Shark HydroVac Pro and HydroVac XL Review!

In a growing market of vac mops, Shark, who makes some of the best vacuums hands down, had no choice but to dirty their hands and compete with the likes of Tineco. So came the Shark HydroVac Pro. But did they do a good job? Read on to find out!

Shark HydroVac Pro

Now, while we’re not totally sold on the idea of the vacmop, we do think that Shark made a great first attempt at entering this product category. The HydroVac Pro is simple, yet effective, at knocking out a full floor house work in one sweep. In general though, here are some pros and cons of the Vacuum Mop category that the Shark needs to contend with:

Pros	Cons
Vacuum and Mop at the same time!	Not for quick cleanups despite being advertised as such.
Works well on hard floors.	Not as good on carpets as a traditional vacuum.
Great on dust, pet hair.	Doesn’t get into the deep grout of tile.
Great on liquid messes.	Doesn’t have the power to clean up super sticky messes.
Edge to edge cleaning is bad on nearly all models including ones that advertise otherwise.	Dirty water tank, and roller, will smell if left uncleaned and unattended.
	Sometimes more work just to clean machine than it is to clean quick mess.

So was the Shark able to overcome all of the cons of this particular product? The answer is, kind of. Where it shines is its price to performance ratio. Whereas Tineco is selling their products for $350+, Shark is able to sell a competitive (if not better in some cases) product for as low at $250.

Dirty Water Tank and Brush Roller

One aspect that “stinks” on the Tineco is the necessity to deep clean the product every time you use it, and that includes with quick messes. If you don’t empty the dirty water tank after every use, it will REEK! The same goes with the brush roller. Strictly speaking you’ll want to run a “self cleaning cycle” and remove the brush roller to let air dry outside of the vacuum. Shark has done away with at least one of these problems by infusing antimicrobial material onto their brush roller. As a result, we can confidently say it doesn’t smell nearly as bad as it does on the Tineco after extended periods of time.

Cleaning Power

Unfortunately here is a situation where the Shark didn’t win any gold medals. While it’s equally as good as the Tineco at cleaning, that still isn’t saying much. Sure these products are fine for general hardwood floor cleaning, but they won’t work any miracles on super sticky messes or area super close to your trim. If your looking for one nice swoop of being able to vacuum and mop at the same time, these are great, but for a real deep clean you’re going to need to whip out the stick vacuum to get close to that trim, and maybe a rough sponge to pull out sticky messes.

Features

While the Shark doesn’t have any features such as electrolyzed water, ultra mode, or an interface that tells you how dirty something is, that’s also it’s best asset. Unlike the Tineco it’s simple to use with less crap to break. You power it on, and go. In fact, the only two buttons it has is a carpet mode which will inhibit water flow, and a power button that doubles as the self cleaning button when on its dock. And as far as indicators go, basically a light to tell you when it’s full, another for the battery, and another for carpet mode. Easy peasy.

One nice aspect of the Shark HydroVac Pro is that it uses less water or formula than the Tineco. This is nice because you’re less likely to be standing at your sink filling it up with solution. The dirty water tank is both better and worse than the Tineco. Better in that it’s easier to dump out without creating a bigger mess – something the Tineco suffers with. However, its more complex in design with more crevices and deep areas for dirt and junk to get trapped in, making cleaning the dirty water tank a bit of a pain.

Final Thoughts

For the money, the Shark is the way to go. It’s not nearly as fancy and has a few shortcomings that are inherent to the category – but its cleaning capabilities and feature set are just as good than the Tineco and that includes the suction power. And really, that’s what you want in a vacuum right? For it to SUCK!