Shark Rotator Powered Lift-Away Speed NV682

Avg. consumer rating = 92/100 

The Shark Rotator Powered Lift-Away Speed (model NV682) is a 3-in-1 vacuum cleaner. It can be configured to operate as an upright, a canister and a handheld.  It has plenty of great features including HEPA filtration, a sealed system, a 30 foot power cord, 2 floor cleaning nozzles, and a very lengthy 7-year warranty. The NV682 is a good looking vacuum and is easy to use and maintain – it is bagless and all 3 filters are washable. The NV682 is lighter and smaller than its big brother the NV752 and as a result is easier to move but also has a shorter hose and smaller dust canister.

 

Quick Specs
Type	Upright
Bagged/Bagless	Bagless
Best for...	Hard Floors & Carpet
Pet Hair Features	Yes
Approx. Weight	13.3 lbs
HEPA Level Filtration	Yes
Power Cord Length	30 ft
Motor Driven Brushbar	Yes
Warranty	7 Years

 

Consumer Ratings
We’ve gathered Lift-Away Speed owner ratings from a host of large retail sites and these can be found in the table below.  There are a total of 190 consumer ratings which, when averaged, provide a score of about 4.6 stars out of 5 - or 92 out of 100.  This is a top-notch score and you can compare it to the scores of other uprights in our list of upright vacuum ratings, or compare it to all other vacuums using our Vacuum Cleaner Finder tool.  Note that scores in the table below are a combination of Shark Speed models 680, 681, and 682 as they are very similar.

 

Owner Insights
Thorough analysis/testing as well as a review of owner comments has provided the following vacuum likes and dislikes:

PROS
- Lightweight
- HEPA filter and sealed system
- Motorized brushroll with on/off controls
- Respectably long power cord
- Lift away feature is great
- Works well on pet hair
- LED headlights on nozzle are nice feature
- Strong suction
- Low profile nozzle head
- Swivel head works well and vacuum is maneuverable
- All filters are rinsable
- Not too noisy

CONS
- Not all tools store on vacuum
- Dust canister is a little small
- Hose is on the short side
- In canister mode, canister movement is only average on carpet
- Tends to pull some debris back behind the nozzle
- There are some reports of the brushroll ceasing to spin

As the ratings attest, owners are mostly pleased with their Lift-Away Speed vacuum but there are a few who have highlighted issues.  

The most common annoyance for owners is the size of the dust canister.  Quite a few people report that it is rather small and requires frequent emptying – especially if you are doing a lot of vacuuming.  It is indeed smaller than the dust canister on its big brother the NV752 TruePet as you can see in the image to the left.

There are also several comments about the vacuum feeling almost “self propelled” and while some people like this others do not, indicating that it can make it a little hard to steer.  We had no such issues with the vacuum and found steering and maneuverability to be quite good.

In a few infrequent instances owners have also reported that the brushroll stopped working.  In these cases they have been required to get replacement parts.

As mentioned, most owners give the NV682 good grades and report that the vacuum is well engineered and very versatile – being able to do all sorts of cleaning from carpet to bare floors, to stairs, to overhead cleaning, to dusting, etc.  The unit is customizable (can become a number of different kinds of vacuum cleaner - upright, canister and handheld) and there are many comments highlighting the usefulness of the lift-away feature.

Folks find the vacuum easy to use as did we. Converting from one mode to another and back is a snap and once you know where all the buttons and levers are it is also quite intuitive.

You can see more owner comments on Amazon if you like.

Vacuum Details & Our Experience
The following video is our comprehensive review of the Shark Speed NV682 and is worth a watch if you want to know the ins and outs of this machine.  The video will also help you better understand and visualize some of the details and discussion in this article.

Watch our Video Review:

There are 4 models of the Lift Away Speed at this time.  The machines are all similar but have a different set of tools:
 
NV680: Duster Crevice Tool, Pet Multi-Tool
NV681: Duster Crevice Tool, Pet Multi-Tool, Pet Power Brush
NV682: Duster Crevice Tool, Pet Multi-Tool, Pet Power Brush, Canister Caddy
NV683: Duster Crevice Tool, Pet Multi-Tool, Home and Car Detail Tool, Canister Caddy

Tool descriptions:
- Pet Power Brush:  This is not a motorized tool and is driven by airflow (suction).  It is useful on pet hair, loose debris, dander, etc and is good for upholstery, carpeted stairs and other surfaces.
- Duster Crevice Tool: This is a 2-in-1 tool (crevice tool and fine dusting brush)
- Pet Multi-Tool: This is a 2-in-1 tool (coarse dusting brush and upholstery tool)
- Canister Caddy: This is a platform for the machine’s dust canister and motor.  It turns the machine into a canister vacuum.
- Home and Car Detail Tool: This is a mini tools set for precision cleaning in the tiniest spaces, like computer keyboards or car dashboards (not shown in image below).

This is a 3-in-1 vacuum cleaner.  It is generally used as an upright but can also be transformed into a canister vacuum and the dust canister/motor assembly can be detached from the vacuum and carried along with the hose and wand (this is lift-away mode).  We found lift-away mode very handy as it allows you to go where a normal upright or canister can’t – like stairs or even a vehicle.  Canister mode, while fairly easy to setup, is not a mode we would use often.  Most cleaning needs are covered by Upright and Lift-Away mode.

