The Best Mop

Jul 08, 2023

We incorrectly stated that the Lunaglow Nano, which we cover in The competition, can connect to an app via WiFi.

Vacuum-mop combos, wet-dry vacuums—whatever you call them, we’ve found in our testing that these machines can wash the filthiest bare floors much faster than any other cleaning tools. It is possible that you might be better off with a different type of product. But if you think the sheer speed of a vac-mop combo is your best option, consider the plug-in version of the Bissell CrossWave first.

Vacuum-mop combos can suck up dry debris, slurp up moisture, and polish away stains and grime—all at once.

The best models can pick up nearly all dry debris and handle stuck-on stuff about as well as a traditional mop.

After every session, it’s crucial to empty the dirty tank promptly, or it can turn foul.

To find the best bets, we used six different models to clean stubborn stains from a few types of bare flooring.

The classic CrossWave gets floors near-spotless more quickly than any other floor-care tool. It sucks up solid debris, slurps up spills, and wipes away stains, all at the same time. This CrossWave is a plug-in model, so it’s stronger and should be more durable than the myriad cordless vac-mop combos out there. Fair warning: Regular maintenance is essential.

The Pet Pro is essentially the same machine as the standard CrossWave. But this model has pet-centric brushes and detergent, plus a strainer (which makes disposing of the inevitable gobs of wet hair in the dirty-water tank slightly less gross).

Bissell’s standard, green CrossWave and purple CrossWave Pet Pro (they’re very similar) both leave bare floors looking tidier and shinier than any other vac-mop combos we tested. Spills, solids, smears—the CrossWave will easily and safely slurp up all of it from the vast majority of wood, stone, ceramic, vinyl, laminate, and linoleum floors. We expect that the plug-in CrossWave will be more durable than its competitors, which are mostly cordless, battery-powered models—a technology that tends to stop working after a few years. Bissell also has a solid track record of making its branded detergents and basic spare parts widely available for years, even in some brick-and-mortar stores. Though the CrossWave isn’t a substitute for a real carpet cleaner, it can suck up fresh spills from rugs before they turn into stains (something not all vac-mop models can do well). It can also work as a decent regular dry vacuum (which some other vac-mop combos, including our other pick, the Tineco iFloor3, cannot). The CrossWave’s only major downside—apart from the pseudo-burden of being tied to a power outlet, and assuming that a vac-mop model makes practical and financial sense for your home—is that it’s fairly nasty to empty and rinse after a cleaning session. But that’s true of all vac-mop combos.

The Tineco iFloor3 has no cord, so mopping and vacuuming floors is even easier than with the classic Bissell CrossWave. But it’s not quite as strong at cleaning and probably isn’t as durable. And the iFloor3 lacks some versatility—it can’t dry-vacuum, nor can it really suck up wet messes from rugs.

If you’re willing to pay extra for the convenience of a cordless vac-mop model—even one that doesn’t clean quite as well and probably won’t last nearly as long as the plug-in CrossWave—we’d recommend the Tineco iFloor3. It will still handle nearly any stain or solid or spill, but we found that it leaves behind a little more residue than the super-sucking CrossWave, so your floors won’t look quite as polished. It isn’t really suitable for sucking up spills from rugs, either. One unique feature is that it runs more or less automatically: You turn it on, it starts mopping and vacuuming instantly, and you don’t need to remember to press any buttons or fiddle with any settings. As far as the availability of detergent, brushes, and filters, we don’t know what to expect. They’re easy to find now, but Tineco has not done a great job of keeping spare parts available for its popular cordless stick vacuums.

For this guide, I tested six upright-style vacuum-mop combos (or wet-dry vacuums, or CrossWave knockoffs—they can go by many names that nobody yet agrees on). Most of the testing took place between late spring and early fall 2021.

Wirecutter also recently analyzed about 6,000 Amazon user reviews for eight popular mops (including a traditional mop and a few flat spray mops), with the assistance of an artificial intelligence–driven tool called FindOurView. It gave us loads of detail about the features that owners appreciate most, and it helped us understand what real owners think about the relative strengths and weaknesses of each type of tool. (For vac-mop combos in particular, the most-beloved quality is that they make it so quick and easy to get floors nearly spotless, and that helped us frame our thinking.)

