Customer Ratings & Reviews

Set up and only lasted one week before numerous failures

OK vacuum I just did not like that it did not have a cable sensor 

I can't get this mach8ne to clean one of the rooms. I hate it!! I am returning this item.

Worked about 5 months. Then stopped sucking up stuff.

Returned it. It could never find its base to dock.

It’s always so very tempting to start vacuum reviews with “this thing sucks.” In reality though, I find this to be quite a capable little robot vacuum. I’ve had a couple of robot vacuums over the years, all of which have been awesome in some ways and not so great in others. The Shark RV2520AE XL is pretty awesome, though. Robot vacuum designs haven’t changed ever, so what you get out of the box is a small saucer with a huge base. The usual caveats apply as with any electronics: charge up before use and download the app. The app is about par-for-the-course as with robot vacuum apps I’ve used int he past. Mapping functions, no-go zones, spot cleaning…this one gives you the works. In order to enable any of this, the vacuum has to make its first “exploration” run, allowing it to map out your environment. I had mine set up in the living room, where our sectional sits in the middle but is accessible on three sides; the Shark did a fine job creating a layout that I was able to review and adjust. Directly off my living room is a mud room that is a single step down—the Shark didn’t seem to handle that “cliff” all that well, even after adjusting the no-go zone to prevent it from rolling to its demise. I’m sure with more tweaking I can get it to stay away from that area entirely, but it will take some time and many small adjustments to make sure I clean as much of that doorway as possible without it erroring out. The unit itself is very quiet and runs in three modes…the default being the middle and much quieter than I’ve experienced with past robot vacuums. It’s nice to still be able to watch a movie with the vacuum running in default mode, which is awesome considering it can get even quieter than that. Probably the most exciting thing about the Shark is the gigantic charging base, which also has a dust bin that extracts the debris from the vacuum after each run. That, by the way, is not quiet at all, but only runs for a handful of seconds and then stops. The dust bin is very easy to detach from the base, as well as hassle-free when emptying. Generally speaking I have two big areas I focus on with robot vacuums: how often do they require manual intervention (cliffs, errors, etc), and how “smart” they really seem. These are things that improve over time in most cases, but the first week with a new robot vacuum is not unlike the first week with a new puppy…it takes time for the little guy (or gal) to get to know your place. It also takes time for you to get used to not leaving around cords and blankets for it to “chew” on. In the first five cleaning runs, the Shark got through two of them without issue—running full cycles and returning to the base without any help from me. This is about average in my [somewhat limited] experience. The other three runs had mostly issues with navigation of the aforementioned mud room step. This was weird, especially after the first run when I thought I programmed a no-go zone in to prevent it. Seems that sometimes it abided by those boundaries, and other times not. As far as how smart it seems…I suppose it’s fine. I appreciate that vacuum makers are embracing a more “logical” vacuum pattern, with nice clean lines across larger areas and without weird criss-cross patterns that make no sense. But sometimes, the Shark would get “stuck” in a corner, seemingly confused at its location. I put stuck in quotations because there wasn’t anything else in its way—it would just vacuum in circles for a couple of minutes, bumping into walls, spinning, then trying again. Kind of comical, but also kind of infuriating. But I like the vacuum overall…the large dust bin and the reduced noise output when compared to previous vacuums is pretty awesome. The dust bin claims you might get 60 days of vacuuming before emptying…I don’t have pets and my kids aren’t that messy, but I’m not sure how that would be possible. Still, emptying once per week is totally reasonable in my case. The price tag is hefty—$649–but not out of question by any means, considering the performance and the ability to go several days without “worrying” about vacuuming (once you get it properly trained, of course).

This Shark robotic vacuum takes all the stress out of vacuuming and I could never go back to manually vacuuming after having this machine! This vacuum is super easy to set up. You just have to snap a few pieces together and set up the doc. Let it charge for a few hours before you try to use it. There's an awesome app you use to control the vacuum so make sure you have that downloaded. Next, the vacuum needs to create its own map of the areas you want it to clean. So it does take some time before you can really use it but it's well worth it! This Shark robot vacuum is the first one I've owned and I have zero complaints! I love the ease of use once it's set up. You can set it to vacuum at certain times or tell it to vacuum when you want. The self-empty base is more than sufficient for the vacuum to clean quite a few times before needing to be emptied. My apartment is 1300 sqft and it's vacuumed 5 times now and there's still space left in the container. I haven't had any issues with it getting stuck and I find that it does a great job keeping the floors clean. I have a dog so I only run it when she's not home.

Had this a few weeks, have it programmed to clean our house twice a week. It does a decent job with cleaning overall, pretty happy with that part of it. The minor things I do not like: 1) Cannot seem to get a 2nd person connected to the app to control it; 2) The charge on it is not great, it has to take a 4 hour recharge before it finishes cleaning our 2300 square foot home, which is really annoying.

