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Photograph: Simon Hill
Hoover HF4 Hydro for £199: For UK folks in flats or small houses with a mix of carpet and hard floor, this cordless, space-saving vacuum and mop from Hoover could be a smart pick. You get a standard cordless stick vac with around half an hour of battery life, but you can switch the head to mop. It’s excellent for cleaning hard floors, with a shape that gets right into corners and two rotating pads to lift stains. But the water tank, contained within the head, is tiny, the vacuum is only moderately powerful at lifting, and battery life drops to just 15 minutes in turbo mode.
Hoover SmartWash Automatic Carpet Cleaner for $250: It's bulky, but it has automatic cleaning and drying cycles—pushing it forward releases the solution and pulling it back starts the drying process. After you've gone over the whole area, you can turn just the drying mode on for an extra pass if the carpet needs it. The handle comes out with the click of a button, and you can use its separate tank with a cleaning solution to spot-treat before vacuuming. A hose and separate antimicrobial pet tool can clean stairs or any other hard-to-reach areas that need extra elbow grease. Some customer reviews say it worked well for a few months but then shorted out. We'll keep trying it to see if we run into that issue. —Medea Giordano
Bissell Little Green Portable Carpet Cleaner for $79: If you've landed on the cleaning side of TikTok, you've probably seen people cleaning their carpets and furniture with this Little Green machine. This opens up the world of upholstery cleaning too, not just carpets. It worked well and it's easier to store and tote around your house than our top pick. But use the included hose-cleaning tool frequently. These hoses can get nasty. —Brenda Stolyar
Cleaners We Like for Hard Floors
Photograph: Simon Hill
Dreame H14 Pro for $380: The Dreame H14 Pro is quite large, but I found it easy to maneuver, and it can lie flat to get under furniture. A handy LED headlight helps you see what you are cleaning clearly. A full charge proved enough to do all my hard floors twice over, and the result was super shiny. What I love about this vac is that it effectively cleans up dry or wet spills, so whether you are cleaning cat litter or a spilled bowl of cereal, it performs. It’s best for cleaning recent spills but can shift stubborn stains with repeated passes on Ultra mode. When you finish, you can return it to the charging cradle and trigger the self-cleaning mode to sterilize the soft roller and dry it (though it gets loud and takes a long time). No one wants to install an app or create an account just to use a vacuum, but it enables you to choose modes and schedule the self-cleaning, which could be handy if you want it to wait until you go out. —Simon Hill
Shark S5003D Genius Steam Mop for $100: This steam mop is great for cleaning hardwood, tiles, or laminate flooring (not carpets). Simply fill the water tank, plug it in, and attach one of the mop pads. It has three heat levels, and you press down to release a jet of steam for stubborn stains. There’s no need for any detergent, it’s light and maneuverable, and it doesn’t require much space. The clever pad design enables you to flip it over when one side is soiled, and the mechanism makes it easy to attach, with a button to detach the dirty pad, which is machine washable. (You get two pads in the box.) I regularly use this mop to clean laminate, composite, and tile floors, but you must be careful using steam, especially on wood or vinyl flooring. Test it on the lowest heat setting before going over the whole floor. There are no special attachments or extras here, and it’s only suitable for use on hard floors. You also need to empty any remaining water if you don’t plan on using it for a while, or the tank can go nasty. —Simon Hill
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