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
App was easy to install and easy to use.Vacuum was easy to setup and operate
Vacuum works very well. Does not miss a spot.
Mapping in app works well. Easily changed.
Have had no issues with self emptying or charging.
Brushes are a bit flimsy
The cons have been that recently I will get an error saying the bin is not installed correctly...but it is and the vacuum continues to run and works just fine. It's annoying that the app sends the notification while it is in fact working fine. The other complaint is about the app as well. If the vacuum does get stuck the app will not show where it is. You must activate the beeper on it to locate the vacuum. Not a big deal, unless of course the battery has died and it is unable to beep. Fortunately, we are aware of the three possible spots that it gets hung up and can check those if we are unable to locate it by sound. I do think the battery could last longer. It runs for about 45 minutes on normal power before it needs to return to recharge.
Besides its cleaning ability the next best thing...our dogs completely ignore this vacuum! I don't know if the older one made a sound that only they could hear and find annoying or what. But they have paid zero attention to this since its first run!
The path finding is great. You can move furniture and whatever else around, the vacuum will change how it's going accordingly. Having the bin is handy and I've never had it fill completely full in a weeks time. Does a pretty good job emptying from the vacuum, though some things may stay behind (fur :). The drive is pretty strong too and the little bot will definitely do some off roading stunts if it gets the chance.
The app scheduling is great. I don't have a lot of issues with controlling the vacuum there and the floor diagram is handy to have. The no-go zones work pretty well too, I've been able to keep the vacuum from getting intimate with my bike and then getting scared thinking there's a cliff (yes, the app says 'cliff detected'). Depending on how you place your arrangements, it can get stuck and call out for help but it doesn't seem to have an app alert. I may have the alert disabled. You can set up different rooms and either have the robot spot clean, go to specific rooms, or do the whole floor plan.
Don't let it suck up water. You don't want to deal with that mess.
Battery life is good. My apartment only takes it about 50 minutes to run through, and it says it has anywhere from 20-30% after that. So probably an hour to an hour and a half run time. You'll end up having to rely on third party filters and parts. Shark doesn't seem to ever have anything in stock and if they do, the prices...
Being able to walk through the apartment barefoot and not worry about picking up a bunch of litter every day has more than justified my purchase. Easy recommend.
However, the user interface is hideous. It took us several days to get it to work AND only my hubby can run It. It has never let me in, even though I set up the credentials and I have the app on my phone also. 🤷♀️
The setup for the Shark AV2501AE was straightforward, and I set a cleaning schedule right away. This morning, I checked to see how well it had done overnight. At first, I saw a bit of dust and hair on the floors and thought, "Is that really all it picked up?" So, I ran it a second time, but an error message alerted me to a blockage. When I checked the dust bin, I found it packed with cat hair and even a couple of stones, proving this vacuum's impressive power.
The Shark AV2501AE is noticeably quieter than my old Shark IQ, and it’s especially great to have it run in the middle of the night without disturbing anyone. It’s powerful, efficient, and clearly able to keep up with my household's cleaning needs—especially with two cats shedding white fur everywhere. Overall, I'm impressed with this upgrade, and it’s nice to see the floors looking consistently cleaner without the daily hassle.
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
Second one was older and didn’t have the Matrix laser mapping, which is a must so it can run in the dark. It also had a problem emptying the dust cup- it got clogged. Back it went.
I believe this one is current 2023-2024 product, on the Shark website as of Oct. 2024. It has no such problems- it starts per schedule, cleans well and empties. It was a refurbished Costco model, so beware with units not sold by Amazon.
Earlier this year I fell in love with a similar Roomba but returned it when I lost my job the following week after it arrived. This Shark is less than half the price and truly does the exact same great job. The only thing Roomba's app had better was the ability to schedule days and times to vacuum each individual room. Shark's app let's you schedule but only the entire house.
This mapped our house well on the first try and gets every room every day.
This is a solid 5 Star rating and I do recommend this unit.
I write honest reviews based on real life experience with each item to help others make informed purchases. I read reviews too, and appreciate how helpful they can be. I hope that you find this review helpful!
Well, we followed the instructions, downloaded the app to our smartphones, and away we've gone! 4 months of running 3 times a week automatically, and usually another spot clean or two during the week. It has performed flawlessly! The only issue we have is that it has an affinity for cleaning under the bed and hooking the underbed light cord. It even cleans under the dining room table without any issue.
