Shark is one of the premier names in the vacuum vertical and their robot vacuum is no exception. We are completely sold on the need for a self-emptying base for a robot vacuum. Below is our shark iq robot vacuum with SL self-emptying base review.
The Shark IQ robot vacuum with self-empty base, while not a new line, this is definitely an improvement over previous models from Shark. The Shark IQ vacuum was designed for people with pets in their home. We have the most challenging environments for any vacuum and the robots are no exception. Shark has developed a technology that combats a problem that most robot vacs have, which is a problem with pet hair getting wrapped around the rollers.
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The rubberized rollers under the vacuum are the keys to sucking up the dust and debris from your floors. When they get tangled up, they don’t perform as well. Shark has done a great job of beating that. In all of the tests that we witnessed and all of the user-reviewers, even the negative reviews said that the Shark did an outstanding job of keeping these rollers clear. The rollers in combination with the small front brushes will capture all but your largest and heaviest dust bunnies.
Does This Vacuum Suck?
As with any vacuum (and pun) a vacuum is only good if it sucks. The Shark did a great job of sucking all around the house, particularly on very short rugs and carpets and on the hard-wood floors. Deeper carpet, this vacuum was no better, but no worse than other robot vacuums. We’ve found in our research and testing that you really can’t completely replace your stand-up or other vacuum with a robot. What you do get is a vacuum that greatly reduces how often you have to vacuum by hand.
Many customers really love the performance for the money with the Shark IQ robot vacuum. The price-point is typically well below a comparable Roomba with very little performance difference.
One key difference between the Roomba and the Shark self-emptying bin is that the Shark bin is bag-less, while the iRobot bin uses a bag. This will definitely save you some money in the long run.
Shark IQ Shortcomings
There are two real gripes that people have with the Shark IQ vacuum. The first, and biggest is its app. The mapping features left a lot of customers a bit frustrated with it’s fairly spotty and at times unclear lines. This vacuum, just like the comparable iRobot vacuums, map out everywhere that it can access the first (and each) time that it runs through the house. The Shark uses thousands of data points to map out your floor plan. The only thing that this and other vacuums need to do is scope out where your rooms are, so you can, in the future select rooms to vacuum. Shark did an ‘okay’ job at doing this.
One of the other gripes is that the battery life isn’t fantastic. Our iRobot i6 can do our 1,200 square foot home in roughly 4 hours, stopping once or twice to dump the dust and stopping once or twice to recharge the battery. The vacuuming time is roughly an hour on a charge. Most Shark customers give the timing at about 45 minutes of vacuuming per charge. It’s not terrible, but if it takes an hour or hour and half to fully recharge, vacuuming over 2,000 square feet could take all day.
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Our Overview
This is an excellent vacuum with a few short comings, but the price point really makes this a solid contender for our best robot vacuum pick. It didn’t nudge out the i6 (or current model i7), but we consider the Shark to be a less-expensive great choice.