Shark RV1001AE IQ Robot Self-Empty XL, Robot Vacuum with IQ Navigation, Home Mapping, Self-Cleaning Brushroll, Wi-Fi Connected, Works with Alexa, Black

Where to start? With the bad, let us get that right out of the way. The mapping is abysmal, truly, we have run Bruce (if you can name a Shark branded robot vacuum, what other name than Bruce would you choose) 25 times, he is nowhere near mapping our house, compared to my brothers robot from a competitor who rhymes with BOOMBA, which did it in three runs. This Shark does not even play the same sport....this prevents me from doing room specific vacuuming. And that is it. Unless you have a multi story house, where this feature is a must have, set Bruce and he will clean you house. Wonderfully. Next, the not so great, Bruce is so mentally challenged. For a smart device, he is pretty dumb, but you want to know something, Bruce is determined. He will get the job done. He may have to fumble and bumble his way about, but he will get it done, and, if you watch, he does get a little smarter each time, just a little, but it is noticeable. Bruce used to do the house in large, long swaths, now he breaks it into one half of the house, then the other, and just the today, a new feature, he went around the perimeter of the house, cleaning the base boards. Small steps. As for his vacuum, top notch, perhaps too good. Bit of advice, if you get your own Bruce, run the beast on low suction for at least the first 4 or 5 runs....another con, Bruce does not know when he has eaten too much, and like a greedy guppy, he dies...locks up and cries for help... remember, I told you Bruce is not bright, but he is a work horse. When this happens, you cannot tell Bruce to restart, he has to start over, and hopefully one of Bruce's engineers will fix this, since Bruce will never know how much he has consumed, he has not the ability. Perhaps a command to send him to his base to empty himself, or a shorter duration than the 30 or so minutes it defaults to. Oh, and the base, the self empty….I am sure robot vacuums before the base were fine, if tedious, since you had to clean them every time….but the base, oh the base is pure genius. Bruce’s base is perfect, we take up with a button, and open it with a button, and never have to touch the refuse. No bag to buy, just push a button, the bottom opens and all that stuff drops out. If you have not noticed, but this family loves Bruce, we are now looking at getting Bruce a skin, to spruce Bruce up a bit…We have had Bruce for a week now, barely, but already Bruce has made an impact. I absolute honesty I cannot recommend this product enough, it works, it has quirks, but it works, and very well. Bit of advice Turn on all your lights until your Bruce gets a good map of the area, he is a camera based robot and needs to “see" the ceiling, mostly, for landmarks. Run it on low the first few tries, while Bruce bounces around the first few runs, then move to medium and so on. Remember, Bruce has no sesnor in his bin, he uses a set algorithm that tells him to go back to his base and dump his load. It is terrible. But his vacuum is great, so he gets too full too fast. I can manage it a little for the quality of his cleanup. Because our house is neither toddler nor robot ready, we did not have all our rooms ready, and so we began mapping with the bedrooms and bathrooms doors closed. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, the mapping is not great, but it does move forward, slowly. Bruce stared being more efficient in our great rooms’ right about the time we added the bedrooms and bathrooms. Our house, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 great rooms and a heart kitchen, Bruce can do it on one charge now, I think because we basically added one room a day after his initial runs. I think you can tell, Bruce has been a wonderful addition to our home, truly, a robot vacuum was a luxury I didn’t think worked. It works and now I know what gift I will give every new home owner I know. There a lot of options out there, some a lot cheaper, and if those meet your needs, get them, some a lot more expensive, and aside from one specific feature Bruce does not have,( multi floor mapping) I cannot imagine they are better. UPDATED 2/19/20 Mapping works now, had to delete the map once , run it three times, and bang! house mapped. Room specific vacuuming unlocked! Suggestions to others having issues. Delete the map and ( and I think this part is important) run the vac with every light you can on. The robot "see" and makes its map on your ceiling, the more light, the better it see's. To reiterate, my little robot, Bruce, has literally changed my house...cannot recommend enough. Updated 2/5/21 A year later and no regrets. One of, if not, the best purchases I have made for my home. I will state again Bruce is an addition to the house and family, he is almost a pet....a very dumb, but very hard working pet....he is like a toddler...he seems to always want to be where you are... He cleans your floors and carpets...If you are on the fence about buying a robot vacuum...let me put you at ease...buy one, this is no longer a luxury to my home, they are a requirement, utterly worth every penny. As for a Shark...I love mine. Works great, does what it is supposed to do. The only house I wouldn't think this is perfect for is multi floor homes. Short of that... a must have. 4/28/23 Still the best purchase we have made for our home cleaning. No change there...but a small observation...recently replaced some furniture and changed the layout of our home. We had to move the dock from a north to south orientation to an east to west...and, I swear, it now navigates even better than before.

We’ve had our shark for just about 48 hours now and could not be happier. It is still painting the map of our house, but it is getting really close. I have run it 6-7 times so far, and only once had to interrupt it due to getting in a precarious area of our den, but the map is getting more and more accurate. I have learned through other comments and reviews that it is best to turn OFF recharge and evacuate and resume modes while the bot is painting the map. This has helped a lot. I let it run about 45-60 minutes before having it head back to base, and have found this to be the best way to get a complete map. Once the map is completed, I will turn those modes back on. We have 3 dogs, two of which shed a lot of hair, and were our primary reason for the purchase. I am very satisfied with the amount of hair that is collected. There was a little that was stuck within brushes, but I feel that is mostly due to to some areas we have neglected before that has some build up. That only happened initially, and has not been ongoing. We were concerned with some other reviews about the noise level, but I have run in all three modes, and find the noise to be acceptable. Like many of us these days, I work from home and host many conference calls and have not found there to be any issue. Of course if the bot is running around your feet in max mode, you will have issues, but not in normal or eco modes. If this was a typical corded or cordless vacuum I doubt you could say the same. Talking of comparison between a regular push-pull vacuum and the bot, you are not going to get the same suction, although I don’t know that any manufacturer is yet close to make that claim. However, I feel like the shark does it’s job and does it very well. It is picking up the hair, dust and dirt we hoped and expected it to. I am ready to purchase a mop equivalent to follow our bots footsteps. I know the Roomba has it already, but I have not searched for the Shark version yet. Talking of Shark vs Roomba: We did extensive research online and found the comparison reviews to be very comparable in performance, quality and ease of use. Our main deal breaker was price, and that, above all made our decision. However, with that said, we have also been loyal to Shark over the many years as we have always been happy with their quality. But will also admit that we have yet to purchase a Roomba to compare it to. But feature for feature, we found the Shark to be half to price of the Roomba, and that speaks for itself. Again, overall, we are very, very satisfied with this product upon initial use. Our only fault was not following provided instruction initially, but have learned from others user experience. We have a two story house, and now we know it works on one floor, we are ready to purchase another for the top floor. The ease of use and the time we save, and the areas the bot gets to above what we would get to with a push-pull vacuum, we feel like it is a great investment... With that said, I only hope I am not having to update this review in the next few weeks/months with any issues, but definitely, so far, so good!