This Shark robot vacuum is only sold as a package with its self-cleaning charging station. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
If you’re in the market for a quality robot vacuum, the midrange Shark AI Ultra XL is now on sale for an all-time low price of $349.99 at Amazon. This deal saves you $300, though it’s exclusive to Prime subscribers as part of Amazon’s Prime Early Access sale event that’s going on today through tomorrow evening.
This Shark robovac is a formidable challenger to various Roombas and Roborocks of the world, as it’s one of the few bots in this price range that navigates using lidar. This should make its auto-mapping feature more precise and less prone to bumping into everything than other automated vacuums. It’s also sold with an included auto-emptying station, making this deal price even more enticing. Our resident smart home expert, Jennifer Tuohy, ranked the Shark in the top five for our buying guide on the best robot vacuums you can buy right now. Its biggest downside is how loud it is when operating. But perhaps if you take advantage of this deal, you can pad your ears with the cash you saved.
While the noisiness of the Shark AI Ultra XL may be unappealing if you can’t stay away from it while it runs, you may like that it doesn’t rely on pricey bags for disposing of dirt. Once it ejects the dirt into the auto-cleaning station, you just empty the collected dust into the trash. Also, if you’re not too keen on the recent acquisition of iRobot by Amazon, the Shark presents a capable robovac without the anxiety of Amazon knowing the exact layout of your home. But then again, this deal is for Prime members, so you have to be at least somewhat okay with giving money or data to Amazon.