Shark AV2501AE AI Ultra Robot Vacuum – Powerful HEPA Cleaning with Smart Mapping & 60-Day Bagless Base
- 💨 Incredible Suction: Shark’s signature high-performance suction tackles dirt, dust, and stubborn debris on both carpets and hard floors.
- 🧠 Matrix Clean Navigation: Uses precision grid pattern cleaning, making multiple passes to ensure a complete whole-home clean with no spots missed.
- 🗑️ HEPA Self-Empty Base: Holds up to 60 days of dirt and debris with a HEPA filtration system that captures 99.97% of dust and allergens (down to 0.3 microns).
- 📍 Smart Precision Mapping: Equipped with 360° LiDAR navigation to map your home in real-time and navigate efficiently while avoiding obstacles—even in low light.
- 🐾 Pet-Friendly Design: Combines ultra-powerful suction, a self-cleaning brushroll, and HEPA filtration to capture pet hair, dander, and allergens effortlessly.
- 🗣️ Hands-Free Control: Compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, allowing voice-activated or app-based cleaning control on demand.
- 🔋 Extended Runtime + Recharge & Resume: Runs up to 120 minutes and automatically returns to recharge, then resumes cleaning where it left off.
- 🔧 Built for Quality: Engineered and tested to ensure long-lasting, dependable robotic performance.
- 📦 What’s Included: Shark AV2501AE Robot Vacuum, XL HEPA Self-Empty Base, and 2 Side Brushes.
Brand: Shark
Model: AV2501AE
Color: Black / Bronze
Special Features: Smart Mapping, LiDAR Navigation, Bagless, HEPA Filtration, Pet Hair Removal
Dimensions: 13.08″L x 8.43″W x 13.9″H
We determined that from a feature/price standpoint, the Shark AV2501AE AI Robot Vacuum would fit our needs...
1. Good suction
2. Programmable defined areas to clean
3. Self cleaning dirt bin.
4. Wifi connected
Upon receipt, the first order of business is to turn the Shark loose and map out your entire floor area. It will determine the perimeter and transfer the result to the app. Depending on the size of your living area, it may take an hour or two.
Once the floor plan is completed, you can then specify rooms. This is a great feature. Instead of sending the vac out to clean the entire space, you can limit it to any of the one or more rooms you have specified.
Then comes the test run. We instructed Rosie to go forth and clean the most heavily trafficked area and specified Max Suction and Matrix cleaning mode. It took about an hour and half. During that time, she will periodically return to the base to empty the dust-bin, then go back to where she left off and resume her duties.
Upon completion we checked the recovery bin and were amazed at the volume of dust and dirt that this little worker vacuumed up! She's hired!
We're so satisfied with the cleaning result of this Shark AV2501AE AI Robot Vacuum we decided to buy another unit for the upstairs main living area.
Any deficiencies we've observed are with the app. For instance: you can set a schedule for cleaning, but you specify individual rooms. It will only schedule the entire mapped area. Rosie would have to run 6 or more hours and most of the time, we don't want her running that long.
It would be great to be able to set a schedule so that on Monday, clean the main living area. On Tuesday, clean the main bedroom. Wednesday, clean the office and 2nd bedroom.
Why Shark has not included this feature in it's software is a real regret with the software side of this unit. As a consequence, we send Rosie out manually to do a specific room or area. It's not a deal breaker by any means, but it's the only reason I knocked off one star.
We bought this on sale, and it made for a very affordable and attractively priced robot vac. In fact, we bought a second one to take care of the upstairs main living floor. Rosie is responsible for the lower level, which comprises 1,500 square feet. Cleaning the Family Room takes a good 1-1/2 to 2 hours.
"Carson" takes care of the upstairs. That is 2,500 sq. ft. and, as you can imagine, cleaning the entire floor space would take up most of the day. Hence: manually specifying specific rooms on alternating days.
When all is said and done, the Shark AV2501AE AI Robot Vacuum deserves a solid 5 stars, but gets a demerit for the limited software. Here are the basic reasons that make this vac a satisfying purchase...
