Shark Detect Pro™ Self-Empty Robot Vacuum

We recently purchased a Shark Detect Pro RV2820AE to replace an IRobot I3. The I3 consistently got stuck, confused, or ran out of power which required us to manually move it to home one or more times per cleaning.

I read a lot of reviews of the Shark AI and Detect Pro (DP) products. I believe that they accurately represented the abilities of the products in the context of not doing what the I3 was doing. Of course, this is like comparing a Yugo to a Lexus, so you expect more.

What I didn’t expect, and the reviews for the most part didn’t cover is the Shark App. To me, it is lacking. Specifically concerning setting up the map, scheduling and do not disturb, a nitpick.

I seem to remember only one review mentioned that the map was difficult to set up. I found this to be true. When making a change, rooms previously set up and zones disappeared. I had to recreate those items several times as I fine-tuned the map. I contacted Shark support to discuss this issue and the others. I’m happy to report that Shark answered promptly and I got a tech immediately. This was great. She did say that Shark is aware of this issue and working to resolve it.

The biggest disappointment was with the scheduling. You can only schedule one cleaning per day and can’t specify which rooms are cleaned. This causes me to clean rooms each time that don’t need multiple cleanings a week. It elongates the run time so it goes home to charge, according to Shark, for three hours minimum, before it resumes. What I found was that it took 4 hours 20 minutes before it restarted. I found that by reducing the cleaning power to eco, which does a good job and ramps up the vacuum when necessary, it cleaned the full house with no recharges in about 2 hours.

I did avoid some rooms using no-go zones but have to remove them when I want to clean the room.
I could schedule multiple cleansing a day and specify rooms to clean with the IRobot app.

Well, one more issue with the app, because I could not specify rooms to clean and it ran out of battery when vacuuming at the middle setting and had to charge, it also ran into do not disturb time. I was hopeful that it would resume cleaning after d-n-d time. It did not so one room was not cleaned that needed cleaning. I had to manually start the cleaning.

Since the DP eliminates the frustrating problems we had with the I3, we plan to keep the DP. Hopefully, Shark will improve the App.

Bottom line, if your house area is below 850 to 900 square feet, and you use the eco setting this product will clean your floors without recharging. If you have a larger house and can tolerate it running for about two hours and then recharging for a long time before it resumes cleaning. In both cases, I believe this product will work well for you.

This was supposed to be an “up grade” from the 2 year old Shark iQ I currently have… what a JOKE!
1. Sounds like an old car that is about to break down any day now. Maybe that’s what other reviewers were referencing it being loud.
2. Stays about a foot away from all objects. Due to this it leaves a lot of uncleaned floor area throughout the house. Basically patches missed around the house.
3. Won’t go under furniture like my current one can.
4. It avoids my dining chairs and table. My old one will actually clean under the table and chairs. FYI.. I have a bar hight table and chairs so there is no reason for this other than it reading there are legs there so it won’t/can’t clean under it.
5. The so called “air blowing” to pull out dirt from baseboards and corners is a joke as well!

Purchasing this stupid things makes me feel like I have been scammed. So disappointing! How this thing is getting good reviews, I have no idea. Maybe they didn’t have one previously to compare it to or the one they had to compare it to is less than basic model with no emptying station. But like I said, my old one is a little over two years old and works WAY better overall than this model.
Note: the hight of the actual robot cleaner is about 4 1/2” from the floor up. Since the measurements on this thing only includes the base it self and not the actual robot, I thought I would share that in here for anyone looking for that info.

UPDATE: return/refund process is EXTREMELY long time frame. I’m not going to state the average time frame in here because I think that goes against Amazon “ review criteria” which will result in this update not being posted at all. But thought it would be worth noting the turnaround time for receiving a refund is set forth by the seller and the item has to go through a process, you shipping it back, them receiving it, an inspection process (lengthy time), company putting in for the refund to be processed (lengthy time), then, once they have actually got around to processing/putting in for a the credit to be processed , you receiving the refund within your banking turnaround timeframe.

I have a Shark Matrix that I’m starting out with and it works well. I wanted to return it to upgrade to this model. While mapping out the house, it got stuck so many times. It also got scratched. 450.00??? I don’t want scratches on it. The Matrix doesn’t get stuck and isn’t scratched. It says it has lifting technology. The Matrix doesn’t and this model can’t lift itself over any of my thresholds like the Matrix can. I think it’s souped up advertising that really doesn’t own up to the performance. I’d figure- higher price, more features and more sophisticated. Not at all. Stay clear of this one.

