Spring has arrived. The jasmine is out, the windows are open and the sunlight is streaming in, showing up every smear on the floorboards, every crumb under the couch and the patches of rug the dog has claimed since June.
With socialising season and hosting of dinners and parties – the house needs to be spick and span, not least for my own sense of sanity (and sanctuary). Coupled with that enthusiasm for a clean home means the right tools to do it.
Traditional cleaning is surprisingly physical. You haul a heavy vacuum from room to room, wring out a mop, lug a bucket and get down on your knees to reach under the bed. If your wrists, back or shoulders aren’t what they used to be, or you’ve never had much upper body strength, the annual deep clean can feel like a workout you didn’t really want.
This year, we swapped the bucket and mop for a new kit. We put three Tineco machines to work across hard floors, rugs and upholstery. Together they could change how you think about spring cleaning, and how your home feels for the rest of the year.
The spring cleaning kit, out of the box
A fresh start should begin with an easy setup, and it does. None of the three machines needs tools, and there’s no instruction manual marathon. The handles click into the bodies, the tanks slot into place and the docking stations are ready as soon as you put them down. Even the Switch, which has the most parts, is simply a matter of placing each piece on its pegs. From box to first clean took me (without asking for my husband to read the instructions. I don’t have time to read instructions and I prefer to get stuck in and figure it out myself) in 4 minutes. That includes opening the box, removing the plastic covers and click clacking elements together
For the floors: Tineco FLOOR ONE S7 Stretch
Spring light is unforgiving on hard floors, and this is the machine that meets it head on. The S7 Stretch vacuums and mops in a single pass, so crumbs, pollen, tracked-in grass, muddy paws, fur, and sticky floors, get handled, brilliantly. My use of the words “get handled” are supposed to be said in a British, Mobland style accent, because this new range of Tineco machinery are all designed beautifully, black, simple and streamlined and you kind of feel, operating them, like you could be a mega cleaning gangsta (I believe with an A is the appropriate way to spell it).
What you notice straight away is how little effort it takes to move across the floor. The self-propelled drive pulls the head forward, so you guide it rather than push it, and it pivots easily around chair legs and the corners of the kitchen island. It feels lighter than its 4.5kg. The 180° lay-flat design drops the body to just 13cm, so it slides under beds, couches and cabinet toe-kicks while you stand upright. That’s where a winter’s worth of dust has been hiding, and you get to it with no kneeling, no stretching and no awkward bending of your wrist. It’s like watching someone you know master their best Limbo – and knowing you just cleaned like the filthy gangsta you are – is worth more than you’d imagine.
The technology does the thinking too. The iLoop sensor reads how dirty the floor is and adjusts the suction (up to 21,000Pa) and the water flow in real time, so you never have to fiddle with settings. A front comb stops hair from wrapping around the roller, and when you dock it, the FlashDry cycle rinses the brush and dries it with 85°C hot air. That means no damp mop smell and no scrubbing a dirty roller over the sink. You get up to 50 minutes of runtime, which is plenty for most homes.
It’s designed for hard floors, not deep pile carpet, and the dirty water tank still needs to be emptied by hand. But the tank is light and lifts out with one hand.
RRP $899 often on sale for less
For the whole house: Tineco FLOOR ONE Switch S7 Stretch
The first thing you notice when you unbox the Switch is the colour. It’s sleek, matte black from head to handle, and setting it up feels less like unpacking an appliance and more like gearing up for battle in the next Mobland installment covering spring cleaning in Sydney. Dust, crumbs, pet hair and the grime that built up over winter are the enemy, and this is the equipment you bring to the fight.
The strategy behind it is genius. The Switch runs on a single detachable SwitchPro motor and battery pack that powers both the floor washer and a stick vacuum. Press the spring-loaded release, lift the pack off and click it into the other unit. There’s a satisfying click when it seats, and you’ve changed weapons mid-battle. The pack charges while it sits in the mop dock.
This is a vacuum, and can be used on soft furnishings, like curtains, with the handheld device, and crevices, like the gap next to the fridge. Then Switch – to the mop, which also moves to lie flat to clean up all the dust mites missed through the vacuum.
One battery gives you up to 50 minutes of mopping or 70 minutes of vacuuming, which is enough to do the whole house on one charge. Tineco has upgraded to pouch-cell batteries that it says last three times longer than standard cells, so the pack should hold up well over the years.
That’s where the value becomes hard to argue with. The S7 Stretch on its own has an RRP of $999. For about $200 more, the Switch gives you the same lay-flat, self-propelled wet and dry floor cleaner plus a full stick vacuum, all running on one battery. Most of us would otherwise buy these as two separate machines, each with its own battery, charger and spot in the cupboard. Here you get two machines, one power source and one dock system.
