The Best Shark Robot Vacuum
Shark's robo vac checks off all the boxes you would expect from a machine in this price range. It's reliable in its cleaning capabilities and a user-friendly mobile app and provides accurate home maps.
It also comes with Matrix Clean navigation, a system that makes two passes that go back and forth, before moving from side to side to provide complete coverage. And vacuum and mop combo is bagless, unlike many other robot vacuums.
1. Roborock S4
This is a fantastic robot vacuum for floors that are not bare with a large dirt container and can take in debris. The app lets you manage cleaning and docking. Its smart pathing is very effective. The app provides you with an overview of cleaning, including the map that shows where the S4 was cleaned, as well as cleaning time and battery life.
The S4's maximum suction is 2,000Pa, which is similar to full-sized vacuums. With 19CFM, the S4's side and combo brush is situated closer to the front of the unit than in other Roborock models, which could be an effort to reduce the amount of clogging.
The S4's advanced navigation technology can digitally map a house up to four levels. It will remember the areas it has already cleaned, making it easy to create a cleaning schedule without having to manually move the robot between rooms. You can designate certain areas as "no-go zones" to prevent the S4 from cleaning those areas.
It was able to clean an entire level of our house with ease and was extremely effective on floors that were not paved. It had a hard cleaning up dog hair. This is a common problem with robotic vacuums. Only 8.5 percent of the dog hair it picked up was collected in the dustbin and the majority was clumped around the suction inlet and brushes.
The S4 is lighter and smaller than other Shark vacuums. This increases its maneuverability. It can make tighter turning and avoid obstacles which slow down other robots. The low-profile design also allows it to be placed under furniture. It has improved climbability for navigating flooring transitions as well as different flooring levels. It can reach down to the bottom of the stairs, and is a great option for homes with multiple levels. The app allows you to create a schedule and includes an automatic vacuum control. It can also automatically return to its charging base to charge between cleaning cycles. It comes with the largest battery, 5200 mAh. It can run for 150 minutes in the standard mode or 2691 square foot between charges.
2. Shark EZ Robot Self-Empty
This Shark robot vacuum is a great choice for pet owners who need an easy-to-use, smart machine. The self-emptying bagless base of this model is a wonderful benefit, particularly when compared with other vacuums that use disposable dirtbags in their bases. You simply detach the bin and then empty it over the trash can. This can get messy, but it saves you money on bags to replace.
The bin itself is also quite large, which means that the EZ Robot is capable of taking care of a lot of debris. It's also a good performer on clean floors, but it does struggle somewhat with dirt that has been embedded on carpets with low pile. It's got good navigation capabilities and a tiny footprint.
While the EZ Robot isn't as good as the Roborock S4, it's still an excellent option for those who want a high-quality and budget-friendly robot. It's well-built, offers a wide range of automation features, and has impressive cleaning performance on both carpet and floors with high pile. However the maintenance requirements for this model are high and it has high costs that are recurring.
Another great feature of this Shark robot is its capacity to recharge and resume automatically where it began when it returns to its docking station after an entire cleaning session. This is an extremely useful feature particularly if you live in an extensive home.
The IQ XL is also equipped with a number of other useful features, such as the capability to remotely schedule entire-home cleaning and review reports through the SharkClean app. You can also begin, stop and resume cleaning sessions by speaking via Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. The row-by-row mode is also an advantage. It makes your home clean in neat rows, not an in-between snake pattern as many other robots do.
The biggest drawback of the IQ XL is its inability to get over obstacles like power cords, which it could identify as solid barriers and not climb over. It's also not as efficient or efficient in navigating space that is cluttered with pet hair. This can tangle the brushes and slow it down.
3. Shark AI Robot
This is a great robot vacuum from Shark that comes with a variety of features. It comes with an elongated base that can hold up to 30 days of debris, and it blends the cleaning power of the robot vacuum cleaner and a mop. It also has an exact matrix grid cleaning mode as well as advanced smart home integration, with support for Alexa and Google Assistant. You can set it to clean on a schedule or activate at any time, or create virtual boundaries to prevent it from entering rooms that may contain fragile items or rugs.
The Shark AI Robot does a great job cleaning floors with no carpet. It picks up debris effortlessly, like rice. It has a hard time getting rid of bulky, large debris from carpets with low pile and is not able to move around furniture with large dimensions. It is in a"do not disturb" mode so you can use it at home without interrupting your routine.
It also makes use of LiDAR to map your home. This allows it to identify and navigate obstacles more precisely than units that depend solely on gyroscopes or an infrared sensor. This allows it to avoid collisions with fragile objects and improve dirt pickup on various surfaces. The LiDAR system is also more efficient than gyroscopes which can cause robots to slow down or lose control when they encounter uneven surfaces.
Other features include a remote control, automatic mopping, and a variety of vacuum modes. It is able to charge and recharge while it's working. The biggest drawback is that it will only draw out one floor of your house therefore if you have two stories, it will be necessary to manually move it to the two floors at the beginning of the run, and then program it to repeat.
Another drawback is that it could be a bit loud, especially during mopping mode. It also has a lot of parts which need to be changed or cleaned frequently, which adds to the cost of maintenance. Fortunately, the self-empty feature reduces certain expenses, 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 ticks off all the boxes that you would expect from a mid-range robotic vacuum. It is reliable in its cleaning performance, a great mobile app that can create precise maps of your home, and a outstanding cleaning performance. The bagless base removes the need for replacement dust bags every year. In our cleaning test, it was able remove 97.8% debris from low-pile and hardwood floors, but it was not as efficient with high-pile. Its maneuverability is strong, and it can easily navigate around furniture, climb on high-pile carpeting and go over 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, other fibers and the like and the brushroll comes with a retractable edge that can be deployed when it encounters obstacles. Its slender design allows it to slide under furniture and proximity sensors enable it to adapt and assess obstacles. It can be triggered to begin cleaning at the pressing of a button, or scheduled on a daily basis through the app. Its noise levels are average however, 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 and iRobot Roomba j7+ that is to be expected from a self-emptying model. However, it still feels more robust and easy to maintain, charges faster and removes more debris from floors that are not bare and high-pile carpeting. Its navigation system is able to create virtual boundaries and recognize and avoid obstacles which makes it the ideal pick for "set it and forget it" robotic cleaners.
The RV700 Series doesn't have a safety cliff sensor to prevent it from falling down stairs, which may be a problem for people living in taller homes. It's not able of mopping and vacuuming at the same time and you'll need to switch between modes in the app. The RV700 Series offers a cheaper alternative to more sophisticated Roborock and iRobot robots with self-emptying capabilities as well as cliff detection. Its most appealing feature is that it can be used to empty and recharged while docked in its base, which makes it an ideal choice for those who don't want the inconvenience of emptying the dustbin each time they use it.