What testers say about the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal
The Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal is Shark's flagship 2-in-1: it vacuums and mops with a pad that Shark scrubs with what it calls HyperSonic Mopping, extends the pad along edges, and uses a UV light to reveal dried-on stains and pet messes, which it then cleans more intensively. It navigates with lidar, recognizes obstacles with an RGB camera and lasers and lifts itself over obstacles and high thresholds. Its bagless station empties the robot for up to 60 days, refills it, washes the pad in 185 °F water and dries it with hot air. Tom's Guide names it the best robot vacuum for carpet.
In Tom's Guide's controlled test it picked up 97 percent of the cereal and all of the pet hair on carpet, and 99 percent of the cereal and 98 percent of the kitty litter on hard floor. In a home with two dogs and three teenagers it cleaned an upper floor of some 1,300 square feet in about two hours with battery to spare, in line with the three hours Shark quotes, switched smoothly between vacuuming and mopping, and its UV light turned up spills and dried dog drool nobody had noticed. The app is easy to use, and the robot works with Alexa and Google Assistant.
The weak spots: on the reviewer's deep carpet it picked up only 55 percent of the kitty litter, splitting the map into rooms in the app took several attempts, and robot and station attract dust and hair. Tom's Guide also finds the mop pad basic for a flagship, where robots with a spinning roller mop scrub harder, and the price is high. Shark publishes no suction figure. For a home with lots of carpet and pets that wants a low-maintenance, all-round cleaner, it is one of the most convincing choices.