Personally, I’ve also written or edited Wirecutter guides to a bunch of other floor-care products, including traditional vacuums of all types, carpet cleaners, and robot mops (which I was testing at the same time as these upright vac-mop models).

A vacuum-mop combo can vacuum and wet-wash your bare floors at the same time. It’s arguably the quickest, most convenient tool for thoroughly cleaning your dirtiest floors—usually kitchens and mudrooms, but really anywhere.

But we don’t think most (or many) people actually need a vac-mop combo. There are lots of other tools that work just as well, and most of them cost way less, even if they take a little longer to finish the job.

In the right homes, though, vac-mop combos can make your floor-care routine much easier. And the best models are decent-quality appliances that do the job they say they’ll do. A vac-mop combo can be especially valuable in households where messy floors seem to just emerge from nowhere. They’re great for sucking up spills, too, especially if there are solid chunks mixed with liquid (certain models can even do this on rugs). Personally, I got a visceral thrill from watching the dirty-water tanks on the best vac-mop models fill up with murky, swampy water, knowing that the filth was no longer on my floor.

On the downside, vac-mop combos are much more expensive than almost any other type of mop, and they don’t clean edges or grout lines very well. Only some vac-mop combos can work in a dry, vacuum-only mode. And even those that can are worse at digging dust and hair out of rugs than most standalone vacuum cleaners. It can also be kind of nasty to empty out a vac-mop combo’s dirty-water tank, especially if the machine sucked up a bunch of food and pet hair, mixed in with all the turbid fluids.

Vacuum-mop combos have suction, like a regular vacuum. But they also dribble out some cleaning liquid and automatically scrub the floors with a spinning brush, sort of like an electrified mop-scrubber thing. And they can safely suck up and store solids and liquids alike.

Some models, including the Bissell CrossWave (our top pick), can optionally run as dry vacuums and won’t dispense liquid until you press a button. Others, like the Tineco iFloor3 (another model we recommend), will automatically wet-wash whenever the power is turned on—there’s no vacuum-only mode. Both styles have merits, which we cover in our pick sections below.

Plenty of people (and even brands) call this type of product a “wet-dry vacuum.” But that’s also a common term for workshop vacuums, which can safely suck up solids and liquids but don’t wet-wash your floors (no cleaning solution, no brush). So we’ve decided to (somewhat clumsily) call products like the Bissell CrossWave “vacuum-mop combos,” to avoid confusion with other types of floor-care products.

In some homes, certain vac-mop combos could be the main floor-care product (supplanting a separate vacuum and mop). The more bare flooring you have and the more often you’d like to mop it, the stronger the case for vac-mop primacy. This doesn’t seem to be a common use for these cleaners, and most bare floors don’t need to be wet-mopped very often anyway. But it’s an option, and it can make a vac-mop combo’s price seem less intimidating. If you think you want to go this route, be sure to pick a model that can run in dry-vacuum mode alone, like the Bissell CrossWave.

Performance-wise, a vac-mop’s vacuum suction tends to be on a par with that of a cheap stick vacuum—totally fine for getting almost any kind of debris off bare floors, but mostly ineffective on rugs, especially rugs with long, dense fibers.

Most vac-mop combos’ mopping performance is strong enough to wipe away any stuck-on stains and a lot of built-up grime, leaving floors looking pretty polished. Like any wet-mopping tools that use water or mild detergent, vac-mop combos are safe to use on any sealed bare floors, including most wood and stone tile, and all ceramic tile, laminate, vinyl, and linoleum surfaces. In relative terms, vac-mop combos work much better than a wet Swiffer or robot mop (or other pad-style cleaner). But they are not quite as effective or versatile as a traditional wet mop (when used properly); for example, combos don’t clean grout lines as well as traditional mops do.

Some vac-mop combos claim to work on rugs as a way to “refresh” their appearance (we saw this claim in an ad for the Bissell CrossWave Max). That’s a meaningless term, and we’d argue that it’s borderline misleading, based on our testing. Combos can be useful for sucking up fresh spills from carpeting. But we have not found one that makes a noticeable dent in set-in stains or grime the way a dedicated carpet cleaner does.

