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Top Pros
Top Cons
Reddit Reviews
DreamingofPurpleCatsShark, whatever self-emptying model Costco has. I got mine a couple years ago, it cleans well, handles pet hair better than any other vacuum I've tried (my long-haired super-floof is a vacuum killer) and it maps nicely for logical cleaning. I use mine with hardwood floors and carpet (mix of real carpet and area rugs) and it handles all of it well. They just added some smart voice skills which I haven't tried yet, but controlling the robot from the app or the buttons on top of it is very easy. With the app it can be set to clean only one room, or clean the entire house on a regular schedule. My only complaint is that I can't schedule just specific rooms to clean regularly, I'd love to be able to do the most kitty-messy space daily and the whole house only every 2-3 days.
I have a Shark robot vacuum with the auto-emptying feature. The auto-empty is a HUGE part of making this work smoothly. The Shark is also much smarter than previous brands (iRobot and EcoVacs) that I tried. I've had mine for over a year and absolutely love it. I have used it with both wood floors and carpet, and 1-3 cats (2 of them with long hair that shed A LOT) and it easily keeps up with all of that. It's also good at avoiding most hazards like cords and cat toys. Costco usually has a recent model of the Shark robot on sale, I've sent a few people there for it. Looks like right now they have a vacuum + mop combo for $479, and you should be able to just not use the mop function if you don't want to. The Shark app is pretty decent, it will map your home and allow you to label rooms and track robot status. You can schedule whole-house cleaning through the app, or do manual cleaning for individual rooms. My only complaint is that I can't schedule individual room cleanings, I have a couple spaces that need daily vacuuming vs every few days for the whole house. Edit - it also has voice control available through Alexa and Google, but I haven't tried that as I use AppleHome which doesn't integrate with Shark.
I have a Shark self-emptying model that's done amazingly well with up to 3 (long haired, highly shedding) cats on both hard flooring and carpet. I got mine from Amazon a couple years ago, but Costco has the newest model on sale. It's smart enough to map the house and you can name the rooms, and with the HA plugin you can do some advanced scheduling beyond just "run" that the Shark app offers. In my case, 1-2 rooms always end up worse than the others, so I run those more often and will schedule them with HA once I get that finished.
DOOSH66666My home is a mix of hard floors and rugs. Last week, on a whim, I got the Shark PowerDetect 2in1 (vac and mop) from Amazon for £477. I was impressed with the cleaning power of it but had to send it back because I was unable to get it to clean under my sofa or up to the kickboards in my kitchen. I would have kept it if it wasn’t for that. Today I got a Dreame X40 Ultra Complete for £699 as I did my research this time and have found it to be a lot better suited to me and totally covered what was missing from the Shark.
MastodonTemporary672https://preview.redd.it/be1hgr3gjkqf1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3aa1007c2bbf1ed8e64c6018b6da805f7357394b This has been amazing. Never gets lost or stuck. Vacuums and mops. Changes its own water. Dries its pad. And even lifts up the mop pad as it goes across rugs and carpets. 10 out of 10 highly recommend. Shark Power Detect 2 in 1
MatthmarooI have the shark from Costco , it works fine. About 1 time a week you need to clean out the hair that accumulates in the robot. That said it works well. Get the one with the AI mapping of your home and the 30 day bin. ( said bin will be full of fur every week ) ( my robot would go around napping dog and come back later )
Lv-nbrsShark nevertouch combo from Costco is amazing. See my comment above. It’s around 550.
I recently got a shark nevertouch combo robot from Costco and it’s amazing! I first tried a roborock and iRobot j9. The shark is better and I researched and watched videos on more expensive ones and it gets my floors so clean I think it’s the best but right now. The roborock was horrible on carpet. My first was a neato d7. It vacuums really well. New one had to at least come close!
sysadmin420My shark power detect no touch does a fairly good job, other than messing up the rugs (rug dependent) it does a great job. Mopping too. But I always vacuum and mop twice because my dogs crowd while playing around it
JellySignificant8964I’ve had two of these for 5 years. https://a.co/d/08WVyNZY Still going strong. I’ve had at least 10 different robots over the years, these are the only ones to ever last longer than 2 years for me. I upgraded to the “shark never touch” that mopped and vacuumed, total junk it lives in the garage already.
