Tineco Floor One S3 wet & dry vacuum cleaner review

First off, it’s important to say what the Tineco Floor One S3 isn’t. It’s not a carpet cleaner. It’s specifically made to vacuum and wash sealed, hard flooring. It’s basically an alternative to vacuuming and mopping, but it’s considerably better as it does both at the same time, so you’ll only need to go over your floors once.

Design and appearance

• LED display
• 35 minute run time
• 4 hour charging time

There’s so much to like about the Floor One S3. At 4.5kg (9.9lbs), it’s light. As it’s in the style of an upright vacuum cleaner (although it’s cordless), that doesn’t matter much in use anyway. But if you need to carry it up the stairs to clean a bathroom floor, it’s easy to do.

It’s also thoughtfully designed, with a slim frame and a sleek, modern look. And it’s crammed with clever features.

At the base of the handle is an LED display that shows the battery level, Wi-Fi connection, water tank levels and other key pieces of information.

Weirdly, it has a red/blue coloured indicator to let you know if it’s detected a spill or debris – as if you wouldn’t notice you’d tipped a bowl of cereal on the floor. However, this is related to its auto-detection mode, so it’s not as redundant as it initially appears.

The battery level is shown as a percentage, which isn’t as helpful as the Dyson’s countdown timer. But it gives a much more accurate sense of how long you have left than illuminated bars. There’s a maximum run time of 35 mins, after which it needs four hours to recharge.

The Floor One S3 has two water tanks, one for clean (0.6l) and one for dirty water (0.5l). These are easy to pop out and can be washed in the sink. As they’re dark, transparent plastic, they help to hide dirty water but you can still see the water levels at a glance.

A minor criticism is that the tanks could be larger. There was plenty of capacity to clean my small kitchen, but you’ll probably only be able to clean one moderately sized, not overly dirty room before you need to refill and empty the tanks.

One of the S3’s standout features is the fact that it’s cordless. This again makes it incredibly easy to use. It stands in its charging dock, which has a small footprint, just wider than the base of the vacuum itself. There’s space on it to hold all of the Floor One S3’s accessories, except for the bottle of cleaning fluid.

As well as the vacuum cleaner, in the box you’ll get cleaning fluid, a spare brush roller, a HEPA filter and a three-in-one cleaning tool, to clean the Floor One S3 itself.

Smart features

Like many Tineco appliances, the Floor One S3 has smart features. The app is free to download and use, and it’s available for both Apple and Android. How much use you’ll get from it probably depends on how habituated you are to apps. I found it handy to be able to check on the battery status while it was charging, even if I didn’t need to see the power settings or tank fill levels.

Performance

• Easy setup
• Auto-adjusting suction
• Self-propelling cleaning

The Floor One S3 is easy to set up. Just insert the handle into the appliance, charge it and fill the clean water tank.

Start using it and you are in for a surprise (or would be, if I hadn’t ruined it for you). The Floor One S3 propels itself across the floor. It’s a strange feeling, as you’re just sort of hanging on like Mary Poppins while it gets to work. Essentially, this means that you just need to guide it around the room while it cleans.

It adjusts its suction power automatically depending on how dirty the floor is and I found it extremely effective. It didn’t over-wet the floor at any stage, it vacuumed efficiently and it removed those coin-sized tea stains that seem impervious to ordinary forms of mopping.

It’s pretty quiet in use as well, with Tineco claiming an operating volume of 78dBA.

Maintenance and cleaning

• Self-cleaning mode
• Easy to remove parts
• Voice prompts for maintenance issues 

If you’ve ever used a robot vacuum, you’ll probably be familiar with the idea of a machine narrating what it’s doing. If not, it’s sort of creepy and helpful in equal measures – but if creepy outweighs helpful, there’s a switch on the handle that’ll let you turn off this feature.

It’s handy to let you know if a part isn’t fitted correctly. For instance, if you’ve taken the roller off for cleaning and haven’t put it back correctly, it’ll inform you. However, there are times when it’s a bit overwhelming, for example during the self cleaning mode, where it voices every stage.

“Start self cleaning. Cleaning brush and roller. Cleaning debris channels.” At this point, halfway through the process, I disabled voice mode, feeling that it was more information than I needed.

Self-cleaning is a nice feature in itself, although a couple of stages are mini-jet-engine noisy. After using and docking the Floor One S3, you can set it off and it’ll basically run clean water through its system, so all you have to do at the end is remove and clean the tanks and dry out the roller.

The roller is also easy to remove. And, as there are no places for dirt and rubbish to get trapped within the appliance, it’s incredibly simple and straightforward to clean.

However, you should be prepared for just how unpleasant it is to empty the dirty water tank and filter. Imagine all the hair and bits inside your vacuum cleaner, mixed with dirty mop water in a kind of soup – and you are not even close to gauging the disgusting reality of this task.

Price and availability

The Tineco Floor One S3 costs roughly $399/£399/€399 but, although you can find it in the US, it’s currently harder to get hold of in the UK. If you can find it, we doubt you’ll be disappointed. It’s very well priced for its feature set.

Verdict

Sometimes, appliances are more trouble than they’re worth and you find yourself doing things by hand instead of dragging the machine out of the cupboard.

But I’d be surprised if people felt this way about the Floor One S3, as it’s so light, easy to set up and easy to clean afterwards. It’s a thoughtfully designed and efficient vacuum mop that should really save you time and effort. 

For more vacuum cleaner options, have a look at our round-up of the best vacuum cleaners we’ve tested, all of which are fully reviewed and rated.