Amazon.com: Shark AI Ultra Voice Control Robot Vacuum with Matrix Clean Navigation, Home Mapping, 60-Day Capacity, Self-Empty Base for Homes with Pets, Carpet & Hard Floors (Silver/Black)

Where to start?With the bad, let us get that right out of the way. The mapping is abysmal, truly, we have run Bruce (if you can name a Shark branded robot vacuum, what other name than Bruce would you choose) 25 times, he is nowhere near mapping our house, compared to my brothers robot from a competitor who rhymes with BOOMBA, which did it in three runs. This Shark does not even play the same sport....this prevents me from doing room specific vacuuming. And that is it. Unless you have a multi story house, where this feature is a must have, set Bruce and he will clean you house. Wonderfully. Next, the not so great, Bruce is so mentally challenged. For a smart device, he is pretty dumb, but you want to know something, Bruce is determined. He will get the job done. He may have to fumble and bumble his way about, but he will get it done, and, if you watch, he does get a little smarter each time, just a little, but it is noticeable. Bruce used to do the house in large, long swaths, now he breaks it into one half of the house, then the other, and just the today, a new feature, he went around the perimeter of the house, cleaning the base boards. Small steps.As for his vacuum, top notch, perhaps too good. Bit of advice, if you get your own Bruce, run the beast on low suction for at least the first 4 or 5 runs....another con, Bruce does not know when he has eaten too much, and like a greedy guppy, he dies...locks up and cries for help... remember, I told you Bruce is not bright, but he is a work horse. When this happens, you cannot tell Bruce to restart, he has to start over, and hopefully one of Bruce's engineers will fix this, since Bruce will never know how much he has consumed, he has not the ability. Perhaps a command to send him to his base to empty himself, or a shorter duration than the 30 or so minutes it defaults to.Oh, and the base, the self empty….I am sure robot vacuums before the base were fine, if tedious, since you had to clean them every time….but the base, oh the base is pure genius. Bruce’s base is perfect, we take up with a button, and open it with a button, and never have to touch the refuse. No bag to buy, just push a button, the bottom opens and all that stuff drops out.If you have not noticed, but this family loves Bruce, we are now looking at getting Bruce a skin, to spruce Bruce up a bit…We have had Bruce for a week now, barely, but already Bruce has made an impact. I absolute honesty I cannot recommend this product enough, it works, it has quirks, but it works, and very well.Bit of adviceTurn on all your lights until your Bruce gets a good map of the area, he is a camera based robot and needs to “see" the ceiling, mostly, for landmarks.Run it on low the first few tries, while Bruce bounces around the first few runs, then move to medium and so on. Remember, Bruce has no sesnor in his bin, he uses a set algorithm that tells him to go back to his base and dump his load. It is terrible. But his vacuum is great, so he gets too full too fast. I can manage it a little for the quality of his cleanup.Because our house is neither toddler nor robot ready, we did not have all our rooms ready, and so we began mapping with the bedrooms and bathrooms doors closed. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, the mapping is not great, but it does move forward, slowly. Bruce stared being more efficient in our great rooms’ right about the time we added the bedrooms and bathrooms. Our house, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 great rooms and a heart kitchen, Bruce can do it on one charge now, I think because we basically added one room a day after his initial runs.I think you can tell, Bruce has been a wonderful addition to our home, truly, a robot vacuum was a luxury I didn’t think worked. It works and now I know what gift I will give every new home owner I know. There a lot of options out there, some a lot cheaper, and if those meet your needs, get them, some a lot more expensive, and aside from one specific feature Bruce does not have,( multi floor mapping) I cannot imagine they are better.UPDATED 2/19/20Mapping works now, had to delete the map once , run it three times, and bang! house mapped. Room specific vacuuming unlocked! Suggestions to others having issues. Delete the map and ( and I think this part is important) run the vac with every light you can on. The robot "see" and makes its map on your ceiling, the more light, the better it see's.To reiterate, my little robot, Bruce, has literally changed my house...cannot recommend enough.Updated 2/5/21A year later and no regrets. One of, if not, the best purchases I have made for my home. I will state again Bruce is an addition to the house and family, he is almost a pet....a very dumb, but very hard working pet....he is like a toddler...he seems to always want to be where you are... He cleans your floors and carpets...If you are on the fence about buying a robot vacuum...let me put you at ease...buy one, this is no longer a luxury to my home, they are a requirement, utterly worth every penny. As for a Shark...I love mine. Works great, does what it is supposed to do. The only house I wouldn't think this is perfect for is multi floor homes. Short of that... a must have.4/28/23 Still the best purchase we have made for our home cleaning. No change there...but a small observation...recently replaced some furniture and changed the layout of our home. We had to move the dock from a north to south orientation to an east to west...and, I swear, it now navigates even better than before.