I did buy a spare parts kit for new brushes and roller, and at 6 months, I'll evaluate whether any parts need replacing. The side brushes will probably be replaced at that time, as well as the filters.
I recommend 100%.
The "no-go" areas are meh for me - I wish I had the option of making them smaller, they are minimum 2ftx2ft it seems. I'd like to use the no-go feature to avoid the fringe on the runner but alas, the runner just doesn't get to be robovacced because that mapping feature isn't delicate enough.
Overall pretty satisfied. Unsure of how she's going to hold up.
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.
The LIDAR mapping is really nice as it allows the vacuum to avoid bumping into furniture and walls, and get a very accurate floor mapping. And as advertised, the vacuum does indeed not get stuck. It is able to detect and avoid cords and other wires, so you don't have to worry about those either.
There are a few features I would like to see on the app, such as the ability to schedule individual rooms to clean. However there is always the chance those are added in the future.
I hope to see a lot more of this kind of stuff from Shark in the future, I think they have a really great product right now that is very underrated.
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.
I have a chocolate lab who is always shedding (year round it seems) and so I needed a vacuum with self-emptying capabilities to help me out between my bigger vacuum sessions. I've had a couple of Roomba vacuums that used to leave clumps of hair all over the rug and this Shark cleans perfectly. No clumps, empties itself, and cleans my 1000 sq ft first floor in about 75 minutes. It is not perfectly quiet, but more quiet than the iRobot and I am just genuinely really impressed with this robot vacuum. Of course it's best to schedule it to vacuum when you are not home so you don't even hear or think about it. There are "no go" zones to help out if there is a tricky room or area you don't want the vacuum to travel to. You can also map and send it directly to a specific room if needed (very helpful for the kitchen or bathroom).
Honestly my favorite purchase from Prime Day.
Cannot believe how much better this one is. Doesn't run into anything, the map it did it my house is fantastic, I can send it to specific room, or even specific spots in those rooms. I hate feeling things on the bottom of my feet when I walk around inside so I usually just wear socks. I'm barefoot and I love it.
I think it's also more quiet than my last one but I could just be biased now
Here are my likes and dislikes. Keep in mind I have two dogs, a Golden Retriever (otherwise known as a hair shedding machine) and a lab mutt.
LIKES:
1. My (****all hardwood and vinyl****) floors stay consistently vacuumed clean due to the 2 day vacuuming cycle I'm on. I like it that it keeps the areas below my bed clean as well. There is NO WAY I can keep the floors so clean manually. I'm older and besides, I don't want to dedicate hours each week to that task.
COULD BE BETTER:
1. Battery charging. I had a older unit from a different manufacturer and it would clean the same house and floors and have at least 30% charge still remaining after completion. The Shark ALWAYS must pause and go to charge mode for at least a couple of hours with every use cleaning my 700SF space. It's like Shark used a small battery.
If you think this is no big deal because it returns to the dock and self charges, you'd be wrong. Although it does in fact recharge flawlessly. While it is recharging it sits quietly..... BUT...
But the vacuum also sometimes needs manual cleaning if hair wraps around the brush or isn't fully expended during docking cycles. So, more times than I'd like (a couple a week I'd say), I stop hearing the unit running thinking that it completed the cleaning and is now charging... but it didn't. Said another way, I may be thinking it's charging when in fact it's ill from ingesting too much dog hair!
It's not the end of the world, I deal with it. But it is ANNOYING after the 20th time. Granted, a notice comes to the app. But you have to remember to open the app.
I don't mean to make this sound worse than it is. It's the difference between a vacuum that overall does a better job than vacuuming manually, and one that is perfect. The shark is NOT perfect.
2. Speaking of cleaning - mine is the 45 day version which only manages a week or so because of my 2 dogs. So I make it a habit every couple of vacuums to empty the canister. It's not a huge deal. But if you have dogs, don't expect 45 days. At all.
3. This is not their top of the line model. The higher version is much more sensitive to detecting and acting on ground clutter. A babies rattle left on the floor etc. I knew that when I bought it. However, as I found out, using the app's scheduling system (e.g., vacuum every tuesday automatically) fairly useless and I stopped trying. The reason is I must properly police and prepare the house immediately before it vacuums. Instead, I do a visual and tidy of the house first and then press the clean button.
Had I known then what I know now, I would have bought the more sensitive shark.
