The Best Shark Robot Vacuum
Shark's robot vacuum checks most of the features you'd expect from a mid-range machine. It provides reliable cleaning capability and an easy to use mobile app. It also creates accurate home maps.
It also provides Matrix Clean navigation, a system that makes two passes that go back and forth before moving from side to side for total coverage. Its base is bagless, unlike many other robot vacuums.
1. Roborock S4
This is a great robot vacuum for bare flooring that has a large dirt container that can pick up debris. The app lets you manage cleaning and docking. Its smart pathing is very effective. The app also provides an easy overview of cleaning, including an image of where the S4 has been cleaned, cleaning duration and battery life.
Its maximum suction of 2,000Pa is high enough to lift an AA battery off the floor and rivals those of full-sized vacuums. The side brush and combo brush are closer to the front of the machine than other Roborock models. This may be to help reduce the possibility of clogging.
The S4's advanced navigation technology can digitally map your home up to four levels. It will keep track of the areas it's vacuumed, making it easy to set up cleaning schedules without having to manually move the robot between rooms. You can designate certain areas as "no-go zones" to prevent the S4 from cleaning these areas.
It was able clean the entire floor of our house easily, and was very efficient on floors with no carpets. It had a hard to remove dog hair. This is a common issue with robotic vacuums. Only 8.5 percent was gathered in the dustbin. The rest was clumped around the brushes and the suction intake.
The S4 is lighter and smaller than other Shark vacuums. This improves its maneuverability. It can make tighter turns and avoid obstacles that slow down other robots. Its low-profile design makes it easier to get under furniture. It has improved climbability for navigating flooring transitions as well as different flooring levels. It can reach down to the lowest point of the stairs and is an excellent choice for homes with multiple levels. The application lets you set a schedule and also has an automatic control for vacuuming. It can also automatically return to its charging base to recharge between cleaning cycles. It comes with a large battery of 5200 mAh, which can run for 150 minutes in normal mode, or 2691 square feet between charges.
2. Shark EZ Robot Self Emptying
This Shark robot vacuum is an excellent option for pet owners who want an efficient, user-friendly machine. Its self-emptying base that is bagless is a huge convenience in comparison to other models that utilize disposable dirt bags on their bases. It is easy to remove the bin and then empty it over the trash can. This can get messy, but it also saves you money on replacement bags.
The bin is also quite large, so the EZ Robot can handle a large amount of dirt. It also works very well on floors with no carpet. However, it has a difficult time with dirt embedded in low pile carpet. It also has decent navigation capabilities and a compact dock footprint.
The EZ Robot may not be as effective as the Roborock S4, but it is still a great option for those who are looking for a machine that can perform well and is priced reasonably. It's well-built and comes with a variety of automation features. It also has an impressive cleaning performance on floors that are bare and carpets with a high pile. Its maintenance requirements are very high, and its recurring expenses are very high.
The Shark robot also has a great feature: it will automatically return to where it left off once it returns to the docking station. This is an excellent feature, especially when your home is big.
The IQ XL is also equipped with a variety of useful features, including the ability to remotely schedule home cleans and review cleaning reports using the SharkClean app. You can also use voice commands through Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant to initiate or stop cleaning sessions. Its row-by-row cleaning mode is a huge benefit as it will clean your entire home in neat rows rather than a back-and-forth snake pattern like many other robots.
The biggest drawback of the IQ XL is its inability to scale obstacles like power cords, which it could detect as solid barriers and avoid climbing over. It's also not as efficient or fast at navigating a space when it's full of pet hair. This can cause tangles on the brushes and slow it.
3. Shark AI Robot
This is a solid robotic vacuum from Shark, offering a good combination of features. It comes with a base that can hold up to 30 days' worth of debris, and it combines the cleaning power of a robot mop and a vacuum cleaner. It comes with a matrix grid cleaning mode, and it features advanced smart home integration that supports Alexa and Google Assistant. You can program it to clean, get more info turn on it on demand, or set virtual boundaries to prevent the robot from entering rooms with fragile items or rugs.
The Shark AI Robot carries out a fairly thorough job of cleaning floors, picking up debris like rice effortlessly. It has a hard time taking large, bulky debris from low pile carpets and is not able to move around large furniture. It does have a do-not-disturb mode, so you can program it to work when you're away from home and it won't interfere with your routine.
Another benefit is that it uses LiDAR technology to map your home, allowing it to detect and navigate obstacles more precisely than units that rely solely on gyroscopes or infrared sensors. This allows it to avoid hitting delicate objects, and also optimize dirt collection on various surfaces. The LiDAR system also operates faster than gyroscopes, which can cause the robot to slow down and lose control when it encounters uneven surfaces.
It comes with a variety of other features, such as the ability to control mopping with a remote, an automatic system and various vacuum modes. It is able to charge and recharge while it's working. Its biggest drawback is that it will only trace only one floor of your house, so if you have two stories, it will be necessary to manually carry it to those areas during the first run, and then program it to repeat.
It can also be quite loud, particularly when in mopping mode. It also has a number of parts that need to be cleaned or replaced regularly and this adds to its ongoing costs. Fortunately, the base self-empty feature reduces the costs associated with these items and it's compatible with bags-free filters, which reduces its annual expenses.
4. Shark ION Robot RV700 series
The Shark ION Robot RV700 Series is a complete package that meets all the criteria you would expect from a mid-range robotic vacuum, including high-quality cleaning capabilities and a fantastic mobile app that creates accurate maps of your home. It also comes with a bagless base which eliminates the need for annual dust bags to replace. In our cleaning test it was able to remove 97.8% debris from low-pile and hardwood floors, but it wasn't quite as effective with high-pile carpeting. Its maneuverability is strong and it can navigate around furniture, climb on carpeting with high pile, and traverse objects like rug tassels, electrical cords, and rug tassels without getting stuck.
Its helix-pattern high-tensile bristles are strong enough to handle and untangle long hair strings, as well as other fibers, and its brushroll has an edge that retracts and can be utilized when it comes across obstacles. Its thin design allows it to glide under furniture and proximity sensors enable it to adapt and analyze the obstacles. The app allows you to schedule cleanings and trigger the machine using a single button press. The noise levels are moderate, but it is possible to reduce the noise with a do-not-disturb feature or custom scheduling.
The RV700 is a bit more manual than the Roborock S4 or iRobot Roomba J7+. This is to be expected from the fact that it does not self-empty. It is better-built and easier to maintain, and charges faster and removes more debris from both bare floors and carpets with high pile. Its navigation system can also create virtual boundaries and recognize and avoid obstacles, making it the best choice for "set it and forget it" robotic cleaners.
The RV700 Series does not have an incline sensor that could stop it from falling down stairs. This could pose a problem for those who live in houses that are taller. It also can't vacuum and mop simultaneously and requires users to switch between two modes available in the app. However the RV700 Series is a less expensive alternative to the more advanced Roborock and iRobot models that offer self-emptying and cliff-detection capabilities. Its main selling point is the ability to be recharged and emptied while docked at its base. This makes it a perfect option for those who do not want to empty the onboard dustbin each time they use it.