Since we bought this in late November, which I suggest getting since it was newely half off its retail price of 600 (gotta love black Friday), I have only had to get out the old vacuum once. I was worried that we would have to get it out more than that to get under our cabinets in the kitchen, but that is luckily not a problem. If I see something under there now I just push it to the middle of the floor if I know shark is going to clean that day.So here we go...Pros:-it literally cleans about 95% of your floors. Hair is not a problem, tangling on the roller is not a problem, larger debris is generally not a problem (I had some things here and there get missed the first go around, but I mostly see that it has problems on carpets, which we have mostly hardwood floors so not a big deal).-it mapped out our first floor, which is sizeable, in about 2 go cleanings. I was worried about this as a large amount of reviews stated that it took 30 or more cleanings to map their house out and it still didn't map it correctly. The one thing I noticed about these reviews is that they are mostly from from a year ago, so I'm assuming that there has been a software update since then to address this issue. It was super efficient at mapping.- I see this as a pro, but some might not, is that it teaches you to adjust your cleanliness behaviors. You need to keep the floors free of obstacles (as much as possible) in order for this robot to do its job, which means moving your shoes, picking up toys, moving chairs, etc. It was good for my wife and i to adapt better habits anyway and this was a good way to Kickstart that for our household.- if you have allergies, this thing picks up a ton of dust. Since we don't have a pet (yet) it mostly picks up some food, hair and dust on the floor. Man does it help. My allergies have been much better over the past 2 months.- some people gave the app negative reviews, but I found it helpful overall. It is simple, easy and quick to make adjustments on.-you really don't have to empty this but once a month. And, honestly, I could get away with maybe once every 2 months instead. Don't forget to do a monthly maintenance check and clean the filter, but this is a 5 minute routine once a month. Much easier than busting out the bulky vacuum all the time.CONS-speaking of the app, it needs a no go zone feature. The magnet strips, while great, don't effectively help in managing the bots path all the time. Make sure to tape it or use 3m sticky stuff to keep it on the floor otherwise your bot will try to suck it up and take it for a ride with it. The no go zone feature would be helpful for wire areas, furniture, or kid play areas. I hear it is supposed to come along sometime in the future, hopefully soon.-carpet cleaning is a little bit of an issue. We have a giant area rug in our living room and it sometimes has issues with picking up stuff. Luckily, the bot does 2 or 3 sweeps, which most times gets the debris or fuzzies on our carpet, but not all the time. This is indicated on YouTube reviews that I watched before I purchased this, so I knew what to expect.-it is slightly noisy and takes a while to clean. I advise to make the schedule while you are not home, because it can change your daily routine pattern. Generally, it takes about an hour and a half to clean our 600 square foot first floor. I keep it on normal mode, but there is a higher power suction mode that is louder. So get ready to turn the volume up on your TV. I did hear from a roomba user though that this bot is quieter, so I guess it's subjective.-this is more if a personal gripe, it might not be a big deal for you, but I was hoping to have a meet the Jetsons vibe when I connected it to my alexa. I wanted to say "alexa, clean the kitchen" and it do just that. Unfortunately, it doesn't do different room commands, it just does its normal full routine. You can do this through the shark app, which is simple and easy enough. So designate room names and tell it to clean just that room. Still, if you have a kitchen mess and you want to use verbal commands through alexa skills to do something while you are continuing chores or cooking, it would be a nice touch if it did it. Oh well, that's just me.Overall a great purchase. Currently, I got mine for roughly 315 and I am doing monthly payments with Amazon, which I love this feature of Amazon's payments. I pay it off in March in monthly installments of 64 bucks. It is worth the money compared to those roombas that cause double or triple the shark bot. I did a ton of research on different vacuums and this one is in the