Shark AV911S EZ Robot Vacuum with Self-Empty Base, Bagless, Row-by-Row Cleaning, Perfect for Pet Hair, Compatible with Alexa, Wi-Fi, Gray

The good: I really wanted to give this little guy 5 stars. Because we have a couple of very vulnerable people in our family I dismissed our former cleaning service when COVID came to town and never started them up again. I purchased this bot from Amazon on sale during the pre-Christmas sales. It replaced a cheaper robot, which failed miserably. This robot may not get every single bit of crumb and hair on its first go-around, but it works very well. The routes it creates are logical, making parallel sweeps that align to the walls. It neatly goes around the legs of furniture, returning accurately to the path it was on before it met the obstacle. It does a reasonably good job each time it is run. I found that by running it daily for a few weeks and then 2 or 3 times per week it kept my floors looking quite nice. (I have no pets or small children. If I did have either one I would probably maintain the daily use.) The good: The bot has no problem getting up close to the irregular line of our natural stone basalt fireplace. It wiggles along the edge going in and out and cleans this area of dust and such very well. In fact, the bot does better than I did with the vacuum and better than the housekeepers did. It doesnt care how long it takes. Obviously, people-based cleaning involves beings that do care how long this process takes. Same for other irregular surfaces. The bot goes in and out as long as it takes. For our finely crafted mid-century house, this is a really big deal. The Good: The built in cliff-avoidance works very well. In 4 months the bot has not gone over an edge even once. In our mid-century house there are not only stairs, but also other drop-offs that look really nice but would probably not be allowed with current codes. The good: This little bot is much quieter than expected. Naturally there is the noise created by the air going through it, but there is very little actual motor noise. Usually when it is working I am working at something else in a nearby room. It makes just enough noise that I can tell where it is, but not enough that it distracts me from what I am doing, and not enough noise to wake those sleeping in the next room. The good: I did not bother with the app because I have oriental rugs with fringes that must be picked up prior to running the robot. I also choose to put the chairs up out of the way so the dining room floor gets really clean. In bedrooms I do a quick check to be sure there are no socks on the floor, etc. Scheduling therefore makes little sense. However, the bot works very nicely without the app. For those who want no app, this will work beautifully. I find that it was best to use the bot to clean half of our main floor, let it recharge, then clean the other half. This is something that the app would not support. If you have a larger house, or multiple levels, this is a really good thing. I actually have 3 very separate areas that are cleaned by the bot and the app would only be useful for one of them, as it only stores 1 map. The app-less cleaning is done quite logically and the entire floor in each room of each area is cleaned reasonably well. As noted below, small bits may be missed, but with regular use my floors are clean to look at. A fairly significant amount of dust and debris are picked up every time the bot is run. The bad and the ugly: Corners are a real problem for the bot. Once in a while you need to get your finger into a wet paper towel to clean out the accumulating guck in the corners. However, the same is true when I vacuum with a conventional vacuum. It was also true when I had maid service clean the floors monthly (only then it was their fingers in the paper towel, rather than mine.) Also there is sometimes a bit of stuff left. For instance, after cookie making with small children, if the bot is put in the kitchen and the doors closed so it can clean up the flour on the floor, there may be a place or two where a bit of flour remains. Run the bot again and it will get that last bit, or just wipe it up. I see this as a minor issue, but a real one. The really bad and ugly: Unfortunately, Shark has dozens of models that are very similar with different model numbers. Even more unfortunately, your model number reflects the place where you purchased the bot, not the bot itself. Your model number is virtually useless in trying to find the right replacement parts. Third party parts are often ill-fitting or poorly made and the shark site is of no help in locating your actual model from the model on the bottom of the machine. However, the online chat person or the call-back support are quite helpful and very fast. More bad and ugly: The model number on the box of the one we purchased was different from the model number on the bot and also different from the model number on the enclosed documentation. The instructions in the manual did not match actual parts on the bot. Even the instructions on the bot did not match the configuration of the bot. For instance, there is a figure on the bot suggesting that a circular filter be cleaned regularly. Problem? Filter does not exist, and no place it could fit. If one were to attempt putting a filter into the area adjacent to the figure it would cover the window where you are supposed to be able to see the level of the dirt in the collector. (Not that big a deal, though, because the plastic window is so darkly tinted that nothing can be seen through it anyway.) Using the mis-matched manual requires a bit of flexibility. If, for instance, you know that you need to pinch something and pull, the fact that the tabs mentioned do not exist, you can find something else to grab and pull. This has worked fairly well, though not without a bit of annoyance on my part. It would be nice if there was a bit of labeling to indicate just where something should be grabbed to dis-assemble for cleaning or replacing filters. Putting the actual part number on the replaceable parts would also be a really great idea. More bad and ugly: This is probably a petty gripe. However, for those of us who must use the bot without the app, a key part of this process is to turn the machine off while moving it, then on again to begin cleaning or to send the bot to its port. It would be a really nice convenience if the on/off switch were put on the top where it would be visible and easily reached rather than recessed on the side. Turning off the moving bot is a bit of a chore. If it were recessed on the top it would be quite easy to use a cane or broomstick to knock the rocker switch one way or the other. The instruction manual clearly states that one should not pick up the bot until after it is turned off, but turning it off first requires a bit of a circus act, following the bot, locating the switch and pushing it without triggering the thing to take off in another direction (the camera sees you and that alters the path). Overall, I would recommend this product for a person who is willing to live with its flaws. I am happy with the cleanliness of my floors, it takes less than 4 minutes for me to ready the dining room for cleaning (12 chairs, 2 oriental carpets to move) and less than a minute to check other rooms for cords, dropped items, etc. Then it takes the bot about 30 to 45 minutes for each of the separate areas. During its cleaning time I almost never need to do anything related to the cleaning process. I do clean the dust bin every time I clean, a process that takes only seconds. About once a month I clean the dust trap on the bot itself. That process can take anywhere from 2 minutes to 5 minutes depending on what is there. If the bot picks up a straw or paper clip, more stuff gets stuck to that obstruction and the lint can pile up. At any rate, I spend considerably less time on this process than I would spend cleaning with a vacuum (which has its own quirks) and the bot is actually more thorough than I would be, spending about 2 to 3 times as long in actual cleaning than I would. Time spent cleaning is important. The bot moves slowly enough to give the suction time to be effective, also slowly enough that when it bumps into furniture legs it does no damage. Also, in 4 months it has paid for itself, compared to the amount the housekeeping service would have charged. Of course, it does not dust. Too bad. My house always looks presentable, I spend less than an hour in actual floor maintenance time but the floors always have that just cleaned look.

