Shark PowerDetect 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum and Mop Review 2025

The Shark PowerDetect 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum and Mop with NeverTouch Pro Base is an unassuming yet robust robot cleaner that works well on mixed surface types — in fact, it’s one of the best vacuum and mop combos I’ve tried. It bundles smart features like mop washing and drying in its NeverTouch Pro base station so that there’s very little manual work you need to do with reliable and effective vacuuming and mopping. Paired with its mobile app for scheduling, it should remove regular, tedious cleaning from your to-do list.

I’ve been testing technology products for over a decade, focusing heavily on robot vacuums and mops for the last five years. I wasn’t expecting this unit to be so thorough in its cleaning tests. It’s the most premium option in Shark’s lineup, retailing for $1,000 (and often on sale for $699), but it managed to surpass some of the other big names by picking up more crumbs and scrubbing a little bit stronger.

While the Shark PowerDetect NeverTouch Pro provides a well-rounded cleaning performance that anyone can appreciate, people who want a hands-off robot experience will find it the most useful. For better or worse, there aren’t a lot of settings to configure and fuss with or a lot of superfluous features tacked on. Among the best Shark vacuums, this machine is all about automated cleaning.

Setup

Like most cleaning robots, there are a few components to connect with the Shark PowerDetect, but most of the setup is relegated to the Shark Clean mobile app. The big thing is to make sure to add the odor neutralizer pod that comes with the base station, and add the detergent to the water bucket. These elements are key to the full experience and do actually work.

Both the robot and its base station are compact and can be tucked away. If you don’t want to look at it, you should be able to find some place out of sight for it. One way the station saves some space is by reducing the size of the water reservoir buckets. They’re big enough to be useful, but not massive like some other models can be.

Within the mobile app, the focus is on your home’s floor plan. In fact, that’s nearly the only thing the Shark Clean app incorporates. You can select whether you want to clean your entire home, specific rooms, or a spot. You can create a recurring schedule, edit and relabel the app, and add no-go zones, but there just aren’t a whole lot of other settings and features buried in the app. When starting a cleaning, you’re only prompted whether you want to vacuum or mop. You aren’t confronted with the suction level or the number of times to repeat the cleaning. This will be a negative if you really want control over these settings, but otherwise, you can count it in the win column. I am someone who likes controlling those things, but ultimately, I let go of being overly tedious and found it more of a relief than a hindrance in the long run.

I appreciated that the map view in the Shark Clean app provided enough detail to see rugs and basic furniture. Unlike some vacuums, this PowerDetect also has enough vision to draw angled walls so that rooms are instantly distinctive. This helps orient you if manually adding a no-go zone is needed.

Vacuuming Performance

The beautiful thing about the PowerDetect is that if you are only vacuuming at times, it will leave its mopping back behind at its base station. This helps it completely avoid accidentally touching a damp or dirty mopping pad on a rug or carpet.

To get a better sense of the robot’s carpet cleaning skills, I used coffee grounds, flour, and crushed up cereal within a taped-off area on an area rug. The PowerDetect picked up an estimated 90% of the coffee grounds, 92% of the flour, and 99% or nearly all of the whole and crushed Cheerios. The robot is able to automatically adjust suction according to the floor type and amount of dirt detected, thanks to it’s “Dirt Detect” feature, but you as the user is not able to manually adjust suction settings. You may only notice the difference in suction based on the noise level between carpet and hard flooring.

In terms of how well it can get into crevices, the unit was able to pick up around 93% of the flour I spread diagonally into a corner. That’s among the top results I’ve seen after running a dozen or so robot vacuums in the last year. Its side brush and vacuuming path seemed to be its key to success in this test. I was overall pretty satisfied with suction and thorough performance on both hard floors and carpets.

When I busted out a decibel meter to check the volume, it registered around 63 to 65 dB at a measuring distance between 12 and 24 inches away from it. There are fluctuations in its noise level depending on dirt detection and the pile level of the carpet, but overall, it stayed even-keeled.

On the noise front, it did squeak at times when mopping from its pad while scrubbing. Its plastic shell and internal components did contribute to its overall noise level. Mostly, that aspect makes some of the higher-end premium models seem ultra smooth and silent in transit, from one room to another.