Alright, let me tell you about my experience with the Shark Detect Pro robot aka “Clean Latifaha” (App choice, I can’t take credit); which has become my sidekick & New Best Friend for cleaning days:

Pros:

1 Spacious Waste Bin: The waste bin is a true game-changer. With a busy household and a couple furry friends, not having to empty it constantly is a nice bonus It makes the price much easier to swallow.
2 Smart Navigation: The self-mapping feature is a really amazing. It zips around my furniture and navigates like a pro. It literally lifts and lowers itself when it hits different flooring. Does that make it a 4X4? It’s like having a mini cleaning genius at home. Luckily, I’m no longer that genius. Lol!
3 No More Bin Duty or emptying constantly: The self-emptying function.. It’s like magic. It seriously rocks! I don’t have to deal with the icky bin business anymore. It’s a small things that matter & make life easier.
4 User-Friendly App: The app is a breeze to use. Something I can’t say often enough about product apps, but this app is good. Scheduling is a snap, and I can track its progress from my phone. Kind of similar to a camera system. It also plays well with my other smart devices.
5 Solid Battery Life: The battery holds up well. It can tackle multiple rooms before needing a recharge.
6. Burst Air Technology: I love how it Blows air into corners to get everything out. That’s genius really. What a simple solution to hard to reach places that nobody has thought of til now. Very cool!
7. It actually has odor neutralizer for the station so that your house isn’t stinking like the garbage that it vacuumed up. 😊

Cons:

1. Pricey Pick: It’s not the most budget-friendly option. But when it comes to quality, you get what you pay for. It’s a Shark and it shows!
2. Learning Curve: It takes a bit for the robot Vacuum to fully grasp your home’s layout. So, in the beginning there may be some initial hiccups, but it improves with time.
3. Loud Emptying: When it’s emptying itself, it’s not the quietest. If you’re looking for peace & quiet to watch your show; it might not give it to ya 😉. I’m willing to give up a tiny bit of sound for the work it does.
4. Tight Spots Trouble: Despite its intelligence, it can still get stuck in tricky places. Occasionally, you’ll hear it stuck and bouncing off things and you will have to go save it . That really only happened twice, but I had to mention it.

This Shark Detect Pro robot has become my new best friend for the daily cleaning. That massive waste bin is a real helper, and the self-emptying feature is nothing short of a luxury (at least for me) While it has its quirks, like any tech, there is a short learning curve. Once dialed in; I can forget it’s there, but she stays busy anyway. It’s not a replacement for deep vacuuming but a fantastic supplement. It allows me to keep a cleaner home more consistently (especially with the Fur Babies hair) and deep clean less often.

You’ve got to try one of these bad boys! Now that I’ve had one, I don’t think I could go back to having to do it myself. My list is long enough of honeydews, that I’m grateful for the help.

This is our 4th robot vacuum. We have dogs and cats, goats and chickens outside so dirt at my house is everywhere. Prior models would pick up dirt and hair, but would fill up before finishing the house. Then clumps of dog hair would fall off in its trail. We got a rumba with a station for it to empty itself but the programming wasn’t robust enough to go empty when full, then keep cleaning. This vacuum does that. It goes home, empties and continues cleaning. The older models with brushes would get so tangled with hair but this model changed to rubber instead of bristles and we haven’t had to turn it over and clear out all the hair and strings. At all. We’ve had it since Christmas 2023 and it’s now March 2024. Highly recommend for dog/cat owners. I have mostly hardwood and area rugs.

I am fascinated by this little robot. As someone who has a golden retriever and therefore hair all over the house, I picked Shark because of how good their vacuums are in dealing with pet hair and not getting tangled. This little guy has done a great job in just the few days we’ve had him.

Pros:
Easy set up and accurate floor plan on first sweep
Great at picking up pet and long hair with no tangling. Crumbs and debris too.
You can do a schedule so it cleans while we are at work
No issues transitioning between hardwood and area rugs of both low and very high pile
Noise level is reasonable, not silent but quieter than a normal vacuum. Emptying into the dock is noisy but it’s only 15-20 seconds
Bagless, easy to empty docking station.
You can adjust suction levels and it’s been good at pulling dirt and hair out of our deep carpet
A- in it’s ability to detect and avoid objects (more later)
Hasn’t gotten stuck once

Cons
You can only schedule one clean per day and it has to be the entire floor plan. You can’t do individual rooms
Battery life seems a little low. It took about 60-70% charge to do 525 sqft in 70 minutes. Charge back to full took 2-3 hours
Object detection struggles with things that have low to the ground area base. It likes to try to travel over the lower section of our coffee table and cat scratch post

Overall it’s a great product that has really removed our need to do daily light cleaning. It’s really nice to come home to clean floors.

