Shark RV2502AE AI Ultra Robot Self-Empty Vacuum, Black

I did research to replace our old one that suffered its final room cleaning. It’s great for all the hair balls that collect in the corners of our home and the added top piece is great as it doesn’t get caught under furniture like our old one. The self cleaning is also great too. Some of the cons state that it’s loud but I find that it’s actually not that loud at all. It’s actually much quieter than our old one. It was easy to put together and get it started. Would recommend. For reference, we have carpet only in bedrooms but we have three small dogs and two cats. We also have two very large area rugs in our living room and dining room.

The new version of the Shark AI Ultra Xl swaps out one side brush for the new CleanEdge blower. You can recognize the new version by the two light gray sections on each side of the vac, just behind the front bumper (see pictures).Most of vendor sites and YouTube reviews have not caught up to this new feature addition. Indeed, Shark has not done a great job getting the word out about and the new feature doesn’t even really jump out at you on the box art if you don’t know what you are looking for.When I first opened the box to unpack the vac I was initially disappointed to see only one side brush and that the motor attachment for the right side brush was now gone. My initial reaction was that Shark pulled a fast one and cut corners after the vac received so many good reviews. But that does not appear to be the case. Instead they replaced the right side brush with a blower to blast dirt away from walls and corners where side brushes can’t otherwise reach. Indeed, side brushes a notorious for pushing debris into edges and corners (hockey stick effect). They call the blower CleanEdge and you can find info about it on the box if you look closely enough. But again, many vendor sites and video reviews still show the old model with two side brushes and no blower.The CleanEdge does seems to work pretty good on hard floors, which I have a lot more of than carpet. So this is a bonus for me. I’m not sure if it’s as ideal as having two side brushes for people with a lot of carpet. Time will tell. I am sure some will ask why they didn’t keep both side brushes and add the CleanEdge blower, but I suspect the answer is a combination of cost control (not increasing price) and battery life.Dropping one side brush also probably doesn’t affect performance much, and may even improve it a bit depending on your needs. Programming just alters how the vac approaches edges to ensure a the side brush is always facing the right direction. And as I mention above, side brushes can hockey sticke debris into edges and corners a robot vac can’t reach. Adding an edge blower is a better way to counter that hockey stick problem than just adding more hockey sticks.Anyhow, I wanted to post that I am happy with the upgraded model for my needs. However, depending on what you prefer (second side brush, or edge blower), you might need to do some added digging on vendor sites to see which model they are now shipping.

I've been very skeptical on robot vacuums since they first game out but I've been very impressed with this one and it's clear the technology has massively improved since then. I've waited 2 months before writing this review. The robot itself, I give 5 stars but the app has several things that could be improved.First, the good. The robot seems to have plenty of suction for me with 3 settings (eco, normal, max) plus the Ultra Clean setting and spot cleaning. I have all hard surface floors with two rugs. I always use the max setting and my house is small enough that the robot can do my whole house in one charge. It does a good job navigating my house when going from room to room and very cleanly makes it's way back to the base when it's done or needing to empty the vacuum mid job. I was pleasantly surprised that it was able to get over the edging for my kitchen as it's likely a tad over the max height limit of 0.75 inches that robot is advertised to handle. Sometimes takes a couple tries but it's yet to get stuck or fail to get over it. It does bump into some furniture and molding but so far has yet to scuff anything but itself and only on it's backside where there aren't any sensors. The manual states you need a fairly large open area for the dock but mine has done just fine having only about a foot of open space on each side. Another great plus is how easily this whole unit is to clean. The self cleaning brush roll does stay tangle free for the most part but if you have longer hair, you will need to pull it out every now and then. Thankfully Shark made this super easy to do. I love the bagless base unit and the vacuum and base pop open without any tools for cleaning. However if you have a pet, I'd say the base handles 30-45 days before needing to be emptied. Regardless, it's so easy to do that I wouldn't mind emptying it after every full use cause it's that easy and simple.Now the bad. The app could use some improving. First, I found out the hard way and after days of frustration, that this robot has a character limit for wifi network names. I had a longer wifi network name which was preventing the robot from joining the network. I have several other smart home products and none of them had this flaw. Once I renamed my wifi network to something shorter, I was able to connect without further issue. Next, while I don't expect this thing to make perfect maps of my house on a single "exploration", there's no ability to improve the map. You either accept what it finds or have it start all over. The app should allow you to have the robot further explore a certain area you want it to make a more accurate map of. Next, the app won't tell you the progress of the cleaning job. The app doesn't tell you which rooms it's done cleaning, what progress for the whole job has been made, or progress within a specific room. Thankfully, these could all be remedied with updates so get to it Shark!Overall, I'd definitely recommend this robot for anyone looking for a robot vacuum.