After six weeks of varied use, I surveyed the brushes for long, tangled hair strands from my wife and daughter, but couldn’t find any. While I found some on other robot vacuums, I didn’t see any on the side brushes or even inside, after removing the roller brush completely. I’m inclined to believe this vacuum will be able to overcome moderate pet hair, based on the amount of material it picked up across rugs and hardwood floors. But I can’t comment explicitly on pet hair performance.

Mopping

I would argue that the PowerDetect’s strongest component is its mopping capabilities. That aspect is not simply tacked on to a robot vacuum here. So, while I was satisfied with its suction skills, you’ll be best served if you let the robot complete both tasks.

The PowerDetect is a mopping wizard. When so many other robots bolt on a damp pad to wipe floors, this one earns its mopping distinction. Unlike models with two spinning pads, the PowerDetect uses a single mopping pad that shifts back and forth and applies pressure to scrub as it moves. It should be noted that even this device isn’t as good as the fancy new wet and dry vacuums. However, it does have the advantage of being hands-free and autonomous.

When running the same food tests on hardwood, with vacuuming and mopping enabled, the PowerDetect picked up 99% of the coffee grounds, 98% of the flour, and 100% of the crushed-up cereal bits. When spot cleaning, the robot is extra thorough and will spin 360 degrees, alternating directions, every foot, in addition to its mop scrubbing. This process takes a little longer than some other robots, but the results speak for themselves. It just didn’t leave hardly any trace that food had been spread on the floor.

Cleaning errant mustard squirted on the floor during its normal mopping duty wasn’t perfect, but it did get the spill removed with almost no trace left. The hiccups during this test came afterward, from mustard traces remaining underneath the machine as the rest of the kitchen floor. Case in point, the robot was able to lift up, and angle its mop pad high enough that none of the condiment from the mop pad got on the kitchen rug. Unfortunately, a trace amount from a plastic piece underneath did.

I used the PowerDetect on real hardwood floors, so I was a little more attuned to the amount of water the robot used during its mopping tasks. There were a few times it seemed to leave more water on the floor than I would have liked to see, but this wasn’t the norm. You can also change the settings in the app to use less water, which I did turn on later in the testing process.

Navigation and obstacle avoidance

The robot is smart about its mapping, able to detect different floor surfaces and operate in the dark. During its cleaning, I found its LiDAR-based object avoidance to be satisfactory. It had some trouble with thin, low-to-the-ground metal end table legs. It also bumped some objects like cardboard boxes and managed to slide some dining chairs an inch or two.

For example, occasionally it made its way into places, under a table, that it couldn’t easily escape. So, it would spend several minutes navigating through chair legs that only had one way in and out. Eventually it found its way, but in the process burned extra time, battery, and created more noise. For people who want every single inch covered at the expense of those other things, it’ll be worth it. The PowerDetect is clearly on a mission. For others, it could be annoying.

The robot does show its real-time location on the map in the app. However, be aware that there is a 10-second or so delay, and it doesn’t leave a trail or process path to show how far it is in a certain room. If you want more real-time tracking or to see a cleaning path, you’ll need to spend a little more money for higher-end units.

Another navigation or mapping note is that Shark does not have the ability to create multiple maps or floor plans. That means if you want your robot to clean a different floor of your home, you can let it “run” a spot clean, but it won’t be able to orient where it is except within the original map of the house.

Self-cleaning and maintenance

The full name of the Shark PowerDetect 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum and Mop with NeverTouch Pro Base highlights its best features. That is to say, its base station maintains itself, with a dedicated area for the robot to offload the accumulated debris. Shark claims it can hold up to 60 days of debris, and most people, even those with pets should be able to get by in that timeframe before needing to empty it, but, of course, mileage may vary in this department.

The station will also clean and dry the mopping pad automatically after each cleaning mission or if robot needs more solution for mopping, so you don’t have to mess with that regularly. It doesn’t go back after cleaning a certain amount of square footage or a room, however, like I’ve seen from higher ends models like Narwal or Roborock, which means the same mop pad that ventured into your bathroom could also be cleaning the living room floor. Not wholly ideal.

