For handling, we had 22 testers run each model through a slalom course, simulating a real-life apartment with a tight floor layout to clue us in on a few frustrations and flaws that might annoy owners. For example, some vacuums can bunch up area rugs, and others are too heavy or clunky to steer around tight corners. Still other vacuums have trouble transitioning from shark canister vacuum bare floor to carpeting, and some have dustbins that are relatively more difficult to empty. Our testers vacuumed parts of the ceiling and a medium-pile and high-pile carpet, and they maneuvered the machines into corners and tight spots. Think of our test results as a rough, rather than an exact, measurement of cleaning performance, due to real-world limitations.
You’ll also enjoy the clear dust bin that allows you to see what you’re capturing in real time, and it releases very easily with the help of built-in latches. At this price point, you can’t beat the performance and easy-to-use design that shark robotic vacuums makes this vacuum a favorite among our team. There’s a reason Shark vacuums are a top buy—the brand’s offerings come with powerful suction, fully-sealed HEPA filtration systems, and comprehensive warranties, all at affordable prices.
We start with the research and reporting basics—what products are made of, what they look like and how much they cost—to ensure that we’re only recommending the buys that are worth your time and money. Then we research the features that speak to the product’s quality, taking advice from industry insiders and subject matter experts on what makes a product a smart value (or worthy of a splurge). Finally, we do the work of combing through user reviews to see how real people interact with the product, and if it stands up to the test. Finding a quality vacuum is important enough without a furry friend living in your home.
Also their ability to resist tangles with pet hair and human hair of various lengths. The suction is strong enough in every model that even the cleaning heads with air-powered, turbine-driven brush rolls outperformed many other brands’ electrically driven brush rolls in our tests. The Calima was second best in our debris-pickup test on short-pile carpeting, vacuuming up 84 percent of the sand–and–baking soda mixture. Although our main pick, the Shark Navigator Lift-Away, picked up nearly all of the debris, we think the difference won’t be noticeable to most people.
The NV752 delivers.- It comes with a host of tools, one of which is the TruePet Motorized Brush (a hand pet hair tool). Many of these kinds of tools use a suction driven brushroll (you will often see these referred to as “turbo” tools or something similar). These tools can work ok but they will not have the power of a motorized tool.- It has a HEPA filter. A HEPA filter will remove the likes of tobacco smoke, dust mites, pet dander, pollen, mold spores, etc from the air.
While this pick still has fewer vacuum features than others from Shark, the lift-away pod is a favorite among our testers and powerful suction will make it a go-to in any home. We gave it the highest possible marks for its simple setup—assembled and ready for use in less than five minutes. We found it difficult to move around on high-pile carpets and slightly docked its maneuverability rating for this reason, but we did note that the vacuum is not too heavy overall.
Sometimes brands kindly gift us the vacuum cleaners after testing, so we can update our guides as we continue to learn about them over a longer period of time. With a lightweight design, this particular vacuum is great value for money if our first pick is slightly out of budget. Yes, it is corded, but at 30 feet long, you can wander and never run out of power in the middle of a job. It’s nice and easy to store for small space dwellers and it picks up pet hair well. The disk-like vacuum fully charges in two hours and a light notification lets you know when it’s ready to go with a run time of 75 minutes.
We buy most of the products we test ourselves, but occasionally we are provided samples by companies if buying isn’t an option. In these cases, we use the same testing criteria we use to test the purchased products. In terms of maneuverability, we took into consideration how easy it was to transition between different surfaces, as well as its ability to get underneath furniture.
We are thrilled to say that this vacuum has performed well because we started using it in one of our homes over a two-month period. The self-emptying dock is a game changer and we’ve even managed to squeeze six weeks’ worth of debris before emptying the dock (Shark notes that it can hold up to 30 days worth of dust). While we’ve noticed shark pet hair vacuum that it has a tendency to pull pet hair behind it, requiring several passes on carpet, we really appreciate the speedy clean it offers and fast charging time. This is the age-old question for vacuums regardless of whether you have pets. For ease of movement, cordless vacuums are great because they’re lightweight and easy to use.
We stay up to date on Shark’s inventory and test new vacuum models as often as possible. We’ve tested over 30 Shark vacuums in The Lab and at home, evaluating them on the same attributes as the rest of the vacuums we test. Each model went through rigorous testing for setup, maneuverability, noise level, effectiveness, and ease of emptying. We then compared all of the Shark vacuums to provide a variety—including handheld, stick, upright, and robot options—that will perform well in any home. Using kibble and hair as the testing debris on carpets, floors, and upholstery (the latter was excluded from the robotic vacuum testing), we evaluated how well each vacuum was able to pick everything up. If your pet sheds often, the best Shark vacuum for pet hair is the Pet Pro Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner.