Tineco Carpet ONE Cruiser carpet cleaner review

REVIEW – If your carpet is more than 20 seconds old, it’s got some dirt in it. Add furry family members to the equation (or even those mini-humans with terrible balance) and you can join me in this boat of being really excited to review the Tineco CARPET ONE Cruiser. The latest entry in their catalog of smart electrical appliances, the Tineco Carpet ONE Cruiser boasts several tantalizing new features to their carpet cleaner. Now, I’ve reviewed and use their previous model to this day and it’s been great. Let’s see if this newer version can really earn the title “Upgrade”.

⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $699.00
Where to buy: Tineco and Amazon

What is it?

The Tineco Carpet ONE Cruiser is a stand-up smart carpet cleaner. When active, it sprays water mixed with the included cleaning solution. A small slit at the front of the machine vacuums up what looks like a lot of water simultaneously as it’s spraying. Multiple modes mean you can opt to use more water for those set-in stains.

What’s included?

• One Tineco Carpet ONE Cruiser w/ Space Adapt Water Tank and Debris Collection Cup
• Accessory Hose
• 2-in-1 Nozzle to the Accessory Hose
• Self Cleaning Base
• Cleaning Tool
• Pre-Treat Solution; and
• Carpet Cleaning Solution

Design and features

The design of the Tineco CARPET ONE Cruiser rides like many upright suction devices, but with a little extra. The 3-level Smooth PowerTech feature makes it so when you push a little bit, it engages and propels the unit forward, further reducing the workload. It just glides across the carpet; with a low, medium, and high power setting, you can choose how much juice you want to give her, Captain.

Assembly, Installation, Setup

The physical assembly of the unit was very simple. Everything fit together with a solid, premium feel; you know how when you have to get plastic clips to work for you, and you just pray one doesn’t snap off? No fear of that here. The unit handle pops right into the plastic and metal collar. It really comes plug-and-play.

The tank was one of the coolest I’ve seen for this type of machine. It contains a “Smart Adapt Water Tank” which means it’s both your clean and dirt water tank, separated with a bladder that expands with clean water, and, as the Cruiser is used, the extracted dirty water is deposited in the tank where the bladder will contract to accommodate. It’s so smart. I was shocked that it hadn’t been used in this type of application before. It doesn’t make the tank too heavy to fill or dump, you get the same kind of weight on the machine – it’s just so freaking smart!

The next step is going to be to pair the Cruiser to the Tineco App. If you’ve been around for a while, you may be aware that I do not subscribe to the thought process where every appliance needs an app. Not to mention, a number of the apps I’ve run into need to be connected to WiFi using the 2.4 GHz network type. Holy mud stains, Batman, was it ever a pain to get this app to connect. From having to keep the unit in paring mode, to switching from the 5 Ghz network, to somehow missing the connection and “trying again”, I became the portrait of frustration. But, I was willing to keep an open mind, hoping that there was something new in the app worth the struggle. For science. I admit, it was pretty cool to be able to tell the app the kind of carpet I have; it allegedly helps the machine know how to “auto mode clean”, but after choosing the types and customizing everything, I couldn’t tell the difference. Big ‘ole bummer. My hope is that in the near future Tineco uses it for a firmware update to solve the silly sensor issue – but more on that later.

Performance

This Tineco Carpet ONE Cruiser put me on a roller coaster of emotions. My previous experience with the Carpet ONE Smart Cleaner had me very excited; it’s worked great for years in a double pet household. The app situation was just so tedious, I was a more than a little disappointed. Trying the unit on a very low pile rug with the new bi-directional assist wheel was jarring; it’s like when you get the assist from a lawn mower, but it goes backwards and forwards at what feels like breakneck speeds, even on low.

Realistically, it’s not that fast, but I was so surprised that first time, I let go of the handle like it was a boa constrictor. This feature took me to the longest to warm up to; I guess we’ve been using the other Tineco carpet cleaner (with no assist) for so long, I was used to having more control over the speed of the unit. This new Cruiser has other ideas.

You see, I clean the rug on my main floor fairly often, depending on the weather and how the dog-ter, Abigail, wants to defile it: muddy paws? Particularly messy face? Other unpleasant acts involving her south end? All things I’ve had the unfortunate task of cleaning up, and all things the old Tineco cleaned perfectly. Not to mention, there’s a cat shedding unabashedly, and my partner, my beautiful, sweet, smart,  adorably forgetful partner, who often wears shoes in the house … I love them all dearly, I assure you, but I will be erasing any trace of them on my carpet given the chance.