Be aware, the drying process does create a little bit of a high-pitched whine. This is pretty common among units with this feature. In the mobile app, you can decide how long to have the base station dry the mopping pad with cold air — between two and eight hours. I changed it to its minimum of two hours, but it was still wet after that amount of time. You’ll probably need to keep it going for around six hours if you want it all or mostly dry. The more expensive cleaning robots utilize heated drying to help the process go faster and cut down on the potential for bacteria.

Finishing the cleaning shift back at its base station is also one of those times when it makes the most noise. Between emptying its dustbin into the station, washing and cleaning its mopping pad, and whatever other parts it moves around behind the scenes, there’s a noticeable amount of commotion. If you can schedule most of its cleaning to take place when you’re gone and out of the house, this won’t be an issue. On the other hand, you’ll hate it if you happen to be on a video call.

I had no problem setting the unit to do scheduled cleanings and letting it run in the evenings. Its laser sight doesn’t require light, so it can work throughout the night if it won’t bother anyone.

With the standard setting in play and running the robot a couple of times a week, I only had to worry about refilling the water every two weeks or so. The dirty water container is smaller than the clean one, around half the size, so I usually only needed to take care of one at a time, alternating.

Battery life

To vacuum and mop my kitchen and living room, which comes out to about 350 square feet, it took the PowerDetect 35 to 40 minutes. It started at 100% battery, and when it was done, that percentage read 80%. However, the app only reports battery percentages in 10% increments. So fully measuring its battery level is tricky.

The robot’s settings include a recharge and resume feature, which was turned on automatically Shark specifically recommends using it for homes with more than 900 square feet of coverage.

When the robot’s battery was completely drained, recharging it for one hour restored it to 30%. A few minutes after an hour of charging, it was at 40%. You can expect a mostly recharged battery after three hours. I never found the battery level to be a major concern during regular room cleanings.

Cons to consider

Most of the negatives with the PowerDetect come from its mid-range price point. It doesn’t include all the features possible for this type of device, and it has to make some compromises to find a balance between features and performance.

I wish its build quality were a little sturdier so it didn’t creak and make superfluous noises. I also wish there were some more advanced settings in the mobile app for people who want the extra control.

What are your alternatives?

Shark also offers a few robot vacuum and mop units, but none are as advanced as its PowerDetect Pro model. Shark also offers the Shark PowerDetect 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum and Mop with NeverTouch Base, which is $100 less than the “Pro version” and removes the mop pad wash and dry feature. I think the full automation of the NeverTouch Pro is well worth the difference, making it the far superior model. The mid-priced Shark Matrix Plus 2-in-1 has a swappable basin that lets you vacuum and mop at the same time, but you lose access to the auto-empty dustbin when the mop pad is snapped in, and there is no self-cleaning function. Read our Shark Matrix Plus review.

The Roborock Saros 10R is an upgrade in terms of advanced sight technology and abundance of features. It vacuums and mops well, but it’s also gentle around delicate furniture and nimble enough to get under and through most couches and dining room tables. It’s an upscale, more refined version of this unit. Read my Roborock Saros 10R review.

The Eufy Omni C20 is another alternative that falls in the mid-range price point. It’s perfect for small spaces because both the robot and the base station are among some of the most compact, which still handles self-emptying for vacuuming and mopping. The C20 doesn’t have the scrubbing prowess that the PowerDetect does, but on the whole, the C20 is a capable cleaner.

Of course, if you like the idea of what the PowerDetect offers, but are mostly working with carpets or rugs, then check out our picks for the best robot vacuums.

The bottom line

Ultimately, the Shark PowerDetect excels at cleaning a variety of floor surfaces. Because of its performance in vacuuming and mopping, it grabbed our top pick among an array of combo devices.

People with small kids or those who just constantly find themselves with sticky messes on their kitchen floors will be served well with the PowerDetect’s top-notch spot cleaning capabilities. It’s an ideal low-frills, hands-off machine for others who might be intimidated by the technology side. Of course, for people who do want an ultra sleek robot topped with all the bells and whistles will need to spend a little bit more on a higher-end unit. However, I think it’s the perfect combination of value and performance.