Shark Stratos Corded Stick Vacuum Cleaner [HZ3000UKT] Anti Hair Wrap Plus, Anti-Odour, Pet Pro Model, Black/Chrome

Product Information

A cordless Shark vacuum cleaner aimed at pet owners. It’s equipped with ‘Anti Hair Wrap Plus’ which removes long, short and pet hair from the brush-roll as you clean, according to Shark. It also comes with ‘Clean Sense IQ’ that automatically senses the invisible dirt and adjusts cleaning power. Shark models come with impressive-sounding features, including Flexology (a flexible cleaning tube), Lift-Away (a detachable handheld mode) and TruePet (an extra motorised brush for dealing with pet hair). Additionally, the Shark pet version is equipped with a wide range of attachments and accessories, including a crevice tool, dusting brush, and pet turbo brush, making it easy to clean tight spaces, hard-to-reach areas, stairs and upholstery. For pets, I do think this is a great hoover. The pet tool is a stonking little thing, so good for purging the sofa and carpets of pet hair, and for cars too in theory although to be honest, I’m not someone who regularly hoovers their car. Shh, don’t tell anyone, OK you can tell my wife she already knows ;-). Hard floor cleaning was a similar story, though fewer Cheerios were collected on the first pass, with only 24 of 26g showing up in the collection bin. The missing Cheerios appeared as I reassembled the device, having got caught up on something internally, though again it was nothing that a subsequent pass couldn’t gobble up. Flour on hard flooring fared better than carpet, collecting 49 of 50g on the first pass. The rest fell into crevices between floor tiles that most vacuums struggle with, without resorting to handheld tools.

The reason they refer to this as “Anti Allergen” is that there are various allergens (pollen probably the most obvious one) that are filtered out, so by having a complete seal these allergens won’t be dragged out from being embedded in carpet fibres for example, where presumably they weren’t doing much harm, and being pumped in the air to be inhaled.

The power and longevity of an upright, coupled with the smaller frame of a cordless, give this corded stick vacuum the best bits of both

Additionally, the Shark hz500uk has a HEPA filter that captures 99.97% of dust, allergens and pet dander, making it a great choice for households with allergies or asthma. However, while useful, most of them aren't unique. You'll find similar features across most other brands, just with more conventional names. It’s really lightweight, it’s incredibly easy to use, it takes very little effort to maneuver. It’s fast and easy to empty the waste container, the filter is easy to get at and to empty, it has fantastic suction power, amazing overall cleaning ability, on both hard floors and carpets (our home is roughly an equal mix, hard floors downstairs, carpets upstairs). In the pet version Shark hz500ukt, you’ll get an additional pet turbo brush, which is air driven, not motorized. Is the Shark hz500uk better for cleaning hardwood floors? The small thing is a little sharp comb-type gismo that catches and cuts hairs before they can get tightly wound around the roller, and then the cut strands are simply hoovered up, perfect! Like I say, it’s a small thing, it may even seem to be a very obvious thing, but that’s the thing about the best inventions, they make so much sense that you can’t believe that they weren’t always a thing.

In its handheld mode, it can accept any of the supplied accessories, which include a crevice tool, a multi-surface tool (an upholstery nozzle with a clip-on brush) and, in the TruePet version, the pet hair tool. This latter device is motorised by using a turbine, powered by the suction of air through the vacuum, rather than using its own electric-powered motor. Its rotating “brush” uses rubber flaps instead of bristles, to help reduce hair tangle. If you own pets, the pet version will suit you better; this particular model has a turbo pet brush, and it can be attached to the vacuum nozzle to better clean pets’ hair from upholstery, pet beds and carpeted stairs. Another very small thing which is actually very important, the Anti Allergen Complete Seal feature is exactly what it sounds like. There’s a HEPA filter which filters out all the microscopic miscreants (dust, dust mites, dust mite feces, pollen, pet dander), and that’s great, but on bagless hoovers the filter is part of the hoover and isn’t part of the hoover bag (as there isn’t one) so it’s only going to work if there’s a perfect seal around the filter. As I mentioned earlier, I wish they’d put this on the hard brush roll as well as the soft roll. Maybe they can’t because of the power fins, or maybe they don’t think it’s necessary as the power fins do appear to stop hair from tightly winding around this roller, which they do appear to do, so we’re just talking about a small amount of hair loosely gathered on this roller, it’s not a big deal, but I’d just prefer it if they could put this anti hair wrap on both.

