[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] This was my first time experiencing a robot vacuum. I was very curious to see if they live up to the hype. After trying it and playing with all of its features, I can officially say I’m in love with this Shark Matrix robot vacuum!
I was a bit intimidated at first because I thought the initial setup would be complicated and lengthy. Much to my surprise, the set up was very easy and took me less than 10 minutes to get it running. I downloaded the Shark app on my iPhone and followed the on screen instructions. The app does a very good job at walking you through the initial setup and also informs you what feature this version of the Shark has.
Before you vacuum for the first time, the robot has to do an initial run though of the house to map it. You get to see the actual map it produces right in the app. In my opinion, the map was very accurate to what our house looks like. You’re able to label each of the rooms as well as give the robot an actual name, which I thought was pretty fun!
As for the vacuuming, it did a very good job at picking up dirt, dust, hair and other small things. We have hardwood and area rugs around the house and the vacuum had no issues going from one surface to the other. The only time ours stoped and got stuck was when it tried to pick up something it shouldn’t have, like a shoelace or piece of ribbon in our case. The robot will automatically go back to its base when it’s done clearing, needs to recharge or needs to empty itself. When it empties, the robot goes in the base where another vacuum like system sucks all the debris into the base. We are able to get 8 or 9 clearing cycles before we have to empty the base, so it does hold a lot. There are no bags either. All you need to do is take the container out of the base, flip the latch and everything easily dumps out.
The app is impressive as well. It’ll give you a cleaning history where you can see where it cleaned, run time and more. It allows you to program a cleaning schedule where it will clean at certain times. There is also an alarm on it that you can use if you’ve lost the robot somewhere! The app also lets you spot clean a particular area buy just selecting the location you want it to focus on.
There were two negatives about the Shark that I noticed. The first and most noticeable is that it’s a bit loud. It’s not as loud as a traditional vacuum but still noisy if you’re trying to watch tv or working from home. One other downside I noticed is that it doesn’t clean corners very well. I think it’s circular design doesn’t help it much in corners. Not a dealbreaker for us but just something to keep in mind.
Overall, however, this Shark Matrix robot vacuum is amazing. The setup process is quick and easy and also very informative. The app that it uses is well laid out, easy to navigate and allows you to control everything from your phone. It’s really nice coming home to clean floors every day. Our whole family has fun with it! I’d highly recommend to others looking for a quality, well designed and effective robot vacuum. We are in love with ours and like its cleaning ability and additional features it has to offer.