Shark AV911S EZ Robot Vacuum with Self-Empty Base, Bagless, Row-by-Row Cleaning, Perfect for Pet Hair, Compatible with Alexa, Wi-Fi, Gray
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ZELSKA
> 3 dayFirst time with a robot vac. Did research and read all reviews, pros and cons and decided this was best for price. Ran for first time today and here are initial observations. Will update as I use it more. 1) this is not a plug and play item. I did have to spend time going around the house taping down extension cords, moving small items that can get knocked over, and marking where certain items of furniture are because apparently if an item moves from location it was at when robot mapped area it will get confused ( there were several reviews that mentioned that as an issue so I just went ahead and marked items that tend to be moved like a coffee table, and chairs (I used little pieces of a tape called “ gaffer tape” which is excellent because it holds well but doesn’t leave ANY residue when removed. Available on Amazon. 2) the model number used on amazon for this item is NOT the same as the model number on the robot, important because when calling tech support if you give this model # they don’t know what you’re talking about. 3) Had no problems setting up and connecting to wifi. 4) ran it on ECO mode because some of the reviews said it was better while it’s still mapping the house -will map it faster because battery lasts longer. I HAVE PETS therefore endless hair and debris and was impressed with suction at the ECO level which is the least strong suction setting. I Won’t try the other two modes until robot finished mapping. 5) there were a couple of areas where it got stuck but after a min or two it found its way out on its own, probably best not to help it unless it’s stuck for more time 6) it lasted 2 hrs and had to return to dock to empty itself twice (2nd time there was an issue described below. at times it seemed it wasn’t going to find its way back to dock but it did. 7) when it went through living room it missed area between sofa and coffee table, however, after doing the kitchen it went back to living room and found the missed area. 8) TWO BIG CONS: the previous model RV1000AE (apparently the one I bought is pretty new as of DEC 2020) has a SELF CLEANING BRUSH which is supposed to prevent long human hair wrap around the brush as was a feature I really wanted because this household has long haired humans , this model DOES NOT come with that. It has what they call a multi surface brush which is basically a regular bristle brush where my long hair got tangled and i had to tear, cut it off brush. Big bummer. ACCORDING to tech support one cannot buy the self cleaning brush to attach to this model. You would think Shark would make the bots so you could switch brushes if you wanted. Also, in the first 2 hr run an error message to empty the dust bin in the robot ( not the base) came up. While the bot and bristle brush did a great job of scraping the pet hair off the carpet, it bunched up in the dust bin and the base was not able to suck it up the 2nd time, I had to manually empty robot dust bin. Big bummer. 9) You need BOUNDARY STRIPS to keep bot out of areas you don’t want it. This model DOES NOT COME WITH THEM, whereas the previous model does. Chintzy move by Shark. OVERALL I am happy with it. I hope the problem with the dust bin clogging to the point of not self emptying will resolve itself after continuous use. I have both carpet and hardwood floors ( on which I have area rugs) and it has no problem transitioning from one to the other. Even though it’s not perfect I can now have a daily vacuuming of my house without me having to do it (I have a very bad back and knees and there is no way I could vacuum every day). As the bot is not finished mapping I haven’t tried any of the APP features-scheduling or picking a specific room to clean— I’m hoping the APP will work well because that was one of the major complaints I read in all the reviews.....the reviews I read were for the previous model because at time of purchase there was only one review for this model. As of now worth the money, it was on sale for $499 when I bought it. 12/25 update. On original review I had given it only 3 stars, now I give it 5. One of the CONS mentioned previously seems to have resolved, running it every day means less pet hair and debris so the dust bin on bot has not clogged again. still have to check brush for tangled human hair and rip/cut it off but I have to do that with normal vacs so I can live with it. Bot finished mapping house after 4.6 hrs of running ( a lot faster than what reviews had complained about). IMPORTANT, it is best to have the “CHARGE N RESUME feature on while mapping if big house, mine is 1900 sq ft, so it completes map faster. This feature does not mean the bot will re start vacuuming after it charges, it just means it will resume in area where it stopped. Final floor plan was pretty darn accurate (lot of negative reviews about the mapping being inaccurate), also found it relatively easy to create rooms. Have an iPhone 11, don’t know if type of phone was the issue for those who complained about difficulty with the feature. I do wish there was an option to create CUSTOM room labels. When creating rooms I found it’s best to zoom the floor plan when creating room lines, otherwise the named room may not correspond exactly to the actual room. This feature is a must because bot only completes 80% of house on ONE charge, then have to wait 3 hrs, so if u don’t want to wait that long to get a specific room done ....... The actual run time on ECO mode is approx 1hr40mins not 2 as previously stated, and the charge time is approx 3 hrs. The dust bin gets emptied at least once during that time. Many times bot seems to be lost- it will do 1/2 living room then go to bedroom then go back to missed area in living.. not a big deal as it gets it done. BOUNDARY STRIPS- don’t know yet if the NO GO ZONE feature in APP can replace the use of strips- for big areas maybe, but I have strips around pet water bowl and I don’t think I can make that a no go zone so I don’t have to have the strips. Will experiment with that feature as I’m not thrilled about having boundary strips in certain areas. My silly dog was initially scared of the strips and wouldn’t walk over them to get to her bed. Dog doesn’t love the bot she’s a scaredy-cat so she goes outside when in use... it only took the cat 2 runs of bot before she realized it’s harmless... hope to see her riding it some day :-) .... I am still impressed about the amount of stuff this thing is sucking up on ECO mode, and it is not overly noisy.I can only assume the other 2 modes are suction beasts but probably a lot noisier and drain battery faster. Though not perfect, if one is willing to spend the time for set up and understanding it’s quirks, it is definitely worth the $$$ ...I’m very happy.