This is my second Shark robot vacuum and I have definitely noticed some improvements with this model over my other one (Model RV2001). First of all, I am really glad to have the self-emptying bin with this model. This is a really nice feature as I would have to regularly empty the dust bin inside my other robot vacuum. The self-emptying bin in this vacuum has much more space so it does not have to be emptied anywhere near as often. I have read about other brands having disposable bags each time you empty the bin, but this one does not have that so you just open the compartment, empty it and you are done. When it comes to cleaning power, it is clear that this vacuum has a lot of suction power. It is definitely more powerful than my other unit. It seems to do a really good job at cleaning all kinds of different surfaces and the added suction power definitely helps it perform really well on carpets and rugs. Along with suction power, the battery on this unit seems to be improved over my other model. In my 1500 sq ft house, this vacuum had more than enough battery capacity to handle everything that needed to be cleaned. With this being a new product, there were some initial issues that I encountered that caused some added frustrations with this robot. I was having issues with it failing to go to some of the rooms in my house. After reporting these issues, I was contacted by the Shark team and they were very diligent in working to address this issue. After further investigation, we determined that the robot was not going to a few rooms because there were apostrophes in the room names. There is currently a bug causing that issue which they are working to resolve. So for now, it is best to avoid using those in your room names if you want the robot to go to those rooms. Shark assured me they will release a software update that fixes this. There was one other issue that I encountered with this robot which I also spoke with the Shark team about. When mapping our house, it completely avoided mapping under one of our beds due to the bed skirt on that bed. Our previous Shark Robot always went under that bed without any problems. According to the Shark team, this new model has a LiDAR sensor which helps it avoid running into walls and hitting various things, but one downside of that is that it also avoids things like bedskirts which it could go through without issue. It sounds like this isn’t likely something that can be fixed because LiDAR sees the bed skirt as an obstacle as it does walls and other things, but we were able to get it to map and go under the bed by pulling up the bed skirt while it was mapping/cleaning. There are benefits to the LiDAR with it not hitting things, but also a few downsides to keep in mind. Shark did say they would investigate this bed skirt issue and see if anything could be done to improve the robot in this regard. If you do have any beds you want this Robot to go under, definitely be sure and pull up your bed skirt so it will go under the bed, especially when mapping your home initially. Overall, after the issues I encountered were addressed, I have been very happy with the performance of this robot. It cleans well, the app has some nice features that continue to improve over time, it has excellent battery life, and it is very low maintenance. I really love the self-emptying bin as it provides for a much larger compartment to hold collected debris, making this a very low maintenance vacuum. I am not deducting any stars from my review despite the issues I encountered because Shark was very diligent in addressing my issues and followed up with me until they were resolved. They also made it clear that they would fully address the issues I encountered in a future software update. It appears that they are very dedicated to fixing any issues that arise as well as continuing to improve their products in the future, which I was quite impressed by. Overall, this is a great robot vacuum that cleans well and has some really nice features!

I have owned multiple robot vacuums and the Shark AI Robot Vacuum is by far the best. It mapped the first floor of my home in not time and it was easy to add No go zones - and they’re respected. It also vacuums in an orderly fashion - it goes in rows across the room instead of being all over the place. It finishes really fast too - in less than an hour (despite it vacuuming a large space). It is also very thorough in picking up dust and debris. In addition, the self emptying feature is fantastic. We have a high traffic first floor and it’s picking up everything - and being able to empty the trash bin infrequently is a huge plus. I highly recommend this robot vacuum.

This vacuum does not realize a 100 pound dog is in its way and will keep vacuuming on top of the dog and all of the hair will get stuck. This has happened numerous times and I would not recommend this to anyone that has a pet that has a lot of hair.

Shark has been taking notes. There really isn't anything that Shark's latest robovac does that I haven't seen before. What's more impressive is the specific way they choose to do it all. They've taken tried and true designs from all over and made their own refinements to them, producing a very solid product. That said, there are a few areas that could still stand to be improved. First up, let's talk about all the things I really like about this unit. The sensor housing for the laser is placed dead center rather than near one of the edges and is also designed to act as a bumper, making the whole thing far better protected than most. Given that these kind of raised sensors seem to be constantly getting scuffed and chipped by the edges of tables, counters, and the undersides of couches, this is a very welcome improvement. Second, the dust collection base doesn't require a disposable filter bag. The (very large) dust collection bin promises sixty days of capacity and features three filters in total, only one of which should require regular replacement. And best of all for those of us with pets or male pattern baldness, the main brush is designed to automatically catch and remove long hair before it ends up wound around axle bearings or cutting through the rubber beaters. It's not quite a perfect system, but it's definitely good enough to significantly cut down on your regular maintenance. Navigation and mapping is also spectacular, with a single mapping run being good enough for it to produce a very detailed map of the areas I wanted it to clean. There are a few issues I noticed, however. The biggest one is the fact that it really doesn't seem to do edges or corners all that well. There's a fairly large distance between the edge of the brushes and the outer rim of the robot, and while it's got the usual pair of side brushes to try and address that I didn't find their performance to be quite as good as others I've tried, and certainly not comparable to the performance you can get from designs that move their brushes out from between the wheels to make them a few inches wider. Another area that could use some improvement is the app. At the moment at least it appears that the Android version has some stability issues that complicated the setup process. A bigger issue right now is the somewhat awkward way it handles room assignments in the map. Currently it enforces a minimum length and width requirement for rooms, one that is apparently just a little too large for my narrow hallways to be added without overlapping with some of the neighboring rooms. Hopefully this is something that can be addressed in later versions. Despite the rough edges, there is a very solid core product here. If you've got a home with tons of pet hair or just hate having to swap out bags, I'd definitely recommend you take a look at this vacuum.