CONCLUSION:
It may seem that I have knocked the unit, and I guess in some of the annoyances I have. But overall, I have a cleaner house because of it. And that matters in the deep south. I won't bore you with the details but keeping my floors always clean keeps the brown recluse spiders at bay. My last vacuum did that, then when it died I did not have one for a year. The spiders enjoyed a comeback because there was a lot more smaller bugs drawn to the dog hair and floor dust. Then I got shaky and after a few months, we are back in a safer house. True story.
Definitely recommend, and the self-emptying base makes cleanup a snap.
The lidar enables this to map my home in under 10min vs. over an hour with the Roomba. And I needed some type of obstacle avoidance in case it runs across a dog "mess" that I haven't had a chance to clean it up. I hope to not have to test that, but it does avoid dog toys without issue. I also have several thin area rugs that bunch up easily, but this vacuum easily climbs over them. It will actually climb over lots of things because of it's "Neverstuck" feature, so you should probably supervise it for it's first cleaning.
The downsides are minimal, especially for this price point. First, the single side brush only spins on hard surfaces -- whether it's due to a weak motor or some undocumented feature is unclear, but it's been mentioned by others online. Second, the Android app is rather barebones. You can only schedule a full house cleaning, not specific rooms. It's unclear at this time if Shark ever pushes firmware updates to the vacuum to increase performance or add features to the Android app.
UPDATE 8/15/24: it does not avoid dog feces, even in well-lit conditions. Every component underneath was soiled. It took hours to disassemble everything I could and scrub/clean. It's not built to be cleaned in situations like this, and that part of the design could be improved. Luckily once it was all put back together it works fine; but I am no longer cleaning on a schedule and instead will trigger cleanings daily after first inspecting my floor.
I was a little worried that our experience with shark might be the same. However, I figured I would give them a try after having a pleasant experience with their customer service over a blender we have with them. The vacuum has exceeded our expectations on most fronts! First and foremost, this vacuum actually is quiet! It doesn’t bother you to be in the room as it runs. Second, it can run whether it’s light or dark. Third, the base doesn’t require a bag or that you touch any of the nasty stuff that it picks up! You can just hit the button and the base evacuates into your garbage can. I find that the vacuuming is great. We have a dog who covers our floor and hair every day so I run the vacuum every day. The shark picks up the hair completely. My husband comments that he really likes how this vacuum thoroughly covers the floor, whereas the Roomba would just erratically vacuum all over the place and eventually cover the surface. It does have the feature of it returning to thebase mid-task to empty its bin then returning to the task and picking up where it left off afterward. It also will go back to the tower and recharge itself mid job and then complete the job after charging.
The only drawback of this vacuum is the app. You can’t vacuum individual rooms, it has to do the entire house. You can close doors if you don’t want it to vacuum the entire house, though. And it doesn’t have a feature that stops your dog from shutting off the vacuum. Our dog is very smart and knows how to press the buttons and turn on and off the vacuum. I wish this app and vacuum had a feature that allowed you to turn off the ability to use the buttons on the robot so my dog can’t turn it on/off. For now, it’s on us to train her to stop doing it! Overall, this cons are paltry by comparison to the roomba cons. We love this new robot!!!
So, I got one. AND I FREAKING LOVE IT!!!!
seriously, I love it.
It took about an hour to let it do its initial sweep of the main floor to draw a map (and holy moly, I was impressed with the map!!). Then I worked on creating 'rooms' on the map. Once that is done, you can use the app on your phone to schedule cleaning - or just tell it to go clean a room (or several rooms, or the whole floor). We have hard wood, carpet, rugs, and tile. This little beauty covers all territory like a champ!
We have 3 big dogs. They shed. It drives me nuts and causes more stress than it should. Now, with 1 click on the app, I can clean a room they've just managed to get dirty - with hair or dirt off their feet.
The thing I expected the least from this device is what I have grown to love the most - anxiety reduction! No more dirty floors.
Did I say I love it?! 'Cause I really, really do.
Now I need another one for the upstairs floor!! :)
Then we tried a Roomba J7+. It has the same or better type of brushes as this one but man it's mapping was worse and it took way longer to do it's job. It also needed all these parts including a replacement bag for the base. This one is a champ. It is quieter, faster and almost always returns to space. The Roomba made it about 50% of the time. Because of it's cleaning pattern, this one gets the job done way faster. On the negative side, I think the Roomba brush was better. This one still has some hair getting caught in it that I will need to clean. Bottom line, with two Goldens, there is no perfect solution but this comes closest.
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.