The vacuum has 3 filters all of which are washable.  There are 2 pre-motor filters under the dust canister - a foam filter and a felt filter.  These should be washed about every 3 months.  The 3rd filter is the post motor filter and is also the HEPA filter.  It is easily accessed behind the front grill just below the dust canister.  This filter needs to be washed about once a year.

The filtration system in the NV682 is aided by the vacuum’s complete sealed system.  This ensures that all the air pulled into the vacuum gets put through the filtration system and does not bypass it or leak out through cracks or poor seals in the vacuum body.  A sealed system is an important part of quality filtration.  Without it many vacuums, despite having HEPA filters, do not exhaust HEPA-level filtered air.  You can read more about HEPA filtration and sealed systems in our HEPA Filter article.

The NV682 is fairly lightweight at 13.3 lbs – compared to 15.6 lbs for the NV752.  The vacuum looks and feels smaller and more compact than the NV752 and this is also reflected in its easy maneuverability.  The NV752 has a tendency to feel a little heavy on the wrist when you first start using it.  This is much less pronounced with the Speed and we found the Speed easy to push/pull and lift.  Some owners feel that it has a tendency to pull itself forward but we really didn’t notice this too much - although we were using low pile carpet for most tests.  It could be that this “pulling forward” effect is more pronounced on deeper pile carpet.

 

The 30 foot power cord is a good length and it helps increase the cleaning reach of the vacuum.  However, in our opinion the stretch hose on the NV682 is a little on the short side.  We stretched it to the point where the vacuum started to tip and, including the wand, got about 8.5 feet of reach.  This isn’t bad but 10-12 feet would have been nice.  You can feel the hose start pulling back on you after only a short stretch.  It is sufficient for most overhead cleaning but may limit the ability to clean a long set of stairs for example.

The NV682 Speed includes 2 cleaning heads – one with a powered brushroll for basic carpet/bare-floor cleaning and another for hard floor dusting and vacuuming.  The hard floor head is called the “Dust Away Pro” and has a vacuum channel in front with a microfibre cleaning pad behind it (for dust). The microfibre pad is included with the vacuum and is washable.  These two cleaning heads also swap out, and changing from one head to the other is satisfyingly easy (see video).  

The powered nozzle has a motorized brushroll and the vacuum has brushroll on/off controls on the handle.  The controls on the handle are labeled “Bare Floor” (brushroll off) and “Carpet” (brushroll on).  The controls are conveniently located and easily flipped back and forth with your thumb or fingers (see image to right). There is also a suction release valve built into the vacuum handle.  This is a very practical feature as many vacuums get bogged down in deeper pile carpet and the ability to lower the suction generally helps. Some vacuums tackle this issue with nozzle height controls – but the Lift Away speed has no nozzle height controls. Also, the ability to dial down suction is handy when cleaning delicate items like curtains and lampshades where aggressive suction levels can do damage.
 
We tested the unit’s pickup on low pile carpet and tile flooring.  The debris field consisted of small lentils, larger and heavier beans, fruit loops (bulky but light), dust bunnies, and pet hair.  The vacuum performed well on both carpet and bare floors, however we did notice that some debris got dragged behind the nozzle when it was pulled back.  This is not too big a deal and one simply has to lift the nozzle up and overtop of the debris to ensure it gets picked up – but it would be nice if this wasn’t necessary.  

Another test was performed on pet hair ground into medium pile carpet. The vacuum – with the brushbar on - performed admirably and easily pulled up all the pet hair.  We also tested the Pet Power Brush in the same scenario.  It too easily pulled up the pet hair although the brushroll slowed some when significant pressure was put on the tool (this tool is not motor driven) – but it still performed well.

We always test the ability of a vacuum to clean up tight against baseboards – so you don’t have to go back and do additional edge cleaning after vacuuming a room.  We do this by placing debris right up to where the floor meets the wall and running the vacuum nozzle along the wall.  The NV682 picked up all of the debris in this test.  However it is important to note that one side of the vacuum nozzle is designed for edge cleaning while the other is not.  We only tested the edge cleaning side of the vacuum nozzle.

 
We also ran a noise test comparing the NV682 to the NV752.  We ran both machines with and without the brushroll on and recorded the decibel output from 36 inches away.  We found the following:

	NV682 (db)	NV752 (db)
Brushroll OFF	74.2	74.1
Brushroll ON	76.2	76.6

 

The NV682 is perhaps marginally quieter on carpet than the NV752 but both machines sound almost the same to the casual observer.  So is the vacuum loud or quiet?  From our experience both machines are probably a little below average in terms of noise for an upright (which is good).  Some of the vacuums we have tested breach the 80db mark and these are noticeably louder.

Additional vacuum features include LED headlights on the nozzle (quite bright), a brushroll indicator light, and a 12 inch wide cleaning path (maybe slightly narrow for an upright).  The NV682 also carries a very lengthy 7-year limited warranty.  This length of warranty is not common on vacuum cleaners in this price range.

In summary, this is a very good machine that can be bought at a fair price point.  It does a respectable cleaning job on carpet, bare floors and pet hair, and is also versatile enough to allow you to do overhead cleaning, stairs, vehicles, etc.  It does have some shortcomings but none of these are show stoppers.  It is somewhat light and compact (thus the name “Speed”). For very large area cleaning you may be better off with the Shark NV752, but for small to medium areas the NV682 is a solid fit.

Vacuum Cleaner Manual
The manual is provided in English, Spanish and French and has good pictures along with descriptions.  It covers things like assembly, basic operations, features, troubleshooting and warranty.  It is on the short side however. You can find it here: Shark Lift Away Speed NV682 Manual.