I am not an enthusiastic cleaner. I recognise that it is important for my own health and I try to maintain a standard of cleanliness that is socially acceptable. However, if I never had to see/talk to other people, I would happily drown in filth. For this reason, I am always keen to find technology that will save me time or effort in cleaning. In my dreams, there is some device that will make cleaning entertaining and satisfying or at least a device that is bossy enough to overcome my natural inertia on my behalf. When the DRN editors told me that a Tineco Floor One Switch S6 was available for review, I dared to dream.
I should also say that I live with a wife who has a very high standard of cleanliness and house pride and a child, Theo, who is deathly afraid of any machine with a motor. Our current vacuum is his arch nemesis. He sometimes growls at the closed cupboard to remind the vacuum that it is not welcome in our house and we have a ritual of taking him on a walk any time we want to use it. Overall, I like to think our household was the perfect testing site for a magical, 5 in 1, Multi Functional Floor Cleaner.
First Impressions
This was by far the biggest box I have ever received as a reviewer, and I have reviewed party speakers! At first glance, it appeared that Tineco was being absurdly generous with their offerings. Dozens of components separated by big hunks of cardboard and wrapped in plastic. I laid it all out and took the photos below. The manual seemed equally extreme, more like a bible than a set of instructions.
However, as I started to put it all together and oriented myself with the instructions, I felt a sense of clarity and an appreciation that each item had been carefully selected for inclusion. When everything was constructed and connected together, the only remaining items were replacements for the disposable parts of the cleaner and a really handy cleaning brush.
As for the manual, most of its bulk came from a very wide set of supported languages. Aside from a few key instructions in English, surprisingly not the first chapter of the manual, the relevant instructions for set up and maintenance could be found in universally comprehensible diagrams in the first few pages of the book.
Set Up
While not an IKEA flat pack, the Tineco Floor One Switch S6 took me a fair bit of time to put together. The instructions were clear and included a few early maintenance steps that I appreciated as important ways to extend the life of the device.
I didn’t realise how much I would appreciate a place to store all the connectors and extensions that are universal to vacuum cleaners. It is wild that this isn’t a universal design consideration. My only quibble here is that I would love for some of them to be hidden from view. The completed stand has a place for everything but looks a bit busy. However, with so many differently sized components and connections, it is hard to imagine it presenting in any other way.
The Floor Cleaner itself is remarkably light-weight and very easy to put together. It has a clean water tank at the back and a ‘dirty water’ tank at the front. Part of the setup includes filling the tank with tap water and a thimble of Tineco’s special deodorising floor cleaning solution. I get that this is a universal feature of floor mopping technology but I do wish we could build designs around commonly available floor cleaning products. It feels sometimes that robot mops are going to go the way of printers, selling patented cleaning solutions at absurd mark-ups like printer ink. Still, a thimble full per tank is not exorbitant and you can buy in bulk.
This kit also came with a Hand Vac that boasts anti-tangle heads. This device uses its many connectors to cover every other corner of your house not accessible to the Floor Cleaner. I would have liked a way to extend the pole slightly further but overall I was really impressed at the range of extensions available. Both the Floor Cleaner and Hand Vac use the same ‘SwitchPro Motor’ and battery pack. This charges through the stand when attached to the Floor Cleaner.
The battery pack doesn’t come pre-charged and takes about 4-5 hours to fully charge for the first time. Don’t expect to open the box and instantly get your house ready for company…we learned this the hard way. When you finish putting the device together and plug it in, you hear the commander’s voice for the first time, at least that’s what we called her. A calm, forceful and surprisingly loud woman’s voice announces that the device is “charging”. The Smart LED Digital Display on the Switch Pro motor lets you know what percentage of battery has been charged and uses a ‘breathing’ light to let you know when the device is charging
In Use
When the device was finally ready to go I took it off its stand and gingerly placed it on the ground. There is an on/off button on the Floor Cleaner, but it is only fully activated when the head is pulled back. The second it hit the ground it started eagerly searching for dirt. It was like holding the lead of an excited puppy. While that doesn’t sound like an appealing experience, it was genuinely quite thrilling. The whole device is really lightweight and it doesn’t pull that hard, but you do feel that the machine has been waiting for its chance to clean for you.
The actual cleaning was phenomenal, marks that have survived countless run-ins with our other cleaners were gone instantly. The cleaner has two settings: ‘Auto’ which automatically determines the amount of suction and water needed to clean the dirt in front of it and ‘Max’ which turns it up to 11. The instructions recommend using it in Auto mode where possible as it is more efficient. I obviously went with Max as soon as I felt brave enough to click the ‘mode’ button. The water left behind was quite minimal and evaporated quickly. Even the motor sound was pleasant and subdued. My son was suspicious of the device when it first activated but eventually was happy to leave it alone and play in another room. While not best friends, they are not mortal enemies.
We then used the Hand Vac. It also has two settings, ‘Eco’ and ‘Max’. Eco mode did an alright job but Max mode was much more effective and will be our default when using this device. We have a lot of hair in the house that has seen the end of more than one vacuum cleaner. The Hand Vac picked it all up instantly with so little fuss that we were almost disappointed when the cleaning was over. We were ready for our regular battles with the carpet that are now a thing of the past.
After cleaning, the commander gave us our maintenance duties. The dirty water tank needed to be emptied, “dirty water tank full, please empty!” as did the dustbin on the Hand Vac. I asked the floor washer to run a 7 minute self-cleaning sequence (2 minutes of cleaning, 5 minutes of flash drying). While very impressive, it was quite noisy and did manage to scare my son. I live in a small house but was impressed to learn that cleaning my whole house with both devices set to ‘Max’ only used up 45% of the battery. I don’t know how this would fare in a large house with a lot of polished flooring, but I am very happy.
Overall, cleaning and maintenance only took a few minutes and my wife and I were so happy with the results. We have it displayed prominently in our kitchen/dining room and it seems to have developed an understanding with my son.
Gripes
There are a few gripes mentioned above: the prominently displayed extensions and connectors, patented cleaning formula, non-extendable vacuum arm, thick instruction manual, noisy self-cleaning function and unfortunately small clean water reservoir.
I would like to add one more gripe which is about the feeling of the handle on the Hand Vac. The Floor washer has its own grip that feels fantastic and gives you an excellent sense of control. The Hand Vac relies on a handle attached to the Switch Pro Motor which is much less comfortable and awkwardly angled. The Hand Vac is also so light weight that the weight of the motor and battery pack throws it a bit out of balance.
Finally, the dustbin on the Hand Vac is very small. We filled it almost to bursting in our tiny house, I imagine normal houses would require a few empties for each thorough clean.
Conclusion
I have gone way over my word count on this article and yet there are so many more positive things I want to say about this product. The digital display is beautiful, uncluttered and clear, the drying and charging dock is really cleverly designed and so svelte, the smart technology in the vacuum actually calculates the level of intensity required to effectively clean and the commander is fair and just, she only wants the best for me and my devices.
The price of $999 on Amazon, while not cheap, is a pretty good deal considering all the things that come with it. It is completely warranted considering the quality and versatility of the product and I expect to make a chunk of that back when I sell the many cleaning devices it will be replacing in our house. Ultimately this device has met my dream standards. It is exciting to use and bossy enough to force me to clean my house and behave like a civilised human being. I will not disappoint the commander.