With a vacuum-mop combo, you’re meant to use the manufacturer-supplied cleaning solution; this may or may not be ideal for your floor type or fragrance preference, and it costs more than a lot of common detergents. All of the user manuals imply that using third-party cleaning solutions (Bona, Murphy’s, Mrs. Meyer’s, Mr. Clean, whatever) can cause long-term problems in the machine’s liquid dispenser, but we don’t know how seriously to take this.

Vac-mop combos can clean your floors faster than other floor-care tools, but they still require some cleanup after you’re done using them. This takes at least a few minutes of hands-on effort that’s grosser than what is necessary with other types of mops.

You’ll need to dump and rinse the dirty-water tank (often labeled “DWT” on the machine) promptly after you’re done cleaning, or when the DWT gets full. Hidden in the murky liquid of the DWT, you’ll often find chunks of food and grit and whatever else was on your floor, plus a few stringy globs of hair. The solid stuff tends to cling to the sides of the DWT, even if you swish the waste water around a bit before dumping it out. The gunk will usually come loose with a clean-water rinse, but you might have to brush it out manually (while trying not to flick any filth back toward your face).

After each use of the vac-mop, you’re supposed to let the entire DWT assembly, including the filter, dry out in pieces for 24 hours before reassembling it and putting it back in the main machine. If you ever get lazy or distracted and neglect to empty the dirty-water tank for a few days after a cleaning session, it may turn foul—like, potentially really smelly and slimy, as we learned in our own testing. Several models have a mode that automatically washes the brush roll, while others require a little more manual effort to rinse away the murky residue. And no matter what, you’ll eventually have to bend down, pop off the splash guard, and pull or cut some matted hair patties by hand.

Maybe I’m just more grossed out by the nature of the DWT than the typical owner and am blowing it out of proportion: Only a small percentage of user reviews for any vac-mop combos even mentioned this step as being disgusting, according to our AI-assisted analysis. However, close to 20% of owners of popular models criticized the overall amount of effort it takes to properly clean the machines after each session.

Another major downside to a vac-mop combo is the high cost of the best models. There’s no doubt a lot of people would find them useful for cleaning a few super-dirty rooms, but maybe that convenience is not worth the price. For illustrative purposes, here are conservative price estimates of some other combinations of floor-care products (some of which are Wirecutter picks) that can do roughly the same job as a vac-mop combo:

Basic: $10 broom with dustpan + $10 self-wringing mop

Electric: $155 cordless stick vacuum + $30 spray mop + $15 reusable pads

Combo: $230 plug-in vac-mop combo

Robots: $250 robot vacuum + $180 robot mop with reusable pads

What’s the best option? Setting aside the matter of price, the best option depends on how much cleaning you need to do—and how much time you’ll take to do it. The best products in each of these categories all have similar user ratings, which is a sign that there’s no single category of mop that’s clearly superior.

My personal take: While I was testing vac-mop combos, I was also testing robot mops. Plus, I own a Swiffer WetJet spray mop. So for almost six months, I could use whatever kind of fancy mop I felt wanted—and I found myself rotating among the different types pretty consistently, with no strong, enduring preference for one over the other. The Swiffer WetJet was almost always the quickest way to wipe up a small spill or stain, and I was glad I had one around. In times when I had to clean up a lot of crumbs and splatters—maybe after cooking a big, saucy meal—the vac-mop combos made the fastest work of the mess. And if I was out of the house or just didn’t need to use the kitchen for a while, robots turned out to be a great way to tidy up. I never used a traditional mop because I didn’t have one around. But I did wish I’d had one to clean edges and tight spaces better.

The Bissell CrossWave has been around for a while—at least since I helped test it for Wirecutter’s upright carpet cleaner guide in 2017. But we’d overlooked its potential as a bare-floor cleaner.

Then in 2020, there was a surge in interest in the vac-mop-combos category (possibly because some video clips of the Tineco iFloor, polishing floors and sucking up dog hair, became unlikely hits on TikTok). I also noticed that my local Target permanently moved the Bissell CrossWave from a shelf in the back aisles to a display closer to the checkout area. My Wirecutter inbox eventually started filling up with emails from publicists telling me about new CrossWave and iFloor knockoffs from all kinds of brands I’d never heard of. So it seemed like the right time to give the category another look.

Our contenders:

My house is busy, with two adults working from home full-time, a 3-year-old, and an aging long-haired cat. The floor of our kitchen and mudroom gets dirty quickly, collecting greasy residue from cooking, crumbs, street grit and yard waste, grains of cat litter, and all the random debris that just appears when you live with a young child.