top 5 (as of right now). I highly recommend this to anyone with similar lay out as us (mostly hard wood floors with area rugs). I found the cons to be just nit picking at its performance, and overall it makes our life 80x easier. I give it a 4.5 out 5 for my personal home and I hope this review was helpful.1 year update:Dog hair: Still going strong and still highly recommend for those with mostly hard wood floors or linoleum. In fact, I recommended it to my mom and dad and now they have one and love it. We did finally get to test it with some serious dog hair. We had an Australian Shepard (which has super thick and clingy fur) and another dog that visited for several days. Both are extremely active and were all over our floors and our one carpet area. They left a ton of fur and it did take 3 or 4 cleanings to get up about 80% of the hair. Whatever was left over was bunched up on the carpet and was easily removable thanks to shark. Just be prepared to wait a few days for the fur to be cleaned up in the carpet. If it's hardwood then it is cleaned up instantly.Hair and roller blade: I have not had any issues with the roller blades and hair tangling. I had to untangle some hair that rolled to the center twice. It is an easy fix. Take scissors and a quick snip and boom solved the problem. The big thing is that it doesn't hinder the cleaning ability of the vacuum.Parts: I haven't had to replace any of the parts yet on it. Just keep up with monthly maintenance and it will hold up. Clean the filters and the dust cup monthly and it will run smoothly. The battery life is still the same too. No issues with battery degradation.Errors and software stuff: so the errors are minor with this robot. It is the occasional bumper is stuck and that the dust cup needs to be emptied, which is nice if you forget to keep up with maintenance. The only issue I have with the software is that it used to be able to clean specific rooms when I originally got it, but now it doesn't allow me to do that at all. It's a bummer since sometimes I still stuff in the kitchen and I just want it to do that room, not an entire cleaning again. Also, and this is a small gripe, but I wish that I could have the robot automatically go to max suction mode every cleaning. Instead, I have to go to my shark app on my phone and change it from normal mode (which is its default cleaning mode) to max.Overall, I would still say this is a 4.5 out of 5. Minor issues, but still totally worth it.

I'm no stranger to smart vacs - I have 4 robovacs, two of them self-emptying, mapping robots. My other self-emptying one is a Roomba i3 (which by now is 3 or 4 year-old tech), so I naturally am comparing this Shark to that one. There's a lot to compare and report on, but I'll just quickly touch on some categories:- General cleaning powerThe Shark seems to be right up there with the Roomba. Suction power and brushing is very similar (even though the Shark has only one brush to the Roombas two), with the Shark having a minor edge in suction power.- MappingThe Shark seemed to map my house much faster than the Roomba. It apparently uses its lidar to do so, while the older Roomba had to physically travel over the floor area to include it in the map. The Shark map appears a bit more accurate than the Roomba's.- Cleaning styleThe Shark, like the Roomba, cleans in neat parallel rows, and they both do it well. But the Shark has the advantage of Matrix Cleaning, which covers the area twice - in two directions - and that's a great option. And I also like the spot cleaning option, as well as the ability to set keep-away zones with the Shark.- FlexibilityBoth machines allow the user to direct them to clean certain specified rooms via their apps, and both do it well. The Shark seems to go to rooms faster, while the Roomba has to think about it a lot before proceeding. Both apps are intuitive and work well.- Noise levelsSound levels are about the same to my ears, although they sound different. The Roomba has a sucking whine, while the Shark has a slightly rattling sound.........................Some negatives for the Shark:Maintenance - The Shark uses a bagless sytem, whereas my Roomba uses a tidy throwaway bag. While bagless may seem like an advantage, it requires you to clean the dust collection container instead of just pulling out the bag and tossing it. The bag also serves as a filter, meaning that the Shark has to have multiple internal filters (3 in fact), which have to be periodically cleaned or replaced.Object Avoidance -While it doesn't bang into walls and objects as much as some vacs, it can