I boxed this to return then did more searching for information on how best to use it. Im going to keep it for now and just know Ill need to clean the filters more often than I thought. The self emptying feature is really a game changer for me. After using this daily for 2 weeks Im going to stay with my original 4 stars. Our downstairs is basically an open room, 1200 with living areas designated by furniture and area rugs. Mapping isnt a big concern for me as long as it gets it all done. I continue to be unimpressed with the suction, I always have to have it on max, which even then doesnt seem to be as good as the commercials claim. I do empty the dust cup of pet hair every few days, and so far I havent had anything in the dust cup on the vac itself which concerned me. Today I opened the Pre-Motor Filter - which says to clean once a month - and found thats where ALL the dust was. I was very surprised and dont know if thats good or bad. Im used to hair, dust and anything else on the floor all going into one container. I cleaned and washed the filters and will see if that makes a difference. This is more complicated than my other robots as there are several filters to maintain. My feelings after a couple of weeks - Im not as happy as I thought Id be - but the self-emptying feature is so great I can overlook some disappointments. No way could I go 30 days but a good cleaning once a week or so is so much better than daily I wont complain. ********** I was very excited when my new robot arrived this morning. Ive had iroomba which I loved, Neato which is a love/hate affair because I so dislike having to empty and clean the bin and roller at least once during a cycle. I thought this Self Cleaning Shark was my answer. Ive only used it one day so will change my rating if I change my mind. The plus: Even though it has bristles, pet hair did not tangle. It did a great job of picking up pet hair, that others have problems with. LOVE that self-cleaning feature! It had no trouble getting into and out of tight spaces Price was reasonable The Cons: Had trouble connecting to app; robot said connected, iPhone said connected, app said not. Finally just let it run and it figured out the connection on its own. Emptied the dust bin on the dock and there was hair, but no dust, no dirt - just pet hair. Medium suction. Emptied the dust bin on the vac itself and it held some but no where near the amount of dirt and dust the Neato picks up. In fact am running the Neato now and it is picking up the dust the Shark didnt. This Shark answered the problems I had with the Neato but the suction wasnt near as good. Ill try it on max tomorrow and see how it does. Guess it depends on whats most important to you in a robot vac.

