstairs floor!! :)
Then we tried a Roomba J7+. It has the same or better type of brushes as this one but man it's mapping was worse and it took way longer to do it's job. It also needed all these parts including a replacement bag for the base. This one is a champ. It is quieter, faster and almost always returns to space. The Roomba made it about 50% of the time. Because of it's cleaning pattern, this one gets the job done way faster. On the negative side, I think the Roomba brush was better. This one still has some hair getting caught in it that I will need to clean. Bottom line, with two Goldens, there is no perfect solution but this comes closest.
As of today, it’s been approximately nine months since I’ve had this machine. In fact-it is running right now as we speak. So, if you were expecting this machine to clean everything in your house, well, it won’t. However, if you put it at the setting of an average clean, it will pick up the dust and everything else in between in the common traveled areas. If you place it on matrix clean, you will run the battery down and it will take a couple of sessions in order for it to clean your entire place based on the square footage of your home. One recommendation is to make sure every week you dump out the container or the collecting bin. Also, when you do, make sure you inspect what it has picked up when dumping!!! I had found that it my wife’s missing earring, a few dimes and a missing screw that I was looking for for my key fob to the car. So make sure you are looking to see What the vacuum shot into its collecting bin. Also, in regards to hair, it will pick that up however, make sure you have a fine or small screwdriver available. The hair tends to bind up the bristle wheel that is next to its traction. If there’s any long hair, or dog hair or what not it will end up collecting there and bind up the Pick up Wheel or spindle. You will have to unscrew two small screws and gently take it apart and get that tangled weave of hair out of there. There is a ball of it binding the wheel to make it free flowing. What will happen is over time, it will not spin as well, it will drain the battery because it had to work harder when working, and then you will get errors stating that the wheel is caught up somehow. It is because of that reason you need to make sure that you do a monthly maintenance check on this vacuum. It’s just like any other robot vacuum / it can only do so much as it’s designed for. Constant preventative maintenance insures that your robot vacuum will operate properly like brand new. As in with bumping into things and so forth, it does have some hiccups where it cannot find the collection bin. You may want to make sure that the Wi-Fi is working properly in your house and also make sure that the base unit is plugged in properly. I’ve already had that happen to me a couple times because the vacuum Will sometimes pull out the cord when vacuuming around it- the cord is on the floor and then it has problems finding the charging base even when it’s right next to it….just a suggestion…
The app is very friendly to use, and you can set your zones, so customization is really user-friendly- once again. Also, this machine tends to find its way quite easily through all the areas corners, nooks and crannies. It operates in the dark because of its motion sensor, and Vacuums our entire floor in one charge based on its settings. 1750 Sq feet. It notices stairs, and also one feature I do like is that it does adjust to objects that are either stationary or if you’re standing in the way. Meaning, if you’re standing in the vacuum comes up to you it will work around you. It will then turn around to do the next pass. If it sees that that object is not there, it will come back And vacuum the spot where you were standing. That’s a very cool feature in my opinion. I also noticed that it does not miss or uncover typical open areas. They are very uniform when this robot is vacuuming those spaces, almost like a golf course lawn pattern. Once again: nice job in uniformity. If you are low on charge, the vacuum will stop, find the charging unit, recharge, and come back to the same exact spot and continue vacuuming until the whole (day task) is completed…
Keep in mind, this won’t do everything, but it does keep the dust down. In tight corners, this will not be able to reach due to its circular design. The main key is to perform monthly maintenance on this vacuum if you are running this one to four times a week. If you maintain that which is very simple, approx 5-10 min of time, you’ll be very pleased with this shark vacuum. I just bought another one for our downstairs because I am that impressed. Additionally, I purchased two extra batteries to make sure that this model is discontinued. I have enough prolonged extended time for this machine to keep going. This is a great investment. Good luck!
Pros:
First off, the cleaning is quite decent. It might not be very good at deep cleaning, but - pardon the pun - it doesn't suck! More than cat hair, I am very bothered by kitty litter spread around by our felines. This cleaner does a pretty good job of cleanup there.
It is also fairly good at obstacle avoidance, although it does try and climb two X-shaped keyboard stands that I have in our bedroom. But it hasn't ever been stuck anywhere. In addition, the 2nd floor also has a staircase. The first time I used it on that floor, I was expecting it to go crashing down the stairs. But this little thing has excellent sensing and braking skills and stops in time quite well.