be too cautious and stop 3-4" from baseboards, leaving an uncleaned zone along walls. Looks like I'll have to pull out the old upright vac every so often and vacuum the perimeters.Profile - Its lidar module on top extends higher than on many vacs, making it tend to get stuck on low clearance furniture. It makes a very good effort to avoid these situations, though, so it's not a major issue.Dock - While it's a lower-profile dock than some vacs, it's also wider, so it takes up more wall area. Leaving the recommended amount of free space on either side is hard to do, so placement might be challenging.............................All in all, this Shark self-emptying smart vac is a great tool. At full price it might seem a little pricey, but it's on sale from time to time, and might be worth waiting for a good price. In today's smart vac world it's a solid contender, and it earns all 5 stars from me in spite of some minor shortcomings.............................*Update* - I've used the Shark for a month now, and I'm very happy with it. It seems to avoid getting stuck better than all my other vacs, and it has no trouble finding its dock and docking itself like some vacs. I can send it to rooms clear across the house and it just obediently goes there and does its job, then comes back.Matrix clean is awesome. Cleaning our carpet in one direction and then coming back in the other direction is genius. What it doesn't get going north-south it gets in the east-west direction. It doesn't seem to allow me to select more than one room at a time for matrix, but I can deal with that.I've been a Roomba fan for years, but this Shark is changing my mind!

I did a good bit of research before deciding on the Shark. We have a Shark upright and another dustbuster size Shark so we are very positive about their products.I chose a spot for the dock that doesn't really comply with the instructions but it hasn't affected the operation in the least. It is under a side table in a bedroom. Works very well from there.I used the app to map my apartment, which it did very well. I closed the doors to rooms i didn't want it to go - either because i just want them cleaned more thoroughly by our cleaning service or i thought it might get stuck on the rugs. It handles rugs pretty well, though.Minor complaint that others have mentioned: it doesn't take the same route each time. And it goes over the same areas more than once.The first time it ran, it got itself stuck under a low riser dresser so i now put a stool in front of the dresser to prevent that.I think the app is pretty slick and easy to use. You can set it to vacuum every day or any odd assortment of days. Ours runs twice a week to be sure the cat hair gets cleaned out.First run complaint: since it was vacuuming under beds, it was probably going places that had not been vacuumed in a long time. So that first time, it filled the bin with cat hair and just stopped in mid run. I had to take it back to the dock but even then it couldn't off load the hair. It was too full and compacted so i had to remove the bin from the robot and clean it by hand. That hasn't happened again though. Just be aware if you have any areas like that.The app lets you do the whole house, just one room, or a selected 5 ft square space. In the app, choosing Spot, it puts a square in the middle of the screen with the house map over laid. You choose the spot by moving the map under the square until it is over the area you want cleaned. It's not intuitive, but once you see it, you know how it works.I read many of the older reviews that mentioned a magnetic strip to keep it from going certain places like off a step. I was wondering where those strips were because mine did not come with any. I almost returned it before the first run because i do have a sunken room and was concerned about it going off the step but it ran right up to the edge, stopped, and then ran along the entire width without a problem. Pretty impressive.It will obviously have trouble negotiating table and chair legs so if you want those areas cleaned you will need to move the chairs.It would also be nice to know how to deal with the sunken area of our home. For now, i take it off the dock and carry it to that room before turning it on. It does the room completely and returns to the starting point where i again have to pick it up and return it to the dock. Then, i have to use the app or the button on top to tell it to return to the dock, which works ok. Im just concerned if this confuses the mapping of the rest of the house. I wish the instructions addressed this issue.