I can't tell you how excited I am to own one of these. This vacuum is one of the greatest inventions. I have a cat so there is daily hair and litter that needs to be vacuumed. I don't have to worry with it anymore. Product was easy to setup. It came with the base that has a window so you can see how full it is and the robot itself. The only thing I had to do was peel the tape off and put the two little brushes on. They just clicked right into place. Plugged the base up and set the robot in the charging position. You download the Shark app with a scan code on the robot. Create an account with your email. Hold down two buttons on the robot to turn on the WIFI. Use the app to connect to the robot's WIFI. Select your WIFI network and enter password. That's it. For me though when it searched for WIFI networks my network is hidden and there is no option to add a network. So I had to unhide my network and it still didn't show up. But when I started the process over it showed up. Then it will still connect when you hide your network again. Then it asks you to give it a name and it will need to do a spot run to map your house. This depends on the size of your house how long it takes to fully map. When it gets through with one zone it will go back to the station and skip the one it just did and go to the next zone. Make sure to have any cords out of the way and doors open to rooms you want it to go in. Does a good job of cleaning and isn't that loud. It is a vacuum. The brushes are easy to clean and remove if anything gets stuck. It also has a filter in the robot that is easy to remove and clean. It has no problem with my carpet but I don't have any that are shaggy and long. It works with Alexa so all I have to say is Alexa start Shark or Alexa send Shark back home. It is on the expensive side but it is well worth it.

Summary: A good vacuum with loads of convenience but a few flaws. The unit comes with a set up guide, two brushes for installation and the base unit. The vacuum has your average robot vacuum look with an elevated camera for better mapping and detection. It is a little higher off the ground so might not be able to clear low furniture. The base is rather large and requires 3ft from the sides and 5ft in front of it for proper use. Set up: Using a QR code, you will be directed to the app. After creating an account, the robot will map your house for efficiency. I experienced the app freezing routinely on iOS during setup so it turned into a rather tedious process. The first charge takes about six hours. To be fair, the battery will last well over the time it takes to vacuum but expect some time if it is drained. The first mapping can take place after it is charged. Use: The robot seems to be rather efficient in cleaning choosing a good route that doesn’t appear random. After it is done, it will dock with its base and dispose of trash which can hold up to six months worth of trash. The convenience is outstanding. But… the vacuum is very loud. It routinely makes sounds as if it is winding up and winding down and might scare animals. There is no mopping ability in this unit. If the vacuum was a little quieter and had a better app, I would give it a full rating but the issues leave it at 3 out of 5.

I have the last three versions of Shark's robotic vacuums and they keep improving and raising the bar. This model takes all that the previous version did well and made it better. You can now set the vacuum to low, high and maximum settings. Low is very quiet and maximum is loud but it vacuums very well. Navigation is what sets this model apart. LIDAR is a huge leap in how it navigates throughout the house and avoids obstacles. It is no longer just bump and go and this model maps your house and efficiently cleans the entire mapped area. In addition, you can update the mapped area to create zones to stay in or avoid. The self-cleaning station does a great job and the vacuum effortlessly docks when the bin gets full, empties, and continues on until complete. Once the vacuuming is done, it docks, empties the bin, and charges with no intervention. I have been using it for several days and it has not got stuck or I have had to clean the rollers at all. My past robotic vacuums were a supplement to regular vacuuming, but this unit is now my primary vacuuming method. I am looking at getting a second one for my finished basement now. It is a little pricey, but worth it to have an effortlessly clean house on a daily basis.

Perfect…Works for me. The floor is dust free and clean. Shark is ran twice per week or when I have time. She’s very detailed and efficient. She finds the corners and doesn’t tumble down the stairs. Love it!

Love, Love love my Shark AI robot vacuum! So easy to use the app and my floor is always clean!!

I've have 3 different robot vacs. All of them get stuck occasionally--that's a given. You just have to learn how to adjust things to keep it from happening. Another common denominator for robot vacs is that because they are small they fill up quickly. I have a Husky dog. If you have had one, you already understand just how much fur I'm dealing with. Even an upright vac almost fills up after a single cleaning. For me, besides how easy the app is to use and how thorough the vacuum is, the thing that sets the Shark AI Robot Vacuum apart from all the rest is the ability to self empty and carry on cleaning. For me, it's honestly a game changer. I get it started when I leave for work in the morning knowing the floor will be clean, and clean everywhere, when I get home. Excellent Shark quality, excellent app, functions as advertised....and self empties. This one is a keeper!

Works great, better than expected. Replaced our Roomba and outperforms it without running into things

Used it twice, easy to set up and cleaned very well, mostly hardwood floors.