Between late spring and early fall 2021, I used each vac-mop model to clean the vinyl floor in my kitchen and entryway for at least a week. If I found that a model was effective and easy to use, I’d keep using it for at least another week, and I’d try it on wood floors and my stone-tiled bathroom. Sometimes I would use a couple of models in a row, back to back, in a dirty room, to see whether one could clean stuck-on grime that others could not.

I also did a little bit of “challenge testing,” where I’d brush my cat and try to suck up a huge tuft of the resulting fur, or pour some maple syrup and marinara on the floor and let it dry for a couple of hours. But I didn’t learn a whole lot from this because all of the contenders performed well.

After research and testing, we think the most important differences between models come down to a couple of factors:

Cleaning ability: Ideally, a vac-mop combo should be able to scrub away stuck-on stains and grime, suck up all the solid stuff, and completely slurp up spills and cleaning solution—leaving floors smooth and a little shiny.

The best model, the Bissell CrossWave plug-in, can almost pull off that dream scenario, thanks to its superior suction. It just won’t clean edges or grout lines very well.

Battery-powered combos like the Tineco iFloor3 do a great job of vacuuming solid debris. But they don’t wash away as much grime as the plug-in CrossWave, and they don’t suck up their own dirty cleaning solution quite as completely. So your floors won’t have the same near-sparkle that the CrossWave plug-in can create, but they’ll still look and feel cleaner than they would with a Swiffer WetJet or other pad-style mop.

On the low end, the Shark VacMop is pretty much equivalent to a spray mop like the Swiffer WetJet and an extremely cheap vacuum. The rest fall somewhere in between.

Expected longevity: This is how long you’ll be able to use the vac-mop combo before you can’t consistently use it anymore. That could be due to a major hardware failure, like the battery pack losing its ability to hold a charge. Or maybe the manufacturer just stops selling fresh supplies like detergent, filters, or brushes.

We can’t predict which brands might do the best job of keeping fresh supplies available into the future. But certain brands (Bissell) do have a good track record of keeping supplies in stock for their products over time, while some have a mixed track record (Tineco) or no track record at all (Lunaglow and others).

As far as durability, we don’t have any clear information about whether certain brands or models are sturdier than others. But based on what we know about cordless stick vacuums’ mediocre reliability after nearly a decade of testing and reporting, we think it’s safe to assume that battery-powered vac-mop combos will not be as reliable as plug-in models like the standard CrossWave. The battery packs often fail after just a few years, and they’re expensive to replace—and in some cases, they aren’t even meant to be replaced. The Tineco iFloor3, for example, says explicitly in its manual that if the battery stops working, you should discard the entire machine.

That said, we recognize some people are willing to look past the high prices and mediocre longevity of cordless appliances; without a cord to wrangle, these machines can feel much more convenient than plug-in models. So we recommend both types in this guide. It’s your call.

If you’re going to splurge on an all-in-one, wet-dry, vac-mop combo, we suggest making it the plug-in version of the Bissell CrossWave (not the cordless CrossWave Max model). The green “regular” CrossWave and the purple Pet Pro model are nearly identical (apart from a couple of fur-centric features on the latter that seem to have minor benefits for pet owners). So either variant is a fine choice.

The CrossWave is our top pick because it was better at cleaning all kinds of messes than every other vac-mop combo we tried: food, spills, grime, hair, whatever. This machine consistently managed to find filth that other models left behind. The key to the CrossWave’s success is its suction, which is clearly the strongest among that of its close competitors. The extra airflow helps the CrossWave readily swallow solid debris, but the real advantage is that this model slurps up much more dirty washing water. So more of the dirt actually ends up off the floor and in the vac-mop combo’s dirty-water tank.

As a result, floors end up cleaner, shinier, and smoother than other vac-mop combos leave them. It’s not a dramatic difference, but it is one you’d notice in person in subtle but satisfying ways: Lights glisten a little brighter off your floor, stocking feet slide slightly farther.

We’re also more inclined to recommend the CrossWave because it’s the only true vac-mop model with a power cord, and we think this means it will last longer on average than cordless vac-mop combos. The CrossWave also costs anywhere from $30 to $200 less than the cordless models we’ve found.

