Tineco Floor One S5 review

One-minute review

Tineco has been producing floor care appliances for almost 25 years and offers a range of cordless vacuum cleaners, including those that collect dust from floors as well as wet and dry vacuums. It’s working hard to bring innovative smart technology to the floorcare market and has a range of cleaners with app connectivity and dirt detect technology.

The Tineco Floor One S5 builds on the previous wet and dry cleaner from the brand, the Floor One S3 and notable upgrades include larger clean and dirty water tanks as well as better edge cleaning. This cordless cleaner vacuums and mops in tandem, removing the need to vacuum before mopping, which cuts cleaning time in half.

It features Tineco’s iLoop smart sensor technology, which detects both wet and dry dirt and adjusts suction, water flow and roller speed accordingly. There’s an automatic self-clean program for hands-off cleaning of the brush roller and an onboard voice assistant that’ll prompt you to add water, empty the dirty water tank and even remind you to start the self-clean program.

There’s an accompanying app with additional features that aren’t available on the cleaner, including volume control for the voice assistant and information about how much charging time is left before the battery will be at 100%.

On test we found it easy to use and it left floors sparklingly clean, it’s ideal for time-poor people who need a fast and easy solution to getting floors clean. It can’t vacuum without mopping though, so it won’t replace your regular vacuum and it can’t be used on carpets either.

Tineco Floor One S5 price and availability

•  List price: $499.99

The Tineco Floor One S5 is available direct from Tineco in the US and launches in the UK in April with the price to be confirmed. While the S5 isn’t available in Australia, the Tineco Floor One S5 Pro is available. It’s virtually the same model but features additional animations on the screen as well as a suction-only mode. Get it from Godfreys for AU$999.

The S5 isn’t a budget appliance but considering it can perform the dual functions of vacuuming and mopping, it’s a time-saving two-in-one floor cleaner that’s worth the expense, especially for people who mop floors several times a week.

Design

• Large charging dock holds all accessories
• Auto mode detects dirt
• Self-cleaning brush roller

The Tineco Floor One S5 is roughly the size of a standard upright vacuum cleaner and measures 43.3 x 10.6 x 9.8 inches / 110 x 27 x 25cm (h x w x d). It weighs in at 9.9lbs / 4.5 kg when the water tank is empty.

It comes out of the box ready to go, there’s no assembly required other than clicking the handle into position and setting up the charging dock. The dock has quite a large footprint, measuring 12.6 x 12.2 inches/ 32 x 31cm (w x d) so you’ll need to find floor space for it. However there is space on the dock for the spare brush roller and filter, so it won’t take up any other storage space in your house.

It comes with a detachable 28 oz / 0.8 liter clean water tank on the back, and a detachable 23.7 oz / 0.7 liter dirty water tank on the front of the cleaner. Both are easy to remove, empty and fill. When the dirty water tank is full, the appliance switches off and the voice assistant prompts you to empty it. Likewise, when the clean water tank needs a refill, the voice assistant prompts you to do so, but it doesn’t automatically switch off.

On top of the main body of the cleaner, there’s a large round screen which displays the battery percentage as well as whether you’re cleaning in max or auto mode. There are also a number of other symbols which light up to alert you of issues such as when the dirty water tank needs emptying or the self-clean program needs running. A light ring around the edge of the screen changes color depending on the level of dirt detected. It’s red when the cleaner detects a high level of dirt and turns to blue as the floor becomes cleaner.

The on/off switch is conveniently located on the handle and next to it is a button to switch between auto mode and max mode, with the self-cleaning button on the top of the handle. During the self-cleaning function, it uses clean water from the tank to clean the brush roller.

The roller is simple to remove by unclicking the cover on top and there’s a spare included so that you can remove the wet one and allow it to dry, whilst replacing it with the spare so it’s always ready to go. It’s also supplied with a cleaning brush to clean out the short section of pipe between the roller and dirty water tank. A spare filter is included in the box as is a bottle of cleaning solution.

Performance

• Easy to use
• Doesn’t clean grout lines
• Leaves floors clean

The water tank is easy to fill and given that only one cap of cleaning fluid is required, the included bottle will last for several cleans. The cleaner always starts in auto mode, even if you were using max mode last time. It’s really maneuverable, turning tight corners with ease and it propels itself forward so doesn’t feel heavy to push.