An indicator in the floorhead illuminates to show the suction level, lighting up as the suction increases and automatically decreasing again when the debris is cleared. As with most of the brand’s cordless models, it comes with LED light in the floorhead to help illuminate small particles of dust and pet hair. It also has an LED screen which displays battery status and suction level. But being a pet owner myself, and some of them (cats) being very hairy, I think I’m a good person to answer this survey. We have non-hairy pets too, in case you were wondering, the axolotl isn’t hairy, although he does have gills that look a bit like feathers, he lives in a tank anyway. The tortoise isn’t hairy, nor is the Armadillo. OK I lied about the Armadillo – but if we did have an Armadillo we’d probably call him Armadillon (the Axolotl is called Aristotle). The big difference is that, unlike most vacuum cleaners, there’s no need to flip it upside down on a regular basis and get the scissors to the hair which is wrapped around the brush roller. I can’t imagine there’s anyone on this planet or otherwise, who would actually look forward to this grubby little task. Overall, I have to say, I’m very impressed with the Stratos. It was ridiculously simple to unbox and assemble, it’s really easy to use, it’s powerful, and in most parts, it does what it says on the tin.

READ NEXT: The best vacuum cleaners you can buy Shark Anti Hair Wrap with Flexology and TruePet HZ500UKT review: What’s it like to use? With regard to hairy family members, I do very much appreciate the new improved anti-hair wrap tool, it does work incredibly well, but there is a but, just a very small one, and that is that I wish they’d also put this on the other brush roll. It’s such a brilliant feature, and I’m yet to find any hair wrapped around the soft roller, which is brilliant, so I can’t help but wish they could do the same on the hard brush roller. In terms of cleaning power, this has enough overall cleaning power to clean any home, regardless of size and/or the mix of floor types. This isn’t only about power in terms of the watts of the motor, or airwatts (which is how suction power is specifically measured), it’s a combination of suction power paired with the efficiency of the duo clean system, which I can tell you from first hand experience, is very efficient.The Duo Clean feature features two brush rolls which work both independently and in unison, with one soft roller and a more standard harder brush roll. This makes Shark vacuum cleaners more effective at dealing with a wide range of particle sizes, it prevents the “snow ploughing” effect when trying to vacuum larger particles on hard surfaces, and it also means the soft brush gives hard floors a polish while you’re at it.

I thought I’d share my overall thoughts on the HZ3000UKT so far, and then go into all of the features, stats, and so on – and add my commentary where I think it’s warranted. This is one of the really impressive features of this corded hoover, the main part of the vacuum cleaner when you remove the wand & brush head is very small and lightweight, so it becomes an incredibly powerful handheld almost instantly. There are purpose-built handhelds that are a bit smaller and lighter than this, but not much, and they wouldn’t come close to the cleaning power of the Shark Stratos.For me, this is one of Shark’s best features, and this is a big plus for Shark vs Dyson when it comes to the fact that Shark releases new corded hoovers as well as cordless models. Dyson still offers their corded hoovers, but if you want their newer features you have to go for their newer cordless models, as they’re no longer developing new corded vacuum cleaners. See our top recommendations of the best cordless vacuums and best corded vacuums for the top bargains. 6. Don't pay to recycle your old vacuum cleaner I make no apologies for wearing out jokes that weren’t even funny the first time, I’m a dad, it’s my job. As I said, the duo clean floor head is the winner on all types of cleaning tests; the Powerfins brush roll on the vacuum effectively prevents pet and human hair from wrapping around the brush roller.