Expert review
Positives
- Anti-odor puck to banish bad odors
- Cleans and dries the mop pad
- Can lift self onto rugs or carpets
- Won’t crash
- Practically maintenance-free
Disadvantages
- Does not reach corners
- ‘Spot’ cleaning function difficult to locate
Our verdict
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to have a live-in cleaner at your fingertips (or at the click of a button), find out with the Pro 2-in-1. Not only does it vacuum, mop and refill itself, just like its predecessor, but it also empties the dirty water and also washes and dries the mop pad, ready for the next cleaning. But despite the clever Edge Detect technology, it didn’t reach food or dirt tucked into corners.
Price upon review
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Best price today
Price upon review
$999.99
Best prices today: Shark PowerDetect NeverTouch Pro 2-in-1
$699.99
Launched in September 2024, the Shark PowerDetect NeverTouch Pro 2-in-1 is the brand’s newest, fanciest and most maintenance-free robot vacuum, as it does all the mopping, vacuuming and tidying up after itself, so you don’t have to .
With two other robot vacuums in the PowerDetect NeverTouch line, it’s a step up from the 2-in-1 self-emptying, self-refilling robot vacuum cleaner and mop and a giant leap forward from the Self-emptying robot vacuum cleaner.
Its USP? The fact is that once you get this gadget set up, it requires little practical maintenance. It deposits dirt and dirty water into the main unit, keeps everything smelling fresh with the anti-odor puck and also washes and dries the antibacterial mop pad, ready for the next run.
After four weeks of trying out the Pro 2-in-1, the smart robot lived up to many of its claims. It holds fresh water for up to 30 days, avoids objects while cleaning, and thanks to NeverStuck technology, it never got stuck – you guessed it.
That said, there were a few challenges. The Edge Detect doesn’t suck up all the dirt from the corners, while the Wet Edge Detect can’t mop as far into crevices. Additionally, it was a bit tricky to identify areas that “need cleaning” in the spot cleaning feature.
Read on to find out if the Shark PowerDetect NeverTouch Pro 2-in-1 is worth it. We dug deep into the design and build, along with the performance and features. And to see our top recommendations among rivals, check out our roundup of the best robot vacuums we tested.
Design and construction
- Robust and aesthetically pleasing design
- Weighs 11.85 kg
- Dimensions: 44.6 (H) x 47.7 (W) x 36.4cm (D)
First of all, the Shark PowerDetect NeverTouch Pro 2-in-1 is not an eyesore. Shark attaches great importance to the aesthetic appeal of its technology. When you’re only spending £800/$1,000 on a gadget, you naturally want it to do everything it says on the tin (and more).
But a home is often a reflection of its residents. And luckily Shark knows this, so the matte black and silver vacuum looks and feels good together with the base.
The robot vacuum cleaner is no less than 34 cm wide and with a height of 7 cm it looks easy to float under low furniture.
However, the dock is quite long and sturdy: 44.6 cm high and 47.7 cm wide. Unlike the Shark PowerDetect NeverTouch 2-in-1, the Pro has a slightly different main unit, as it comes with two separate tanks: one for 1.7 liters of fresh water and the other for storing dirty mop pad gunk. These are located at the top of the base unit.
Rebecca Shepherd / Foundry
On the back right you’ll find the smart bagless base, which is said to trap up to 99.9% of dust, allergens and irritants, with all debris not needing to be emptied for up to 60 days. The wonderfully scented, odor-neutralizing cartridge is located under the top flap and is easy to click into place.
The matte black and silver vacuum cleaner, along with the base, looks and feels good
The robot comes with a smart 360° LiDAR vision that allows you to map your home and avoid objects. Below the robot you’ll find the cylindrical anti-hair wrap vacuum cleaner that can be removed for cleaning, a mop pad, which sits in the base but is attached when the vacuum cleaner is ready to mop, and a side brush, which sweeps dirt into the path of the vacuum cleaner.
Rebecca Shepherd / Foundry
Like most other robot vacuums, the Pro comes with a number of easy-to-use controls on top. This allows you to send it home, mop or vacuum it.
