Any technology gadget that automates a manual and monotonous task is always fascinating. Two of the most boring chores are mowing the lawn and vacuum cleaning the floors of the house. Although the price of robot lawn mower is still high, the price of robot vacuum cleaners have come down considerably. I decided to purchase one of these cleaner robots as Mother’s day gift to my wife in 2022, hoping it would take one of the task off her plate.
Unfortunately, my wife did not want to use the robot vacuum in the living room as she feared that vacuum could destroy the kids toys. However, we agreed that our basement level with my home office and the main basement area would be a great place to test the robot. Vacuum cleaning the basement is often lower on the priority list and hence gets skipped when we are short of time. Our hope was that with the robot vacuum we can consistently get the floors cleaned without spending our time and energy.
| Bin Capacity | 0.27 gallons |
| Key features | LiDAR Navigation, Self-Cleaning Brushroll, Edge Cleaning, Obstacle Avoidance, Bagless, Self-Emptying |
| Dock in box | Yes |
| Voice assistant | Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant |
| Owners manual | Download RV2502AE manual |
| Launch Year | 2021 |
The Shark AI Ultra cleaning robot has a minimalist design. As such the robot looks similar to most other cleaning robots. The robot itself is very robust with a front bumper to prevent damage to the robot. The bumper moves to absorb some force when the robot crashes against any objects. As such the 360 LiDAR technology ensures the robot does not crash into objects but it can only see if those objects are tall enough. After two years of operation, I do see many scuffs and marks on the robot. The top front of the robot has two buttons that would request the robot to start cleaning and to return to the dock. Near the buttons are light indicators for Wi-Fi and battery status. The robot is little taller and might have trouble to enter inside if it does not have enough clearance.
Positives
Negatives
The dock is sturdy and robust as well. There are no bags in the dock or the robot. The bin that holds the debris in the dock is decently large, easy to pull out, and easy to open.
The setup was fairly straightforward. Assembly was easy as it involved putting together a few things only. I used the SharkClean app on my iPhone to register for an account, give a name to the robot, and run the initial mapping. The robot goes through the different areas on the floor and generates a fairly precise map using its LiDAR technology. Once this step is complete, the map can be edited to label a room and to add no-go zones. Shark recommends to place the base with its back against the wall and to have 3 ft of empty space to its either side and 5ft of empty space in the front. There were times I did not have this clearance in the sides but did not notice any issue. However, it is best to adhere to the manufacturer’s recommendation to avoid running into unexpected errors.
When it comes to cleaning, I only run the robot in max power level because the last thing I want to see is the robot going over the strand of thread on the carpet without picking it up. In this setting, I found the robot does clean up really well. Specifically, if I am wrapping gift in my office or basement without running the robot, I invariably get a few hair stuck to the gift wrap tape. Running the robot, ensure that the carpets are clean and ready to work for wrapping gifts. The volume of the robot while running is fairly reasonable. However, it does make a loud sound when it gets back to the dock and transfer the debris from the robot to dock.
The robot can be controlled through the phone app, even though there are few buttons on the robot itself. The robot needs to be connect to a Wi-Fi network for the app to be able to control robot.
The app is fairly intuitive to use. Mainly you can trigger the robot to clean, set schedule for cleaning, adjust label the map, and set no-go zones. Furthermore, the app sends push notification when something goes wrong. I have received notifications few times when my robot was not charging properly. The app also indicates the battery level of the robot.
That said the robot is not perfect. One thing I noticed is that when my main basement area has too many things lying around and I am trying to just clean my office room, the robot, which is docked in the main basement room, will move forward look around and go back to dock, even though you can tell that the robot has enough room to get to the office. In general, the robot expects the floors to have enough space and any kids / dogs toys to be picked up before a cleaning session. Although the robot can avoid taller obstacles using the 360 degree LiDAR navigation, if obstacle is smaller the robot will bump into them. I have caught it dragging some wires around when I missed take it off the floor. Lastly, I wish that the app would let you carry the robot and dock to a different level and generate a map without deleting the existing map. Then it would be up to the user to just select the right map before running the robot, when multiple maps are available. Unfortunately, multimaps are not supported. The only workaround is to delete an existing map and remap. From the company’s perspective having a multimap feature would be an excellent marketing tool. Once a user is happy with the functioning of the robot in multiple levels, they will get tired of moving the robot to different levels and eventually buy a new robot for different level.
Because I have limited run time for the robot in my basement, I have not performed any maintenance activity on the robot other than emptying the dustbin in the dock. However, looking at the owner’s guide, the maintenance looks to be fairly straightforward.
The Shark AI Ultra cleaner robot has excellent suction power and does an incredible job picking up dirt from the carpet and hard floor. It sells around $369 (USD) in Amazon.com at the time of writing, while its MSRP is $599.99. Considering its cleaning prowess and the deep discount, the robot vacuum cleaner is still an excellent choice, if mopping capabilities are not required. Furthermore, the robot comes with a self-emptying dock that can hold debris for a few weeks. The LiDAR navigation has some glitches and does not have advance features such as poop avoidance that might be a necessity for a house with a not potty-trained dog. In general, for a house that needs a simple robot cleaner without these advance features, it is still a great choice even in 2024.
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