Tineco Pure One Station 5 Vs Dyson V11: Cordless Vacuum Farmhouse Cleaning Head-To-Head

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Choosing the right vacuum cleaner is an important decision, and it's not just down to which cleans your floors the best. Actually picking which is right for you can be a shockingly complex decision, and one which may be very personal as well. One must take into account such factors as the layout of your home, whether you own your home, and whether or not that home is filled with shedding pets such as is the case with my home.

The Tineco Pure One Station 5 and Dyson V11 Origin are two mainstream midrange options which you may want to consider. Dyson certainly is the more recognizable of the two, as it has long possessed a high profile in the space among consumers, so the question becomes is the Dyson V11 Origin worth the premium price tag, and can the Tineco Pure One Station 5 go head-to-head with it? I put it to the test in the rural farmhouse where I live, which may be the most challenging environment possible for any vacuum. With lingering ash and fine silt still pervading the region from the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens, if a vacuum can make it here, it can make it anywhere!

Tineco provided the Pure One Station 5 and Dyson V11 Origin for the purposes of putting these vacuums to the test, but had no input over the content or conclusion of the article.

Overall setup is easier with Tineco Pure One Station 5

Aside from the one hiccup of confusion I experienced when attaching the station unit to the base plate, the Pure One Station 5 has the overall easier setup process of these two vacuums. This is in large part due to the fact that with the Pure One Station 5 you don't need any tools, and everything just clips together. By comparison, the Dyson V11 needs to have its wall bracket screwed into your wall.

Other than that, they are very closely matched, though I will say that the Dyson V11 bugged me with its hair trigger during setup, meaning that I accidentally turned it on several times while putting it together. This meant I needed to clean the interior out prior to photographing it, as it was already full of dust even before I had it fully assembled. This won't be so much of a problem for most people, but that hair trigger on the V11 can often be mildly annoying.

Tineco Pure One Station 5 is a better choice for renters

If you own your own home and don't much care about making alterations to your walls, whichever of these two vacuums you choose is purely a matter of personal preference. However, if you live in a rented or shared space where it may not be possible to attach objects to your walls, then the Tineco Pure One Station 5 becomes a much more attractive choice than the Dyson V11. The Dyson V11 clips into a wall bracket to charge, which is designed to be affixed permanently to a wall. It can be charged and used without this wall bracket, but is much less convenient without the ability to clip it into this station.

By contrast, the Pure One Station 5 is free standing, and is easily moved if necessary. The one issue I encountered was that it can be a little tricky to attach the station to the base plate; be sure to first pass the power cable through the hole in the base plate when assembling the station. Even though I am lucky enough to be able to modify the walls of my home if I wish, I much prefer a free standing base station such as this to one which I must affix to a wall.

Controls and noise profile

The Dyson V11 Origin works on something of a hair trigger, so it's easy to accidentally turn it on. However, I did come to enjoy the simplicity of the system, and I liked that if I needed to quickly put the vacuum down it would turn off automatically. The push button system of the Tineco Pure One Station 5 is slightly more awkward, with a power on/off button and a button which cycles between three different settings: Eco, Auto, and Max. 

However, I never triggered it accidentally, and having those three settings makes the vacuum more flexible. Eco is basically a low power mode that maximizes battery life, while Auto detects the amount of suction required and varies it as needed, while Max, somewhat obviously, runs the vacuum as its maximum suction setting. The Dyson also features three different settings, similar to those of the Tineco. 

In terms of noise levels, the Dyson V11 Origin and the Tineco Pure One Station 5 are practically identical as far as overall volume goes. The quality of noise is slightly different, but not so much as it is likely to make any difference.

Battery life and filtration

Regarding battery life, I never ran into a situation where I even came close to draining the battery of either vacuum. The Tineco is rated for 70 minutes in auto mode, while the Dyson is rated for 60 minutes, so both provide more juice than you're likely to need.

The Pure One Station 5 is advertised as being able to capture 99.99% of particles as small as 0.3μm thanks to an amazingly complex and thorough HEPA filter system. The Dyson V11 Origin also has a HEPA filter system, but it appears to be far less thorough, and thanks to the clumsy method of emptying the canister, a lot more dust is going to make its way back into the air each time you're done using it.

Tineco takes the win for durability

In terms of materials used, the Tineco feels much more robust, and it shows scratches and wear much less easily. The Dyson, by contrast, picked up scratches immediately, and its materials do not feel very durable.

