There’s really no way around it: I am terrible at housekeeping. There are reasons for it, but in the end, it means I’m always interested in technology that can make cleaning our home a little easier, faster, and more efficient. I was offered the Ultenic AC1 TriFlex cordless electric mop and vacuum, so I decided to give it a shot. Since I don’t clean often, I figured whatever I did with it would really put it through its paces. I’m impressed with the results overall, so let’s dive in.

What Is This Thing?

The Ultenic AC1 TriFlex cordless vacuum falls into a surprisingly large category of wet/dry cordless stick vacuums, which includes established brands like Bissell and Shark, as well as an assortment of semi-generic products. The AC1 TriFlex is designed to make it quick and simple to clean up gross, sticky, and greasy messes with an all-in-one cordless device that scrubs your floor with clean water, sucks up the dirty water, and traps solid debris so you can dump it separately from the (usually very gross) water.

It’s a pretty cool concept, because it minimizes one of the worst parts about cleaning up any floor mess: the pain in your lower back. No longer do you have to crawl around after kids and pets, cleaning up their endless messes; you can just grab this thing, run a few passes over the mess, clean it, and store it for the next tornado whirling through your home. The A1 TriFlex also features an auto-cleaning system which makes it easy to rinse off the plush roller after every use.

In the Box

A variety of Ultenic AC1 TriFlex bundles are available online, so your kit may include extra accessories not listed here.

• AC1 TriFlex cordless wet/dry vacuum
• Charging base
• AC power brick
• Extra foam air filter
• 300 mL bottle of concentrated cleaning solution
• Cleaning brush

The base includes cutouts for storing the extra filter, cleaning brush, and roller, but the cleaning brush slot isn’t deep enough, so it doesn’t stay in place well. The other two cutouts work fine, however, and the roller slot is important – you should leave the roller here for storage, so it can dry thoroughly to prevent it from taking on a mildew odor over time.

The charging base holds the roller nicely, but the cleaning brush doesn’t really stay in place.

Features

The Ultenic AC1 TriFlex features three cleaning modes. The default, which is selected any time the vacuum is powered on, is Standard.

1. Standard: pumps water from the clean water tank onto your floor, which is then immediately scrubbed by the roller and sucked into the dirty water tank.
2. Max: the same as above, but with more water and faster, more powerful scrubbing.
3. Water Absorption: sucks liquid on your floor into the dirty water tank, which is useful in bathrooms and kitchens.

There are only three buttons; two are at the front of the handle. (The auto-clean button is not pictured.)

The Ultenic AC1 TriFlex has a rather loud voice notification system to inform you when you need to add fresh clean water and cleaning solution, empty the dirty water tank, and recharge the battery. You can disable this voice by pressing and holding the button on top of the handle, but it can be useful when you’re not paying close attention to the vacuum’s status.

The Auto-Clean feature allows the Ultenic AC1 TriFlex to maintain the roller brush without you having to do anything gross or messy. It just runs water from the clean tank through to the dirty tank while spinning the brush. The charging base contains the water, so it’s sucked into the dirty water tank. Once this cycle is complete, you can dump the solid waste in the trash and rinse out the dirty water tank, and you’re good to go.

It’s important to remove the roller to dry upright on the charging base, because leaving it attached to the vacuum will cause it to retain moisture and get mildewy quite quickly. Even in our relatively damp unfinished basement, the roller dries fine in its slot on the charging cradle.

Removing the roller for drying is so easy, it’s barely an inconvenience!

Cleaning Performance

Most of my house is carpeted, but a few areas have hard floors: the kitchen, five bathrooms, and our large, unfinished basement. I was really interested to see how well the Ultenic AC1 TriFlex could handle the uneven, hand-poured concrete floor in our basement. It worked reasonably well, but the plush roller isn’t really made for a very uneven floor, and I don’t recommend the AC1 TriFlex for rough or uneven hard surfaces.

By contrast, the Ultenic AC1 TriFlex performed admirably on 90s-era linoleum in one of our bathrooms and the (very) low-grade paper laminate flooring in our kitchen. In the latter case, I really liked that the vacuum didn’t dump an excessive amount of water on the floor. I fully expected the flooring to pick up some moisture from the vacuum, but this wasn’t a problem at all. It also did an excellent job picking up pet hair, crumbs, and tiny bits of onion paper scattered across the kitchen floor, and it does a reasonably good job cleaning along the edge of the roller when cleaning along a wall or cabinet.

In both the bathroom and the kitchen, there were some areas with black scuff marks from shoe soles. This vacuum picked up these scuffs pretty easily, along with small sticky spots and pet hair on the floor. In the bathroom we cleaned, the floor had layers and layers of shoe marks from when our house was an active bed-and-breakfast for around two decades, so it was very impressive to see how much of that was removed with very little manual effort.

I have very long hair, and the advertised anti-tangle feature works as described. I often have to cut away endless strands of hair with any roller brush, but with the Ultenic AC1 TriFlex, the hair goes into the solid waste bin instead of tangling around the roller brush. I suspect this is mostly because the roller brush uses a plush carpet, rather than rows of stiff plastic bristles.

Unlike some models in this class of wet-dry vacuum, the Ultenic AC1 TriFlex lacks a vacuum-only mode. I would prefer this, especially when cleaning up a mess with a lot of loose debris.

My other real dig at the AC1 TriFlex is the lack of information about the cleaning solution it uses. I did a little research, and while nothing is public, it seems it’s most likely a very mild, pH-neutral, non-foaming detergent – I confirmed this with some water quality test strips I had handy. Ultenic strongly advises against using any third-party or DIY cleaners, so if you choose to experiment, note this will void the warranty.

Replacement Parts

Both Ultenic and third-party manufacturers offer replacement parts for the AC1 TriFlex. This means if you end up cleaning up a biohazard that requires more disposal than a normal mess, you can replace the dirty water tank and roller without replacing the entire vacuum. Replacement filters and a clean water tank are also available on Amazon.

Conclusion

Overall, the Ultenic AC1 TriFlex is a good choice if you have a variety of hard floors in your home and are just tired of the effort of scrubbing stubborn spots and cleaning up wet messes from kids, pets, and everyone else. You’ll be able to tackle most household messes with this vacuum, and the dirty water and debris container makes it pretty easy to clean up the really gross disasters with minimal direct contact with whatever horrors may have befallen your floors.

The Ultenic AC1 TriFlex Wet-Dry Vacuum retails for $299.99; it is available directly from the manufacturer and other retailers, including Amazon.

Source: Manufacturer-supplied review sample

What I like: Solid scrubbing power for stubborn and very old stuck-on floor spots; Easy to dispose of wastewater and debris

What Needs Improvement: Missing a thicker roller option for rough floors; No cleaning solution alternatives; No vacuum-only mode