In the FAQ for this advertisement it says that it has mapping. IT DOES NOT. After 2 months of letting my Shark run every day, giving it access to all of the same areas, reinstalling the app etc. I finally called Shark support and they said that any model that start with A9... does NOT have mapping abilities. In the app cleaning history you can see a map of what was cleaned but you will NOT get an interactive map to assign rooms or areas. Amazon should monitor the FAQ for accuracy and misleading information as this is why I paid a hundred dollars more for this robot over ones with similar reviews. The 3 stars is for its effectiveness otherwise. I have 5 cats and 4 small long and short hair dogs. On hard surfaces it does an amazing deep sweep job. On area rugs (low and high ply) it is like a light vacuum, not like a powerful upright but that is all I expected. I do have to clean the brushes and filters once a week but it easily accessible, not screw driver or tools needed, the cover to the brushes just pops open and push tabs. For The dust screen and air filter, I use a soft bottle brush over the sink to keep clean and when it accidentally picks up a wet hairball a wipe it with a disinfecting wipe and wash the removable parts in the sink. I dump the canister container 1x a week but have many pets, kids and a Christmas tree skirt and gifts with tons of glitter (which my cats scatter everywhere) and this little guy keeps it all cleaned up. I still run an upright vacuum a couple of times a month in the rugs for a deep clean and sweep behind and under furniture where my shark cant go but I noticed that bc I run my shark everyday those area have a huge reduction in hair and debris bc with the daily run that hair doesnt have time to blow into those areas. I used to have to sweep daily and vacuum 1-2 times a week to maintain clean floors with my pets and kids but those days are over. Now I can clean the floors as often as a normal household lol I do not think this is loud on hard or soft surfaces at all, even on maximum suction mode. I have vinyl plank floors and area rugs. My hair dryer on its lowest setting is louder than this Shark on its highest setting. Its slightly louder than someone sweeping with a broom on normal suction. That being said, you have to go into the app and manually switch it to maximum suction every time youd Shark is on a scheduled cleaning, I havent found a way to permanently set it to maximum. Pet owner advise: I scheduled my Shark to clean daily while everyone is at work and school but sometimes at night one of the cats will step on the clean button and it will start running. With my 2 story it doesnt wake anyone and thank my cats for pitching in but in a 1 story, where it may come into a room where someone is sleeping it may be a problem so you may want to turn off its power switch at night. Also, light weight food and water bowls will be relocated around the house. I have a heavier porcelain water bowl and it does not move that. A forest of dining room chair legs may cause it to temporarily get confused but as long as it has the space to get under the table and chairs it will eventually find its way out and the more often you allow it to go under your table and chairs the smarter it gets to getting out when its done. Try not to feel sorry for the little guy and help it out, it has to learn on its own. Brain development comes with time, repetitive actions, and experience. Alexa users: say tell Shark to clean or go dock and you have to have a whole conversation to do that: (my sharks name is Jonny 5) Alexa, tell Shark to go dock Your Robot name please? Jonny 5 Alright, your robot is on its way to dock lol but it works

I am rating this vacuum based off of what id expect from a robot vacuum. First- this is a robot vacuum and cant replace a good, regular, stand up, more powerful vacuum cleaner. I would recommend to use this as a helper in between a good deep clean when you vacuum weekly. As far as picking up hair - it doesnt do as great of a job as my Dyson Ball Animal Hair Vacuum, but for a robot vacuum it is pretty dang awesome. It does a wonderful job at getting up the hair that my Golden sheds in between my deeper vauuming sessions. I do have to clean out the dust pan and bristles every now and then to help prevent the hair from getting stuck. However, you have to do this with regular vacuums anyway. Suction Power - i wouldnt say it is as great as a regular vacuum cleaner, but it does a great job for it being the size that it is. It picks up pretty great. overall im very happy with the current cleanliness. Other good points - easy to set up - easy to use app - makes map of the house it cleans so you can ask it to clean specific parts of the house - has a self empty feature. I can just pick up the canister and go empty it directly into the trash can. Cons - can be a bit annoying to let it run if youre home, it could get under your feet - loud when emptying the contents / running. BUT quieter than a normal vacuum - Not super suitable for smaller homes. our townhouse is a bit small but it works pretty decent.

we had a roomba for 2 years until we gave it to our in laws. we wanted another one, but the roomba didnt do very well, and we had 3 indoor dogs. the dogs are now outdoor now that we live on land, but doesn’t mean the husband doesn’t drag in debris. we got this one for the emptying dock. it works great. it has errors sometimes for no reason and can’t always find the dock, but it does well enough for me not to have to vacuum but once a week instead of daily.

We haver had two Botvacs over past 5 years. Robot vacs are to do light cleaning, pet hair in our case. We still vacuum once a week. The shark works better than our most recent Botvac, which was a few years old. It is quiet, and self emptying is more helpful than I first thought it would be. Also faster. Last cost was much less than past Botvacs we have purchased.

