Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet & Car

One-minute review

Vax has established itself as a dependable floor-cleaning brand since launching its first carpet cleaner back in 1977. Today, it also makes some of the best vacuums on the market, as well as carpet and upholstery washers.

Its latest vacuum is the Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet & Car, competing against some of the best cordless vacuums you can buy. This self-standing cordless upright vacuum comes with a selection of hand tools – if you buy directly from Vax you’ll also get an extra set of ‘Pro’ tools – and offers two levels of suction, and both a hard floor and carpet mode.

You can also swap out the battery – and you get two in the box, so you don’t have to pay extra for a spare – for up to 100 minutes of cleaning time before you need to reach for the charger.

The floorhead has LED headlights to help you spot dust in the darker recesses of your home, and uses two easy-to-remove brushbars designed for optimum pickup of debris, the bristles of which are treated with antimicrobial protection against fungal growth and bacteria. 

Vax claims that its filtration technology ensures up to 99.99% of fine dust and pet dander down to 0.3 microns in size are captured in the large 1.5-liter dust canister. 

At £299.99, the Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet & Car is more affordable than many of its competitors in the cordless vacuum market; its slightly less aesthetic design and shorter concertina hose are the main sacrifices to the lower price point, but if you value powerful suction over looks it’s a great-value all-rounder cleaner. 

Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet and Car: Price and availability

• List price £399, widely available for £299
• Available direct from Vax and from major retailers

The Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet & Car is available directly from Vax (if you buy direct you get a free extra set of tools valued at over £50), as well as from online stores including Argos, Currys, Very and Amazon.

While the RRP is listed as £399, we’ve not seen it at this price at any retailers at the time of writing, including Vax’s own store; it’s priced at £299 across all retailers we’ve checked.

Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet and Car: Design

• 1.5-litre dust canister
• One floor head and and three tools, including a motorised pet tool
• Release mechanisms can be a little stiff

The Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet & Car is far from the most elegant-looking vacuum we’ve seen. The main body is a bulky cylinder, and it's mostly grey save for the transparent dust canister and a few blue accents. It’s very much a case of functionality over style, especially when compared to slimline rivals like the Miele Triflex HX1 Cat & Dog.

It’s bottom-heavy, but fairly light 5.2kg, and measures 112 x 16 x 33 cm (H x W x D). It’s self-standing – a welcome feature that not every cordless upright vac offers – and the handle can be removed for easier storage. 

Unlike models such as the Shark Anti Hair Wrap Upright Vacuum Cleaner with Powered Lift-Away, the Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet & Car doesn’t convert to a handheld cleaner; instead you’ll need to unlock the flexible hose and pull it away from the main body, and attach the included mini motorised pet tool, dusting brush or flexi crevice tool (if you order from Vax directly, you’ll also receive a tech tool, textile tool, tough dirt attachment, radiator tool and high-angle tool).

If you need to life and carry the vacuum for handheld cleaning you'll have to lift the whole machine by the handle on the top of the body; while it's a relatively lightweight cleaner, we found it did become heavy when carried for extended periods.

The power button, boost button and hard floor / carpet mode controls are easy to access on the handle, with the four LED battery level indicator lights just below, on top of the main body. The battery slots into the bottom of the body, below the dust canister, and is released by pressing in two grey buttons at the front of the battery.

Moving down to the main attraction, the floorhead features LED headlights and two brushbars – one soft brushroll for hard floors, and a bristle brushbar treated with antimicrobial protection that lifts dirt from carpet fibres. You can also store one hand tool on the clip on the back of the body for easy access; the mechanism is a little stiff, so it takes a bit of force to clip things on and off, but at least you know nothing’s going to fall off.

In fact, stiffness is something of a recurring theme with the Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet & Car. While the grey-accented release buttons across the device generally work fine, they’re a little cheaply made and can get stuck, in particular the button to detach the handle. 