1. Does an excellent deep-cleaning of your floors and carpets.
2. Operates in a matrix grid pattern for precise coverage.
3. Self cleaning bin is great. You just have to remember to empty the main collection bin regularly. (It's easy to forget to do this.)
4. You can tell it what room to clean and when, all from the comfort of your recliner.
We are very happy with the Shark AV2501AE AI Robot Vacuum, and think you will be, too!
I run him every day on eco mode to get the cat hair. And every other day on the carpet in matrix mode. The cat hair is not a problem anymore. It makes my place look so much better/ cleaner.
I have a 2 bedroom apt and after the initial few runs I only empty out his bucket once a week. Once a month you need to rinse off his filters and such and there are directions for that in the box. But once a month rinsing off robot parts is much less work than every other day vacuuming if you have pets.
He is quite, sounds like a white noise machine. So no issues there. The only time he sounds like a proper vacuum is when he empties out at the end of a run and then there is a out 5-10 seconds of vacuum noise as he empties into his station.
The only real downside is if you move around big furniture like a couch he has to re map the entire place. It cannot just do one room at a time
Setting up the device was a breeze. The instructions were clear, and within no time, I had it charged and ready to map my home. Compared to older models, this one really impressed me with its near-perfect mapping accuracy. It was able to learn the layout of my house with minimal issues, and the smart navigation system has made a noticeable difference in its cleaning efficiency. It reaches all the nooks and crannies without getting stuck, and the mapping precision is definitely a major upgrade from older versions I’ve used.
When it comes to performance, I couldn’t be happier. The vacuum does a fantastic job cleaning my floors, and I especially love how it leaves those perfect vacuum lines in the carpet. There’s something so satisfying about coming home to freshly cleaned floors with neat, even strips. It does a thorough job of picking up dirt, dust, and pet hair, leaving my home looking spotless without any extra effort on my part.
The noise level is pretty reasonable as well. While it’s not whisper-quiet, it’s not overly disruptive either. That being said, I rarely run it while I’m home—I usually schedule it to clean while I’m at work. That way, I can come back to a clean house without having to hear it in action. The suction power is impressive, especially for a robot vacuum, and it handles both carpet and hard floors with ease.
Another small but enjoyable detail is how sleek and modern it looks when it’s docked. It blends into the room nicely and doesn’t look out of place sitting on its charging station. It’s a great addition to the home, both in terms of function and design.
Overall, I’m extremely happy with this purchase, and I would definitely recommend this model to anyone considering a robot vacuum. Despite being used, the condition was excellent, and the performance has far exceeded my expectations. If you’re on the fence about buying a used one, don’t hesitate—this product proves that you can get great value without sacrificing quality.
I recommend 100%.
It has great suction but it’s pretty quiet. It does a thorough cleaning job and gets the corners decently. The battery life is decent. On the normal mode, it’ll do my 1000 sq ft condo in one charge. There are also MAX (stronger) and ECO (lighter) suction modes, but I haven’t tried those. The vacuum doesn’t “clean by braille” like older robot vacuums used to do, bumping into everything to determine where walls and obstacles were. This guy seems to be able to “see” his surroundings.
The app works great and I love that I can see the battery life and tell my Alexa to send my robot to clean a specific room. The vacuum starts by making a map of your home and then you label each room so it knows where to go. There is one drawback: it has to sense the whole house in one trip. This means you can’t map multi-story homes (not a problem for me, but it is for friends who have 2-story homes). When it made the map of my house, I had a room closed off for storage that I didn’t need it to clean, but I’ve now made the room into an office. Instead of adding the room to my map, I have to erase the old map and send the robot around to map the whole house again, and then reassign the room boundaries.
Another drawback is that the Alexa integration is a little clunky, in that it always asks for the robot name even though I only have one vacuum.
“Alexa, ask Shark to start cleaning the living room.”
“Which robot?”
“Bruce.”
“Okay, your robot is now cleaning.”
