Shark Matrix Plus Review

The Matrix Plus builds upon the original Matrix by adding a sonic mopping option to help tackle those spills in the kitchen or dried mud in the hallways. Sonic comes from the fact that it vibrates as it moves over spills at 100 times per minute.

Performance Comparison

Navigation

Navigation of your home's layout is our highest-rated individual category and happens to be what the Shark Matrix Plus scored highest on. Though it did make contact with and even slightly pushed lighter items like chairs around, in general, it was quite gentle with furniture. The onboard LiDAR system is the key feature here.

Many robot vacuums employ LiDAR to help navigate their space - the laser and sensor are commonly located in the little pop-up head on top of the main body - but some make use of it better than others. The hardware and software are both important and work together to interpret the surroundings, and the Matrix Plus does an undeniably good job here. It does not usually need to do a full perimeter run to map a room, and after the first completion of a space, we found that it effectively 'learned' to run into things less often while still maintaining a close proximity of less than an inch in most cases.

Most robot vacuums today haven't found success with their programming and sensors to differentiate feces from the floor, especially when the object is small, below a few inches. For that, you'll need real-time object recognition with a full set of additional cameras, which are found on only the highest-end products. In this case, the vacuum really won't avoid anything that's shorter than its LiDAR head. On that note, this guy is just about the tallest product we've tested in the category, measured at 4 inches tall. While that means it is able to handle taller transitions and thresholds well, keep this in mind when considering if it will fit under your couches.

Home Coverage

We also consider the Matrix Plus to be more methodical than average in its cleaning grid. The 'Matrix' in the name refers to the standard pattern of cleaning paths it takes for each room. It will cover a space with a series of horizontal lines, for example, then another set vertically, effectively cleaning a space twice. You may ultimately choose to turn the matrix setting off for only one pass in each room to conserve battery life, but it's quite nice that the Matrix Plus has the option to attack a space at multiple angles. This is not easy to control with many of its competitors, even if you schedule two cleanings in a row they often won't clean perpendicularly the second go.

Spot cleaning is particularly effective, with a measured 6x6 feet squared region and a very thorough cleaning with the matrix grid. No-go zones and virtual barriers both work well, but it can take some trial and error to get them just right. You can also designate carpeted areas to avoid when the mopping attachment is on. One gripe here is that, bafflingly, the app can only hold one map at a time. Every time you move floors, you'll have to train the robot anew, which will get tiring real quick.

Perhaps, obviously, many robot vacuums don't do this particularly well with their round shape, but some products today have solved this problem by extending an arm out to get every bit of debris. Shark advertises a Cleanedge Detect feature which supposedly shoots 'blasts of air' to get corners and edges better. We didn't notice any such phenomenon during testing, so Shark may unfortunately be full of hot air on this one.

Carpet Cleaning

To test how the Matrix Plus handles carpet cleaning, we spread out pre-measured weights of several types of debris on both low and high pile carpets and measured how much was picked up.

Good news first: For the short carpet tests, the Matrix Plus did well, capturing 91.5% of rice and 9 of 12 Mini Wheat cereal pieces, though several of those were crushed before being picked up on later passes. This was proceeded by 80.91% of sand picked up, which is remarkable considering the low suction power limitation due to the small size of robot vacuums.

On the fluffier carpet tests, however, our hero did not perform nearly as well. Just 52.8% of rice was corralled, and just 2 of 12 Mini-mini Wheats (we don't test sand in high pile carpets - too much is inevitably lost). Even though the Matrix Plus runs tall, it has a habit of plowing everything into the carpet fibers, which are then trapped, and the combination of rollers and suction were just not enough to pull them free.

Hard Surface Cleaning

When it came to hard surfaces, it grabbed 90.4% of rice, 11 of 12 Mini Wheats, and 58% of sand; respectable enough numbers.

But the real story here is the mopping feature - the main dry collection bin can be swapped with a combo dry bin + water reservoir and a fabric 'mop head' underneath. The truth is, we have yet to see a great mopping robot vacuum hit the market, even products specifically focused on that niche. But the Matrix Plus is definitely not bad, all things considered. The main innovation here is a vibrating hop head, which Shark calls 'Sonic Mopping' and claims oscillates at 100x per minute.

This vibrating feature does absolutely clean better than the stationary mop add-ons and even the rotating heads seen on competitors. There's room for improvement, but with a good spot clean command, the Matrix Plus should handle just about any spill you ask it to.

Pet Hair

A large number of American households have dogs and/or cats as companions, and their shedding is one of the main reasons to own an effective vacuum.

Know that the Shark Matrix Plus is just ok in this department. Our testing procedure takes a worst-case scenario, measuring captured hair sprinkled on a high pile carpet. The Matrix Plus performed averagely, leaving behind about two-thirds of the total 5 grams of hair after the first pass.

The good news is that it does better with hair along the edges of a room than other types of debris, but multiple passes are needed to really clean a large amount. The bottom roller gets overloaded and loses effectiveness, so it'll need some human intervention to clean out from time to time if your furry friends have run of the house.

Convenience

Perhaps the biggest benefit of the Matrix Plus is its high capacity dirt collection tower. Shark advertises that you'll need to empty the collection tower just once every 60 days and this is one claim our testing seems to back up. That goes a long way to making this robot vacuum among the most hands-off products on the market.

Full disclosure - the automatic dust emptying does NOT happen when the combo mop bin is installed, and that mop bin does have to be manually swapped in and out. But if you can forgo mopping for long periods of time, at least with your robot vacuum, then you shouldn't have to babysit the Matrix Plus much at all.

The Shark app is a little clunky, but it does have all the major features you look for in a robot-cleaning butler. Once a map is made, it'll automatically split into separate rooms which you can then name and specifically call out commands for, such as 'go clean the kitchen'.

Scheduling is, of course, possible through the app, where you'll also be able to set power levels, review cleaning history, and check battery life. But we again have to report some strange omissions from Shark here. There is no accessory life tracking (i.e., when a sensor should be cleaned or a brush arm replaced). There's also no real-time tracking of where the vacuum is during a clean, which comes in surprisingly handy, for example, when it gets stuck under a couch and you have to hunt it down. Instead, you can cue the robot to play a sound to help find it.

Should You Buy the Shark Matrix Plus?

Technology and innovation are progressing slowly but surely in the Robot Vacuum market, and we see a good incremental link in the chain here with the Matrix Plus. We recommend it for the household with a couple (or no) pets, and a high percentage of hard surface flooring that could use the occasional mopping. It's also relatively affordable as an option with an automatic dust collection tower.

What Other Robot Vacuum Should You Consider?

For a more affordable, all-around great performer, check out the Roborock Q5. The Wyze Robot Vacuum also comes in at a more attractive price point with some good scores. Neither of them comes with an automatic dust collection tower dock, though, so weigh how important that convenience is for you.

If money is no object, the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra can't be beaten. It features some top-of-the-line object recognition so your little one's toys will be safely left alone, as well as a tower with both soiled water and dust collection.