Unlike the experience of others who have provided feedback here, I had no problem with connecting it to the WiFi. I have not had the good fortune/misfortune of connecting with customer support. Hopefully, I never have to, given what some other reviewers have said.
It is quite good at getting back to home base, emptying itself, and recharging. Barring one or two occasions when it did not restart the cleaning, it has worked quite well at completing the cleaning.
Cons:
This thing is very noisy, no question about it. But I don't use it at night when I'm trying to sleep. I think the noise does not really matter much for me. Also, if it is doing a good job cleaning, I expect it to be revving up to suck up more junk from the carpet or bare floor.
As mentioned earlier, we have two floors. Which leads me to the mapping issues. This thing simply refuses to map and retain the layout for two floors. The app is functional and fairly good at telling me what the mapped layout is. But I have to ask it to remap each time we move it from floor to floor. This is definitely a pain in the you-know-what. Also, we usually "prepare" each floor before starting the cleanup. This means moving stuff out the way, closing doors to bathrooms and closets so it does not map those out. However, I have noticed that the mapping seems to be just a guide of sorts. On the few occasions that we accidentally left a door or two open, the device merrily traipsed through those doors and started cleaning up there as well! Fortunately, there were no mishaps, because those rooms had not been "prepared" for the cleaning.
This problem of not being able to retain the layout of more than one floor at a time is the biggest flaw. Perhaps I missing something in the way the app works. If so, the app is rather non-intuitive and not simple enough to use.
I have also not used its integration with Alexa. In fact, were it not for the specific rating request at the top of this review, I would not have even know it had the integration.
Overall, while there is scope for improvement, I am reasonably happy with the product. I just wish they could fix the multi-floor mapping issues. Ideal would be if this thing could climb up and down the stairs and make it one big layout! But then, I might be asking for a bit too much.
Pros:
Self cleaning roller - I’ve attached a photo of the roller. It’s been cleaning my master bedroom and bathroom for a week and a half now often twice a day and my hair is thick and long enough to go down past my waist. With normal rollers, I have to clean them often if not after every time I vacuum these rooms. With the self cleaning roller I haven’t had to do any hair removal. There’s just a tiny bit of hair on the roller but that will clean off as it runs. I also have 5 cats and 2 heavy shedding dogs and this roller is very clean. I have 2 other robot vacuums I use downstairs and we have to clean those rollers often.
Bagless - need I say more? No extra costs on buying bags. No hassle of attaching the bags.
Cons:
Noise - This shark vacuum seems a bit louder than my newer Coredy and about as noisy as my very old early generation Roomba.
Programming - as of right now you can only program it to automatically run 1 time per day. With the animals I have and the fact it can empty itself, I’d rather have it run twice per day. However, it’s easy enough to tell it to run a second time in the app or with Alexa.
It hasn't gotten stuck, and cleans my tile and linoleum floors perfectly. It even navigates over my >.5" tall thresholds without issue (my main concern going into this).
The only issue I've had thus far was connecting it to WIFI, which took several attempts but it eventually worked. Second, possibly my fault, I assumed it was capable of identifying and avoiding stairs and as a result, it took a one-stair tumble on its initial discovery run. After that, however, I placed the no-go zone and it stayed away as advertised.
This vacuum brought me from being hesitant to get a robot vacuum to very seriously considering buying a second unit for my basement. Great value so far.
It vacuums in neat lines, slows and turns before hitting anything, cleans well, and transitions well going from wood floors to tile or rugs. I love that the base has a huge reservoir for dirt that I have yet to need to empty after more than two months of daily use. I have four cats, so it picks up a lot of kitty litter and cat hair (it’s shedding season!) daily. It always needs to return to the dock to empty itself midway through a cleaning run, but then smoothly returns to where it left off and finishes the job.
The only problem I’ve had is that it doesn’t seem to recognize the day of the week. I tried setting it for different times on the weekend than during the week, but it didn’t seem to realize what day it was and used the wrong day’s program. This is such a minor thing that I ended up just changing the program to vacuum the same time every day.
Overall, I couldn’t be happier with the purchase.