Sure, being tethered to a cord can be a drag, especially if you’ve gotten used to cleaning with a cordless vacuum—plugging in is one more step between seeing a mess and cleaning a mess. And it can be a pain to wrangle a long cable in a home with lots of furniture, corners, and tight spaces. But if you’re mostly using the CrossWave to clean a few specific rooms that really need it, we imagine you’ll be less likely to get irritated by the typical cord-related troubles, such as getting snarled on corners as you move between rooms or having to plug into multiple outlets during a cleaning session.

Bissell also has a good track record for supporting its products, as well as making its supplies and basic spare parts easy to find. Bottles of Bissell’s CrossWave cleaning solutions are widely available, including in-store at many supermarkets and one-stop stores like Target and Walmart, and certainly on Amazon and other internet retailers. You’ll need new brushes and filters within a year, and those spares are readily available online, too.

The CrossWave also lets you control how much cleaning liquid it dispenses and when, using a trigger. Some other models, like the Tineco iFloor3, just dispense liquid constantly. Although there’s nothing wrong with that approach, some people might prefer the control. For example, the trigger system makes it possible to use the CrossWave as a dry vacuum, by simply not squeezing said trigger. (It’s not a great dry vacuum, since it can’t dig much debris out of rugs, but it’s fine for bare floors.) And because the CrossWave isn’t constantly wetting the floors and draining itself, you can usually clean for longer without having to refill the clean-water tank—a nice upside.

Bissell sells a few different types of detergent for the CrossWave. In our testing, we mostly used the standard multi-surface formula, which worked well on all surfaces. We also tried the sanitizing formula and a formula for wood floors; they both seemed fine for their stated purposes, but we haven’t thoroughly tested them.

We also appreciated how easy it was to fill the CrossWave’s clean-water tank without spilling detergent. The CrossWave’s tank can sit flat on a countertop, and on the side it has lines for measuring the intended water-detergent ratio. This makes pouring in the correct amount of detergent simple and unmessy. With the Tineco iFloor series, you’re instructed to use the tiny cap from the detergent bottle to measure out the correct dose of the super-concentrated liquid. Even though I have steady hands, I still spilled a little detergent most times that I filled the tank. So I imagine it’ll be a challenge for many people. On the downside, the Bissell’s dirty-water tank is just as unpleasant to clean out as any of the other models we tried.

One of the most common complaints about the CrossWave is that it leaves streaks—about 7% of Amazon reviewers noted this, according to our AI-assisted analysis. We found that when we followed Bissell’s directions for using the trigger, in tandem with the recommended amount of detergent, we got excellent results. (The preferred technique is to do one back-and-forth wet pass with the trigger squeezed, and then release the trigger and do one or two back-and-forth dry passes.) It’s possible that the streaking could come from an undesirable chemical reaction between the detergent and the flooring itself, but we don’t really know.

If you’re willing to pay extra for a cordless vac-mop combo (which, in all likelihood, will not last as long as a plug-in model and therefore will cost you even more in the long run), we’d suggest you check out the Tineco iFloor3. We found it to be incredibly convenient to use, in large part because it’s battery-powered, with no cord to wrangle. It’s also a decent cleaner.

Though Tineco has a weaker track record for keeping spare parts available than Bissell does, we think the iFloor3 is a much better product than Bissell’s cordless model, the CrossWave Max. So we’re willing to look past the possibility that the Tineco won’t be as durable as Bissell’s cordless model. We’re also betting (though we could be wrong) that it will be easier to find replacement brushes, filters, and detergent for the iFloor3 than for any of the myriad no-name knockoffs currently clogging Amazon’s wet-dry vacuum listings.

In our tests, the iFloor3 did a great job of sucking up the majority of solids and stains from bare floors. Sometimes we needed to do a few back-and-forth passes, but it worked. This model is clearly more effective at cleaning stuck-on stains and grime than a pad-based spray mop like the Swiffer Wet Jet or Braava robot mops, for example. It’s just not as effective at removing greasy grime or leaving a polished look as the top-performing vac-mop, the Bissell CrossWave plug-in. (In general, battery-powered vacuums are weaker than similarly priced plug-in models.) This is true even on the Tineco’s high-powered Max mode, which blows through cleaning solution and battery life much quicker than the default Eco mode. To the iFloor3’s credit, fewer owners complained that this machine left streaks than CrossWave owners did, though we think this has more to do with how some people use the CrossWave than with either model’s raw cleaning ability.

