Tineco Carpet One Pro review: the world’s best carpet cleaner for home use

Here's the Tineco Carpet One Pro review in a sentence, for those in a hurry: a carpet cleaner like no other, that delivers a five-star user experience. Although only part of my house is fully carpeted – including a really deep-pile bedroom carpet that we inherited from the previous owner – I don’t think my wife and I would survive without a carpet cleaner, and for five very good reasons: two Labradors and three cats.

Thankfully, one of the dogs has now grown up and no longer craps on the bedroom floor like it use to. If you really must, you can read about one particularly grim moment in my feature, My dog left an unwelcome gift on my rug. Luckily, Vax had just sent me its latest Vax Platinum SmartWash which I hastily summoned into action after seeing a dirty great turdal smear across four feet of previously pristine carpet. The Vax saved my life that day.

However, my eldest Labrador is sadly rather poorly and regurgitation of food and liquid is a regular part of his daily routine, along with a level of urination only normally seen in an all-day Weatherspoons drinker. So you can see why a carpet cleaner for me is an absolute necessity. And I haven’t even mentioned the cats!

As brilliant as the Vax Platinum SmartWash is, the Tineco Carpet One Pro is now the best carpet cleaner, for my money – well not my money; my one is a free review sample. Want to know more? Here’s my in depth Tineco Carpet One Pro review.

Tineco Carpet One Pro: price and availability

In the UK, Tineco normally sells its products from its own Tineco store and through Amazon, where you can buy the Carpet One Pro for £499. You almost certainly won’t find this product anywhere else for the time being.

In the US, the Tineco Carpet One Pro is available direct from Tineco USA and, when available, from Amazon, both selling the product for $599.

At the time of writing, the Carpet One Pro is not yet available in Australia.

Tineco Carpet One Pro review: design

The Tineco Carpet One Pro is quite unlike any other carpet cleaner on the market. It's not what you'd call attractive but it certainly is striking looking with its radically different water tank design and white and navy detailing. Instead of having both the clean and dirty water tanks on the handle section, this Tineco has the dirty water tank on the main floor head. This makes it feel a little bit lighter in the hand, although one unfortunate side effect is that it prevents the head from reaching under most beds and furniture.

The Carpet One Pro is also equipped with a raft of sensors and a gorgeous, full-colour LCD screen. This provides real-time stats, and uses mesmerisingly pretty 3D animations to let you know how dirty or dry the carpet is, depending on what function you’re using. Aside from Dyson, I don’t think I can recall any other cleaning product that uses an LCD display to such impressive effect. In fact, for me, Tineco completely routs Dyson in the display department by providing more information in a bigger and much more fluid display.

To me, carpet cleaners are among the ugliest monstrosities in the domestic household but this one is relatively stylish and also pretty compact, by the standards of carpet cleaners – so much so that I’m quite happy to leave it on display in the utility room. A few visitors have even offered compliments such as, ‘nice carpet cleaner, Del,’ while completely ignoring my gorgeous Sonor drum kit. 

Tineco Carpet One Pro review: standard features

Like all carpet cleaners, the Carpet One Pro comprises two albeit slightly smaller-than-average water containers – a 2-litre clean-water reservoir and a 1.5-litre dirty water tank. As stated above, the dirty water tank is mounted to the floor unit rather than the push handle like most other models. To remove it you simply put your foot on the floor-mounted lever and grab it by its handle for easy cleaning. The clean water tank is equally easy to remove, fill and replace. There is no separate cleaning solution tank with this machine – you just fill the clean water tank with water and add a capful of provided Tineco carpet solution.

At 7.5kg, the Carpet One Pro is about the same weight as the Vax Platinum SmartWash only the whole shebang is quite a bit smaller. Its 6.5-metre cord, meanwhile, provides plenty of manoeuvrability and I love the little cable catch at the top of the handle so the cord doesn’t get in the way.

The Carpet One Pro’s smaller stature extends to the length of the brush head unit which is just 29cm in width. Indeed, the brush itself is only 22cm in length so this will inevitably mean less coverage per sweep. But then again, we’re talking only small margins when compared to larger models like the Vax Platinum SmartWash or Bissell ProHeat 2x Revolution. Yes, the Carpet One Pro is a smaller machine but then it’s also easier to store and less cumbersome to carry upstairs.

In case you're interested, the Carpet One Pro also comes with a 2-metre hose that attaches to a V-shaped upholstery brush with water sprayer for spot cleaning of small carpet stains, sofas, stairs and car seats.

