Eufy Clean Mach V1 Ultra review: Feature-packed but pricey, overall, it’s a disappointing vac

The Eufy Mach V1 Ultra is an unusual cordless vacuum cleaner because it can mop your floor as well as vacuum it. We’re used to seeing this pairing of floor-cleaning talents in robot vacuum cleaners, but it’s relatively uncommon in upright or cordless models.

Those robots tend to vacuum well but mop poorly; however, it’s the other way around with the Eufy Mach V1 Ultra. As a mop and steam cleaner, it’s perfectly capable. It will also vacuum but, as you’ll see from our review below, we wouldn’t recommend throwing out your old vacuum cleaner just yet.

Eufy Clean Mach V1 Ultra review: What do you get for the money?

The Eufy Mach V1 Ultra is quite expensive at £749, but there’s a lot more going on than most cordless vacuums. In fact, it’s quite different in its design: it doesn’t break down into a handheld unit, and it comes with none of the familiar cordless attachments, such as a crevice tool or dusting brush.

While the handle is connected to the floor head with a thin tube, the lower half looks more like an upright vacuum, complete with a large dark plastic capsule containing the battery, motor and tanks for clean and dirty water. It measures 278 x 254 x 1,176mm (WDH) and weighs a hefty 5.7kg.

At ground level there’s a standard-looking floorhead with a single fluffy roller, enclosed in a translucent lid that’s easy to remove, should you need to gain access for cleaning. Up at the top of the vacuum, meanwhile, is a simple loop handle with a small screen and two physical buttons on top, a toggle switch to the side and a trigger on the inside.

As well as the vacuum itself, the Mac V1 Ultra comes with a stand in the box. Dock the vacuum and it will charge the unit’s batteries and clean the floorhead’s roller, using clean water from one of the vacuum’s two tanks. Those tanks consist of a 720ml clean water tank on the top and an 820ml tank for dirty water at the bottom.

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Eufy Clean Mach V1 Ultra review: What’s it like to use?

Getting the Eufy Clean Mach V1 Ultra ready is relatively simple. It comes fully assembled in the box, so you just need to charge it (takes up to four hours), remove the clean water tank and fill it from the tap. If you wish, you can also add detergent to another tank that’s hidden away in the handle. Eufy supplies 300ml of its own solution in the box and recommends only using that – refills are available direct for £13 for a 300ml bottle.

The cleaner has three modes, which are accessed using the buttons next to the screen. The default mode is Smart mode, which mops the floor and vacuums up dirt at the same time. You can increase the intensity of the clean by holding the trigger button.

Detergent is added to the clean water automatically as you clean, a system Eufy says uses less detergent than pre-mixing it. The addition of detergent is controlled using the switch on the side of the handle, so if plain water is giving you a good enough clean you can choose not to add detergent, even after you’ve poured it into the tank.

As an aside, the device also creates its own “aqueous ozone”, which Eufy says turns regular tap water into a child- and pet-safe sanitiser. This helps reduce the number of germs on surfaces, though it doesn’t kill them.

The second mode is Steam. It takes a few seconds for the Mach V1 Ultra to build up steam, but lights on the device show you when it’s ready. Then you can pull the trigger button to deploy it. This can help remove stubborn stains but is recommended for use only on sealed floors, such as stone, tiles and sealed hardwood.

Last, there’s Suction mode. This lets you use the device as a regular vacuum cleaner without water, so it can be used on short- and medium-pile carpets as well as hard flooring. If there is water on the floor, this mode can also be used to suck it into the dirty water tank, and, optionally, dry it afterwards using air blown out of the rear of the floor head.

With so much going on, the Mach V1 Ultra is quite heavy at 5.7kg, and filling it with water and detergent adds another kilo or so. However, most of the weight is at the bottom, so it isn’t hard to push around and the motion of the roller pulls the device forward, which helps. Despite its relatively large size it’s pretty flexible and easy to manoeuvre.

