Shark AI Ultra Robot Vacuum, Self-Empty, Pet-Friendly

Before ordering this I had never owned a robot vacuum before. I wanted to wait until I’d been using this thing for a few months before reviewing, so I had enough time to get used to it. After about 4 months of use, I’m back to say that this is one of the best purchase decisions I have made this year, and I highly recommend this model.

We are a household with kids and two XL shedding dogs (a GSD and a Mastiff/Akita mix, so you can imagine the hair). I am honestly impressed that this thing has not yet been defeated by the hair. We use the vacuum on the main level, which has hardwood floors with some low-pile rugs in high-traffic areas.

I’ll go over some points that speak to what I was looking for when making my purchase below:

HOW LOUD IS IT: It is not nearly as loud as a regular push vacuum, but it’s still a vacuum. You can watch TV or have a conversation while he’s running, but you’ll hear him. There is an “Eco” setting that is supposedly quieter, but honestly it sounds about the same to me; not worth it for the lower suction power in this setting.

DOES IT GET STUCK ON THINGS/DO THINGS GET STUCK IN HIM?: Short answer – yes. Longer answer – he’ll get stuck on the same things that a regular vacuum might try to suck up and shouldn’t. A short list of common things he’s tried to suck up and had to be rescued from more than once:
* socks
* phone charge cables
* long trash bag twist ties
* a shoelace (he once dragged the shoe halfway around the house and finally deposited it in the bathroom after a struggle)
* loose rug threads
All that said, he is pretty rugged and somewhat aggressive. He once scooted my entire Christmas tree about a foot because it was in his way, and has knocked over potted plants. He’s not out here getting stuck on every little cord or string, but it does happen.

HOW MUCH DIRT DOES IT HOLD/HOW OFTEN DOES IT NEED TO BE EMPTIED: The first couple of times you run the robot, expect to babysit it a little because it will pick up A LOT of hidden stuff and will probably need to be emptied a couple of times. On our schedule (every other day), I have to empty his bin about every 5 runs. He will return to his dock and empty himself if his internal storage is full. He holds a lot. Most of our daily messes consist of about 40 lbs of dog hair and random pieces of dog food that my dogs have left in the kitchen. He gets all of this every time with no problems.

DOES IT GET LOST/GO WHERE IT SHOULDN’T?: Honestly, yes, this has happened. Despite setting up the “No Fly Zones” in the app, I have had to rescue him from certain peril on more than one occasion (found him about to fly down the basement stairs once, and trying to enter the dog’s crate another time). I’m not sure what causes it, but sometimes he gets turned around and I think tries to re-map the entire floor; this leads him to try to enter rooms or areas that he’s normally not supposed to be in. I’ve had to make a habit of keeping doors closed to rooms he’s not supposed to cover. I think this is more of an app/connectivity issue than a problem with the vacuum.

IS THE APP EASY TO USE: Yes, with some notes. As mentioned above, the No-Fly Zone setup is hit or miss. If there’s somewhere he’s really not supposed to be (in my case, the hallway that contains the basement staircase, as well as the large floor-level fireplace) a physical barrier will be the only way to ensure he absolutely never accidentally goes in there.
A few other notes that would improve the app:
* Scheduling is very All or Nothing. There’s no way to schedule only certain rooms – he’ll clean the whole area at a specific time, and that’s the only scheduling option. For example, I’d love to have him clean the kitchen and living room every night, but only cover the office and entryway every other day, but this isn’t possible.
* The app is dramatic. If your fellow gets stuck on something or has trouble emptying his bin, the app sometimes has a full meltdown and you’ll have to restart the whole unit and start the clean cycle from the beginning to get it to acknowledge that it’s fixed.
* No way to see where your robot is via the app/map. This would be really helpful, especially given his tendency to ignore No Fly Zones. I’ve had to hunt all over to find him. There’s supposedly an option to make him beep, but it’s not very loud.

Overall:
Would I buy again? YES, 10/10. Instead of spending way too long vacuuming many times per week (and probably missing a lot), I might have to take five minutes to help the robot empty his bin or pull a stuck hair-tie out of his mouth once a week. That’s a trade I’ll take any day.

TL;DR: This robot vacuum is awesome and worth every penny. Highly recommend this vacuum to everyone, my wife agrees! Happy wife, happy life! Might buy another for my upstairs. For a robot vacuum, it does what I expect and makes my life easier. I don’t make it pick up large debris, robot vacuums seem to perform best with small debris. Large debris may get stuck or caught. Lidar works phenomenal, but with some hiccups when mapping house (mostly human error). Routing around obstacles works well, slows around objects and if anything is bumped it’s so light and cushioned, it’s not a problem. 5 stars overall. 4 stars deep cleaning and suction leaving room for improvement, it’s a robot vacuum, what do you expect? Probably has Alexa integration, but I use Google assistant and it works great!

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I ordered this back in July 2022 and got it end of the month. I waited some time to let the excitement die a little before posting a review, but it never really did. This is my first robot vacuum and one of the best purchase decisions I have made this year. When researching for the right robot vacuum, I found that most of the highly rated vacuums don’t seem to make it past 6 months or a year when reading reviews. Also manufacturers seems to make new models every year, so finding something that is reliable and lasts longer than this timeframe is hard to find. Of course, I am only onto my 5th month of owning this vacuum.

