Tech review: Three vacuums to keep your floors clean

Jim Rossman | Tribune News Service

We all have floors, and they all get dirty. How you clean them will depend on what’s on those floors — are they hard surfaces or carpeted?

I’ve used plenty of vacuums, both traditional and robot vacuums, and they all have their advantages and disadvantages.

Today we’re looking at three vacuums. Two require work from you and one will take care of things by itself.

Yeedi M12 PRO+ Robot Vacuum

This is the most full-featured robot vacuum I’ve ever used.

The Yeedi M12 PRO+ ($899.99, yeedi.com) does a great job vacuuming and mopping.

It has a mop head system that can extend out into edges and corners (TruEdge Deep Mopping). The vacuum knows if it is moving over carpet or hard flooring. It will raise the mop heads to keep them from dragging on your carpets.

It has 11,000Pa suction power with a special V-shaped brush with ZeroTangle technology, which is handy for cleaning up after your shedding pets. It also has AI on-board to help with obstacle avoidance and 3D mapping of your rooms.

The vacuum has a home base all-in-one station that serves to charge the battery, offload dirt from the dustbin and clean the mop heads (with heated water and hot air drying). There’s enough room in the base station that you only have to empty the dirt from the base station every few months.

The 5,200 milliamp-hour battery can run the vacuum for up to 290 minutes of cleaning before it needs a recharge. It will return to the base for recharging when necessary, then it will continue on with cleaning if it is not finished.

Ultenic U16 Flex Cordless Vacuum

I’ve had a cordless vacuum in the house for several years and it gets way more use than our upright model. They are just handy to grab and go. Take it where you need it, pop on whatever attachment will work best and get to cleaning.

The Ultenic U16 Flex Cordless ($179.99, ultenic.com) has the usual attachments and it has a trick up its sleeve.

The extension tube that lets you vacuum floors has a hinged action to let you reach under tables and other furniture without getting down on your knees. The tube is also adjustable for length.

The powerful motor has 45,000Pa of suction with a battery that can last for up to 60 minutes in ECO mode, 40 minutes in standard mode and 20 minutes in turbo mode. It features a two-stage HEPA filter to clean the air as you vacuum. The dust bin empties easily and holds one liter.

There is a color LED display to show the modes plus how much time remains on the charge.

The brush for floors is anti-static and tangle free, so pet hair should not slow you down. It features a floor-level bright green light that really shows you where dust is hiding on your floors.

The vacuum head has a built-in brush that can be used without any other attachments. It also includes a crevice tool and the flexible floor brush. There are other attachments available for purchase.

It includes a wall-mounted charging rack for convenient storage/charging.

The Ultenic U16 is a good vacuum that is priced competitively.

Vactidy Blitz V9

The Vactidy Blitz V9 ($79.99, vactidy.com) is a cordless vacuum that did a great job on my hardwood floors.

It has a battery with a 45-minutes runtime in low-power mode. The motor has 25,000Pa of suction and a one-liter dustbin that empties with the push of a button.

There is a small LED display to show the motor speed (there are two speeds) and the amount of battery charge remaining.

The floor-cleaning brush head swivels up to 180-degrees to let you reach under beds or low furniture.

Attachments include the floor brush, crevice nozzle, 2-in-1 brush and extension tube with an adjustable length.

The motor has a two-stage HEPA filter.

The Vactidy Blitz V9 is the cheapest vacuum I’ve tested, but it performed really well on hard surfaces and low pile carpets. Longer pile carpeting gave the vacuum a harder time. I had to go slow and go slow over dirty areas more than once, but it did finish the job.

Jim Rossman is a tech columnist for Tribune News Service. He may be reached at jrossmantechadviser@gmail.com.

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