The iFloor3 doesn’t offer as much control as a Bissell or many of the cheaper clones from lesser-known brands: The Tineco’s mop and vacuum always run simultaneously, no exceptions, so you can’t run either function in isolation. This means no dry vacuuming, unless you run it with an empty clean-water tank, which partially defeats the purpose of the machine. It’s a poor tool for rugs in general—even just to suck up fresh spills—because the dry suction isn’t very strong, the brush does not agitate rugs well, and the uncontrollable flow of cleaning solution will leave any rug uncomfortably damp. (Tineco doesn’t recommend using the iFloor3 on rugs anyway.) The iFloor3 also blows through its clean-water tank relatively quickly on Max mode, so you’ll have to stop to refill it every 5 minutes—more often than you would with other vac-mop models on their strongest settings. (The iFloor3 uses water much more judiciously in Eco mode, in which a tank lasts for over 20 minutes—about the same as the battery life.)

On the other hand, some people might find that the iFloor3’s simplicity is an asset. All you need to do is turn on the power, and the iFloor3 starts washing automatically, no extra steps or techniques to remember.

The biggest unknown is durability: The iFloor3 is a relatively new product. So it’s unclear how long this machine will last on average, though we do not have high expectations. The iFloor3 is covered by a two-year warranty, but Tineco says explicitly in the manual that the machine’s battery is non-replaceable. So when the battery dies, you’ll need an entire new vac-mop. Most lithium-ion battery packs are rated to last for a few hundred cycles of charges and discharges. But they often fail well before that promised lifespan—it is well-established that cordless vacuums’ batteries can fail after a couple of years.

Although we think that Tineco in the short term is more likely than the typical temporary brand on Amazon to keep fresh supplies available for its vac-mop models, we aren’t confident the company is in it for the long haul. Over the past few years, we’ve noticed that Tineco has sometimes done a lousy job of stocking spare parts for its popular cordless vacuum cleaners. In late 2021, bottles of cleaning solution and spare brushes and filters were readily available on Amazon. We’ll keep an eye on whether that’s still the case as time passes.

It’s a little tricky to fill the iFloor3’s clean-water tank without spilling some liquid, particularly the detergent. The opening is tiny, and you’re supposed to use the cap from the detergent bottle to measure and pour the correct dose. So it’s easy to miss the hole, even if your hands are steady. And, as with all vac-mop combos, emptying the dirty-water tank is gross.

The iFloor3 has an automated self-cleaning cycle for its brush, which seems like an advantage over other models, but it’s more complicated than that. The iFloor3 will recommend (with a small light-up indicator) that you run a self-clean cycle after most cleaning sessions. This mode dispenses a puddle of clean liquid into the bottom of the charging dock, and the brush spins through the puddle for about 30 seconds to wash itself off, before the vacuum sucks up the used liquid. Sometimes the iFloor3 repeats the process twice. It’s convenient, but this mode absolutely chugs water out of the clean tank, and it can waste a lot of detergent in the process. I got in the habit of waiting to use the self-clean mode until I’d totally used up any clean tank that had detergent in it. Then I’d refill the tank with water only, before finally running the thirsty self-cleaning mode.

And the iFloor3’s self-cleaning mode isn’t as special as it might seem. For example, the CrossWave doesn’t advertise such a function, but it can do the same thing, just without as much automation: You fill the CrossWave’s tray with water by hand and simply turn the machine on, so you get more control over the process and probably waste less detergent.

The Bissell CrossWave Cordless Max is a weaker cleaner than both the standard CrossWave and the Tineco iFloor3—it struggles to suck up as much dirty cleaning solution as it squirts out. It’s also much bulkier and a little tougher to push around than the iFloor3. Its water tanks are also harder to fill up and empty out than either of our picks. Bissell upsells some packages with extra brushes and bottles of cleaning solution that are supposed to work better on certain surfaces like wood, but the benefits were minimal, as far as we could tell. If there’s an upside to the CrossWave Max, it’s that Bissell has a good track record for product support. Also, you can use the CrossWave Max in dry-vacuum mode (unlike with the Tineco iFloor3), and you get some control over how much cleaning solution it dispenses (much like you do with the regular CrossWave).