Emptying it is the worst bit. Even if you’ve kept the unit dry for a vacuuming session, emptying involves removing the dirty water tank and lifting out the filter and mesh divider. This is significantly messier than emptying most cordless vacuum cleaners.

Add in water, however, and things turn grim. The dirty water needs pouring down a drain and any solid dirt that’s been collected gets damp. There’s really no pleasant way of disposing of this, and it’s a weak spot in the device’s otherwise sleek and sophisticated demeanour.

The other problem is the machine drips a bit once you’ve finished cleaning, and leaves small puddles of dirty water on the floor. You can rush it back to its charging and cleaning station, but it would be useful to be able to leave it out while you do something else, without having to clean up again before moving on.

This messiness carried over to the self-cleaning station, which does a fair job of getting the worst of the dirt from the roller. However, I still found it would leave dirty damp patches underneath the floorhead that could remain for days unless manually cleaned up.

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Eufy Clean Mach V1 Ultra review: How well does it clean?

The Eufy Clean Mach V1 Ultra can operate as both a mop and a vacuum cleaner, so we put it through our usual suite of tests for both. To test vacuuming I drop measured spillages of Cheerios, flour and pet hair on both carpet and hard floor. To test the mop, I pit it against muddy footprints, blackcurrant cordial and tomato ketchup, all of which have been allowed to dry on hard floor.

In the vacuum tests, I was expecting the soft roller to make short work of Cheerios on hard floor, but since the roller is enclosed at the front, it has no more of an advantage than a device with a regular brush bar. As a result, it collected a little short of half the Cheerios; some of the remainder it simply pushed in front of the floor head, while others became stuck in the suction tube behind the roller. It was worse on carpet, collecting only a few of the Cheerios.

Pet hair was a bit better, with 62% gathered on carpet and 46% on hard floor. In both cases clumps of hair became trapped behind the roller, hindering the vacuum’s ability to suck any more hair through.

I started testing flour on hard floor but it left a visual residue behind and, where it met water in the tubes, it created a sticky paste. I abandoned the flour test at this point as I feared causing a blockage and being unable to review the device’s other features.

Overall, this makes it a disappointing vacuum cleaner. Compared to the vast majority of cordless stick devices, performance in these tests proved poor.

As you might expect, however, mopping is better. In Smart mode, it picked up muddy footprints with a single pass. If you’re mostly cleaning hard floor after children or pets, it performs perfectly well.

Dried-on blackcurrant squash was a bit trickier and took three passes to clear. Dried ketchup was even more problematic and wasn’t shifted by Smart mode after several passes. I switched to Steam mode and applied steam to the stain before trying again. This improved the speed of the clean and soon removed the stain, but it’s worth noting the device can only operate for 15 minutes when steaming, as opposed to its Smart cleaning mode, which runs for well over an hour.

Eufy Clean Mach V1 Ultra review: Should I buy it?

If the Eufy Mach V1 Ultra was being marketed as a hard-floor mopping device or steam cleaner it might have fared a bit better in this review. Apart from the small problem of post-wash drips, it proved reasonably competent at lifting dried-on spillages on hard flooring. It’s more than capable of slurping up wet spills, too.

What it doesn’t do very well is vacuum. Its problems with failing to suck up our test spillages and getting clogged up by everyday household dirt was compounded by the unsavoury job of emptying it afterwards. If it stuck to hard floor cleaning, it would probably be a more attractive proposition, but it would also need a drop in price to make it competitive.

There isn’t a great deal of competition in this area, but if you want a combo device that vacuums well, and is also fitted with a hard floor cleaning attachment, Dyson’s forthcoming self-contained Submarine head promises to deliver a no-compromise solution. Otherwise, you’ll be looking at purchasing two devices – perhaps the Vax ONEPWR Glide 2 and the Shark Stratos IZ400UKT, which is one of the best cordless vacuum cleaners around at the moment.