You would think that choosing a vacuum cleaner for hard floors would be easy. You are partly right: cleaning hard floors is much easier than cleaning carpets because all the dirt ends up directly on the surface. There is no need to go deep into the fibers.
But if you want it The best vacuum cleaner for hard floorsThere are other things you should consider. You want a vacuum that doesn’t blow dirt up and cause it to build up around the floor opening instead of cleaning it. If you have delicate floors, you may want a completely soft tool that will polish your floors without the risk of scratching them. And to make sure you don’t miss any dirt, you might want a vacuum cleaner with lights that illuminate the dirt.
A quick word before we begin: this is a particularly good time to buy a new vacuum cleaner. There are plenty of Black Friday deals on floor care, and this year’s deals are particularly good.
Why is this vacuum cleaner so effective for hard floors?
To test each vacuum’s effectiveness on hard floors, I sprinkled dry tea (representing fine particles) and a mixture of dry rice and lentils (representing coarse particles) on the vinyl floor. I vacuumed it on medium or auto and evaluated how well it cleaned up spills, paying particular attention to the amount of noise and particle build-up, both forward and rearward. I repeated the tests on a wood laminate floor to see if the results were different.
The PowerDetect Wireless scored 4/5 in my rice/lentil test and 5/5 in tea. It has enough suction to pick up particles of any size and has an automatic suction setting, meaning it intelligently increases or decreases suction when you move from a carpet to a hard floor (and even when it detects a particularly dirty spot). But the main reason he stood out from the competition was his ability to do the opposite.
Shark has added an extra door to the back of the floorhead that automatically raises when the machine is retracted. This allows it to suck particles back instead of trapping them behind the floor nozzle, which was more or less the case with all the other vacuums in my test group.
It also has an edge detection feature that increases suction on the corresponding side of the floor nozzle when the vacuum cleaner approaches the edge of a room where dirt can collect.
Its cleaning power won the crown, but the wireless PowerDetect is weaker than some options on other hard floors. Although there are white lights in the floorhead, they are not very bright; They serve more to illuminate dirty areas than to help find hidden particles.
About the floor nozzle: There is only one multi-function option here and there is no special nozzle for hard floors. However, the included floor nozzle has a soft roller on the front, which is especially suitable for polishing hard floors.
The finalists…
If Shark PowerDetect isn’t for you, here are the models that came second in my hard floor testing.
Dyson Gen5 detection
The Gen5detect caused more dirt buildup than the PowerDetect, but has a second soft floor head equipped with a bright laser that does an excellent job of highlighting dirt. The ability to detect dirt has also been significantly improved.
Read the whole spring Dyson Gen5detect review
dream R20
The Dreame R20 caused more clumps and stains than the PowerDetect or Gen5detect, but still achieved solid cleaning results on hard floors. It has a particularly soft floor brush and costs much less than the two high-end models.
Read the whole spring Dreame R20 test report