At the time of spring cleaning, the CrossWave Cordless Max by Bissel is innovating.
Three-in-one, the device vacuums, washes and dries at the same time, and saves time to maintain floors with real efficiency.
Sold for 529 euros, it is however not without flaws, such as its high weight and its relative lack of agility.
At the time of spring cleaning, the champions of cleanliness rush to maintain our floors. Faced with the increasingly popular broom and robot vacuums, Bissel opposes its all-in-one: the CrossWave Cordless Max. If it looks like a classic stick vacuum cleaner, the device sucks of course, but washes and dries at the same time. On paper, enough to save precious time. On the ground,
20 Minutes
checked if this promise was well kept ...
The American brand Bissel was not born overnight.
Melville Reuben Bissell indeed invented the mechanical broom in… 1876!
With its CrossWave Cordless Max, the family business is getting up to date and embracing an era where people try to get rid of household chores as quickly as possible.
Three in one to save us time, the device is sold for 529 euros.
That's more or less the price of a good stick vacuum cleaner, like the Miele Triflex HX1 Pro.
But it is still much cheaper than the Kobold VB100 which sucks and washes at the same time for ... 1,299 euros!
4 hour charge
The CrossWave Cordless Max is quite massive and immediately seemed a bit heavy (5.22 kg).
Out of its box, all you have to do is clip its handle on its upper part and load it on its base.
It takes 4 hours for its 36 V battery to refuel.
Once the operation is finished, all that remains is to fill the upper tank with lukewarm water and a little detergent.
A one liter bottle of multi-surface product (value: 14.99 euros) is provided.
Water and detergent are easy to dose, with levels indicated on the surface of the tank to quantify both depending on whether you want to clean a small or a large area.
We tested the CrossWave Cordless Max on different floors: parquet, tiles, linoleum and even carpet.
Handling the vacuum cleaner is quite easy, but its weight is felt.
We who had already found the Dyson V11 Absolute Extra a bit heavy with its 3kg are served… The smoother the ground, as with lino, the easier it is to handle the device.
In action, it transmits its water with detergent to the brush which soaks it up and turns at high speed to wash.
The suction sweeps away the dirt and dirty water, then rejects the assembly in a dedicated container.
A small colander collects crumbs, hair, sheep, etc.
Finally, on the handle of the vacuum cleaner is a button that allows you to select the surface to be cleaned: tile / parquet or carpet / carpet.
Depending on the selection, the power of the device will change.
Water with a slightly ragging color
Immediate observation: the three-in-one broom does a good job.
We spent it in our kitchens, dining room and living room, which had however been meticulously vacuumed and washed with a mop three days earlier and found: 1 / that the color of the brush of the CrossWave Cordless Max quickly changed from white to chestnut;
2 / that the dirty water tank was slowly but surely filling up with dirt and water of an unattractive color;
3 / that the drying was instantaneous.
In very rare places there are small traces of the passage of the brush that can easily be erased by briefly vacuuming the small trail left visible.
We also took advantage of our test to easily clean a seagrass carpet. For its part, the noise level (65 db) of the CrossWave Cordless Max is quite correct and generally corresponds to that of many stick vacuum cleaners (even if some can reach 80 db).
10 seconds of self-cleaning
The cleaning efficiency is undoubtedly at the rendezvous.
For its part, the promise of saving time is kept if we do not exceed the framework of 30 minutes of battery life.
Otherwise, you will have to go through the "recharge" box.
Once the job is done, simply place the vacuum cleaner on its base and initiate a self-cleaning of the roller by pressing the button on the front of the device.
From then on, the roller will be moistened with clean water and will rotate for 10 seconds on its base to remove most of the dirt it contains.
Tip: repeat this operation two to three times for better maintenance.
The roller can also be removed and cleaned more effectively under water.
Regularly, it will have to be replaced (17.99 euros).
Another purchase to plan, that of the air filter (9.99 euros) which, too, will need to be changed at regular intervals.
Questionable agility
Not everything is perfect with the CrossWave Cordless Max, however. Besides its weight, which can be a handicap for older users, the three-in-one vacuum cleaner from Bissel also has some weaknesses. If the brush of the device is articulated, it lacks flexibility. In addition to its slightly light turning radius, guiding it to turn it around a piece of furniture requires placing a little force in the wrist that directs the Bissel. Agility is therefore not really there.
More problematic: the CrossWave Cordless Max has a hard time sneaking under furniture. First, because it is thick, then, because its brush cannot fully unfold (180 °) and it maintains a fairly marked angle with the rest of the device. Even our dresser (under which an 18 cm passage remains free) posed a problem. Constraints that should be taken into account before purchasing ...
And last point: after using the device, it is necessary to empty its dirty water tank, to clean the colander and the filter.
Pass this step again when a major cleaning has been carried out, it becomes more boring at the time of very occasional use.
If you don't do this little maintenance, the junk left in the colander and filter will dry out, possibly restricting future uses of the broom vacuum cleaner.
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