Tineco Carpet One Pro review: unique features

This is where it gets really interesting because, in my inventive mind, I’ve often thought that the ultimate carpet cleaner would be one that not only heats up the water and solution before they’re dispensed on the carpet, but one that also blows hot air onto the carpet to dry it faster. This machine does both and I can vouch that it’s a resounding success.

Using Tineco’s HeatedWash technology, the cold cleaning solution in the tank passes over a heating panel where it’s heated to 50˚C before being applied to the carpet. Most other domestic carpet cleaners rely on you putting hot water in the tank, and then getting your cleaning done before it cools.

Like the Vax Platinum SmartWash, this model doesn’t have a trigger to release the solution because it's done automatically on the push stroke. Even more ingeniously, when you pull the unit back, the drying sequence is initiated as a two-fold attack – while the motor’s 130 air watts of suction draws excess water into the dirty water tank, a blow heater behind the roller blasts hot air into the carpet and you can feel the heat if you put your hand near the bottom of the brush head while it’s on. To dry the carpet even further, select ‘Dry’ mode and it will stop dispensing water and suck up and blow dry the last vestiges of dampness until the carpet is almost bone dry.

What I love most about this carpet cleaner is just how darn easy it is to use. And that’s because everything is automated, including the amount of water it dispenses. You get three main modes here – Auto, Max and Dry – and I shall try to explain them in more detail in the next chapter.

Tineco Carpet One Pro review: screen

Dyson is well ahead of the general curve when it comes to relaying info back to the user. Take the V15 Detect cordless vac, for instance, which provides the user with a visual graph that illustrates the amount of allergens, skin flakes and dust mites it has collected during the course of its sweep via a pretty little LCD screen. Well the Tineco Carpet One Pro goes even further by providing full real-time stats using a series of clever animations that look like something out of a sci-fi movie. Moreover, the screen itself is huge (9cm in diameter) and positioned in direct line of sight for instant reference whether cleaning or drying.

During the Auto and Max cleaning sequences, the screen’s iLoop system receives info from its dirt sensor in the floor head and then shows the carpet’s state of dirtiness on the screen with an outer circular band that changes from red (dirty) to blue (clean). I thought it was a gimmick at first but the iLoop did seem to notice dirtier sections when I put it to the test, so top marks there. 

Likewise, when set to the dry-only mode, the iLoop interface calls on its buddy, a humidity sensor near the air heating element, to provide a percentage of dryness. This, too, is no gimmick because I purposely pushed the machine over a wet patch and it said 0%. And yet when I passed the unit back and forth over the same spot a few times, the percentage changed in real time until it read 100% dry. A quick feel of the carpet confirmed it was indeed remarkably dry.

The same interface also shows you how to clean the machine. And in case you forget to do what it wants you to do, it barks at you in the most annoying American accent you will ever hear. Please, Tineco, in the interest of sanity, give us the option for a British accent like, say, the one TomTom uses for its navigation.

Incidentally, this machine will also connect to your home wi-fi so you can see it’s long-term stats on the Tineco app, if that is your wont.

Tineco Carpet One Pro review: performance

I never thought carpet cleaning could be such fun – well sort of – but this machine really is a joy to use. Since it only has three modes – Auto, Max and Dry – there is very little for the user to do other than push it and pull it across the carpet.

I tried it on both normal carpet and deep pile and it performed miraculously well, even when introduced to an old dog-induced stain that someone in the house had covered with a rug.

Aside from its low-ish weight and diminutive size, I was also impressed by how quiet it was. Every other carpet cleaner I’ve ever tested has made all the animals in the household dash for safety but with this one I could wash the carpet while the perpetrator looked on.

If there are any niggles to report, I’d say that it’s the low-slung dirty water tank which makes it impossible to clean under most beds and sofas. I presume Tineco’s R&D bods thought it was a swell idea to reduce the weight of the dirty water tank on the forearm by placing it directly on top of the floor head but, in hindsight, I’m not sure it was such a great innovation.

Tineco Carpet One Pro review: verdict

Most domestic carpet cleaners retail between £150 and £300 but this one clocks in at £499. Nevertheless, if performance, on-board technology and ease of use are top of your list when shopping for home tech, I can’t think of a better carpet cleaner. It'll make you smile, even as you clean up the results of last night’s latest carpet fiasco.

• Now check out T3’s guide to the Best carpet cleaners