Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty Cordless Pet Vacuum (IP3251UKT) review: A typically brilliant Shark with a lot less emptying

The Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty Pet cordless vacuum pairs one of Shark’s excellent cordless cleaners with a charging station that empties the collection bin for you. That doesn’t mean you’ll never be faced with the chore of taking your vacuumed-up detritus to the bin again. However, it has enough capacity to empty the cordless stick several times over, significantly reducing the job. Alongside this, it’s a very capable vacuum cleaner at a fairly sensible price.

Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty Cordless Pet Vacuum review: What do you get for the money?

The Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty Pet will set you back £550 – a not insignificant amount but not a bad price considering the tech. In the box you get the cordless vacuum cleaner, the emptying station and three useful attachments for using the vacuum in handheld mode – a combination crevice tool and dusting brush, an upholstery funnel with its own brush attachment and a motorised pet tool that’s also useful for stairs.

The emptying station is basically just a box on a base with a stand sticking out the top. When you slot the cordless stick into the stand after a clean up, it automatically sucks the dirt out of the stick’s collection bin and into the base’s larger bin.

We’ve seen this trick before on the Samsung Bespoke Jet Pro Extra and the Ultenic FS1. Shark’s version is essentially the same concept, though it has been tweaked slightly, removing the need for a consumable bag and offering a night mode switch, which essentially skips the otherwise rather noisy emptying process. It means you can still charge the cordless stick but save the emptying until it’s less likely to disturb sleeping people.

The PowerDetect cordless stick will look familiar to Shark vacuum veterans. It has the usual combination of familiar features, including a hinge in the middle for sending the floor head under low furniture, two rollers in the floor head (one brush bar and one soft roller) and anti-tangle combs to keep them free from collecting long hair.

There are also some new features that come with the PowerDetect branding. This key difference is that the vacuum now automatically increases the power of the device when it detects it’s on carpet or if it’s currently collecting a lot of dirt. It means you don’t need to switch to its Boost mode when doing heavy duty work, because the vacuum will recognise the need and do it for you.

Control has also been reduced to two buttons, one to power the device on and off, and a trigger button to switch between its three modes. The standard mode is the detection mode that controls the power depending on the surface and dirt levels it encounters. If you prefer there’s an Eco mode that uses less suction but will keep the battery running for longer. The Boost mode cranks the power up but drains the battery faster.

Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty Cordless Pet Vacuum review: What’s it like to use?

With just two buttons on the cordless stick, controlling the Shark PowerDetect (IP3251UKT) is simple. When you press the power button, the screen lights up. The screen is bright and clear, but relatively unsophisticated compared to the screens on the latest Dyson models. However, while it doesn’t inform you of how many particles your device has captured, it still provides essential information, displaying which mode you’re in and how much battery life is left. It also glows a different shade of purple when being used in detection mode, to visually inform you of how hard it’s working.

I found the vacuum easy to push around on hard floor but more variable on carpet. The underside of the floor head has a row of rubber flaps behind the second roller, which are part of a mechanism to help the vacuum perform better on the back pull. On some of my carpets, however, I found these made it hard to pull back.

It’s tricky to say exactly why, but I think it’s something to do with the angle I hold a vacuum at. I’m over six feet tall, so I use the vacuum at a more upright angle than shorter users might. I found I didn’t encounter this problem at all if I held the handle lower, creating a more acute angle between the stick and the floor, so shorter users may not suffer from the same problem.

The maximum suction was also slightly problematic on mats, as they had a tendency to lift and move. This was due to the increased suction engaging because the device detected it was on carpet. You can get around this by engaging the Eco mode, though.

As you can see from the chart below, I measured the maximum suction of this device to be slightly lower than I saw from self-emptying rivals like the Samsung Bespoke Jet Pro Extra and the Dyson V15 Detect, but it’s more powerful than the Ultenic FS1. In its Eco setting, however, it had the best suction of the lot.

When it comes to battery power, the Shark lasted 43mins 38secs in Eco mode and 10mins 14secs when maxed out. Again, the Samsung and Dyson cleaners perform slightly better, but there isn’t much in it.

Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty Cordless Pet Vacuum review: How well does it clean?

The best proof of a good vacuum cleaner is in how well it picks stuff up and the Shark PowerDetect proved itself extremely competent in this area. I’m used to seeing this with Shark’s vacuum cleaners and this model proved no different.

I tested it using measured spillages of Cheerios, flour and pet hair, and repeated the tests on both carpet and hard floor. Cheerios were no problem on either surface, with the combination of the device’s soft front roller and variable suction helping the floor head glide over and munch up the entire spillage. It’s similarly ruthless on pet hair, collecting all of the pet hair we spilled on both carpet and hard floor.

Flour is a tougher job but it collected 99% off hard floor and an admirable 92% off the carpet in a single pass. That’s well above average on both counts.

Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty Cordless Pet Vacuum review: Should you buy it?

Every Shark dual-roller vacuum cleaner that I’ve tested to date has performed well in my tests and the Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty doesn’t buck the trend. When it comes to picking up mess, this vacuum offers superb performance that’s only matched by more expensive rivals.

Adding in the automatic emptying makes the job of vacuuming that bit easier, and the emptying station doubles up as a useful base for charging and storing the vacuum and its attachments. All that, and it still costs less than a Dyson V15 Detect, which you have to empty every time you use it.