The Best Shark Robot Vacuum
Shark's robovac ticks many of the boxes you would expect from a product in this price range. It is reliable in cleaning and a user-friendly mobile app and provides accurate home maps.
It also has Matrix Clean Navigation, a system that performs two passes back and forth, before moving to the side for full coverage. And its base is unbagged, which is different from other robot vacuums.
1. Roborock S4
This is a great robot vacuum for floors that are not bare that has a large dirt container that can remove debris. The app lets you manage cleaning and docking. Its intelligent pathing is very effective. The app gives you an overview of cleaning, including maps showing where the S4 was cleaned, the cleaning time and battery life.
The S4's maximum suction is 2,000Pa, which is similar to larger vacuums. With 19CFM the S4's side and combo brush is situated more to the front than in other Roborock models, which could be a strategy to lessen the possibility of clogging.
The S4's advanced navigation system is able to digitally map your home up to four levels and will keep track of the areas it has already cleaned, making it easy to create a cleaning schedule without the need to manually move the robot around rooms. You can even mark off zones as no-go zones which will block the S4 from entering these areas during a cleaning cycle.
It was able to clean all floors of our house with ease and was extremely efficient on floors that were not. However, it struggled with picking up hair from dogs that is a typical problem for a lot of robotic vacuums. It only 8.5% was captured in the dustbin. The rest was clumped around the brushes and the suction inlet.
The S4 is lighter and smaller than other Shark vacuums. This increases its maneuverability. It is able to make more precise turns and avoid obstacles that bog down other robots. Its low-profile design makes it easy to fit under furniture. It has improved climbability for navigating flooring transitions as well as different flooring heights. It can reach the lowest point of the stairs and is a great option for homes with multiple levels. The app lets you set a timer and also has an automatic control for vacuuming. It can also return to its charging base to recharge between cleaning cycles. It has a large 5200 mAh battery, which is designed to last for 150 minutes or 2691 square feet between charges in standard mode.
2. Shark EZ Robot Self-Empty
This Shark robot vacuum is an excellent choice for pet owners searching for a machine that is user-friendly and efficient. Its self-emptying base that is bagless is a huge convenience in comparison to competitors that use disposable dirt bags on their bases. You simply detach the bin and then empty it over the trash can. This could be messy, but it will save you money on bags to replace.
The bin itself is also fairly large, meaning that the EZ Robot is capable of handling a large amount of debris. 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 tiny dock footprint.
The EZ Robot may not be as effective as the Roborock S4, but it is still a great choice for those who are looking for a robot that will perform well and is priced reasonably. It's well-built, has a wide range of automation options, and offers impressive cleaning capabilities on carpets with high pile and bare floors. Its maintenance requirements are high and its ongoing expenses are very high.
Another great feature of this Shark robot is its capacity to recharge and automatically resume where it left off when it returns to its docking station after a full cleaning session. This is a great feature, especially if your home is large.
The IQ XL also comes with many other useful features. It is possible to schedule entire-home cleanings remotely and also review cleaning reports through the SharkClean App. You can also start, stop and resumptuate cleaning sessions using voice control via Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. The row-by-row mode is also an important benefit. It will clean your home in neat rows, rather than 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 could detect as solid barriers to avoid climbing over. It is also less effective or quick in navigating a space that is cluttered with 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 store up to 30 days of debris, and it also combines the cleaning power both of an automated mop and a vacuum cleaner. It offers a matrix grid cleaning mode, and it is equipped with advanced smart home integration that can work with Alexa and Google Assistant. You can program it to clean, turn on it on demand, or set virtual boundaries to prevent the robot from entering rooms with delicate items or rugs.
The Shark AI Robot does a great job cleaning floors with no carpet. It is able to remove debris easily, such as rice. It has a difficult time taking large, bulky debris from low pile carpets and is unable to maneuver around large furniture. It does have a quiet mode, which means you can use it while you're at home and it won't interfere with your routine.
Another advantage is that it utilizes LiDAR technology to map your home and allows it to recognize and navigate obstacles more precisely than units that rely solely on gyroscopes and sensors. This helps it avoid hitting fragile objects and to optimize dirt collection on various surfaces. The LiDAR system is also faster than gyroscopes, which could cause robots to slow down or lose control when they encounter uneven surfaces.
It has a fair number of other options, including an automatic mopping feature, a remote, and multiple vacuum modes. It can even charge and recharge while it's working. The main drawback is that it will only trace the floor of your home If you have two stories, it will be necessary to manually transport 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 little noisy, especially in mopping mode. It also has a number of components that must be replaced or cleaned regularly and this adds to its ongoing costs. Fortunately, the base self-empty feature cuts down on some of these expenses and it's compatible with bagless filters, which reduces its annual expenses.
4. Shark ION Robot RV700 series
The Shark ION Robot RV700 Series is a complete package that you'd expect from a midrange robotic vacuum. It offers dependable cleaning performance, a superb mobile application that creates precise maps of your home, and excellent cleaning performance. The bagless base removes the need for new dust bags each year. In our cleaning test, it was able remove 97.8 percent of the debris from low-pile and hardwood flooring, but it was not as efficient with high-pile. Its maneuverability is strong, and it can easily maneuver around furniture, climb onto high-pile carpeting and go over things like rug tassels and electrical cords without getting stuck.
Its helix-pattern high-tensile bristles are durable enough to manage and untangle long hair strings, other fibers and the like, and its brushroll has an edge that retracts and can be deployed when it comes across obstacles. Its thin design allows it to slide under furniture and proximity sensors detect and adapt to surrounding obstacles. It can be activated to begin cleaning with a click of a button or scheduled on a daily basis through the app. It is quiet at a moderate level, but can be slowed down 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 website that it does not self-empty. It is more durable and is easier to maintain, and charges faster and clears more debris on the floors, including carpets with high pile. Its navigation system is able to create virtual boundaries, and also detect and avoid obstacles making it the ideal choice for "set it and forget it" robotic cleaners.
The RV700 Series doesn't have a safety cliff sensor to prevent it from falling down the stairs, which could be a problem for those living in homes with higher ceilings. It's not able to mop and vacuum at the same time and you must switch between modes in the app. However it is the RV700 Series is a less expensive alternative to the more advanced Roborock and iRobot models that have self-emptying and cliff-detection capabilities. Its biggest selling point is that it can be empty and recharged while docked in its base, making it an ideal option for those who do not want to go through the burden of emptying the dustbin after each use.