The Newest Shark Vacuum Shines a Light On Dirty Floors

Only a few hours ago, Shark announced the release of its newest robot vacuum. This isn't another regular fully-automatic vacuum--Shark's newest addition to their lineup uses ultraviolet, or UV light and an RGB camera (a type of device that is used for capturing vibrant shots using visible light) to illuminate stains. It's called the Shark PowerDetect UV Reveal.

Vice President at SharkNinja, Andy Sundberg, said that he feels that customers never have full confidence into how much their floors are actually being cleaned by their robot vacuum. For this exact reason, Shark's latest model uses UV light to uncover dried-up stains on your floor that you may not even know are there. From stains such as juices, sweat, and pet incidents, the automaton uses a feature known as UV Stain Detect to illuminate the mess under UV.

According to Shark, their HyperSonic Mopping feature is able to scrub messes with up to 7X the efficiency of the Shark RV2820WD, along with 2X better efficacy at cleaning up stains compared to the Dreame X40 Ultra. However, the UV Reveal employs a flat mopping pad as opposed to newer methods, such as a track roller or spinning mop on other recent vacuums.

Ryan Hruska, Senior Vice President for the robotics sector at product development for SharkNinja, says that Shark tried all the mopping methods available. A flat pad, as opposed to other methods, helps this vacuum in particular stay in contact with the floor as much as possible, scrubbing all the while. Sundberg also said that the UV Reveal uses a flat mopping pad because it aligns with the mission of this vacuum: to remove stains, dry-clean, and wet mop on hard wood floors. Shark's other wet and dry vacuums are directed at cleaning hard floors and bigger messes, which is why they take advantage of track rollers.

Another difference of this robot vacuum compared to other current models is that the UV Reveal focuses on one mess at a time after doing a main mop. This robot, with the help of its camera, identifies stains and then goes back to its base to sanitize the mop pad. After this, the robot goes out again to tackle the stains it found one at a time. The vacuum actually informs people in the home from its built-in speaker that it is going back out to clean the dried-up stains, interestingly. Other vacuums make rounds and come back to the same spots multiple times. Additionally, while some might think that the UV light is also assisting the vacuum clean, that is not the case. The main reason of the light is to help residents of a home see the stains that the vacuum is cleaning, since using the light for sanitation would take a very long time.

The vacuum also employs Shark's NeuroNav AI as well as NeverStuck, which helps the vacuum get over obstacles and thresholds, similar to other robot vacuums. The vacuum is also able to sense edges, and has the capability to differentiate between different floor types, objects, and changes to the environment around it.

Shark's UV Reveal uses the ThermaCharged NeverTouch Pro base, allowing the vacuum to use self-emptying technology that is bagless. The base also sanitizes the mopping pads before every cleaning run, as was mentioned. Shark says that the UV Reveal should be able to operate for three hours on one charge, and currently costs $1,300. While this might seem like a hefty price to pay for a robot vacuum, this device is in line with other high-end vacuums on the market currently, and is the first robot-vacuum to use UV light technology.