The Best Shark Robot Vacuum
Shark's robovac ticks many of the boxes you'd expect from a machine in this price range. It's reliable in its cleaning capabilities as well as a mobile app that is easy to use and provides accurate home maps.
It also comes with Matrix Clean Navigation, a system that performs two passes in a row, before moving to the side for full coverage. The base is also unbagged, which is different from other robot vacuums.
1. Roborock S4
This is an excellent robot vacuum for bare floors that can take up debris and has a massive dirt storage compartment. The app lets you control cleaning and docking. Its smart pathing feature is highly efficient. The app provides you with an overview of cleaning, which includes maps showing where the S4 was cleaned, as well as cleaning time and battery life.
Its maximum suction of 2,000Pa is high enough to lift an AA battery off the floor, and is comparable to the suction of larger vacuums. With 19CFM the S4's side and combo brush is situated closer to the front than in other Roborock models, which could be a strategy to lessen the amount of clogging.
The S4's advanced mapping system can map a house up to four levels deep. It will also keep track of the areas it has already vacuumed. This makes it simple to set up a schedule for cleaning and not have to manually move robots from room to room. You can also mark zones that are not allowed to enter, which will block the S4 from entering those spaces during a cleaning session.
It was able to vacuum all levels of our home with ease and was extremely effective on bare flooring. However, it was not successful in cleaning up dog hair, which is a common problem for many robotic vacuums. Only 8.5 percent of the dog hair it picked up was actually collected in the dustbin and the majority was clumped around the brushes and suction inlet.
The S4 is lighter and smaller than other Shark vacuums. This increases its maneuverability. It can make tighter turns and avoid obstacles that slow down other robots. Its low-profile design makes it easy to squeeze under furniture. It also has improved climbing capabilities to navigate flooring transitions and different heights of flooring. It can even reach the bottom of the stairs and is a great option for homes with multiple levels. The app lets you set a schedule and also includes an automatic control for vacuuming. It can also return to its charging station to recharge automatically between cleaning cycles. It comes with a massive 5200 mAh battery, which is rated to run for 150 minutes or 2691 square feet between charges in standard mode.
2. Shark EZ Robot Self-Empty
This Shark robot vacuum is a great option for pet owners who need an easy-to-use, smart machine. The self-emptying bagless base is a fantastic convenience, especially compared to other vacuums that have disposable dirt bags in their bases. It is possible to empty the bin in the trashcan by simply taking it off it. It's messy, but you save money on the replacement bags.
The bin itself is quite large, which means the EZ Robot is capable of handling a good amount of debris. It also performs very well on floors with no carpet. However, it struggles with dirt that is embedded in low-pile carpet. It has excellent navigation capabilities and a small footprint.
While the EZ Robot isn't as good as the Roborock S4, it's still a solid option for people who want a high-quality, budget-friendly robot. It's well-built, offers a wide range of automation features, and has impressive cleaning performance on both bare floors and high-pile carpet. Its maintenance requirements are high and its ongoing costs are high.
This Shark robot has another excellent feature: it can automatically resume where it left off after it returns to the docking station. This is a great feature particularly if you live in a large home.
The IQ XL is also equipped with a number of other useful features, including the ability to remotely schedule whole-home cleans and review cleaning reports through the SharkClean app. You can also initiate, stop and resume cleaning sessions with voice control via Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. Its row-by-row cleaning mode is a major benefit as it is able to clean your entire house in neat rows rather than the back-and-forth snake design of many other robots.
The IQXL's main drawback is its inability to climb over obstacles like power cords, which it might consider solid barriers to avoid climbing over. It's also not as quick or effective at navigating a room when it's filled with pet hair, which can cause brushes to get caught and slow it down.
3. Shark AI Robot
This is a great robotic vacuum from Shark that comes with a variety of features. It has an elongated base that can hold up to 30 days of debris, and it blends the cleaning power both of the robot vacuum cleaner and a mop. It also offers an exact matrix grid cleaning mode and advanced smart home integration with support for Alexa and Google Assistant. You can set it up to clean on a regular basis, activate on demand, or create virtual boundaries to keep it from entering rooms that may have fragile items or rugs.
The Shark AI Robot does a great job cleaning floors with no carpet. It picks up debris with ease, like rice. However it has a tough time clearing larger bulky debris from low-pile carpet and is not capable of moving around furniture. It is in a"do not disturb" mode so you can use it at home without it disrupting your daily routine.
Another advantage is that it utilizes LiDAR technology to map out your home and allows it to recognize and navigate around obstacles with greater precision than those that rely on gyroscopes or infrared sensors. This lets it avoid hitting delicate objects, and also optimize dirt collection on various surfaces. The LiDAR system also performs 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 options, including a remote, automatic mopping and various vacuum modes. It can also recharge and charge while working. The biggest drawback is that it can only trace one floor of your house, so if you have two stories, it will be necessary to manually carry it to the two floors at the beginning of the run, and then program it to repeat.
Another drawback is that it can be a bit loud, especially during mopping mode. It also has a lot click here of parts that must be cleaned or changed regularly, which increases its cost per year. The self-empty function is the basic feature that can help reduce the cost of these items. It's also compatible with a bagless filter that can further reduce the cost per year.
4. Shark ION Robot RV700 Series
The Shark ION Robot RV700 Series is a complete package that meets all the criteria you'd expect from a midrange robot vacuum, including solid cleaning performance and a superb mobile app that produces accurate maps of your home. The bagless base removes the need for dust bags to replace every year. In our cleaning test it was able to eliminate 97.8 percent of the debris from hardwood and low-pile flooring, but wasn't quite as effective with high-pile. Its maneuverability is sturdy, and it can easily navigate through furniture, climb onto high-pile carpeting and go over things like rug tassels and electrical cords without getting stuck.
The bristles that are high-tensile and in a helix pattern are strong enough to untangle and manage long hair, string and other fibers. The brushroll also features an extension side that can be used when it encounters an obstacle. Its thin design lets it slide under furniture and proximity sensors monitor and adapt to surrounding obstacles. The app allows you to schedule cleaning times or activate the machine with one button press. It has a moderate sound level, but can be reduced by using the do-not disturb mode or custom scheduling.
The RV700 is a little 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 still more durable and easier to maintain. It is faster in charging and removes more debris from high-pile and bare floors. Its navigation system can create virtual boundaries, recognize obstacles and avoid them, and also create virtual borders. This makes it the best choice for robotic cleaners you can "set and forget".
The RV700 Series doesn't have a the cliff sensor, which prevents it from falling down a flight of stairs, which can be a concern for those living in homes that are taller. It's not able of mopping and vacuuming at the same time and you must switch between modes in the app. However the RV700 Series is a less expensive alternative to the more sophisticated Roborock and iRobot models that offer self-emptying capabilities and cliff detection. Its most appealing feature is that it can be empty and recharged while docked in its base, which makes it an ideal option for those who do not want to go through the hassle of emptying the onboard dustbin after each use.