Bissell MultiReach Active review: tangle-resistant, affordable cordless vacuum

Bissell MultiReach Active is a great value cordless vac that is great for cleaning 'little and often' with. So long as you do that, and have mainly hard floors, it will not let you down.

The best cordless vacuum cleaners have transformed the way we clean our homes. Their main benefits being it has no cord (the bain of our lives!), no bag, ergonomic design, smart technology and convenience to move around freely without that annoying tug of an overstretched cord.

If you’re someone always on the go, like myself, then a cordless vacuum cleaner is a god-send. Especially when it comes to whizzing up and down the stairs without the back-breaking task of unplugging and plugging in the cord. It’s no surprise then that sales of cordless vacuum cleaners have surpassed the more powerful corded ones. Which just goes to show convenience and flexibility truly pays!

The best Dyson cordless vacuum cleaners are what a lot of people think of first when contemplating a purchase. However, for those on a less-than-Dyson-money budget, there are plenty of affordable alternatives on the market and the Bissell Cordless vacuum cleaner is a great example.

Well-known on the market, America's Bissell comes up highly rated after Dyson and Shark, so you can expect to be getting a quality product. Its 2-in-1 design means it can be easily converted to a hand-held for those light-duty cleaning jobs and small piles. Which, when you have a messy kid at home who leaves around crumb trails, this comes in very handy!

I put the Bissell MultiReach Active cordless vacuum to the test to see how it measures up to its more expensive counterparts.

Bissell Multireach Active review: design and features

The design is sleek and not cumbersome, and the three main parts are pretty easy to assemble with a simple slot and click. It’s fairly light at 3.63kg, making it a breeze to push across the floor with one hand.

The selling point here is the 2-in-1 design, that can be converted from a high-reach stick to a hand-held cleaner in no time. At just a click of a button, it can easily be detached to clean up those small messes, sofa or the car. Making life much easier without lugging around an entire cleaner.

The Bissell MultiReach Cordless Vacuum Cleaner comes with two accessories, a useful crevice tool to get into all those nooks and crannies, and an upholstery brush for fabrics. This isn’t many, considering most vacuum cleaners usually come with a bag of various accessories (that you won’t end up using). But at least you won’t have to worry about where to stash it away, adding to your household ‘clutter’. It comes with a wall-mountable station, always handy for vertical storage in a utility cupboard, and a real space-saver.

It features a motorised tangle-free brush roll to stop any annoying hair wrapping around the motor. Another convenient feature is the bright LED lights on the floor nozzle to help you to see any debris in dark spots. I always find this useful to see what’s lurking underneath the bed or sofa, and ensure you pick up everything.

The bagless cylinder has a dust capacity of 0.5 litre, and a useful dustbag full indicator. Although you might need a few trips to the dustbin if you have heavy-duty cleaning,  you could feasibly vacuum one or two rooms until it hits capacity. The best thing is, when you’ve finished cleaning, it’s a simple click and release to empty the bin out. If it’s really grimy though, it just takes a quick rinse under the tap and dry. Quick, easy and no-fuss, which are all a bonus when you have little time on your hands.

Bissell Multireach Active review: performance

The Bissell MultiReach Cordless Vacuum Cleaner is equipped with a 21V lithium-ion battery with two power modes – high and low. This promises 30 minutes of continuous power, which is about the average cleaning time for standard cordless cleaners.

Once all charged up for the recommended five hours, I set about to work. The first thing to note is its ease of use to glide across the floor. The motorised floor head is particularly impressive, and with just a flick of the wrist, I was able to get around the legs of the sofa and those awkward corners.

On the high-power mode, it does have a good suction and performed well on hardwood floors, sucking up all the biscuit crumbs and dust debris in seconds. While it did okay on carpet, it was more of an effort to push around and get out hair or stubborn dirt. The low mode was ideal for more surface dust and debris but not for driving the bristles into the carpet to remove dirt. The noise is fairly quiet at 81db, which is enough not to disturb the neighbours!

As you might have gathered from its name, it’s ‘multi-reach’ design gets to high-reach places like those pesky cobwebs in the ceiling and corners. However, I did find it slightly heavy to hold up high for long periods (or maybe my arms are simply too short!).

Now the stairs were a little tricky to clean, with the large floor head difficult to manoeuvre. In fact, the set could benefit from having a stair brush tool to tackle this, especially for narrow steps. However, you could get around this by removing the floor head and using the crevice tool.

Another thing worth noting is the vacuum cleaner is not able to free-stand by itself. So if you want to stop at any point to clear anything out of the way, you would have to lean it up against a wall or lay it flat, which is a bit of a nuisance.

After about 20 minutes, I could hear the battery power start to wane, with the indicator showing one bar of juice. To be fair, it was mainly at high power, and Bissell does state it provides 30 minutes at a low power, so it’s worth noting. It also takes a fairly lengthy 5 hours to charge. 

I'd say this is much more a vac for cleaning up spills and doing short vacuuming jaunts around your home. However, having said that, I was able to thoroughly clean three rooms and the stairs before the battery started to wane, which isn't bad.

Bissell Multireach Active review: verdict

Granted, the charge doesn’t last as long as the more expensive counterparts, but the Bissell MultiReach Vacuum Cleaner is powerful enough for a quick once-over around the home. It’s handy 2-in-1 design is convenient and incredibly versatile for those light-medium duty chores. If you have a large household, with a lot of rooms to clean, this is probably not for you. However, at such an affordable price for a cordless cleaner, this is good value for money.