Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal assessment: A robotic that hunts hidden stains

Finest Costs At present: Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal

In my home, we clear our onerous flooring in two alternative ways. Spills and stains get dealt with instantly by hand, often with a paper towel or rag and a few all-purpose cleaner. For the grime of day by day residing, we use a Swiffer-style mop to maintain the laminate wanting presentable.

The issue is each these strategies have a tendency to depart behind residue that you simply don’t notice is there till you are feeling it underfoot or discover it accumulating mud, crumbs, and pet hair.

That is precisely the issue the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal 2-In-1 Vac & Mop is designed to resolve. Its UV Stain Detect characteristic makes use of UV mild to search out these messes you possibly can’t see with the bare eye. In the event you really feel your finest floor-cleaning efforts nonetheless depart one thing to be desired, it’s a useful helper to have available.

Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal: Design and setup

The Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal comes with an 18.15 x 14.3 x 17.5-inch dock, which Shark calls the NeverTouch Professional Base. It empties the robotic’s dustbin right into a bagless particles container, refills its water tank, and washes its mop pad between runs. The clean-water tank holds 2.74 liters, whereas the dirty-water tank holds 1.18 liters, and the robotic itself carries 0.21 liters of fresh water at a time. That provides the system sufficient capability to scrub and refresh the mop pad with out fixed refilling, but it surely additionally means the bottom wants an ample parking spot with sufficient clearance for the robotic to return and go.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

The UV Reveal received’t disappear into your décor, however Shark has at the least made it simpler to depart within the open. The Luxe Assortment colour choices — Espresso, Evergreen, Deep Harbor, and Ivory — assist the bottom look hotter and fewer appliance-like than the shiny black-and-white docks that often accompany robotic vacuums, though Shark gives the UV Reveal in black and white fashions as properly.

When you discover a spot for the bottom, you join the robotic to your Wi-Fi by way of the SharkClean app, fill the clean-water tank, and ship it on a mapping run so it may possibly study the structure of your own home. The map it created of my house was principally correct. I simply needed to break up a few rooms after which add room names, which took solely a minute or two.

The SharkClean app retains operation easy. Your own home’s map is displayed on the house display screen, with clear tabs for whole-home cleansing, room cleansing, and spot cleansing, and an enormous Clear button. Map enhancing, no-go zones, and scheduling are all straightforward to search out, and the settings menu provides you management over issues like Stain Lights, pad wash frequency, robotic sounds, notification quantity, and Do Not Disturb. The app isn’t full of charts or deep cleansing knowledge, however I didn’t miss them a lot.

Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal: Efficiency

Most robotic mops clear by protection. They drag a humid pad or scrubbing brushes throughout the ground and rely on repeated passes to loosen no matter is caught there. Some try this higher than others, however they principally deal with the ground as one uniform floor relatively than actively in search of stains that want further consideration.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

The PowerDetect UV Reveal hunts for hidden stains utilizing UV mild and its built-in digicam to search out the gunk that will not be seen underneath regular lighting. However the robotic doesn’t instantly cease and clear each spot it finds. It finishes the first up-and-down mopping run first, returns to the bottom station to rinse and refresh the mop pad, after which heads again out for focused stain cleansing. Shark calls the elbow-grease it applies to those jobs HyperSonic Mopping—the broad mop pad on the underside of the robotic scrubs 100 occasions per minute, offering extra agitation than a mop pad that merely trails behind the vacuum.

In my home, the Shark discovered stains in all of the locations I anticipated, together with the cooking areas, across the pet meals dishes, and by the kitchen trash can. However it additionally discovered a stain I didn’t find out about, behind a front room finish desk, the place somebody had apparently spilled a drink not too long ago. After every focused stain-cleaning go, the seen residue was gone, and I couldn’t really feel something left behind once I ran my hand over the spot.

On condition that the PowerDetect UV Reveal’s marquee characteristic is constructed for onerous flooring, it wasn’t stunning that that is the place the robotic carried out finest as a vacuum, too. It eliminated many of the crumbs, tracked-in grime, and different unfastened messes with out a lot bother. It additionally did properly alongside baseboards, the place robotic vacuums typically depart a skinny line of particles.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

The outcomes on the realm rug in my front room have been extra combined. The robotic was in a position to clear it of crumbs and some tufts of cat hair, however I may nonetheless see particular person strands of hair clinging to the rug fibers when it was achieved.

It was uncommon that I needed to rescue the PowerDetect UV Reveal throughout my testing. It slipped simply underneath couches and beds, between chair legs, and round obstacles. Small ground transitions like the sting of a rug or the strip between two rooms can stall or upend a robotic vacuum, however Shark’s NeverStuck expertise permits the robotic to elevate itself over these. Its floor-detection system additionally helps it keep away from dragging a moist mop pad throughout carpets. Stray socks and unfastened wires have been the one objects that constantly prompted bother for the robotic.

Do you have to purchase the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal 2-In-1 Vac & Mop?

The PowerDetect UV Reveal lists for $1,299.99, however as of this writing, Shark is promoting it for $899.99. At that value, the UV Reveal is sensible for properties with a lot of onerous flooring and common kitchen, pet, or child messes. I wouldn’t purchase it for a principally carpeted residence. You’re paying for the automated mopping system, self-cleaning dock, and UV stain detection that offers the robotic a extra particular job than merely operating by the home on a schedule.