I’ve been hesitant buying a robot vacuum but I finally did it and I have ZERO regrets other than I wish I did this sooner. We have 5 cats and all hardwood floors and would vacuum atleast twice a day. This vacuum leaves our house almost hairless on the floor! The self empty works amazing and the app is very easy to use. There are some misses sometimes and I need to use the spot clean at times, but it’s very rare and it’s not to the point where I would say there’s necessary a con. Definitely suggest buying if you have a furry friends because it does a fantastic job sucking up pet hair. I’m a bit surprised this only gets a 4.2 rating, would expect much higher.

We used to have a roomba and it was little less than desirable for a lot of money. This shark has it all plus some over it’s competitor. The newest Lidar technology is awesome! And the suction is amazing. Our floors are so soft and clean! It sucks up better than our hand held vacuum! It gets all the super fine dust and picks up my long hair really well. The spool brissels on bottom are easy to take out and clean if there is hair. I can’t get over how much I love this robot vacuum. Shark really did a great job with it. And compared to roomba’s ridiculous prices on their robot vacuums, the Shark is that much more appealing. Do not hesitate to buy. I never write reviews. But this deserves it.

I set up my Shark robot vacuum and ran it for three days before it told me it’s storage bin was full. I have a 1K square foot house which consists of a living room, two small bedrooms, two tiny bathrooms and a kitchen. I had vacuumed the previous week but there were a few areas of visible cat hair on my tan medium pile carpet. I tried running it in the Economy mode since a reviewer said the battery would last longer but it missed picking up cat hair. The Normal mode picked up most of the visible cat hair but still left some behind. It also stubbornly tried climbing up my TV base and speaker stands before it gave up after several minutes. When I opened the Dock storage bin to empty it, I was astounded to see that out of that tall Dock unit, the actual debris bin was approximately 7 inches long, 6 inches deep and 3.5 inches wide! The two fist fulls of cat hair inside the bin was fluffy enough to fill the bin up. So instead of “60 days of storage” I had 3 days! During the initial setup, the map was hard to decipher since it consisted of geometric shapes which I had to match to actual rooms and then label. The labels allow me to tell the Shark to clean a specific room only, or clean everywhere. When I decided to move the Dock to the guest bedroom instead of the living room, I had to delete the old map and have the Shark do another mapping run so it knew where it’s Dock was located. Before I did the new map it became lost looking for its Dock in the old location. It said, “I can’t find my Dock” ha! On the plus side, it hasn’t fallen down the stairs into the lower level laundry room yet! It does have a “cliff sensor”. Overall, it’s fun to have a robot vacuum but for a thorough cleaning I will still be using my old Hoover Wind Tunnel vacuum.

My cleaning routine has been completely transformed by the Shark Detect Pro Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum, and I couldn’t be happier with what I got. This sleek, contemporary appliance immediately captured my attention with its style and features.

The self-emptying feature is the biggest game-changer. The need to regularly check the vacuum’s dirt bin or empty it after each cleaning session is no longer necessary. My house is easily navigated by the Shark Detect Pro, which efficiently collects dirt, dust, and debris. In order to make sure it is always prepared for the following cleaning session, it goes back to its base station to unload its contents after it is finished. Just this convenience has helped me save a ton of time and work.

The Shark Detect Pro delivers exceptional performance. It can effortlessly navigate around furniture and other obstacles because to its sophisticated sensors and navigational system, getting to even the most difficult-to-reach places. My floors are left immaculate and allergen-free thanks to its successful catch of pet hair, crumbs, and other contaminants with its strong suction.

Its object detection enabled by AI is one of its distinguishing characteristics. The wires, shoes, and pet toys that are typical household obstructions that our robot vacuum can recognize and avoid. It’s amazing to see how it smoothly maneuvers around these objects without becoming stuck, assuring uninterrupted cleaning.

The user friendly Shark app, which works in conjunction with the Shark Detect Pro, provides a number of customisation possibilities. Using my smartphone, I can schedule cleanings, change the cleaning settings, and even monitor the robot’s progress in real time. Additionally, it offers a thorough cleaning history and maintenance notifications, making it simple to maintain the vacuum’s performance.

The Shark Detect Pro’s battery life is sufficient, enabling it to clean several rooms on a single charge. And if it ever runs out of power, it intelligently goes back to its base station to refuel before continuing to clean.

Thanks to the easily accessible brush roll and washable filters, maintenance is a breeze. The robot vacuum is easy to maintain because it comes with spare components and detailed instructions.

Considering its strong suction, the Shark Detect Pro is relatively quiet in terms of noise. Your daily activities or chats won’t be disturbed.

The Shark Detect Pro may appear expensive at first, but the time and effort it saves you and the excellent cleaning results it provides make it well worth the cost. I cant see switching back to traditional vacuuming now that it has become a necessary part of my daily routine. The Shark Detect Pro is the best option if you’re looking for a top of the line robot vacuum that provides ease, intelligence, and great cleaning power.