While both vacuums possess a fair few potential points of failure, the Tineco Pure One Station 5 features a design with fewer critical moving parts. The way in which it attaches to its base station means that it suffers very little wear to its canister system with each use, and the larger container is easy to remove and empty, meaning that little wear occurs during that procedure. Additionally, the Pure One Station 5 has a rotary brush head designed to be cleaned without the need for tools.

The Dyson V11 on the other hand has to be manually emptied by removing the attached cleaning tool, then pressing a plastic latch, which itself is a fairly fragile wear part. Next, the canister is pushed downwards so that the lid automatically pops open and dust/debris falls out. However, the contents of the canister often become stuck, and are difficult to dislodge. There are numerous components of this system which will wear out over time, potentially rather quickly. It's also awkward and time consuming to operate, particularly compared to the Tineco system.

The automated cleaning cycle which occurs with the Tineco Pure One Station 5 really does a fantastic job of cleaning up the vacuum every time you attach it to the base station. I did need to run this cleaning cycle several times after filling the canister with a particularly dense clot of animal hair, but it was still a lot easier and more thorough than if I had cleaned that out manually.

Dyson inches ahead when it comes to sheer cleaning power

Both vacuums performed very well when it came to their raw cleaning capabilities. With two dogs, several cats, pet birds, and all the dust which is inevitably tracked in from our farm, our carpet is the ultimate challenge for any vacuum. I ran numerous tests with each vacuum on multiple different types of carpets with varying levels of dust, hair, and debris. I also compared both vacuums against my old Samsung Jet 75 vacuum, and both the Tineco and the Dyson left the Samsung in the dust (pun very much intended).

The Dyson V11 seems to have slightly better suction power than the Tineco, and it comes with a smaller, tangle-free head which is particularly good for cleaning hairy surfaces. It features a spinning cone shaped brush with a gap at one end, so long hair or string just flies off the end and is sucked up. This smaller head is also easier to fit into tight spaces, and in general the Dyson V11 Origin is the more flexible of the two vacuums. However, beyond its amazing ability to avoid tangles, the Dyson is unfortunately easier to clog than the Tineco, and as previously mentioned the Dyson is more difficult to clean. As for handling, the Dyson is the lighter and more nimble vacuum, but not to a degree where it gives the Dyson a noticeable advantage.

Lighting and lack thereof

It's generally a good thing to have a light on the front of a vacuum to illuminate the floor ahead, but strangely this is lacking in the Dyson V11 Origin. For a somewhat premium product, this seems like an odd omission, and it can be a problem when cleaning dimly lit areas. By contrast, the Tineco Pure One Station 5 is equipped with a blindingly bright green light intended specifically to show the dust ahead.

This works well on hard floors, where it illuminates dust that you can't see with the naked eye, but it can actually make it more difficult to see the dirt in front of the vacuum on a carpet, making it harder to tell where you've already vacuumed. I prefer to have the option of an integrated light in a vacuum, but a white light for carpets would be more useful, or else the glaring green light should be able to be turned off.

Tineco delivers far greater value for money

As of this writing, the Tineco Pure One Station 5 is available for $359 on Tineco's website, while the Dyson v11 Origin is going for $399 on Amazon. At MSRP, the Dyson is $569, while the MSRP of the Tineco is $459.  If you're looking for a wet/dry cordless vacuum, then the Tineco FLOOR ONE Stretch S6 is a great option at a similar MSRP to that of the Dyson V11 Origin.

However, it is worth noting that during the process of testing and writing this article, prices of the vacuums in question did fluctuate, but currently they're only $40 apart. With that said, even at only a slightly elevated price over the Tineco Pure One Station 5, I would have a hard time saying it's worth buying the Dyson V11 Origin. 

Conclusion

While the Dyson V11 Origin does certainly have the cool factor going for it in spades, that cool look is really not much more than plastic molding. If you look at these vacuums in terms of their function and design, and assign cool-factor in those terms, then in that light the Tineco Pure One Station 5 is definitely the more radical and interesting of the two. You might want to opt for the Dyson V11 Origin if you have truly extreme problems with long hair and string, but even then, I have about the hairiest home possible, and the TineCo Pure One Station 5 never suffered a major tangle.

The self-cleaning system and base station dust storage system of the Tineco really is something of a super power, and after using it I can't honestly look at other vacuums without such a system the same way again. It's easy to use, provides a free-standing place to store the vacuum, keeps the system relatively clean to prevent the buildup of clogging dirt and debris, helps to increase air quality in your home, and reduces wear and tear on the vacuum itself. Given this and everything else I appreciated about it, the Tineco Pure One Station 5 is the clear winner in this battle of the vacuums.

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