Alexa doesn’t recognize the request if you ask using just the robot name (“ask Bruce to clean the living room”). I wish they would eliminate the extra question when you only have one robot. Not a big deal but it is annoying.
Overall I’m very happy with my vacuum and it’s saved me a lot of time and effort that I used to spend keeping dog hair under control.
One note of caution, if you buy. Make sure you pay attention to obstacles and deep shag carpets. The spinner arms can get snagged easily. After several cleaning runs, the mapping software does a pretty good job of knowing what to avoid. First few times, pay attention!
First review: I have a 5 year old Shark Ion robot, Dusty, that I loved. After all these years I’m noticing issues. I’ve replaced the battery and that helped solve a big issue with charging. But I do notice Dusty gets stuck quite a bit more than it used to, stops working randomly, or doesn’t charge when on the charger, so I have to readjust so he will charge.
I decided to try this new Shark robot, PigPen, because I loved Dusty so much. This one is so much better! I love the lidar that keeps PigPen going around objects. It cleans quite well. I’ve had it for a couple weeks now and just emptied the bin because it looked full of fur. I have two cats and a small dog, so I run it about 4 days a week to keep the fur under control. The picture is after the week and a half ish I’ve been running it. Pigpen has picked up lots of fur and covers way more area than the roaming Dusty does. So Dusty has been moved downstairs to the kitchen and PigPen is now upstairs in the living area. When Dusty does eventually die, which I think is coming sooner than I’d like, I’ll invest in a second PigPen.
Let me address some of the negatives I read in reviews. Noise- not too noisy, when emptying it’s a little loud for about 6 seconds, no big deal. Battery life- no problem for me. I can spot clean any time I want. I have it scheduled to do a full clean at 12:00am every night. As a result it doesn’t matter if it stops to charge in between cleanings. App limitations- not a problem for me, I prefer the simplicity. You can on demand have it clean one room or multiple rooms with the touch of a button. You can have it spot clean an area by touching the area on the map. Scheduled cleaning- only lets you schedule all rooms, you can’t schedule just 1 room. Not a problem. I select rooms as needed throughout the day, for example if kids were messy at lunch I select kitchen. But I like that it cleans my entire first floor every night. Also while it’s cleaning you can alternate the power which is nice. Bin storage- some people say it won’t last 45 days, I’m not gross enough to let it sit for 45 days. But there is more than enough space to not worry about it overfilling if I’m on vacation for a while. Otherwise we tend to empty it every couple days because we love seeing how much dirt it collected lol.
In review, this is the best product at the best value. Anything more expensive isn’t needed because this gets the job done (amazing cleaning without getting stuck on things). Anything cheaper I wouldn’t have confidence in cleaning power/navigating. I rarely leave Amazon reviews but based on all the research I did I felt I should pass this info along to all of you.
As of today, it’s been approximately nine months since I’ve had this machine. In fact-it is running right now as we speak. So, if you were expecting this machine to clean everything in your house, well, it won’t. However, if you put it at the setting of an average clean, it will pick up the dust and everything else in between in the common traveled areas. If you place it on matrix clean, you will run the battery down and it will take a couple of sessions in order for it to clean your entire place based on the square footage of your home. One recommendation is to make sure every week you dump out the container or the collecting bin. Also, when you do, make sure you inspect what it has picked up when dumping!!! I had found that it my wife’s missing earring, a few dimes and a missing screw that I was looking for for my key fob to the car. So make sure you are looking to see What the vacuum shot into its collecting bin. Also, in regards to hair, it will pick that up however, make sure you have a fine or small screwdriver available. The hair tends to bind up the bristle wheel that is next to its traction. If there’s any long hair, or dog hair or what not it will end up collecting there and bind up the Pick up Wheel or spindle. You will have to unscrew two small screws and gently take it apart and get that tangled weave of hair out of there. There is a ball of it binding the wheel to make it free flowing. What will happen is over time, it will not spin as well, it will drain the battery because it had to work harder when working, and then you will get errors stating that the wheel is caught up somehow. It