Welcome to T3's review of the stylish new Eufy MACH V1 Ultra, the world’s first multi-tasking cordless hard floor mop and vacuum to include a steam function.
There’s a veritable plethora of cordless vacuum-mops on the market that you can read about in our guide to the best hard floor cleaners, but a steaming function has always been way beyond the scope of battery power. Steam requires a lot of energy to produce so naturally all the best steam cleaners currently on the market are tethered to the mains. And that means wrestling with a cable which is so last century.
The fact that MACH – a new premium brand recently launched by Eufy – has not only managed to include a steam function, but also all the other stuff that modern cordless vac-mops are capable of, is cause for celebration. Moreover, this thing is genuinely gorgeous and rammed with so many amazing design flourishes that you half wish for a cataclysmic household spillage event to occur just so you have an excuse to bring it out. ‘Help, the dog’s brought in the contents of the pond again, the kids have painted the kitchen floor in crayon and gramps has just tripped over the baby and dropped his porridge.’ ‘No problem, I’ll just reach for my MACH’.
And that’s another thing. What great branding – it should be a name for an aftershave. In fact, the huge and very suave black box it came in looks like it contains a giant cylindrical glass vial of the stuff. It was a ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’ moment for me when it arrived and I couldn’t wait to get in there.
But is the MACH V1 Ultra as good as it looks? Well there’s only one way to find out.
Eufy MACH V1 Ultra review: price and availability
The Eufy Mach V1 Ultra is available directly from the Eufy store and Amazon, priced at a not unreasonable £749. If all goes well, it should start arriving at other outlets in the not too distant future.
Eufy MACH V1 Ultra review: Design and features
As I’ve already alluded to in the intro, this is a handsome looking machine from every angle. In fact I feel faintly embarrassed that I’m eulogising over a floor cleaner, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more stylish looking model. In a marketplace where the competition is so fierce, this one certainly stands out.
I should add at this juncture that it’s not all plain sailing because some of the functions on the MACH are a little confusing to use but I’ll get to that in a moment. All you need to know is that this model pretty much performs the tasks of three different machines – a stick vac, a self-cleaning mop and a steam cleaner. And all without a cable in sight.
Having heaved it out of the box – it arrives fully assembled – I was immediately drawn to the V1 Ultra’s shiny glass-like finish, the rounded Apple-like flushness of the various components and the design of the smooth rubbery handle that provides a host of gripping positions. Just in front of the handle is a small but sufficient LED display that runs through various animations depending on which function you’ve selected. A muffled, unintelligible voice prompt let’s you know which feature has been selected, but you can thankfully turn it off.
At this point I should add that, while the controls on the MACH’s interface are mostly self evident, I am still confused by the true purpose of the little lever on the handlebar which Eufy says is ‘to turn the floor cleaner on’. Since the instructions don’t fully elaborate on the function of this lever and the roller always appears to be damp whether it’s on or off, I simply left it on.
Anyway, heading to the front of the machine, there’s an easily removable 820ml clean water tank with a built-in ozone generator which Eufy says works best with normal tap water and not filtered water. The Eco Clean Ozone thingamajig beneath the tank is said to ‘kill up to 99.9% of common germs on floors and remove odours naturally for a deeper clean’, and you can see it in action by dint of an attractive blue light inside the opaque reservoir and the bubbles it produces when engaged.
The MACH’s dirty water tank is a larger-than-average 720ml which should be good enough for a few cleaning sessions before having to empty the contents into the toilet – the best way in my opinion, since the dirty water reservoir contains all sorts of muck. Mind, the dirty water tank can be a bit fiddly to refit so be sure to position it carefully before giving it a firm push.
While I’m at the front, a quick high-five to the designers for fitting an attractive brush roller plate that’s magnetised for easy removal and refitting. And speaking of rollers, this model is fitted with an extra thick 23cm towel roller that’s capable of pulling the unit along when on a hard floor. Granted, the roller doesn’t reach to the very edges of a room, but that’s the norm with all vac-mops of this nature.
Unlike most vac-mops that require adding cleaning solution to the main water reservoir, this one has its own slim clip-in tank on the rear that uses something called a Tesla Valve that self mixes the solution with the water when mopping and steaming are in operation.
Another favourite feature on this machine is the rear-mounted JetBlade that shoves out a blast of air to theoretically dry the floor behind the wet roller. This works very well when pushing the machine in a forward direction – it genuinely leaves a dry path behind it – but if you pull it back again, the wet roller leaves another damp strip. I’m not sure how you’d get around this other than making sure you always mop in a forward direction or lowering the angle so the brush isn’t touching the floor while pulling it back for the next sweep. For some reason, the JetBlade doesn’t operate by default so you’ll need to tap the brush clean button three times to activate it.