When the job’s done, the floor washer cleans itself with 85°C water and hot air, so it’s clean and ready for the next round.
The movement is just as smooth as the S7 Stretch. It has the same lay-flat reach and the same effortless glide, so you won’t wear yourself out before the job is done.
The only trade-off is space. The two docking stations take up more floor area than a single cleaner. But this one kit replaces a mop, a bucket and a stick vac, so you get plenty of cupboard space back.
For the soft stuff: Tineco CARPET ONE Cruiser
Winter is hard on carpets and rugs. There’s the mud from wet walks, the spilled red wine by the fire that you cleaned, but you can still see a tiny outline, and the couch that has done a season of movie nights and you think one guest might have tried to cover up the beer they spilt…. The Cruiser is the machine for the refresh your soft furnishings need.
Cleaning rugs has always seemed way too hard. I have to carry this heavy rug outside, hang it over the washing line and beat it with a broom and this only removes the dust. Cleaning stains requires stain removers, water and hope that you’re not ruining your favourite rug. While my favourite rug is from Ruggable and I could just pop it in the machine, my washing machine is not large enough for 3.5 x 3m of wool.
Then we go to hiring a carpet cleaner – either a real person, or hiring a machine from Bunnings. Carpet cleaners have a reputation for being beasts to push (the machine not the person), and this is where the Cruiser surprised me most. At 9.9kg it’s the heaviest of the three, but Tineco’s SmoothPower technology uses sensors to feel when you push or pull and then assists the motion. It adapts to your speed rather than fighting it, and it moves across a rug with zero muscle power required from you.
Tineco also moved the water tank to improve the balance, so the handle doesn’t drag on your arms. It’s a nifty design – it’s clean and dirty water in one tank, separated, making it simple to set up and put away. It holds 2L of clean water and 1.8L of dirty water, and it tackles mud, wine, oily food marks and whatever the dog brought in. Afterwards, one button press washes the brush roller, suction inlet and roller cover, then dries them with 75°C air. Honestly – genius. The clean and then dry – makes cleaning rugs something I can do monthly vs yearly (or never) because the rug isn’t wet for hours.
While it’s easy to push on the rug and the couch (I lifted it onto the couch) it does take some muscle power to carry through the house.
I have a chocolate lab. She’s gorgeous – yet moults year-long, and is basically always tracking something we don’t want through the house. The rugs were surprisingly gross and so satisfying to clean. Taking the dirty tank and showing my husband with glee the muddy water and exclaiming how clean the rugs are now and how our lives will be forever improved – only shows that I am insane.
$699 at the time of writing (RRP $999).
Getting better with every model
The S7 Stretch set the benchmark. It brought the 180° lay-flat body, a 13cm clearance, self-propelled drive, iLoop dirt sensing and an 85°C hot-air self-clean that deals with the damp mop smell for good.
The Switch builds on that foundation. Suction rises from 21,000Pa to 22,000Pa. The motor and battery detach and power a stick vacuum as well, giving up to 70 minutes of runtime. The pouch-cell batteries are built to last three times longer. It also adds edge cleaning on both sides and LED headlights to show up hidden dust. One battery, two distinct skill sets. Much love for this one.
The Cruiser brings the same thinking to carpet, where cleaners have always been hardest to push. Its SmoothPower sensors assist every push and pull, the water tank has been moved to improve the balance, and one button starts a 75°C self-clean and dry.
It’s clear Tineco listens to its customers and is hyper focused on innovation.
How to make the fresh start last
The real change isn’t the big spring clean. Because there’s no setup and no cleanup, you can run a machine over the floors after dinner in the time it takes the kettle to boil. Use the S7 Stretch or the Switch for everyday hard floors. Bring out the Cruiser at the change of each season, or straight away when someone spills the rosé on the rug at the first long lunch.
The verdict
It’s safe to say – these all suck and are great at it (had to, sorry). Each machine senses the dirt, adjusts themselves, drives forward, shares their power and cleans up after themselves. The result is a spring clean that asks very little of your body. If you’ve been putting off the deep clean because it’s hard work, or you’re buying for a parent who’s finding the old upright too heavy, this kit could change how you clean your home.
If your home is mostly hard floors, the S7 Stretch is the sweet spot. If you want one power pack running the whole house, go for the Switch. If you have carpet, kids or pets, the Cruiser earns its place.
What we are Addicted to: The glide, and the fact that 180 degree mops are a thing an cleaning under the couch without moving the couch should be the standard from now on.
What do we need to be more Addicted to: Nothing – these are excellent additions to the arsenal of cleaning power without taking up too much space or requiring complicated set up and putting away.
