The Best Shark Robot Vacuum
Shark's robo-vac ticks most of the criteria you'd expect from a mid-range machine. It offers a reliable cleaning performance and an easy-to use mobile app. It also creates precise maps of your home.
It also offers Matrix Clean navigation, a system that performs two passes back and forth, before moving side to side for complete coverage. Its base is bagless unlike many other robot vacuums.
1. Roborock S4
This is a fantastic robot vacuum for flooring that is not in use that has a large dirt container and can take in debris. The app lets you manage cleaning and docking. Its smart pathing is highly efficient. The app also gives you an easy overview of cleaning, including an image of where the S4 has cleaned, cleaning time and battery life.
The S4's maximum suction is 2,000Pa which is comparable to full-sized vacuums. The side brush and combo brush are located closer to the front of the machine than the other Roborock models. This may be to prevent the possibility 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 cleaned. This makes it easy to design a cleaning schedule, without having to manually move robots from room to room. You can designate certain areas as "no-go zones" to prevent the S4 from cleaning these areas.
It was able to vacuum an entire floor of our house easily, and was very efficient on floors that were not. However, it struggled with cleaning up dog hair which is a typical problem for robotic vacuums. It only 8.5% of the dog hair it picked up was kept in the dustbin and the majority was clumped up around the suction intake and brushes.
The S4 is lighter and smaller than other Shark vacuums. This improves its maneuverability. It allows for tighter turning and avoid obstacles that slow down other robots. The low-profile design also makes it easier to place under furniture. It has improved climbability for navigating flooring transitions and different flooring levels. It is able to reach the bottom of the stairs and is a good choice for homes with a lot of floors. The app allows you to set a schedule and also includes the ability to control your vacuum manually. It can also return to its charging station to charge automatically between cleaning cycles. It is equipped with a large battery of 5200 mAh. It can last for 150 minutes in normal mode or 2691 square feet between charges.
2. Shark Easy Robot Self-Empty
This Shark robot vacuum is a great option for pet owners looking for an efficient, user-friendly machine. The self-emptying bagless base is a major plus, especially when compared to other vacuums that use disposable dirt bags in their bases. Simply detach the bin and empty it over a trash container. This may be messy, but it also saves you money on bags to replace.
The bin is also large, meaning that the EZ Robot can handle a huge amount of dirt. It also does very well on floors with no carpet. However, it is unable to deal with dirt embedded in low-pile carpet. It also has good navigation capabilities and a small footprint for docks.
The EZ Robot may not be as effective as the Roborock S4, but it is still a great option for those looking for a robot that will perform well and is affordable. It's built well, comes with many features for automation, and boasts impressive cleaning performance on both bare floors and high-pile carpet. However, its maintenance requirements are high, and it has significant recurring costs.
The Shark robot also has a great feature: it can automatically return to where it left off after it returns to the docking station. This is an extremely useful feature particularly if you own a large home.
The IQ XL also comes with various other useful features. These include the ability to schedule your entire home cleaning remotely and view cleaning reports using the SharkClean App. You can also use voice commands through Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant to start, stop, and resume cleaning sessions. The row-by-row feature is an important benefit. It will clean your home in neat rows, not a back and forth snake pattern, as other robots do.
The IQXL's main drawback is its inability to get over obstacles like power cords, which it might 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 tangle the brushes and slow it down.
3. Shark AI Robot
This is a great robot vacuum from Shark that offers a combination of features. It comes with a self-emptying base that holds up to 30 days of debris and combines the cleaning capabilities of the robot vacuum and mop. It offers a matrix grid cleaning mode, and features advanced smart home integration that supports Alexa and Google Assistant. It can be set to clean on a schedule or on demand or create virtual boundaries to prevent it from entering rooms that may contain rugs or fragile items.
The Shark AI Robot does a great job cleaning floors with no carpet. It can pick up dirt effortlessly, like rice. It has a hard time taking large, bulky debris from low pile carpets and is unable to maneuver around furniture with large dimensions. It does have a quiet mode, so you can program it to work when you're at home and it won't interrupt your daily routine.
It also uses LiDAR to map your home. This allows it to identify and navigate obstacles more precisely than devices that rely on gyroscopes alone or an infrared sensor. This makes it less likely to collide with delicate objects and also optimize dirt pickup on different surfaces. The LiDAR system also performs faster than gyroscopes, which could cause the robot to slow down and lose control when it comes into contact with uneven surfaces.
It's got a lot of other options, including the ability to control mopping with a remote, an automatic system and a variety of vacuum modes. It is able to charge and recharge while it's working. The main drawback is that it will only map out one floor of your house therefore if you have two stories, it will be necessary to manually transport it to those areas during the first run, and then program it to repeat.
Another drawback is that it could be a little loud, particularly in mopping mode. It also has a number of parts that have to be replaced or cleaned regularly which increases the cost of maintenance. Fortunately, the base self-empty feature cuts down on certain expenses, and is compatible with bags-free filters, which reduces the annual cost.
4. Shark ION Robot RV700 Series
The Shark ION Robot RV700 Series is a complete package that you would expect of a mid-range robotic vacuum. It offers dependable cleaning performance, a superb mobile application that creates precise maps of your home, as well as a great cleaning performance. It also has a bagless base that means no annual purchase of dust bags to replace. In our test of cleaning performance it was able to remove 97.8% of debris from carpeting with low pile and hardwood floors, though it wasn't as effective on carpets with high piles. Its maneuverability is solid and it can navigate around furniture, climb on carpeting with high pile, and traverse objects like electrical cords and rug tassels without getting stuck.
The bristles with high-tensile in a helix pattern are strong enough to untangle and manage long hair, string, and other fibers. The brushroll also has a retractable side that can be used when it encounters obstacles. Its thin design allows it to slide under furniture, and proximity sensors assess and adjust to the robot vacuum surrounding obstacles. The app allows you to schedule cleanings and activate the machine with one button press. Its sound levels are average, but it can be quieted down by using a do not disturb mode or a custom scheduling.
The RV700 is more manual than the Roborock S4 and iRobot Roomba J7+ and iRobot Roomba j7+, which is to be expected from a self-emptying model. But, it is more durable and is easier to maintain, and charges faster and clears more debris on floors that are not bare and carpets with high pile. Its navigation system can also create virtual boundaries and recognize and avoid obstacles making it the ideal choice for "set it and forget it" robotic cleaners.
The RV700 Series does not have an incline sensor that could keep it from falling down stairs. This could pose a problem for those who live in homes that are taller. Additionally, it can't mop and vacuum at the same time and requires you to switch between two modes in its app. The RV700 Series offers a cheaper alternative to the more advanced Roborock and iRobot robots that have self-emptying capabilities and cliff detection. Its primary selling point is the fact that it can be recharged and emptied while docked at its base. This makes it a great alternative for those who do not need to empty the dustbin each time they use it.