The only downside of not mapping before cleaning is that you can’t tell it to clean a specific room. If you want him to clean the whole level, just press clean. No map needed!
He does a great job on my carpet and wood floors. No problems with rugs. He doesn’t like my sliding glass door trays but he can navigate them ok just gets a little hung up. The emptying mechanism is great. Loud for any night-time use but I don’t use it at night anyway. I’ve done specific rooms once and it worked for me (other reviews were negative on this feature) but I think that has to do with the map. If the map isn’t right then it won’t work. No complaints with the battery life I haven’t really timed it out but my 2800 sq ft house can be done with maybe 1-2 battery charges and it takes a few hours. I would buy this again and recommend it to my family looking for one.
I have used this for several cleans and no hair tangles and it says 60 days but at first it filled 1/4 on one clean. Using daily has brought it to 7 days to fill.
Pros- gets up all the hair/dirt and I have not had to vacuum since, 10 days so far. Covers everything after it mapped the house. Ignored the 3 ft on either side and 5 ft in front and placed the unit under an end table next to the couch out of sight, mainly since my dog kept stepping on the old eufy. Has worked fine there and always finds it way home. It is doing its job as expected. Rarely bumps into anything but sometimes seems like its a little lost but always does what advertised. May be my crappy internet..App has been no problem. I like that I can send it to any room/rooms, or whole house. It has a little trouble getting over wood strip between hard wood and tile but keeps trying and gets over it and keeps going where it was supposed to go. Has not gotten stuck since no -go set properly.
Cons- took 2 times to map correctly and took some trial and error to set no-go zones, but once I got it, it works perfectly. Should probably remap one more time.
The roller seemed to get a little louder BUT ordered non-oem replacement filters and brush roll on amazon and that roller is cleaning as good as factory and much more quiet. Can't verify its durabilty but for the price, who cares.
It's taller than my eufy so it will not go under my couch but as great as it cleans, I'll move the couch. Besides, running this daily, pet hair and dust under controll, have only moved the couch once in 10 days with a 10th of the usual dust and hair. Glad I upgraded to a lidar vacuum and I don't care that I can't watch it progress real-time as others have knocked it for. I can hear where it is and takes 20 min per room and does 1000sq ft in 45 min of hardwood and tile.
Unless you are anal retentive it works advertised and CLEANS..
Also doesn't bump into walls or furniture either! OMG I am in love!! I do empty the dustbin weekly as I do have 4 furry dogs but have no complaints whatsoever!
UPDATE: We have had this about about a year and a half, and I continue to be impressed. It performs well. At times, I need to take out the carpet beater and clean off accumulated hair, but it is ready to do. I have removed the vacuum collection compartment once and completely cleaned it—seems like I should do that once a year. I have learned that I can periodically carry it upstairs or into our sunroom on another level, and let it run for a couple of hours not using the app or map and then carry it back to the base. This isn’t documented and I had to scour the internet to find this tip from another user. It doesn’t mess up the map, as far as I can tell. I really love this device.
I agonized over which brand to buy, but I have loved my upright Shark vacuums in the past, and for half the price of some other brands I figured it was worth a shot. No regrets!
Minor issues:
For the first week, he ran himself at 3 am instead of his scheduled 9 am. That was a bit of a shock when he emptied in the dead of the night. But after resetting him to factory settings, he's agreed to clean on schedule.
He did get disconnected from the internet once, but I was able to just re add him again to the app and delete the 'old' one and everything is fine again!
Lastly, it doesn't really work great with Google home, as far as voice control goes. This seems to be a Google issue rather than the robot, so maybe they'll fix that in the future. Maybe. If you went Google home instead of Alexa like your friends, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.
Overall, it's absolutely worth the price and I'll never go without again!
It has three suction modes (eco, normal and max). For my purposes I always use Max and it’s not incredibly noisy. It is far quieter than my old Roomba. I can still watch tv comfortably and hear perfectly fine while its running.
The self-emptying bin works great. Some complain it’s loud but it’s not that bad, and c’mon, it only takes about 10 seconds. The first couple times I ran it, I had to manually empty the dust cup on the robot because of dog hair. I think it was just finding more than I got with my regular vacuum. Now, running it once daily I haven’t had to do it. Oh, another great thing about this robot is the roller. Dog hair will not get caught in it !! With my old Roomba, I had to de-hair the roller after each use.