is because of that reason you need to make sure that you do a monthly maintenance check on this vacuum. It’s just like any other robot vacuum / it can only do so much as it’s designed for. Constant preventative maintenance insures that your robot vacuum will operate properly like brand new. As in with bumping into things and so forth, it does have some hiccups where it cannot find the collection bin. You may want to make sure that the Wi-Fi is working properly in your house and also make sure that the base unit is plugged in properly. I’ve already had that happen to me a couple times because the vacuum Will sometimes pull out the cord when vacuuming around it- the cord is on the floor and then it has problems finding the charging base even when it’s right next to it….just a suggestion…
The app is very friendly to use, and you can set your zones, so customization is really user-friendly- once again. Also, this machine tends to find its way quite easily through all the areas corners, nooks and crannies. It operates in the dark because of its motion sensor, and Vacuums our entire floor in one charge based on its settings. 1750 Sq feet. It notices stairs, and also one feature I do like is that it does adjust to objects that are either stationary or if you’re standing in the way. Meaning, if you’re standing in the vacuum comes up to you it will work around you. It will then turn around to do the next pass. If it sees that that object is not there, it will come back And vacuum the spot where you were standing. That’s a very cool feature in my opinion. I also noticed that it does not miss or uncover typical open areas. They are very uniform when this robot is vacuuming those spaces, almost like a golf course lawn pattern. Once again: nice job in uniformity. If you are low on charge, the vacuum will stop, find the charging unit, recharge, and come back to the same exact spot and continue vacuuming until the whole (day task) is completed…
Keep in mind, this won’t do everything, but it does keep the dust down. In tight corners, this will not be able to reach due to its circular design. The main key is to perform monthly maintenance on this vacuum if you are running this one to four times a week. If you maintain that which is very simple, approx 5-10 min of time, you’ll be very pleased with this shark vacuum. I just bought another one for our downstairs because I am that impressed. Additionally, I purchased two extra batteries to make sure that this model is discontinued. I have enough prolonged extended time for this machine to keep going. This is a great investment. Good luck!
Pros:
Self cleaning roller - I’ve attached a photo of the roller. It’s been cleaning my master bedroom and bathroom for a week and a half now often twice a day and my hair is thick and long enough to go down past my waist. With normal rollers, I have to clean them often if not after every time I vacuum these rooms. With the self cleaning roller I haven’t had to do any hair removal. There’s just a tiny bit of hair on the roller but that will clean off as it runs. I also have 5 cats and 2 heavy shedding dogs and this roller is very clean. I have 2 other robot vacuums I use downstairs and we have to clean those rollers often.
Bagless - need I say more? No extra costs on buying bags. No hassle of attaching the bags.
Cons:
Noise - This shark vacuum seems a bit louder than my newer Coredy and about as noisy as my very old early generation Roomba.
Programming - as of right now you can only program it to automatically run 1 time per day. With the animals I have and the fact it can empty itself, I’d rather have it run twice per day. However, it’s easy enough to tell it to run a second time in the app or with Alexa.
Also doesn't bump into walls or furniture either! OMG I am in love!! I do empty the dustbin weekly as I do have 4 furry dogs but have no complaints whatsoever!
After about a month of use we have had to stop it a few times because it sucked up something a little too big like a leaf from a house plant or a cat toy. Or it finds a charging cable that was left in the floor. If a forgotten toy is big enough, taller than 4 inches it will be avoided, otherwise it will be pushed aside. It will occasionally shut a bedroom door and shut itself in until the battery dies and a few times it has wedged itself somewhere it and gotten stuck.
As shown in the pictures it has developed some scratches, scuffs, and gouges from trying to navigate in some tight corners. A few of our base boards have some stuff marks as well as the front of our range. We are getting some adhesive felt to go around the outside if the vaccuum to see if this helps.
Overall we have lived the robot, it has cut down on our cleaning and has even cut down on how often we need to dust. This was purchased on a Cyber Monday deal with a pretty significant discount. I don't think we would have paid full price.