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Choose your public name
> 3 dayThink Honda but vacuum. Don’t know what I would do without it.
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Staci
> 3 dayWorth every penny. I have a parrot, and I bought this so I didn’t have to sweep under her cage daily. This little robot thoroughly cleans the hard floors as well as the carpets and rugs in my entire 2b/2ba apartment. The only places it didn’t get really well are odd corners and in front of the stove (which sticks out a little). I watched it clean the entire apartment for almost an hour in amazed wonder, occasionally moving things out of its way. I would recommend to pick any items up off of the floor, push in dining table chairs, and pick up small rugs (I shook mine out directly onto the kitchen and bathroom floors). I am incredibly impressed with this unit, and would recommend this purchase for anyone who does not have fur pets. It might be able to handle a fur home, but since I have a feather home I couldn’t say if it would work well for that.
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Rebecca Moreau
> 3 dayGreat shark vacuum’ absoutely love it
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SLI
> 3 dayIn 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
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Roy
> 3 dayI wanted to write this review for any other pet owners. My wife and I have 3 dogs and a cat. We have also tried two other styles of robot vacuum cleaner. The first was a bog standard one that used a roller with brushes, etc. It was CONSTANTLY getting tangled up with hair and in the end the roller socket was damaged and I could not find a replacement part for it. The second bot was a deebot vacuum with no roller what so ever. It was a pure suction based vacuum for non-carpeted flooring. It worked great with one catch. We had to go around after it and pick up hairballs that it would leave everywhere. Otherwise it was great. If we had ran it daily I think it would have minimized the hair balls, but one of our dogs would attack it went near her. This vacuum does use a roller, but it robot itself is not as loud as the pure vacuum one. However when it docks and the base station activates to suck out the robots cartridge, it does get a little on the loud side. But its a vacuum and that it is very short lived. After owning it for two weeks I can say that I empty the base station tank about twice a week, and ive only felt that I needed to clean the roller once, as some rather long strands of my wives hair. This thing has been exactly what I was looking for. The scheduling is easy and the app is function and straight forward. I have yet to be able to see the map that its supposed to be building, but the vacuum gets all the places. I will say though that like any robot vacuum you will still need to clean the corners of the rooms.
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Gianna
> 3 dayWe purchased this product over a year ago now. With a toddler and a big dog we were looking for a great robot vacuum. The first 6-8 months were GREAT! The vacuum ran as scheduled and our house was super clean. After about a year we noticed a serious decline in this product. Often it forgets the map, and sometimes when I log into the app is a completely different house mapped then ours. the vacuum frequently skips some rooms as well. It will avoid some furniture, but others it will continuously run into it 3-4 times in a row before moving on. It also gets stuck in an idle mode at least 2x a week. It goes around the house like it’s cleaning but doesn’t pick up anything. We clean the filter 1-2x a month since we use it so frequently, and empty the base about once a month. Overall it’s nice, but this is more of a spot clean item and isn’t reliable enough to pick up all the mess you would hope it would. We purchased it for 1/2 off, but I would NEVER pay full price
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AdamsPartyof5
Greater than one weekLove that I finally broke down and bought this. So good for pet hair and easy to clean out. Easy to program a schedule.
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Multiple discrepancies
> 3 dayIt can memorize its own routes and you can micromanage which rooms you want it to do. I see mine make it’s way through a door instead of bumping around everywhere, trying to find the way inside.
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MJ
> 3 dayI would totally love this vacuum if we lived in a larger area. The suction is mostly great (although, when its going over the hardwoods, it leaves the debris by the rugs). Really, its one of the best robot vacuums that we have had. I appreciate that it maps the house and you can direct it to not go into certain areas. Its also great at maneuvering throughout the house. The largest issue that I have had is that I feel like I spend more time picking stuff up around the house than I would just running the vacuum myself. Overall, the vacuum works well, the suction is powerful, and it really does clean well. I recommend it for larger areas or homes, especially if you have a pet!