Overall, this unit was significantly more than I ever wanted to pay, but so far it’s been worth it because of its efficiency and low maintenance. I’m really happy that I pulled the trigger.
After owning this Shark for a couple months I'll give it a review.
First the Good things.......
1. Very quiet,I hardly hear it from other rooms while its running.It makes some noise while its emptying the dirt to the base but that's only for about 10 seconds or so.
2.Doesn't crash into walls and furniture like the Roomba did,however small things like dog or cat food bowls it will push around.
3.Doesn't have a problem going from carpet to tile or hardwood floors.Will go up on bathroom floor mats without shoving them around.
4.Finds its way back to the charging base base 95% of the time,if it doesn't its usually because it found a problem it couldn't solve.
5. Requires very little maintenance,but will need some on a weekly basis.More on that below.
Now for things I wouldn't call negative but you should know.
1.Says the base holds 60 days of dirt before it needs to be emptied,maybe if you live in a house with no pets or children.We have 2 cats a dog and 2 adolescent kids.I need to empty the bin at least once a week or more or it will fill up and cause a error. If the bin fills up you will clog up the passage from the bottom of the base unit to the upper bin and then it will need to be cleaned out manually before the error is cleared and it will work correctly again.Not a big deal really but you should be aware.
2.Hair for the most part does not wrap around the roller brush but will to some point,mostly on the sides and middle of the brush, however Its easy to pop off and clean ,I do it once a week,you can then clean any debris behind the brush that might build up.
3.The cliff sensors on the bottom of the unit,the four clear plastic lenses in the front and two on the sides should also be wiped off weekly,if they get dusty or blocked with dirt that will cause an error too.
4.Keep things like dryer sheets ,loose electrical or USB cords, socks ,small toys,etc off the floor so it wont jam up and cause an error.
So all in all I am quite happy with this Shark unit 60 days in,it runs 6 days a week with hardly any problems.
After about a month of use we have had to stop it a few times because it sucked up something a little too big like a leaf from a house plant or a cat toy. Or it finds a charging cable that was left in the floor. If a forgotten toy is big enough, taller than 4 inches it will be avoided, otherwise it will be pushed aside. It will occasionally shut a bedroom door and shut itself in until the battery dies and a few times it has wedged itself somewhere it and gotten stuck.
As shown in the pictures it has developed some scratches, scuffs, and gouges from trying to navigate in some tight corners. A few of our base boards have some stuff marks as well as the front of our range. We are getting some adhesive felt to go around the outside if the vaccuum to see if this helps.
Overall we have lived the robot, it has cut down on our cleaning and has even cut down on how often we need to dust. This was purchased on a Cyber Monday deal with a pretty significant discount. I don't think we would have paid full price.
We are one step closer to robots eliminating us humans by purchasing one of these automated butlers. We're screwed once they go self-aware....BUT, in the meantime, we are happily milking this thing for it's service.
Some details, we bought AV2501AE. Some of these reviews seem to lump several models together. This one has LIDAR nav and a 60-day self emptying base.
Thus far, about a month in, we are completely satisfied. It mapped out house accurately and the app DOES allow you to clean room by room, spot clean, or whole house clean from the app alone. I have yet to physically pick this thing up.
We have the base under an entry-way table that technically doesn't meet their requirements of 3 feet on either side, but it has not had any issues finding home base. Your mileage here may vary, but this has been our experience.
We've been happy with it's cleaning performance. We had the cheapo iRobot before this, and we had to sweep our kitchen (laminate floors) after that thing would run. This one picks up 90% of the dirt and cheerios our 8 month old throws on the floor. carpet cleaning has been A+.
Where this model does lack a bit is in edge and corner performance. The irobot beat it there, but it's usually only a few areas, and only larger debris (like the aforementioned cheerios).
It seems to do fine with moving furniture around. We found that doing the initial house mapping with all the moveable furniture picked up (kitchen chairs on the table, trash can right outside the door, TV trays on the fireplace hearth), it mapped the walls of the home really well, and will navigate around these objects just fine.
I will come back and update if something goes awry with this, frankly its just too much money on these for them not to perform well, and so far this one has been worth the money. We got it for just over $400 on black Friday, 2021.