This lightweight cleaner is essentially a spray mop with a weak vacuum built in that relies on special disposable cleaning pad–cartridge things (shaped like a really short box), which can both wipe away grime and store solid debris. The VacMop doesn’t come close to the cleaning performance of the other vac-mop combos we’ve tested. But the Shark costs a lot less than those powerful models, and owners tend to really like it.

Our hangup is those throwaway pads: They cost $1 each, and you can maybe use them for a week’s worth of minor messes at most (and usually less than that if you need to clean a lot of stains or spills), so the cost of ownership can really add up over time. And it’s hard to look past the amount of plastic garbage they generate—it feels like an egregious waste when there are so many other tools to do this same job without it. (We did look for reusable VacMop pads but couldn’t find any.)

We didn’t test the cheaper, more basic Tineco iFloor (we decided to pick just one Tineco model to try), so we don’t know how it holds up. But on paper, its suction is weaker than that of the iFloor3, which means it’ll struggle to suck up as much dirty liquid and will probably leave more residue. The Floor One S3 (which we also have not tested) adds a sensor that can detect messes and adjust the cleaning power accordingly. We’ve tested a similar feature on the Tineco Pure One S11 cordless stick vacuum and thought it was useful for vacuuming rugs, on which it can be hard to tell if you’ve sucked up all the debris buried in the carpet fibers. But it’s much easier to tell when bare floors are actually clean, and the cheaper iFloor3 already does a great job of cleaning nearly any mess, so the sensor comes across as an unnecessary upgrade for a vac-mop combo.

We’ve found a couple-dozen cordless wet-dry vac-mop combos sold by brands we’ve never heard of, usually for a lower price than the cost of the better-known Bissell and Tineco models. This has been a common phenomenon in floor care (and loads of other consumer categories) over the past few years: Small manufacturers relentlessly copy hit products (like Dyson cordless stick vacuums or Roomba robot vacuums) and sell them nearly exclusively through Amazon, across multiple listings with a variety of near-nonsense brand names, such as TicWell, AlfaBot, and AceKool. The one clone we tested actually turned out to be pretty good, and it’s wise not to write them off entirely. On the other hand, some clones do seem to be terrible based on what we can glean from user reviews, so it’s probably foolish to just pick the cheapest option and hope for the best.

We tested one of these models, the Lunaglow Nano, as a sort of stand-in for the whole pack of generic models. (We selected this one only because the company’s publicist happened to offer us a sample to test at the same time that we were researching the category. It was originally pitched to us as the SpeedFox Nano, and shipping was delayed for three months, but better late and renamed than never.)

The Lunaglow works fine. It’s basically on a par with the Tineco iFloor3 in terms of cleaning performance, with the CrossWave’s level of control, including an option for a dry-vacuum mode, and two different wetness settings. The detergent comes in dissolvable pods, making it really convenient to load the clean-water tank.

The worst part about the Lunaglow is that it shouts reminders and commands at an uncomfortably loud volume. I couldn’t figure out how to shush it. I flipped a switch on the body that seemed to mute the voice. But then at 2 a.m., it announced at full volume that it had finished charging—twice.

Its bad manners aside, we’re hesitant to recommend this model, or any knockoffs, because we aren’t confident that a year from now you’ll be able to buy extra detergent or replace the brush or filters.

The PowerDash isn’t really a vac-mop, which is something we didn’t fully understand until we tested it. (Ditto for the similar FloorMate, though we did not test that model.) The PowerDash does have suction to slurp cleaning solution, but the intake isn’t designed for solid debris. This machine is more of a dedicated floor scrubber—though even at that, it didn’t work as well as the true vac-mop combos that we tested. It left behind grime that the Bissell CrossWave plug-in and Tineco iFloor3 could easily collect.

Liam McCabe

Liam McCabe is a former senior staff writer for Wirecutter, and has covered the wild world of appliances since 2011. After testing dozens of robot vacuums, he is neither worried about AI nor holding his breath for self-driving cars. He enjoys visiting factories and learning about regulatory loopholes, and has flooded our testing area only three times.

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Previous: ‘The Bear’ Is Back. Here’s Every Wirecutter Pick We’ve Spotted in Carmy’s Kitchen. Next: The 3 Best Robot Mops of 2023

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