Rebecca Shepherd / Foundry
Performance and features
- Easy to set up
- 5 deep cleaning technologies
- Won’t crash
Once you’ve downloaded the SharkClean app and named your vacuum cleaner, it’s time to let your robot explore your space. You will have a map of your house within minutes.
To test it, I let it explore my ground floor, which largely has a wooden floor, a small piece of low-pile gray carpet and some doormats. It glided over all surfaces with ease, sensing the change underneath and raising itself accordingly.
The nice thing is that you can set ‘no-go’ zones, but also divide your house into different rooms and set up a cleaning schedule, on different dates, times and specific days. You will also receive a ‘cleaning report’ showing which areas the vacuum cleaner has mopped or vacuumed, so that you can keep an overview of your cleaning work.
Rebecca Shepherd / Foundry
The Shark PowerDetect NeverTouch Pro 2-in-1 comes with five deep cleaning technologies. In addition to the Floor Detect, which automatically adjusts the suction power after detecting the type of floor it is on, it is also equipped with Dirt Detect, which – as the name suggests – detects dirt and increases the suction power to ensure that the dirt is removed. away.
Instead of smearing dirt into the surface, stains disappeared every time
The third is Edge Detect. This piece of technology uses blasts of air to force debris out of its hiding places and into the robot’s bin.
While the vacuum worked overtime to remove the crumbs in the kitchen corners and used the side sweeping brush to sweep dirt in its path, dirty spots were still left behind at the end of the cleaning. To make sure they were gone, I had to either manually sweep them into the robot’s path or pick them up by hand.
The Pro also has a smart spot mode that extends the time it takes to clean a messy area. This function has been tested several times on a small amount of spilled juice, a coffee stain and wet mud stains. A recipe for disaster, right? Wrong. Instead of smearing dirt into the surface, stains disappeared every time.
And better yet, you don’t even have to deal with the cleanup. Once the task was completed, he went back to base to clean and dry the antimicrobial mop pad itself, ready for the next run.
After 30 days of use, the pad still looked like new. And after looking inside the dirty tank, it was surprising to see how much dirt, bacteria and spillage the part had sucked up and stored.
Rebecca Shepherd / Foundry
Just make sure you don’t leave a stain in a corner. While the gadget’s Wet Edge Detect extends the mop pad to reach crevices, it didn’t reach the corners in my house.
Another downside was the ‘Spot’ cleaning function. On the app, you can mouse over the area you want to clean, but you can’t make this area larger. Once when I was asked to vacuum a particular spot, the ‘area’ wasn’t big enough to cover everything, so I had to wait for it to return to its base so I could set it twice to clean it. I also had trouble determining the area I needed to clean, which meant I had to cancel the job and start over.
Price and availability
In the UK, the Shark PowerDetect NeverTouch Pro 2-in-1 is available from a number of retailers including John Lewis, Curries and directly from Shark itself, for £799.99. There are no offers for it at the time of writing, but we expect the price to drop in the coming months – perhaps as early as the January sale.
In the US it has a suggested retail price of $999.99, but it’s already discounted to $699.99 on Amazon, Shark, and Best Buy.
There is no doubt that this is an expensive product, but compared to competing models from other brands with similar features, it represents good value for money, especially if you buy it on sale.
You can see how it compares to the competition in our review of the best robot vacuum cleaners we tested. And if you like the look of the Pro model but don’t think you need all the features, you can browse Shark’s more budget-friendly models on its website.
Should you buy the Shark PowerDetect NeverTouch Pro 2-in-1?
The Shark’s PowerDetect Never Touch Pro 2-in-1 excels in many areas – and I don’t say that lightly.
If you’re looking for a robot vacuum that requires minimal maintenance, won’t get stuck, and will clean your floors morning, noon, or night, then this piece of technology is happy to take on the challenge. The clue is really in the name NeverTouch.
Plus, this robot worked just as well on hardwood floors as it did on carpet. And even though dirty water and dirt remained in the hub, the fresh-smelling anti-odor cartridge ensured that no odor was created.
Please note that you shall You’ll need to get to grips with the fairly simple design of the SharkClean app, which makes it a guessing game to pinpoint where you want to ‘spot’ it.
And that the robot vacuum won’t necessarily sweep or mop every crack in your home. But that said, there’s no denying that your floors shall look a lot better than before your Shark started.
