Sharks new scrubbing-centric robot vacuum finds stains with a UV light. I tested it against other top robot mops.

The most iconic thing I've seen a Shark robot vacuum do in years is drive down the runway during the season finale of Canada's Drag Race in January 2025. That's partially the Drag Race mega fan in me speaking, but it's also the professional robot vacuum reviewer in me being bored with Shark's robot vacuum features lately.

So I was pleasantly surprised when Shark announced one of the coolest cleaning features I've ever heard with the launch of the Shark UV Reveal 2-in-1. I got to test it at home before its official release on March 3. Here are my first impressions.

What's special about the Shark UV Reveal?

It's in the name: The Shark UV Reveal uses a UV light to detect stains on the floor that we wouldn't see with a casual glance down. That could be anything from those super-faint water stains on the bathroom floor, to sticky residue from a kitchen spill you thought you wiped up, to invisible droplets of dried pet pee. If there were ever a robot vacuum for Dexter Morgan, it would be this one.

UV stain detection is a first for the mainstream robot vacuum industry — the other best robot vacuum and mop combos of 2026 use some combination of LED light sensors and AI camera systems to detect stains. While LEDs are helpful when scoping out wet spills and tiny dry particles, a plain LED bulb won't make an invisible stain glow like it's under a black light (even if it does have the same indigo glow, like the Dreame X60 Max Ultra Complete's blue light). AI mess detection via cameras, like the before-and-after shots that Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai+ takes, can also only go so far if there's nothing visible to take a picture of. Good ol' homegrown UV proof feels much less subjective, much like the reason that I'm so obsessed with Dyson's stick vacuum laser.

Shark wasn't innovating as hard when designing the UV Reveal's self-empty dock. It's pretty similar to the docks of the Shark PowerDetect NeverTouch Pro and Shark PowerDetect ThermaCharged docks from 2025, but the corners of the tank aren't transparent to show the water level. For the $1,299.99 price point, I kind of expect something less plasticky.

Flipping the robovac over, there's another Shark classic underneath: The singular flat mopping pad... again. Shark is the only big robot vacuum brand that hasn't branched out to dual spinning mop pads (elite corner mopping) or a roller mop (elite spill soaking) in at least one model. But there are a few special features baked in to separate this Shark from the basic vacuum mop combos.

Is the Shark UV Reveal good at mopping?

The Shark UV Reveal has provided solid scrubbing so far in my testing, and that's all due to the fact that the mop doesn't just drag across the ground. Shark's HyperSonic mopping vibrates more than 100 times per minute while the vac is in motion, similar to the speedy back-and-forth motion you'd use to chip away at something sticky or dried on with a cloth. (We've seen sonic mopping from Shark plenty of times before, but not this intense.)

The turquoise lights kicking on mean the UV light has detected a stain. The UV Reveal sniffed out a few gross spots on my floor that I wouldn't have necessarily thought about otherwise, like the sticky puddle of soggy kibble and crusty dry food chunks near my cats' bowls and remnants of dried cat puke that I thought another robot vacuum mopped up last week.

The vacuum hovers and scrubs the same piece of floor for a while (almost 30 seconds sometimes) to make sure whatever stubborn grime is getting the extra attention it needs. Depending on the size of the stain, the whole vacuum will also swing back and forth in a half circle to come at the stain from more than one angle (the same idea as Shark's Matrix Cleaning system in previous vacuums). I sent the UV Reveal to deal with the muddy shoe storage zone near my front door, which was caked in both dried slush from the past two days and brown water that was just tracked in a few minutes prior. It left the whole area gleaming — there's not much arguing with a UV light checking the work for you.

After going back to the dock to charge, you might hear (and I quote), "I detected stains. I'm heading back out to aggressively attack them." Bad day to be a stain.

But I was most psyched to see that the big mopping pad isn't restricted to the round circumference of the robot vac. Instead, the mopping pad pokes out from under the vacuum's body every second or two. In theory, that should solve a lot of the lazy edge mopping issues that I've experienced with past Shark robot mops. I mean, that design must be a good idea if Roborock thought of it, too — it's an incredibly similar setup to the Roborock Saros 20 Sonic that's coming out later this year. Roborock has long been my most trusted brand for corner mopping, so I can't wait to compare their mopping skills.

The UV Reveal's suction and large mop surface area worked well together when sent to clean up around both litter boxes. The litter box on a tile floor uses crystal litter, and the litter box on a hardwood floor uses finer, dustier grass litter. Both areas of heavy tracked litter were left around 97 percent clean (barring some pieces left near edges).

Is the Shark UV Reveal good on carpet?

The Shark UV Reveal is definitely a mopping-focused robot vacuum, I'll put it that way. It's probably not going to win any "best robot vacuum for pet hair" awards from me, but it's powerful enough for daily upkeep of your carpeted rooms or rugs.

The other flagship robot vacuum releases in 2026 so far clock between 30,000 and 35,000 Pa of suction power. How does the Shark UV Reveal compare to those, you ask? No one knows, at least on paper — Shark infamously does not provide suction power measurements in Pascals as other brands do. If I had to guess, I'd put the UV Reveal somewhere in the 20,000 to 25,000 Pa range.

The most intense rug test I gave the UV Reveal involved a heinous concoction on my fluffiest rug: Way more spilled quinoa than would ever be realistic on a fur rug, spilled catnip, and probably 10 tufts of lint and fur pulled directly from the ChomChom and strewn around the rug's fibers. The UV Reveal actually had the easiest time with the catnip flakes and cat hair puffs, snatching up virtually all traces of either. More quinoa was left behind in the rug and around the edges where the rug hits the hardwood (though most robot vacuums struggle with that). The same thing happened with shredded cheese around the kitchen rug.

Factors I'm keeping an eye on

As I continue to test the UV Reveal at home, I'll be trying to figure out the answer to one main question: Does the Shark UV Reveal provide a premium enough experience to realistically compete beside other robot vacuums in the $1,000+ price range?

There's no doubt that its unique UV stain detection and meticulous scrubbing capabilities earn it lots of points in the sanitation department. But the Shark UV Reveal's mop doesn't rinse itself in real time, while the roller mops I've been testing do. Its frequency for returning to the dock to wash the mop can be toggled to as low as 15 minutes, but that's plenty of time to spread something sticky or smelly across my entire kitchen. At $1,299, it's valid to expect a mop monitoring system that automatically sends the robot back to wash the mop if it gets too dirty. Not that your UV Reveal will have the opportunity to smear large spills around, anyway — it's not really built for soaking up messes larger than a few droplets. (The instruction booklet specifically notes to avoid "liquids.")

At $1,299.99, I also think it's valid to expect a livestream pet camera, and the UV Reveal still doesn't have one.

The SharkClean app is basic as always — not unusable by any means, but also not the precise, premium experience that you'll get from other robot vacuums in this price range.

A few settings are either hard to find or not adjustable at all: The spot cleaning zone that you can drag wherever can't be pinched and made small for a very specific area, and there are no options to customize settings like suction level, water level, or number of cleaning passes for spot cleaning. If one spot cleaning is already underway, you can't add another zone or room to the queue like you can in the Dreame, Roborock, or Eufy app. The SharkClean app also doesn't automatically show the vacuum's cleaning path or point out when small obstacles are found and avoided.