JustHereForCatssRespectfully I disagree. Neither Vacuum Wars or JustADad are even remotely unbiased. JustADad shows huge bias toward companies he likes, like Dreame or Mova, and pretty clear disdain toward ones he doesn’t, like Narwal. Go watch his Narwal Flow 2 first look. I actually wrote a whole post on here breaking down all the hypercritical stuff he nitpicked, and it really felt like it came down to him just not liking the brand. I like him more than Vacuum Wars overall, but it would be dishonest to call him unbiased. Vacuum Wars is a different issue. It’s less overt, but it shows up in how they rank and present things. The Shark NeverTouch UV being ranked 13 out of their top 20 out of hundreds of robots, is a perfect example. Pretty much every other reviewer that actually used it called it junk with an unusable app, yet it still lands right in the middle of their rankings. That kind of disconnect is hard to ignore. Same thing with the Dyson Spot and Scrub AI. That’s basically a reworked Roomba 705 with a massive markup and somehow an even worse app. A ton of reviewers said it was a joke and borderline unusable, yet Vacuum Wars put out “this is the first Dyson robot vacuum we can recommend.” That’s a $1,300 product. People are going to buy that based on a recommendation like that, and there’s no real way for the audience to verify how they got there. That’s my bigger issue with them. The ratings aren’t transparent, the weighting isn’t clear, and you never actually see all of the testing in one place. It makes true apples to apples comparisons basically impossible. On top of that, the scale of what they claim, the size of their staff versus the view counts they pull, it just feels off. They say they don’t take money and aren’t paid for reviews, and sure, maybe that’s true, but there’s no way to independently validate any of it. The whole thing just feels weird, especially with how inconsistent some of the outcomes are. None of this is even touching all the AI controversies they continue to find themselves in. At least JustADad runs the same tests over and over on every robot and shows them start to finish. Even if I don’t agree with a lot of his takes, I can actually watch the performance and make my own call. That alone makes his content more useful on a practical level.
I get what you’re saying, and I agree with the broader point that nobody is truly unbiased. That’s just reality. Where I think this has gotten a little out of hand is treating “they don’t take review units” like it’s some kind of silver bullet that automatically makes them more trustworthy than everyone else. I understand why that feels more independent, but it’s pretty standard across a lot of industries for reviewers to accept units and still do really high quality, critical work. Look at channels like Gamers Nexus, MrMobile, Linus Tech Tips, Hardware Unboxed, or Hippyotech. They all accept review units, and they still put out strong, honest reviews that will absolutely call companies out when something isn’t good. So for me, accepting a review unit doesn’t really invalidate anything by itself. I think what matters more is consistency and transparency in how conclusions are reached. With Just A Dad, I’m not saying he’s paid or doing anything shady. But even something like repeated bad experiences with a brand can create bias, even if it’s understandable. That’s just human. It doesn’t make his content useless, it just means it’s not completely neutral. With Vacuum Wars, my issue is less about bias and more about how the results are presented. When you’re putting out definitive rankings and scores, but you can’t clearly see how everything is weighted or directly compare tests across products, it’s hard to call that fully transparent. Especially when some of the placements don’t line up with what a lot of other reviewers are seeing. So I’m not trying to say either of them are worthless or that you can’t get value from their content. I just don’t think “they don’t take review units” is enough to put them above everyone else, and I don’t think it automatically makes them the most transparent either.
Rankings by Use Case
Top recommendations from others in the same boat
Best for Cat litter tracking
Top pick
Dreame - X50 Ultra
Best for Cluttered homes with toys and cables
Top pick
Roborock - Saros 10 Series
Best for Deep tile grout cleaning
Top pick
Eufy - Omni E25
Best for Hands-off maintenance
Top pick
Roborock - Saros 10 Series
Best for High threshold navigation
Top pick
Dreame - X50 Ultra
Best for High-volume pet shedding
Top pick
Roborock - Qrevo Curv Series
