The Best Cordless Vacuums for Hardwood Floors (2024) reviewed

When it comes to maintaining the cleanliness of your hardwood flooring, it’s essential to realize that, while it may not accumulate dirt as rapidly as carpet, it still requires regular upkeep between more extensive mopping sessions. Before you reach for your trusty broom and dustpan, it might be worth considering the advantages of investing in the best cordless vacuums for hardwood floors. These specialized cleaning tools are designed to make the task of cleaning your hardwood surfaces both effortless and gentle, ensuring they remain pristine without any harm.

In our Lab, we tried out 16 portable vacuums to find out which ones worked best on hardwood floors. We looked at how long each vacuum ran, how loud it was, how well it worked, how easy it was to move around, and how much it cost total. We also talked to Holly Lightfoot, head of merchandising at LL Flooring, and Brett Miller, vice president of technical standards, training, and certification for the National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA).

Miller says that keeping hardwood floors clean can help prevent scratches because dirt and other things won’t drag across the floor. But you still need to be careful to choose a vacuum that won’t damage wooden floors. “Finding a vacuum with a soft floor attachment or soft padding and no beater bar or hard bristle brushes is the most important thing to look for when buying a vacuum for hardwood floors,” says Lightfoot.

Best Cordless Vacuums for Hardwood Floors Comparison Table

Samsung Jet 90 Complete

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The Samsung Jet 90 Complete is the best cordless cleaner we’ve tried for wood floors. The Complete version of this vacuum comes with two floorheads. One has a multi-surface bristled roller, and the other has a soft roller that won’t leave micro-scratches on surfaces like hardwood that are easy to scratch. You can get it with the Samsung Spinning Sweeper attachment, which is a floorhead with a unique design that uses spinning disposable mop pads to scrub away dried-on dirt.

But this device doesn’t pick anything up; it only scrubs. The vacuum can run for up to 60 minutes on a single charge, which is pretty good for a portable vacuum. However, if you run it in its high-power “Max” mode for a long time, its runtime drops by a lot. It’s easy to move around, but the trash on top can get in the way when you’re trying to clean under tables and chairs. You also can’t take the trash off without taking the handle with it, which makes it a little hard to empty.

Shark Stratos Cordless

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If you want something cheaper than the Samsung Jet 90 Complete, check out the Shark Stratos Cordless. Unlike the Samsung, you can’t use it to clean up spots because it doesn’t have a mopping floorhead that works with it. It also takes longer to charge, but it doesn’t work for longer overall. Still, it works just as well to pick up dirt on hard floors and has a lot of tools to make life easier.

The odor-neutralization feature uses a replaceable cartridge that gives off a pleasant detergent-like smell as you clean. However, if you leave it on its highest setting and clean your home more than once a week, it can be a bit much. Even though it’s bigger and heavier than the Samsung and has two rollers instead of one, its bendable wand makes it easy to clean under furniture. The build quality is also pretty good, and it’s not too hard to clean either.

Dyson Omni-Glide+ Cordless Vacuum

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As its name suggests, the Dyson Omni-Glide+ is made to move easily across wooden floors, picking up dust and other dirt without damaging the floor. Given how strong the suction is, our testers were especially impressed with how light and easy to move this Dyson was. “The swivel on the vacuum’s floor brush really helped with maneuverability and made it easy to clean,” says one tester.

Keep in mind that the Omni-Glide+ can only be used on hard floors because it doesn’t come with any kind of cleaning brush. But that doesn’t change how well it works on hardwoods. During our tests, the vacuum picked up 98 percent of the dirt and dust on both wooden floors and stairs in just one minute. The head of the Double Fluffy cleaner is made of soft nylon to pick up big pieces of dirt, and anti-static carbon fiber strands get rid of fine dust.

Black+Decker BSV2020G Power Series Extreme Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner

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Unlike our best overall pick, this Black + Decker portable vacuum is made to clean hardwood, tile, and carpet, among other things. This is because it has an angled floorhead with three different suction levels. You can change the amount of suction to match the type of floor you’re cleaning. And if you’re worried about scratching your wooden floors, the spinning brush roll has a switch that turns it on and off, so you can just use the suction.

The vacuum was easy for our testers to move around furniture, and the hand cleaner that can be taken off is light and easy to use. During our tests, the battery ran for almost 29 minutes on the lowest setting. This was the second longest battery life of all the vacuums on our list. Plus, it can stand up on its own, so you don’t have to lean it against a well. It also has LED floorhead lights that light up the way you’re vacuuming as you go.

Tineco Pure One S11

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We’ve tested 15 cordless vacuums over the past few years, and their prices run from $105 to $899. The Tineco Pure One S11 is right in the middle of that group, with a retail price of $400. However, it acted like it cost a lot more, with great results in all of our main cleaning tests, so it’s not surprising that it’s in the middle. In particular, the Pure One S11 tied for second place among all of our lab’s cordless vacuums on hardwood floors.

It picked up 99% of the sand we spread to simulate dust and other fine particles and 100% of the black rice we use to simulate crumbs and other bigger pieces of debris. It was our best scorer on low-pile carpet, getting 93% on the sand and 100% on the black rice. It also does well on our most tough test surface, a plush carpet with a mid-pile. The Pure One S11 came in third, collecting 78% of the sand and, once again, 100% of the black rice. This thing is so strong that even crumbs can’t beat it.

Tineco A11 Hero

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The last time we updated our list of the best cordless vacuums, we said that the Tineco A11 Hero was a great midrange choice. Now, in 2023, you can get it for $260 or less if you catch it on sale. We’ve seen it go for less than $200 a lot in the past few months. That makes it more of a value pick, and as value picks go, it’s one of your best choices.

The A11 Hero did well in our tests for both pet hair and hardwood floors. It picked up 97% of sand and 98% of black rice from wooden floors. It came in just outside the top 5 on low-pile carpet, removing a reasonable 83% of sand and a nearly perfect 99% of black rice. Every vacuum that did better in that test costs hundreds more. Mid-pile carpet was harder because there were more strands for dirt to stick to. The A11 Hero’s sand score dropped to 73%, but it still did great on the black rice test, sucking up 98% of the stuff.

LG CordZero Auto Empty Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner

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When LG made this CordZero All-in-One Stick Vacuum, they thought of everything. The earlier version of this vacuum worked well and was easy to use, and now that we’ve tried the auto-empty tower, we love it even more. In fact, we liked it so much that we gave it a 2022 Good Housekeeping Best Cleaning & Organizing Award. If you have a bagless vacuum, you know that cleaning it is a messy job.

LG was the first company to come up with a way for the dirt in the cup to be compressed and for the vacuum to empty itself. Just put it back in the caddy and use the automatic or manual suction to open the canister and pull the trash out into a throwaway bag. When the bag is full, you can take it out and throw it away. This full-featured system comes with two batteries, a scrubbing attachment with washable and reusable microfiber pads for wet mopping, and a variety of tools that fit nicely inside or hang from the tower so nothing gets lost.

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