Tineco Floor One S5 Smart Cordless Vacuum & Mop review: Smarter, more efficient floor cleaning

Lugging around a heavy vacuum, stick mop, and bucket is nobody’s idea of a fun Saturday or Sunday, but a weekly floor leaning routine is essential for keeping your hard floors in top shape. The appeal of the Tineco Floor One S5 Smart Cordless Vacuum & Mop is obvious: By incorporating wet and dry cleaning functions into a single appliance, it cuts in half the number of tools you need to pull out each week, and it potentially reduces the amount of time you spend cleaning your floors.

The S5 looks similar to most other cordless vacuums, but it contains a pair of water tanks—a 0.8-liter tank for clean water and a 0.7-liter tank for dirty water–and a special soft roller brush that’s used to vacuum and wash floors at the same time. A digital display on top of the S5 lets you know when the dirty tank is full and the clean tank is empty, as well as the current battery level and when you need to run the S5’s self-cleaning cycle. The display also shows the output of the S5’s iLoop Smart Sensor, which detects how grimy your floors are. When the circular band around the display is red, it means your floors are dirty and when it’s blue, they’re clean. In this way, the S5 provides you with continuous real-time feedback as you clean your floors.

The S5 requires minimal assembly. You just slide the handle into the S5’s body until you hear a click. Next, you insert the power cable into the charging base and plug it into the wall. The S5 comes with several accessories, including an extra filter and roller brush, a cleaning tool, and a bottle of floor-cleaning solution, most of which can be stored on the charging base.

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It takes four to five hours to fully charge the S5, and the voice assistant lets you know when the process has started and is complete. You can also pair the S5 with the Tineco app, though I found the Wi-Fi connection process buggy, and the app has little use outside of a history of your cleaning jobs. To prepare for cleaning, you remove the clean water tank from the front of the vacuum and fill it to the designated line with tap water. If your floors are particularly dirty, you can add a capful of the cleaning solution. Next, push the tank back into the S5 until you hear a click.

Press the power button and recline the handle and the S5 propels itself forward. If you’re used to pushing a heavy stand-up vacuum around, you’ll be surprised how little effort it takes to move this cordless model—it seems to just glide across the floor. By default, the S5 operates in Auto mode, adjusting its brush speed, suction strength, and water flow according to the amount of dirt on your floors. You can manually toggle it to Max mode by pressing a button on the display when you need to tackle heavier jobs like spills and mud. Here again, the voice assistant confirms the mode change.

Cleaning with the S5 is a delight. Thanks to its self-propulsion and its ability to agilely twist and turn, the vacuum does most of the work, and it’s easy to maneuver under and around furniture. I was able to get it into tight spaces where my bulkier conventional vacuum refused to go, such as under my couch and the toe kicks under the kitchen and bathroom cabinets. It wouldn’t fit on either side of the toilets, though, so I had to fall back on my standard tools to clean those areas.

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Watching the monitoring loop gradually change from red to blue as you clean is pretty enjoyable, but of course the proof in the results. Whether I was using it to suck up daily dirt or the odd spill, the S5 left my floors spotless. I was especially impressed that it didn’t leave any streaks or water behind after mopping, which is a common issue I’ve found with robot vac/mop hybrids.

The S5 requires regular maintenance, not just to keep it performing optimally but also to minimize odors. As mentioned, the monitoring loop will illuminate solid red when it’s time to clean the dirty water tank. You’ll need to remove and empty the tank, rinse it out, and use the cleaning tool to remove any remaining debris. I used the tool to pull out pet hair before I dumped out the dirty water as I didn’t want those clumps going down my sink drain. You’ll also need to rinse and dry the filter and tank lid. The filter will need to completely dry before you replace it, which usually means some time out in the sun, hence the inclusion of a spare filter.

Running a self-cleaning cycle on the roller brush is a bit easier. With the clean water tank at least 40 percent full, you dock the S5 in its stand and press the self-cleaning button on the handle. The S5 will flush clean water through the brush while the voice assistant keeps you updated on its progress. The whole cycle takes about 5 minutes. Some jobs will necessitate a deeper cleaning, and for these, you can remove the brush and use the same cleaning tool to remove tangles and debris before rinsing the brush in tap water.

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I’ve never had an easier time cleaning my floors than with the Tineco Floor One S5. Not only did it deliver fantastic results, but cleaning was more efficient, without having to maneuver a cumbersome body and cord around, I was able to cut my cleaning time in half. The 35-minute runtime might require a recharge or two during cleaning in bigger homes, but it was plenty to cover the entire downstairs level of my condo. The S5 won’t eliminate the need for your regular vacuum and mop, but it will reduce how frequently you need to call on them, which is plenty to recommend it.