Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean and Empty Pet Pro IA3241UKT Review

Design and features

• Dirt-highlighting light
• Auto empties
• MultiFlex makes it easier to clean under sofas
• Automatic power control

If there’s one thing that Shark understands, it’s how to make a vacuum cleaner that’s thoughtfully designed and easy to use. With the Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean and Empty Pet Pro IA3241UKT that means several smart choices that make it brilliantly easy to use.

First, this vacuum cleaner is lighter than its predecessor, the Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty IA3241UKT IP3251UKT(3.22kg vs 3.7kg). That 500g feels noticeable, whether that’s pushing the cleaner around the floor, or lifting it up to vacuum up cobwebs or other dust high up.

It helps that the removable battery has been placed at an angle, running along the front edge of the comfortable grip. This position helps balance the weight in the cordless vacuum.

Light it might be, but the Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean and Empty Pet Pro IA3241UKT still has the MultiFlex wand, which is a hinge in the middle. Used while vacuuming, the hinge lets me clean under sofas and other furniture without having to bend down. It’s really smart and adds to the flexibility.

Flip the vacuum cleaner fully over, and it folds in half, free-standing. That’s useful whether you just want to answer the phone or move some furniture in the middle of cleaning, or you don’t have the self-empty dock version and want a simpler way of storing the vacuum cleaner.

There’s a new floor head on this vacuum cleaner. Previous Shark models have had a DuoClean head, with a soft roller for hard floors and a brush for carpets. With the Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean and Empty Pet Pro IA3241UKT, there’s just the one roller designed for both types of floors, with a row of fins that keep hair straight and prevent it from wrapping around the floor head.

Also in the box are a 2-in-1 crevice and dusting tool, and a motorised pet tool. For the vast majority of jobs, these are all you’ll need.

Turn the Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean and Empty Pet Pro IA3241UKT on using the button at the back and the screen comes to life. By default, the vacuum turns on in Detect mode, which uses a dust sensor to automatically adjust the vacuum’s power based on the amount of dirt.

It’s very reactive, with the vacuum ramping its power up and down as you move around. I like these kinds of system as they take the guesswork out of which power mode to use.

In addition to power adjustment, the Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean and Empty Pet Pro IA3241UKT can also sense which type of floor it’s on, adjusting the brushbar speed depending on whether you’re using it on carpet or hard floor.

To show that there’s dirt, the screen’s outer ring turns purple; when it’s back to white, you know that the area is clean.

New to this model is the Reveal light, which turns on when you move onto a hard floor, replacing the standard white light. As with the green light on the Dyson V16 Piston Animal, the idea is that the Reveal light shines off hidden debris.

I don’t think it’s quite as good as the green light that Dyson uses, but the Reveal light does work well, particularly if you turn the lights off. I can look at a floor in my house and think it’s clean, only to use the Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean and Empty Pet Pro IA3241UKT and find that there’s loads of cat hair on the floor.

If you do want to take control, there are also Eco and Boost modes, selectable using the button at the back.

The only real shame is that the screen only has a very basic display, with a simple bar for the battery level. With the Dyson V16 Piston Animal, you get a screen that shows remaining battery life in minutes, as well as a graph that shows the level of dirt detected. That’s part of the reason that Dyson’s vacuum cleaner is a lot more expensive.

There’s a 0.47-litre bin in this vacuum cleaner. To empty it manually, you hit the release button and the bin hinges forward, with dust falling out into the bin. It’s quite hard to line up so that dust doesn’t go everywhere, and fluff inside might have to be tapped out; the eject mechanism on the Dyson V16 Piston Animal is better.

With Shark’s vacuum, you can also remove the bin, which let me clean it out properly, and access the two washable filters behind it.

You don’t have to worry about emptying manually if you have the Clean & Empty IA3241UKT version, as I do. With this, you get a self-emptying docking station. Just drop the vacuum into this stand, and all the dust is sucked out into the secondary bin.

If you don’t want the docking station to kick into life, say because it’s nighttime, you can flick the switch on the back to put it into quiet mode, which turns off automatic emptying, although the vacuum will still charge.

Handily, the docking station doesn’t take bags, so there’s just a large bin that you can remove and empty directly into the bin when it’s full.

The docking station has one of Shark’s odour capsules in it, which releases a sweet, fresh smell into the air when the bin is being emptied. I really like the scent, plus it masks any odours that might be in the dust. Given how good the docking station is, I wouldn’t buy this vacuum cleaner without one.

Both the docking station and the vacuum cleaner have washable filters, which you should clean under a tap to maintain the highest levels of suction.

Performance

• Plenty of suction power
• Excellent performance
• Won’t get tangled with hair

I started by measuring the power of the Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean and Empty Pet Pro IA3241UKT in air watts at the handle to get an idea of how powerful it really is. On its Eco mode, its 59AW is very similar to the power of the previous Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty IP3251UKT, and a bit more powerful than the Dyson V16 Piston Animal.

Putting the vacuum cleaner into its automatic mode, when there’s no dust, it settles to 82AW, with Boost upping it to 322AW. Automatic power will run between these two figures, depending on the amount of dust that’s detected, but the Dyson vacuum is quite a bit more powerful at the top end.

Raw suction power is particularly useful when you want to use the handheld tools to suck up debris. With more power, you can collect large bits of mess and suck them up from further away. 

To test this, I line up a row of rice grains, put the crevice tool at the end and see how far away the dirt can be collected. Here, I measured the collection at 2.9cm from the tool, which is slightly higher than the previous model. Cleaning out cars, the bottom of wardrobes, and so on are fast with this cleaner.

I then moved on to the cleaning tests, starting by putting 20g of flour onto the test carpet and using the Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean and Empty Pet Pro IA3241UKT in auto mode.

The floor head is designed to collect as much dust on the back pass as it is the forward pass, and the swipe through the mess showed a nice clean line through the middle, with sharp edges and no visible dust left.

I then finished vacuuming, waiting until the status light told me that there was no more dust left to collect. Overall, 99.1% of dust was collected, which is an excellent result; it’s fractionally behind the previous model, but that’s with statistical variation.

Moving to the edge test, the 95.9% of dust collected is excellent. Few cleaners can do this well, although the very powerful Dyson V16 Piston Animal did slightly better.

Moving to the hard floor test, the Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean and Empty Pet Pro IA3241UKT easily collection 100% of the rice spill, with no grains dropping back out onto the floor.

Cat hair combed into the carpet proved no issue, either. A quick swipe over the mess, and it was collected with ease.

I finished off with my human hair test. Shark started the trend of no-tangle vacuum cleaners, so it’s no surprise that the  IA3241UKT passed this test without a single strand caught on the roller bar.

I measured the at between 65.5dB and 75.1dB, which is what I’d expect from a powerful vacuum cleaner. At this level, the vacuum is clearly loud enough to dominate in a room but not painful to hear.

Battery life is rated at up to one hour on Eco mode, although this isn’t the kind of mode you’d realistically use. I measured Boost at 12m 17s on carpet. Auto mode will vary depending on the amount of dust, but going around the lab until the battery had run out, I managed 32m 17s – enough to clean a typical home.

Should you buy it?