It hasn't gotten stuck, and cleans my tile and linoleum floors perfectly. It even navigates over my >.5" tall thresholds without issue (my main concern going into this).
The only issue I've had thus far was connecting it to WIFI, which took several attempts but it eventually worked. Second, possibly my fault, I assumed it was capable of identifying and avoiding stairs and as a result, it took a one-stair tumble on its initial discovery run. After that, however, I placed the no-go zone and it stayed away as advertised.
This vacuum brought me from being hesitant to get a robot vacuum to very seriously considering buying a second unit for my basement. Great value so far.
It vacuums in neat lines, slows and turns before hitting anything, cleans well, and transitions well going from wood floors to tile or rugs. I love that the base has a huge reservoir for dirt that I have yet to need to empty after more than two months of daily use. I have four cats, so it picks up a lot of kitty litter and cat hair (it’s shedding season!) daily. It always needs to return to the dock to empty itself midway through a cleaning run, but then smoothly returns to where it left off and finishes the job.
The only problem I’ve had is that it doesn’t seem to recognize the day of the week. I tried setting it for different times on the weekend than during the week, but it didn’t seem to realize what day it was and used the wrong day’s program. This is such a minor thing that I ended up just changing the program to vacuum the same time every day.
Overall, I couldn’t be happier with the purchase.
The only downside of not mapping before cleaning is that you can’t tell it to clean a specific room. If you want him to clean the whole level, just press clean. No map needed!
He does a great job on my carpet and wood floors. No problems with rugs. He doesn’t like my sliding glass door trays but he can navigate them ok just gets a little hung up. The emptying mechanism is great. Loud for any night-time use but I don’t use it at night anyway. I’ve done specific rooms once and it worked for me (other reviews were negative on this feature) but I think that has to do with the map. If the map isn’t right then it won’t work. No complaints with the battery life I haven’t really timed it out but my 2800 sq ft house can be done with maybe 1-2 battery charges and it takes a few hours. I would buy this again and recommend it to my family looking for one.
I have used this for several cleans and no hair tangles and it says 60 days but at first it filled 1/4 on one clean. Using daily has brought it to 7 days to fill.
Pros- gets up all the hair/dirt and I have not had to vacuum since, 10 days so far. Covers everything after it mapped the house. Ignored the 3 ft on either side and 5 ft in front and placed the unit under an end table next to the couch out of sight, mainly since my dog kept stepping on the old eufy. Has worked fine there and always finds it way home. It is doing its job as expected. Rarely bumps into anything but sometimes seems like its a little lost but always does what advertised. May be my crappy internet..App has been no problem. I like that I can send it to any room/rooms, or whole house. It has a little trouble getting over wood strip between hard wood and tile but keeps trying and gets over it and keeps going where it was supposed to go. Has not gotten stuck since no -go set properly.
Cons- took 2 times to map correctly and took some trial and error to set no-go zones, but once I got it, it works perfectly. Should probably remap one more time.
The roller seemed to get a little louder BUT ordered non-oem replacement filters and brush roll on amazon and that roller is cleaning as good as factory and much more quiet. Can't verify its durabilty but for the price, who cares.
It's taller than my eufy so it will not go under my couch but as great as it cleans, I'll move the couch. Besides, running this daily, pet hair and dust under controll, have only moved the couch once in 10 days with a 10th of the usual dust and hair. Glad I upgraded to a lidar vacuum and I don't care that I can't watch it progress real-time as others have knocked it for. I can hear where it is and takes 20 min per room and does 1000sq ft in 45 min of hardwood and tile.
Unless you are anal retentive it works advertised and CLEANS..
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!
UPDATE: We have had this about about a year and a half, and I continue to be impressed. It performs well. At times, I need to take out the carpet beater and clean off accumulated hair, but it is ready to do. I have removed the vacuum collection compartment once and completely cleaned it—seems like I should do that once a year. I have learned that I can periodically carry it upstairs or into our sunroom on another level, and let it run for a couple of hours not using the app or map and then carry it back to the base. This isn’t documented and I had to scour the internet to find this tip from another user. It doesn’t mess up the map, as far as I can tell. I really love this device.
I agonized over which brand to buy, but I have loved my upright Shark vacuums in the past, and for half the price of some other brands I figured it was worth a shot. No regrets!
Minor issues:
For the first week, he ran himself at 3 am instead of his scheduled 9 am. That was a bit of a shock when he emptied in the dead of the night. But after resetting him to factory settings, he's agreed to clean on schedule.
