Eufy Mach V1 Ultra Review: Vacuuming With Steaming, Mopping, And Smart Mode
- Low profile helps to clean under furniture
- Powerful forward-driving motor
- Ozone-infused water for max sanitization
- Quick and easy steam cleaning
- Not meant for shaggy carpets
- Doesn't do well with steep or chunky trim
- Proprietary cleaner is strongly encouraged
- Some sensors are imperfect
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Scrubbing the floors is not a chore that anyone looks forward to. It's hard on the back and knees and will eat up an entire afternoon. Even old-fashioned mops aren't all that much more convenient, especially after the first time you accidentally tip a bucket full of dirty mop water all over the floor. Fortunately, the evolution of stick mops and floor steamers has made this grueling task a bit easier.
Some manufacturers have even combined the floor steaming/mopping and vacuuming functions into one product. Eufy recently did this with its Mach V1 Ultra, an all-in-one stick mop, floor steamer, and vacuum that's also cordless. The Ultra is a beefier version of the Mach V1, which only mops and vacuums (no steam). According to Eufy, the Ultra is Tüv Rheinland certified for its effectiveness in sanitization and germ removal and is the first home vacuum to obtain such certification.
It would seem that Eufy is suggesting that their Mach V1 Ultra has it all. Eufy supplied us with a vacuum for the purpose of this review so we could find out.
Hassle-free startup
The Eufy Mach V1 Ultra comes packaged fully assembled, only needing its tanks filled and put on before it's ready to go. The vacuum has three tanks/reservoirs: the water (pictured below), the floor detergent (pictured above), and the dirty water. This vacuum also separates dry/solid debris from wet debris in its runoff/dirty reservoir. Not having a tank full of gummy muck because the dust and dander and the steam runoff have been mixed together makes cleaning it out incredibly easy. Eufy includes a replacement dry filter for the dust chamber, but even after two months of regular use, blowing out the filter (and giving it a thump or two on the counter) has gotten it back to a satisfactory level of clean.
The slender detergent reservoir holds more product than you think and lasts longer than you might expect. However, at times, the Mach display would state that the detergent reservoir was empty when it wasn't, or that the dirty water tank was full when it wasn't even halfway there. The vacuum will still run when these sensors are glitching, but it's unclear whether or not it still deployed any floor detergent. It is just an example of a smart home device being occasionally too smart for its own good.
On its small handle display, the Eufy will walk you through the brief setup sequence. Downloading the Eufy Clean app is encouraged but not necessary — and there wasn't a whole lot of daily use for that app anyway.
Operating the Mach V1 Ultra
The Mach's controls are simple to use. There are three functions — smart mode, suction mode, and steam mode — that are cycled through with simple button clicks. With each click, the small LCD display and accompanying voice guide will announce which mode you are on. Eufy does an excellent job of guiding the user through the use of the vacuum; whatever the automated voice guide in the vacuum doesn't tell you, the Eufy Clean app will.
However, there is one inconsistency to this: The vacuum's startup guide, for whatever reason, encourages the user to fill the reservoir with tap water and not distilled water. After some time, depending on how hard your city water is, the steam function will cease to operate. More specifically, the vacuum will tell you that "the steam switch has been tripped." Rather than having a handy, step-by-step video on how to fix this issue (the vacuum comes with packets of citric acid to clean out mineral buildup), the vacuum tells the user to contact customer service. Customer service then directs the user to a written guide on the Eufy website. It seems more backward than it needs to be.
Other than this one issue, the vacuum is easy to use and maintain. The automated voice even reminds you to start a self-cleaning cycle when the vacuum is placed on its charging dock — that cycle is initiated with the easy press of a button — and the whole vacuum will light up after its cleaning cycle to encourage you to dump out the dirty water reservoir. During the self-cleaning, the mechanisms are cleaned with hot water, detergent, and hot air. Also, after the first time demineralizing the vacuum, distilled water was put in the Eufy and there haven't been any issues.
The biggest appeal of the Mach is its Smart Mode
The gauge bar at the bottom of the display measures the "dirtiness" of your floors. In Smart mode, the Mach uses this gauge to switch back and forth between steam and suction as necessary. Despite initial scrutiny, this mode was startlingly effective and consistent.
For example, to test the initial suspicion that the "Smart" mode was simply a detector of moisture, a small area of the floor was cleaned with the vacuum until the bar indicated clean. While the floor was still wet from the vacuum steam, the section was passed over again, but the vacuum still read the section as clean. Then, a small amount of clear soda (Sprite) was poured over the same area. As soon as the vacuum passed over the area again, it registered the floor as dirty and began steaming and vacuuming up the spilled soda. To be clear, the Mach also isn't using some sort of spacial sensor to detect where it's already been, since you could make one pass, immediately drop some dirt in front of the vacuum where it just was, and it would still detect the dirty floor.
The vacuum consistently detected dirt, crumbs, pet hair, and even dried-on coffee and mud stains. In Smart mode, the Mach arbitrarily alternates between steam and suction until the mess has been cleared. It was impressive, to say the least.
Low profile, impressive battery
By the end of the testing, while the Mach V1 is certainly not without its flaws, the pros seemed to outweigh the cons. The vacuum has a strong forward-drive assist motor, and its head has a very low profile to easily fit in tight spaces, like under furniture or under baseboard heaters as pictured. However, the vacuum isn't designed to withstand being tilted nearly flat, and doing so may cause the dirty water to spill out if the tank is quite full, so that's something to be mindful of.
While using the suction mode, pulling on the handle trigger gives the vacuum a boost of suction power, which makes it very effective in cleaning up any sort of dry debris on a variety of surfaces. But the Mach simply isn't made for thick-pile or shaggy rugs, which is something that Eufy does disclose. Its low wheelbase also makes it a struggle to get over thicker/higher pieces of connecting floor trim between rooms and often had to be dragged backward to get over that trim.
The battery life is impressive and displayed on the handle at all times. An entire 1,800 square foot first floor was vacuumed and steamed on almost one entire battery life, and the Mach quickly reached a full charge again in less than two hours. But it was also found that the vacuum is noticeably less powerful when coming up to an edge like a wall at a parallel, rather than head-on. And lastly, while there isn't an easy way to metric its effectiveness, the Mach's use of ozone-oxygenated water did leave hardwood and tile floors feeling exceptionally clean.
Is the Eufy Mach V1 Ultra worth it?
It is difficult to gauge the worth of the Mach V1 to a home that already has a household vacuum and steamer or mop, but it is certainly a worthwhile upgrade to make if you are in the market for one. But on the other hand, $699.99 for the Mach V1 Ultra is a big ask for a daily-use vacuum. While the steaming part of this product is undeniably impressive, nothing will ever outperform manually deck-scrubbing the floors on hands and knees, or even putting some elbow grease into passing a stick mop over the floor.
Houses with a lot of plush carpet or rugs won't get much functional use out of the Eufy, but for homes with a lot of hardwood, it is a lightweight enough vacuum to make daily passes over the floor for collection of hair, dust, and dirt from foot traffic. Its maintenance is also minimal, and Eufy starts you off with a small supply of detergents and refill supplies, but advising against distilled water in the first place seems impractical. Plus, the Mach V1 heats water up quickly to make for speedy cleanups of spills from pets and children. So for busier lifestyles, for big houses that would require a lot of time and effort, or for people with mobility issues that can't put a lot of physical power into scrubbing their floors, the Mach V1 offers a practical solution for faster, lower-strain cleanliness.
If you're searching for this vacuum online, the original Mach V1 can be found on Amazon, but you'll need to go to the official Eufy store for the V1 Ultra you see reviewed here.