The low pile that’s regularly cleaned really didn’t give me a tank full of the “forbidden chocolate milk” dirty water, if you know what I mean. I also understand now why Tineco makes those tanks a light grey instead of see-through, because yikes. It didn’t get a real test until I made my way into my partner’s office and found a square of carpet that hasn’t even met the OG carpet cleaner. I found dust patches and ancient accidental soda spills with cat fur; all great testing material. I honestly thought the soda was a lost cause. It was a very old stain (hidden behind a giant cat tree) of red soda harvested from the dewiest of mountains. But to my surprise, and with the help of the accessory tool I did get 99% of it out of the carpet (I am sure the 1% under the baseboard is there forever.)

I had doubts that the drying functionality would be as good as advertised. So, in the name of science, not only did I temperature test the output of air, I timed how long the machine took to indicate dryness (more than 5 minutes of going back and forth across the same quarter of the room), AND smashed a tissue against it for good measure. The temperature on the carpet never came up close to advertised at 167 degrees; from where we could feel the warm air coming out, it never broke 110°F. It was still warm air, but not. I suspect if the air HAD gotten up to those temperatures for a long time, there’s a chance it could damage the carpet itself. In the moment, it feels like absolutely forever, even with the assist. It is just the nature of carpet cleaning.

The tissue test shocked me. I thought I was being cheeky. Most people testing how dry a unit will get a carpet will usually use a paper towel. I did not have any in the house at the moment of testing so I used a facial tissue and guess what? It did not pick up any moisture. In all my years of having to do this chore, and the immeasurable number of wet-bottomed socks I’ve endured, this was a first for me.

But can we take a moment for the self-clean cycle! I am not being overdramatic when I say this is the single best addition to a carpet cleaner in the history of carpet cleaners. Anyone who has owned a carpet cleaner knows what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, pull up a seat and I’ll tell you the tale of how GROSS the underside and brush roller of a carpet cleaner can get. Ok, I won’t get super graphic because I just had lunch, but it’s gross. All the grossness of a vacuum but make it wet and filled with sand and hair which sticks to every crevice it touches. To clean out the bottom of a carpet cleaner is truly the worst. In the old days, I used my dad’s basement shower to run water through the bottom of the units to clean them enough to put away. The suction area was always caked with sand and debris, not to mention the brush roller that would have a full cyclone of hairs and carpet fibers causing it to need to be completely replaced. The Tineco Carpet One Cruiser has done the coolest thing I have seen in terms of appliances and given this carpet cleaner the ability to self-clean on a little dock. It clears the rollers and the suction head, it rinses the bottom and, to an extent, dries everything to about 70%. That is premium product planning right there and my favorite thing about this unit.  It even allows for the suction head to be opened to air dry, something I haven’t seen on many units in this field.

Final thoughts

The Tineco Carpet ONE Cruiser is a solid product if you’re in the market for a home carpet cleaner. It didn’t perform significantly better than our current unit (since I’ve mentioned it so much, you can find a link to that review here). But, it did show me that I didn’t need a heavier unit or strenuous exercise with a unit to get a clean rug. Was it absolutely perfect? No, but, there could be room for improvement. The unit’s use of a specific sensor would throw a bit of a tantrum. After cleaning with the unit the night before and having run a full clean cycle, I would set the roller and suction lid to dry. The next time I would go to use it, mere seconds after beginning to clean, the unit would cease functioning and tell me that the brush head was tangled. Upon inspecting the brush wheel, there would be nothing there, nothing caught, nothing tangled. Several rounds of self-cleaning and disassembling/reassembling would finally yield uninterrupted carpet cleaning. While I appreciate the presence of such a sensor, it really needs to take some PTO.

That being said, the rest of the machine is worth the consideration. It is very easy to use and I imagine could be a game changer for someone finding bigger, heavier units difficult to use.

What I like about the Tineco Carpet ONE Cruiser

• Smart Adapt Water Tank – Brilliant design and incredibly user friendly
• Accessory hose and 2-in-1 nozzle – Extremely improved from the days of weak suction and 8 miles of tubes
• Self Cleaning Function – Worth the price of admission ten fold. It works very well, and the dock can also be helpful to use the accessory tools outside without putting the unit on the ground if you’re using it to clean your vehicle upholstery
• Light Weight –  the unit is very easy to carry around without the water tank full, so be sure to have it ready in the room you’re cleaning before filling the tank

What needs to be improved?

• Heat and Dry Function – I don’t think it ever got to the temp advertised, at least from where I could measure the temperature. I love the option of drying, but it takes an unreasonable amount of time if you’re not just going over one spot again and again
• Tricky sensors – I ran into an issue where the machine was sensing the brush roll was tangled and it took multiple inspections and a self clean to unlock the machine to actually work
• The App – It’s like a leader board for the worst game of cleaning. Significant room for improvement
• The handle places the functional buttons right where you would push and pull the unit in use and after a while will cause the user to accidently slip forward turn it on or off or change the function from auto to max mode

Price: $699.00
Where to buy: Tineco and Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Tineco.com. Tineco did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.