A solo purpose of this purchase was because it is a bagless vacuum. After using the bagless upright vacuum a decade or two, I had no intention to keep buying and wasting those bags. So for that matter, this is the perfect auto vacuum. The downside of this is that - which I was aware of prior to the purchase - this model does not equip a sensor to detect objects. In order words, it would push a shoe around, try very hard (perhaps wasting battery power) to go over anything on its way. I forgot to turn off the scheduled cleaning while I was out of town, it ran and the cats apparently pushed a small glass bowl off the kitchen counter and spread small broken glasses, some large pieces got stuck when it did self emptying so most certainly Id certainly schedule to run while I am at home, clear the floor before the scheduled time. So if you prefer to run an auto vacuum of any kind, Id suggest that you choose the sensor to avoid the objects.

I purchased the Shark during the after Thanksgiving sales. We did not set it up until New Years and what a great surprise. It works great on my wood floors and has no issues with my area rugs. Ive read that its loud, but its not as loud as a regular vacuum so not sure what one would expect. The only time I hear it is when it emptys when it goes back to its home. We do not have pets so I cannot speak on if it works well with pet hair, but I would not expect it or any other brand to pick up piles of hair. That would be something for your larger vacuum. Overall, its a great buy and would recommend.

I think I’m being generous by giving it 3 stars. First, we have a large single story floor plan to deal with of about 2800 sqft, so I recognize this could be a challenge, but we’ve had a Neato Botvac Connected that handled it efficiently for years, though the robot itself wasn’t that reliable and I got tired of repairing it, otherwise, I’d definitely just buy another. Enter the 2nd generation Shark IQ AV1110ARUS we bought due to the good reviews and self emptying feature. The good: it cleans well and I like the fact that the self emptying bin is bagless, unlike the Roomba i7+ (I tried this as a replacement too). Also, the Shark wanders a bit less and bumps into things WAY less and much more gently than the Roomba. Lastly, it’s much quieter in all phases of operation than the Roomba. The bad: There are many things that disappoint me. First, the very short time between recharge even running at “normal” mode, forget about “max”, of about 45 minutes or so. Then, the unit will return to base and recharge before resuming, which takes nearly 3 hours!! In 8 hours of running, the unit only covered about half of the house at which point I had to send it back to its base for the evening, cancelling the rest of the house. Then there is the mapping feature of the app, which supposedly is much improved on the newer 2nd generation, but you wouldn’t know it from my experience. Yesterday, it generated a map for half of the house, which was pretty rough and not very accurate, but it was a map. So I labeled all of the rooms it found, set up no go boundaries, etc and assumed it would continue to evolve the map as it cleaned more. Nope. Ran it more, even let it discover new places which it went into where the previous map ran out, but it wouldn’t update further. I checked with support and once “accepted”, that map is final, it won’t continue to expand on it so I was told to delete it and start over. Basically, the unit needs to run for an indefinite period and happen to wander into every space on its own before you accept the map or else you start all over. For the record, the Roomba i7+ sucks too at this, Neato Botvac Connected so far puts them both to shame, except for mechanical reliability. I’ll be returning this unit and waiting until the software improves to the point of being more helpful than frustrating. There are plenty of superior robot vacs out there for much cheaper, just really wanted the self emptying capability.

Im not much for writing reviews, but this one deserves it. Ive never had an autonomous vacuum cleaner so my review is solely based on a first time users experience. The vacuum integrated perfectly with my Google Home, although it does not seem to like cleaning rooms with custom names by voice. For example, if I say Hey Google, clean the cat room it doesnt seem to understand. But when I rename the room to one of its canned names then it does just fine. Hey Google, clean the laundry room was what I had to use. It mapped the house perfectly on its first run. I have a 2,000sqf 1 story house with multiple rooms. It took the better part of a whole day for the vacuum to map the whole house, but now I can send it to any specific room and it will drive right to it and clean it. After about 4 cleanings, we no longer have cat/dog hair buried in the carpet in our main bedroom. Now you would never know we have any animals at all by looking at our floors because this sucker cleans everything (we run it every other day through the whole house). As for the auto-emptying feature... It works flawlessly. The only issue is that it will not last anywhere close to 30 days unless you already keep your floors clean another way and dont have animals. With 2 people and 2 animals, we have to empty the vacuum base every 2-3 days but this is still way easier then having to keep up with emptying the vacuum itself. It takes all of about 30 seconds to empty the base and it never impedes with the vacuums ability to do its job. Overall, this vacuum has saved us so much time by eliminating our need to vacuum/sweep every day! Definitely a 5 star rating from us with a glowing recommendation. We bought it on cyber Monday so it was a great deal, but it would still be worth the full sticker price in my opinion.