I tested the Tineco Floor One Stretch S6 vacuum mop and love how thoroughly it cleans, especially at this price point

If you often find yourself moving furniture around to properly clean your hard floors, the Tineco Floor One Stretch S6 could be the vacuum mop for you. It's the only one from Tineco that can lay completely flat, and clean just as well when doing so.

I'm Homes & Gardens' home tech editor, and my team and I have tested 65 of the best vacuums of all types, including cordless, uprights, robots, carpets cleaners and vacuum-mop combos.

Vacuum-mop combos (or wet floor cleaners) are a popular choice these days thanks to the increase of hard floors in modern homes. I put the Tineco Floor One Stretch S6 to the test across all sorts of household substances and found it to be an effective machine worth the sensible spend.

Tineco Floor One Stretch S6: Specifications

Tineco Floor One Stretch S6: Setup

The Tineco Floor One Stretch S6 follows the same assembly setup as other Tineco wet vacuums. Attach the handle into the vacuum, plug in the charging base, charge up the vacuum (it's recommended to wait until it's at 100% before using it for the first time), then you're ready to go.

Included with the Stretch S6 are: cleaning solution, spare roller, spare filter, cleaning brush, charging base and charger.

Sadly, the packaging was full of soft plastic, about three times as much as is needed to wrap each individual component. The best Dyson vacuums manage to avoid this issue by packing the parts using recyclable cardboard, and it'd be great to see Tineco soon follow suit.

Tineco Floor One Stretch S6: Design and features

The main sell of the Stretch S6 (and the reason it has 'Stretch' in the name) is its ability to lay completely flat. Other vacuums are similarly as flexible but the Tineco actually adjusts for the horizontal tilt by relying on the floorhead's suction, and a voice prompt tells you this as you tilt it downwards.

At this angle, the vacuum takes up just 5.1 inches of vertical space. This allows you to clean under furniture, making one of the hardest cleaning tasks that little bit easier. If you find yourself frequently moving furniture around as you clean the floors, this could be a lifesaver for you.

There are four cleaning modes: auto, max, suction and custom. Auto optimizes moisture and suction levels from how dirty your floors are and I found this setting always did the trick, allowing me to deep clean a whole kitchen without pressing a button. But you can use max when the floors need a deeper clean, suction doesn't use any cleaning solution, and custom can be set to your own preferred ratio. All of this is controlled using buttons on the handle.

The LED screen displays all the useful info you could need as you clean your home. Battery life, water usage and cleaning mode are all clearly visible, and it'll tell you if there are any problems causing the vacuum to lose suction power, such as if the roller becomes tangled.

What I love about Tineco's floor cleaners is a blue-to-red ring around the LED screen that shows how dirty the floor is. The ring will fill in with red as the floor gets dirtier, then gradually return to all-blue once everything's been vacuumed. It's a clear and intuitive way to know when you've finished cleaning an area.

Tineco Floor One Stretch S6: Cleaning tests

In our fully-equipped test kitchen, I tested the Tineco Floor One Stretch S6 using five common household substances with varying consistencies and debris amounts to see what the vacuum could handle:

• 1 tablespoon of ketchup
• 1 tablespoon of mustard
• 2 tablespoons of chunky tomato and vegetable pasta sauce
• 1 egg, dropped from 1.5m
• 1 cup of milk and cereal

The Stretch S6 quickly cleaned the ketchup, mustard and pasta sauce. After just one pass forward then one pass back, all residue was removed leaving just a thin layer of moisture on the surface that dried fewer than five minutes later.

But when cleaning the broken egg, I saw as the dirty water tank filled with murky liquid but egg shell pieces were left behind. After a few more passes, the egg was completely vacuumed but I think the floorhead's narrow opening means that it struggles with larger pieces (read our vacuum jargon buster for info on any of these terms). Regardless, the roller was strong enough to break down the shell and eventually leave no mess behind.