When we cleaned on max power the dirty water tank required emptying after just six minutes of cleaning and the clean water tank needed a refill after only eight minutes. Both last longer in auto mode though as it doesn’t use as much water as when on max mode. It left our floors slightly damp after cleaning, not overly wet so they dried quickly.

In our bathroom, tiled floors were left clean and free of debris, but it doesn’t get into grout lines so these remained dry. It also struggled to remove a blob of foundation from one of the tiles and we had to go back and forth over the area several times to get it clean.

In the kitchen, as you’d expect, dried food splatters weren’t removed first time, but after a couple of sweeps it cleaned up most visible mess and had no problem collecting dry debris such as oats and hair at the same time. It effectively sucks up debris even at the edge of the baseboards. What’s more, it’s a convenient way of cleaning up liquid spills such as milk, it sucks up the liquid quickly and cleans the floor simultaneously so it’s useful to have to hand if you’ve got small children. Overall we were impressed with the amount of dirt it removed from what we thought were relatively clean floors.

We noticed the dirt detection ring turn red and it automatically increase the cleaning level when it detected dirt, which was interesting to see, particularly on parts of the floor that didn’t look dirty to the naked eye. But it prompted us to pay extra attention to these areas, which we wouldn’t have done with a regular mop.

When thinking about comparisons to a regular manual mop, it’s worth noting that you won’t be able to reach as far under low furniture with this floor cleaner, or into really small and awkward spaces. Basically, anywhere you can’t get to with a standard vacuum, you won’t be able to reach.

The voice prompt lets you know when the dirty water tank needs emptying. It’s a simple process but take a tip from us, empty it into your toilet. Otherwise, if you opt for the sink, you’ll end up with all the larger debris including hairs in your sink, which makes for a pretty disgusting sink that’ll need cleaning afterwards.

Once back on the charging dock, it scans the dirt level on the brush roller and will prompt you to perform the automatic clean if needed. The clean takes roughly two minutes and is a completely hands off process, so you can walk away and do something else until it’s finished, at which point the dirty water tank needs emptying.

It’s best to remove the brush roller at the end of cleaning so it can dry thoroughly, but as there are two, this just means switching it out for the one on the charging dock, so one is drying and the other is in position, ready for use.

When cleaning in both auto mode and max mode neither went above 72db, which is the same level of noise made by a dishwasher mid-cycle and is more than acceptable.

App

• Simple to connect to cleaner
• Gives cleaning stats
• Updates firmware

The Tineco Life app connects easily to the floor cleaner and it walks you through the setup process. While having an app for a floorcare appliance isn’t exactly necessary, it does contain a few useful features. It allows you to change the language as well as volume of the voice prompts on the cleaner, you can also mute the voice altogether if you prefer.

There are video tutorials on everything from how to fill and empty the water containers, to removing the brush roller and cleaning. Furthermore, you can tell the cleaner whether you’re using cleaning solution or cleaning with water only, this allows it to adjust settings if necessary, although this can be done without the app too.

There are other, arguably less useful features in the app such as stats on the time spent cleaning and average daily use. It’s not necessarily an app you’ll use regularly, but it’s helpful to download it when first setting up the appliance, in our case it performed a firmware upgrade upon the initial setup.

Battery life

• 4-5 hour charging time
• Up to 35 minute run time
• Battery level displayed on screen

The battery percentage is shown clearly on the screen during use as well as while it’s charging. If you’re not near the cleaner you can also check the battery level in the app, which will give you additional information about how much time is remaining before it’s fully charged and we found this to be quite accurate

During use in max mode, the battery lasted 27 minutes which is just shy of the 28 minutes stated by Tineco. It’ll last longer in auto mode, but the time will vary because auto mode adjusts the power depending on the dirt level detected. Once the battery reaches 10% the number flashes to alert you that it’s low. A full recharge took just under four hours, which is faster than the four to five hours suggested by Tineco.

Should I buy the Tineco Floor One S5?

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First reviewed: February 2022

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