He did get disconnected from the internet once, but I was able to just re add him again to the app and delete the 'old' one and everything is fine again!
Lastly, it doesn't really work great with Google home, as far as voice control goes. This seems to be a Google issue rather than the robot, so maybe they'll fix that in the future. Maybe. If you went Google home instead of Alexa like your friends, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.
Overall, it's absolutely worth the price and I'll never go without again!
It has three suction modes (eco, normal and max). For my purposes I always use Max and it’s not incredibly noisy. It is far quieter than my old Roomba. I can still watch tv comfortably and hear perfectly fine while its running.
The self-emptying bin works great. Some complain it’s loud but it’s not that bad, and c’mon, it only takes about 10 seconds. The first couple times I ran it, I had to manually empty the dust cup on the robot because of dog hair. I think it was just finding more than I got with my regular vacuum. Now, running it once daily I haven’t had to do it. Oh, another great thing about this robot is the roller. Dog hair will not get caught in it !! With my old Roomba, I had to de-hair the roller after each use.
Overall, this unit was significantly more than I ever wanted to pay, but so far it’s been worth it because of its efficiency and low maintenance. I’m really happy that I pulled the trigger.
After owning this Shark for a couple months I'll give it a review.
First the Good things.......
1. Very quiet,I hardly hear it from other rooms while its running.It makes some noise while its emptying the dirt to the base but that's only for about 10 seconds or so.
2.Doesn't crash into walls and furniture like the Roomba did,however small things like dog or cat food bowls it will push around.
3.Doesn't have a problem going from carpet to tile or hardwood floors.Will go up on bathroom floor mats without shoving them around.
4.Finds its way back to the charging base base 95% of the time,if it doesn't its usually because it found a problem it couldn't solve.
5. Requires very little maintenance,but will need some on a weekly basis.More on that below.
Now for things I wouldn't call negative but you should know.
1.Says the base holds 60 days of dirt before it needs to be emptied,maybe if you live in a house with no pets or children.We have 2 cats a dog and 2 adolescent kids.I need to empty the bin at least once a week or more or it will fill up and cause a error. If the bin fills up you will clog up the passage from the bottom of the base unit to the upper bin and then it will need to be cleaned out manually before the error is cleared and it will work correctly again.Not a big deal really but you should be aware.
2.Hair for the most part does not wrap around the roller brush but will to some point,mostly on the sides and middle of the brush, however Its easy to pop off and clean ,I do it once a week,you can then clean any debris behind the brush that might build up.
3.The cliff sensors on the bottom of the unit,the four clear plastic lenses in the front and two on the sides should also be wiped off weekly,if they get dusty or blocked with dirt that will cause an error too.
4.Keep things like dryer sheets ,loose electrical or USB cords, socks ,small toys,etc off the floor so it wont jam up and cause an error.
So all in all I am quite happy with this Shark unit 60 days in,it runs 6 days a week with hardly any problems.
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.
We are one step closer to robots eliminating us humans by purchasing one of these automated butlers. We're screwed once they go self-aware....BUT, in the meantime, we are happily milking this thing for it's service.
Some details, we bought AV2501AE. Some of these reviews seem to lump several models together. This one has LIDAR nav and a 60-day self emptying base.
Thus far, about a month in, we are completely satisfied. It mapped out house accurately and the app DOES allow you to clean room by room, spot clean, or whole house clean from the app alone. I have yet to physically pick this thing up.
We have the base under an entry-way table that technically doesn't meet their requirements of 3 feet on either side, but it has not had any issues finding home base. Your mileage here may vary, but this has been our experience.
We've been happy with it's cleaning performance. We had the cheapo iRobot before this, and we had to sweep our kitchen (laminate floors) after that thing would run. This one picks up 90% of the dirt and cheerios our 8 month old throws on the floor. carpet cleaning has been A+.
Where this model does lack a bit is in edge and corner performance. The irobot beat it there, but it's usually only a few areas, and only larger debris (like the aforementioned cheerios).
It seems to do fine with moving furniture around. We found that doing the initial house mapping with all the moveable furniture picked up (kitchen chairs on the table, trash can right outside the door, TV trays on the fireplace hearth), it mapped the walls of the home really well, and will navigate around these objects just fine.
I will come back and update if something goes awry with this, frankly its just too much money on these for them not to perform well, and so far this one has been worth the money. We got it for just over $400 on black Friday, 2021.