• The Shark PowerDetect vacuum has a flexible center pole for easily reaching under furniture.
• The vacuum comes equipped with an auto-empty docking station that suctions out all debris from the vacuum dust bin and doubles as a charging port.
• The self-cleaning roller prevents hair from wrapping around it and reducing its cleaning effectiveness.

I’ve tested quite a few cordless stick vacuums for Popular Mechanics, so it doesn’t take long into a test before I know if a particular model is good. I want powerful suction, a quality roller, a lightweight body, and the right accessories to get at tough to clean areas. The latest model from Shark, the PowerDetect Speed vacuum, checks all of these boxes—and offers a few pleasant surprises, too.

The vacuum’s powerful suction and roller keep me from having to retread over the same spots multiple times. Its limber design, including a flexible hose, helps me maneuver my apartment with ease. Then there’s the detection system—one of the vacuum’s unique surprises. It boosts suction power automatically when I gets to a particularly messy spot.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say this vacuum has suddenly made cleaning fun, but it has reduced the amount of time I spend cleaning, so I’m able to have more fun. It doesn’t have the same suction power as our Best Overall cordless stick vacuum, the Dyson V15 Detect Plus Cordless Stick Vacuum, but other than that, it’s hard to ask much more out of a cleaning appliance like this.

By far the most exciting feature with the Shark PowerDetect is its flexible hose. Make no mistake, this is still a stick vacuum. It just comes with a hinge in the center of the stick. So, when I want to get underneath my couch, I click open the hinge, and the vacuum bends at the joint to fit in tight spots. Essentially, it bends down so my knees don’t have to. Just looking at it still blows my mind.

As I was cleaning, I did not have to kneel down to get a proper angle on anything. In fact, for areas that would generally require me to swap attachments from the traditional roller to a crevice tool, like the back corner of the couch, I was able to flex the center and keep going.

Even when I did use the crevice tool for under the refrigerator and stove, the flexible center kept me from essentially laying prostrate on the ground to get where I needed to go.

Like I’ve come to expect from Shark’s vacuums, the PowerDetect has effective suction. Its intelligent detection technology is able to change its suction power based on the surface type as well as high volumes of dirt. When I transitioned from my hardwood floor onto the shag rug in my living room, I heard the motor crank up a notch. It did the same thing when I vacuumed the kitchen (where I’ve been known to be a messy chef).

The vacuum also comes with a light that illuminates the floor, which helped me detect dirt better. On hard surfaces this light is blue, and on carpet, where a pattern might hide dirt well in colored light, the light shifts to plain white.

One of the most annoying issues I have with any vacuum is emptying the dust bin. I hate how small most dust bins on stick vacuums are and how I sometimes have to pick at the dust with my hands to get it to fall out (only to see small particles floating in the air afterward, knowing I’ll need to get them up later).

The docking station on the PowerDetect saves me from that trouble. After every clean, I simply lock the vacuum back on the station and it automatically suctions out the entire dust bin into a much larger bin on the station. You’ll still need to clean it out yourself once every couple months or so, depending on how often you clean, but it’s not necessary to go through this menial task after every single clean.

I won’t pretend that $500 for a vacuum is particularly affordable. That said, now that I’ve tried the Shark PowerDetect Speed, I don’t want to clean with anything else. The powerful cleaning ability, flexible hose, and docking station actually cut down on the amount of time and labor it takes to clean. If you’re ready to upgrade your cleaning equipment, there is no better place to start than the Shark PowerDetect vacuum.

Shop the Shark PowerDetect Speed Vacuum