According to the specs, if used in Smart mode, the Ultra V1’s built-in battery is sufficient for up to 82 minutes of vacuuming and mopping, and that’s damn good in my book. However, in steam mode it’s only about 15 minutes which I consider more than enough for any areas that need a very deep clean.
At 5.7kgs, the MACH V1 Ultra is quite light for an upright and it’s very easy to push around, especially on hard flooring for which it is ultimately designed. There’s an app available, too, but it doesn’t do a great deal in my opinion. Let’s just say I’ve hardly used it. Another big bonus with this machine is its quietness. In fact, at less than 65dB, it’s one of the quietest floor cleaners I’ve ever come across.
Of course, one of the great things about most modern cordless vac-mops is that they can clean themselves after each outing. This one is a bit more productive in that department because it not only gives the brush roller a vigorous clean but it also dries it with a gentle waft of warm air. To activate the cleaning cycle, place the unit on its charging dock and tap the clean button.
The MACH V1 Ultra comes with an additional roller brush, a spare filter, a small bottle of MACH cleaning solution, the charging dock, a cleaning tool and two small sachets of citric acid descaling solution.
Eufy MACH V1 Ultra review: vacuum feature
Although the MACH V1 Ultra is capable of cleaning medium-pile carpets, I don’t really think the brush roller is designed for that kind of function, especially if there are hairy pets in the vicinity. This is because all detritus ends up in a simple catch filter at the top of the water tank and it’s so moist and sticky you can’t just empty it like a normal stick vac in the bin – you need to use your fingers or rinse the top filter section under a tap which means most of the hair goes down the sink. That said, I tried it upstairs on some medium-pile carpet and it seemed to do a decent enough job. But I can’t see it being a Dyson or Gtech killer in this particular regard.
On the plus side, this do-it-all machine really does excel at vacuuming hard floors, from treated wood and polished concrete to vinyl and tiles. At 16,800 Pascals, it produces very decent suction, too, especially when the trigger is pulled to engage boost mode.
Eufy MACH V1 Ultra review: mopping feature
This is where the MACH V1 Ultra truly excels. I have a mixture of engineered wood – more robust than laminate – and vinyl and the MACH did an excellent job on both. For my test, I used a variety of inherently messy stuff like tomato sauce and Golden Syrup, a scattering of Coco Pops with milk attached and a good dollop of claggy porridge.
I simply left it in the default Smart mode, pulled the trigger for extra cleaning power and it picked up the lot with a level of efficiency that brought a smile to my face. In fact I’d say it was marginally better at picking up larger items than the otherwise excellent Bissell CrossWave Cordless Max and Tineco Floor One S5 Pro.
If you’re after a top-performing self-cleaning mop that truly excels, then this one cuts the mustard – no matter how long it’s been left to dry on the floor. Yes, the contents of the dirty water bin won’t be a pleasant sight but then again the whole process is a zillion times more efficient and infinitely more pleasurable than using a pile of Blitz paper towels and a mop and bucket.
Eufy MACH V1 Ultra review: steam feature
As far as I’m aware, there are no cord-free steam cleaners on the market so the MACH V1 Ultra can be considered the first of its kind. In fact, the steam function is what elevates this product to a whole new category of floor cleaner. Granted, you only get around 15 minutes of steam time out of the battery so if you’re an avid steamer who insists on every floor surface being fully sanitised to within an inch of its life, this might not be the model for you. But if you need a steam cleaner to just do the kitchen, utility room or bathroom, or deal with the odd obstreperous stain, it’s a brilliant feature that you will use a lot and really come to appreciate.
For my steam test, I produced a bad drawing of a stick man in crayon and let some ketchup and Golden Syrup dry overnight until both were dry to the touch. I then engaged steam mode and waited for 70 seconds while the steam built up in the boiler – it reaches 110˚C – and a red bar of light slowly worked its way across the front of the roller head housing. Once ready for action, I pulled the trigger and ran over each test patch several times and it quite literally dissolved it all in a thrice, even the ultra sticky syrup. The JetBlade function helped to dry it up quickly, too.
However, I would be very cautious if using the steam function on any kind of wooden flooring, especially laminate flooring which is prone to water damage. But stick with tiles and most types of vinyl flooring and you should have no issues and a very, very clean floor. Incidentally, Eufy has also launched a slightly cheaper model of the MACH V1 Ultra – called simply the V1 – that doesn’t come with the steam feature.
Eufy MACH V1 Ultra review: Verdict
I’ve reviewed countless stick vacs, vac-mops and steam cleaners but I’ve never used anything quite like the MACH V1 Ultra, which fits all three cleaning specialities into one very stylish looking unit. In the pantheon of game-changing cordless household devices, it really is in a class of its own and most deserving of the accolades it has thus far earned. Well worth the wonga, in other words.