We also found that the dust canister release button wasn’t functional upon receipt of the device, which is likely due to the tightness of the air vacuum within, so we had to empty it for the first time by going in from the top and removing the filter – which was also a little stiff upon first use – and pressing down on the base of the bin while holding the dust tray release button. We’d recommend doing this before you first use the vacuum – it should be easier to open from then on.

Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet and Car: Performance

• Powerful suction
• Not handily portable due to its stiff, short hose
• Brushbar automatically stops spinning when obstructed 

The Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet & Car performed pretty well at collecting debris from both hard floors and carpets, especially when using the boost power setting – though only when you’ve selected the right mode. 

On hard flooring, it sucked up most of the fine dust as well as larger debris (we used oats to test this) in just one forward sweep on its regular setting, with only a quick follow-up needed to catch the small amount it missed; and in boost mode it needed only one pass. Testing on carpet, we found the regular power setting left behind some fine dust embedded into the carpet, and it took two back-and-forth passes to clear it up. However, in boost mode, it lifted all of this fine dust in just one back-and-forth sweep.

For larger debris, the vacuum did push around some oats, especially on the left side, where the roller is 2cm away from the floorhead’s edge, as opposed to 1cm on the right-hand side. Due to this, while the bulk of the oats were vacuumed in two strokes, we had to chase up the extra with a third sweep on both hard flooring and carpet. On the boost setting, it only took two sweeps.

To put the Vax’s pet fluff-busting powers to the test, we tested the mini motorised pet tool on a scarf that a particularly heavy-shedding tabby had claimed as a bed, and it lifted the fur pretty easily and cleanly with minimal effort in just two sweeps.

Generally speaking, the vacuum is pretty manoeuvrable, navigating obstacles with ease on hard floors, and sailing over rug edges thanks to its roller. Plus, the brush bar and roller will stop when obstructed thanks to the motor protection sensor, with the LED light turning red to indicate the issue, which helps to maintain performance in the long run. 

While it’s light to carry, the Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet & Car is pretty bottom-heavy, which means it’s quite hard to push around, especially on more resistant surfaces like thick carpets. We also found it fairly difficult to use in hard-to-reach corners of the home, especially higher up – the hose is fairly short and doesn’t extend as much as we’d like, though it may loosen over time.

As we’ve mentioned, the dust canister was disappointingly tricky to release upon first use, however, once unstuck, the toggle for emptying the bin is easy to use. On the other hand, accessing the pre-motor filter to remove and clean or replace it requires a bit of brute force, and we don’t see this getting easier over time. 

Otherwise, maintaining the vacuum is fairly easy. The washable pre-motor filter requires emptying and rinsing under water every three months depending on the level of use, according to Vax, and should be replaced every 9-12 months. Cleaning the separator element that sits below the filter is as simple as using a soft brush to remove dirt and debris, and the post-motor filter is designed to offer long life, only needing replacement when heavily discoloured.

During testing, our decibel meter measured 74db on the regular setting with no rollers in use, and 78db and 81db on hard flooring and carpet respectively. On the boost setting, we registered 81db on the regular setting, and 82db on both hard flooring and carpet. This means that at its loudest the vacuum is about as noisy as a typical food blender, which isn’t the worst we’ve seen, but it could become a little grating after a while and if you have a large home to clean.

Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet and Car: Battery life

• Ranges from 21 to 50 minutes depending on the power setting
• Battery takes up to three hours to fully recharge
• Additional battery included

On test, the Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet & Car cordless upright vacuum delivered just shy of 50 minutes of run-time with no brushes in use, and 40 minutes when in either carpet or hard floor mode. In boost mode those numbers roughly halved. 

The vacuum ships with two batteries, and it’s easy to switch out to a fully-charged battery midway through your clean, doubling your potential cleaning time. The battery takes around three hours to fully recharge using the supplied charging dock.

Should I buy the Vax ONEPWR Edge Dual Pet and Car?

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First reviewed: June 2022