When I broke the vacuum out of the box, my first inclination was to take it out and get it started. But thinking about the other reviews I have read on this vacuum and others like it, I wanted to read the instructions first. This is not a regular vacuum that you plug in and push. It has lots of little parts that make it different and potentially not taking care of it properly could damage the device. So anybody reading this, read the instructions first. Understand how to properly take care of it and clean it. Also, comparing to other reviews, clean it regularly.

Now for my somewhat long review:

Is it quiet? Yes and no. It is a robot vacuum, how loud do you expect it to be? You’re not doing the work, but it is. It is quieter than a regular vacuum, but no idea how quiet other robot vacuums are. If a robot vacuum is loud or quiet, who cares? What matters is that it can clean stuff.

Can you watch tv while it runs? Yes you can watch tv. Just turn up the volume a little, no need to blast it like when running a normal push vacuum.

Can it pick up everything? No, it’s a robot vacuum. Don’t put too much trust in it. What I typically do is remove all obstacles (cords, bags, blankets) from the ground and any larger debris that might get caught in the motors (cotton balls left from the dog, pieces left behind from chewed up toys, strings from rope toys).

Dog hair? My dog constantly sheds, but has short hair. I run it twice per week on thin carpet and once per week on hard floors. I don’t notice the dog hair until I see what the vacuum picked up and it does a great job! The majority of stuff this picks up is dog hair and a lot of it. For longer haired dogs or thicker haired dogs, I assume this will get the job done as long human hair doesn’t get stuck at all like my regular vacuum does.

Small leaves? It picks up small leaves and debris similar size, but may leaf some behind. It also might get caught in spinning brushes and make a slightly louder noise on hard floor. I waited for it to finish and then pulled the leaf out, no harm.

Dog kibble? Ok this one was an accident, didn’t see it against the brown colored floor before starting vacuum. Sounded like the robot was choking and about to die, literally. I had to stop it right away and retrieve the small rock sized (width of thumbnail) dog food from the vacuum.

Can you run it when away from home? I read too many horror stories of vacuums cleaning pet poop, but it is not the reason I don’t start it when I’m not home. Like the last two points, if something gets caught, you need to be there to fish it out. I may have spot checked the floor, but even that sometimes isn’t good enough. Also, one time a week or two ago, it finally got confused and couldn’t move past a futon leg. It kept spinning back and forth (maybe for 5 minutes) until I nudged the futon half an inch, then it broke free of its endless loop. This was the only time this ever happened since I got it. Every other time it does an excellent job of finding its way through, even finding its way through a jungle of table and chair legs.

Lidar mapping floorplan? Simply amazing! I had it map 4 different rooms. The first time was great, but missed a few minor areas, of which was my fault. I left things on the floor and in the way of the robot when it mapped the floorplan. The second time, I removed the obstacles, but it didn’t map another room properly. The third time, I removed a chair, which the robot vacuum had just enough clearance to fit under (1st time it went under, 2nd time it did not), so that it can map that area of the carpet and not count it as a wall.

Lidar in general? It works great to avoid obstacles and get around legs of any sort. Only thing is if the leg is curved, like my kitchen table, it doesn’t know when to properly maneuver around it. But no worries! The bumper is amazing! It lightly bumps in to obstacles and the vacuum does a minor adjustment to figure out how to go around it.

Damaging furniture? Nope! Doesn’t happen. The robot is so careful around obstacles and even when it does bump things, its lightly bumps it and doesn’t scratch or anything. When it approaches obstacles (walls or furniture) it moves at a slower pace. This thing is intelligent.

Suction? For a robot vacuum, it does everything it needs to and does it very well. There are different levels for suction in the app, I have only needed to use the normal section. The max suction I have never needed to use, but it is an option if things get too out of hand. There is also an ultra clean option, not tried it, but think it just spends more time going over stuff. If I ever try ultra clean option, maybe need to change deep clean star to a 5, but I’m making the assumption that it will never perform as well as a normal vacuum.

Battery? I run two rooms per day I run it, but sometimes do all 4 rooms when I forget to run it. It lasts easily to finish all 4 rooms with charge left over. I’m guessing lowest percentage of battery life was 35% or 40% after doing all 4, this is a wild guess though, could’ve been higher. For 2 rooms it’s usually at 60% after it’s done, that I know for sure.

Emptying? It has a bin that it empties to. If the robot either runs for too long (or not sure if it senses if it is full of junk) it may return to the docking station to empty itself. This system works great, but the bin needs to be cleaned out occasionally. There is also a filter in the bin system that needs to be cleaned, just like regular vacuums may have.

App? No issues running it on my Android. Can select rooms and see the layout easily. Drawing rooms works great as well!

Robotiness? It makes all the noises a robot vacuum should and it’s awesome! Just thought you should know! Beep boop boop!

Ratings: I give it 5 stars because as it is a robot vacuum, it meets all of my expectations. 4 stars on deep cleaning and suction because it isn’t perfect, but is excellent as a robot vacuum. I haven’t used my regular vacuum in the areas that this one runs because it seems to do such a great job. Integration with Google works great! I don’t use Alexa with this one. Again, this is one of the best purchases I made this year. Definitely recommend this vacuum to everyone. Don’t spend $1k on something else.