The cereal was cleaned in a similar way. The milk was vacuumed almost instantly but cereal pieces were pushed backwards, and I eventually had to keep lifting and dropping the vacuum onto each individual Cheerio to get the last of it. I wouldn't say this isn't a reason to upgrade to this wet vacuum, but if you're often vacuuming messes like these, this might get frustrating.

What is the Tineco Floor One Stretch S6 like to use?

It doesn't take much to figure out how to use the Stretch S6. It's designed to be intuitive, so even as you glide it across the floor it'll propel itself in whichever direction you're moving.

For it to be able to lay completely flat, Tineco moved the clean water tank to where the floorhead is. This makes complete sense as a design choice, except you have to then use a separate container to be able to fill it up with water as you won't be able to lift the vacuum to position it under your faucet.

The 180-degree flat use function is exactly as they describe, too. It lays completely horizontal and takes up hardly any vertical space to easily clean under tight spaces. I love that Tineco implemented power adjustment so that, when in this position, you're not sacrificing how well the vacuum can mop your floors.

I'm also a fan of the charging base's self-cleaning. It uses fresh water heated to 158°Fahrenheit to soak and wash the roller, then seals the roller and uses heat at the same temperature to dry and extract the moisture. This is a feature not found across all vacuum-mops, including Dyson's single vacuum mop, but makes all the difference to preserve the roller's lifespan, limiting how often you'll have to buy a replacement, and it prevents the growth of nasty odors and mold and mildew.

If you've ever smelled a mop head and jerked your face back from the musty smell, you will have no such worry or encounter with this self-cleaning and drying appliance.

The dirty water tank uses a disk filter to separate liquids from solids within the same unit. I like how easy this is to empty – as you can empty all of the contents without having to get your hands dirty.

How does the Tineco Floor One Stretch S6 compare?

I tested the Tineco Floor One Stretch S6 at the same time as the Dyson WashG1, the Dreame H14 Pro and the Tineco Floor One Stretch S7 Pro – the best models from some of the leading brands in the vacuum-mop market.

The Stretch S6 isn't quite as good at cleaning as the Tineco Floor One S7 Pro. I found that the S7 cleaned messes faster without me having to go back and forth to get the last of it. It costs $100 more for this privilege however, so it's worth weighing up whether the less-passes cleaning warrants the higher spend. The S7 Pro is also unable to lay flat (it doesn't even get close), but it is much easier to fill up and empty, and I found that the cleaning solution was used more efficiently.

The Dreame H14 Pro cleans similarly to the S7 Pro and costs the same at full price. It also has more advanced smart features as you can connect to a smartphone app for more control over your cleaning modes, but to be honest, I don't think this is necessary. The simple button control of the Tineco models helps to keep them admin-free.

The Dyson WashG1 I tested and reviewed is the most expensive out of the bunch but, surprisingly, cleans the worst. It is the most lightweight however, and had the best edge cleaning out of all the vacuum-mops I've tested. But it lacks the control over cleaning mode that you find in other models, and it doesn't come with any cleaning solution, instead using just fresh water.

Should you buy the Tineco Floor One Stretch S6?

The Tineco S6 definitely gets my vote. This mid-to-high range model can clean all manner of messes with only a little bit of effort needed when vacuuming solids. I love how freely it glides across the floors, how easily it reaches under furniture and that you can see how dirty the floors are as you're cleaning them, making it easy to know when to move on to the next area.

It's a bit tricky to fill up with cleaning solution at floor level, but all that means is you'll have to wash up another container each time you do so. There are slightly better vacuum-mops out there, but for the price, this is a great choice.

How I tested the Tineco Floor One Stretch S6

In our dedicated test center, I vacuumed five different substances (outlined above) to find out what the vacuum-mop is capable of cleaning. Much like how we test vacuums, I carried out these tests on wood and linoleum floors.

I also tested all cleaning modes available, as well as assessing how easy the vacuum is to fill up, empty, and generally use around the house.

Next, compare mopping vs wet vacuuming or find out how to clean floors efficiently with a steam mop.