Top Cleaning Gadgets Worth Buying This Year
Beyond vacuums: the best cleaning gadgets we've tested in 2026. Some are brilliant, some are overrated. Here's the honest rundown.
Not everything that makes cleaning easier is a vacuum. We’ve been testing cleaning gadgets all year and some of them have genuinely made our lives easier. Others went straight back in the box. Here’s what’s actually worth your money in 2026.
The winners
Tineco Floor One S7 Steam (wet-dry floor cleaner)
This is the gadget we use the most. It vacuums and washes hard floors at the same time, and the steam function sanitizes without chemicals. Think of it as a more powerful, manual version of what robot wet-dry vacuums do, but with much better cleaning performance because you control it.
The self-cleaning cycle in the dock is the key feature. After you’re done, you dock it and it washes itself. Previous models from other brands would start smelling awful after a week because the roller stayed damp. The Tineco dries the roller with hot air so that’s not an issue.
Price: Around $650. Not cheap, but if you have a lot of hard floors it replaces both your vacuum and your mop for those areas.
Best for: Kitchens, bathrooms, any hard floor that gets dirty fast.
Karcher WV6 Window Vac
Cleaning windows is one of those chores everyone puts off because it’s tedious and the results are often streaky. The Karcher window vac makes it significantly less terrible. Spray your cleaner, wipe with the microfiber pad, then suck up the dirty water with the vac. Streak-free windows in about a third of the time.
We’ve been using it for mirrors too. And glass shower doors. It works great on any smooth glass surface.
Price: About $80. One of the best value cleaning gadgets we’ve tested.
Bissell Little Green Portable Carpet Cleaner
This thing has been around for years and it’s still one of the most useful cleaning tools you can own. It’s a small portable carpet cleaner that sprays cleaning solution, scrubs, and then sucks up the dirty water.
We use it for couch cushions, car seats, and carpet spots. It won’t deep clean an entire room of carpet, that’s not what it’s for. But for targeted cleaning of stains and high-traffic spots, nothing else we’ve tested works as well at this price.
Price: Around $120.
Samsung Jet Bot AI+ (floor mopping robot)
Wait, this is basically a robot vacuum. Fair point. But the Samsung Jet Bot AI+ has a mopping mode that’s better than most dedicated robot mops we’ve tested. The object recognition means it actually avoids obstacles well, and the mopping pads apply decent pressure.
We’re including it here because if you already have a robot vacuum for dry cleaning, adding a dedicated mopping robot is overkill. But if you want one device for both, this handles the mopping side better than most.
Price: Around $800 for the full package with dock.
The ones that weren’t worth it
UV-C sanitizing wands
We bought three different UV-C wands to test. The concept is appealing: wave a light over a surface and kill germs. The reality is that you need to hold the wand very close to the surface for 10 to 30 seconds per spot to have any meaningful effect. For a kitchen counter, you’re standing there waving a wand around for five minutes. Just use spray cleaner. It’s faster and more effective.
Robot window cleaners
We wanted to like these. A robot that cleans your windows while you do something else sounds great. In practice, every model we tested was slow, left streaks in the corners, and required you to stand there babysitting it in case it fell off. We’d rather just use the Karcher window vac and be done in a few minutes.
Automatic soap dispensers with UV (for kitchen)
Touchless soap dispensers are nice. Adding UV sanitization to one is solving a problem that doesn’t exist. Your hands are dirty, that’s why you’re washing them. The UV adds cost and complexity for zero practical benefit.
What’s on our radar for the rest of 2026
A few products we’re keeping an eye on:
- Dreame H14 Pro - New wet-dry floor cleaner with edge cleaning. Supposed to get closer to baseboards.
- Dyson WashG2 - Dyson’s second attempt at a wet floor cleaner. The first one was underwhelming so we’ll see.
- Narwal’s standalone mop robot - Dedicated mopping with a much smaller footprint than the combo units.
We’ll review these as they become available. If there’s a cleaning gadget you want us to test, let us know.
Bottom line
The cleaning gadget market is full of products that sound cool but don’t add real value. Stick with tools that solve a specific problem in your cleaning routine. The Tineco floor cleaner, Karcher window vac, and Bissell Little Green are all products we still use regularly months after testing. That’s the real test of a good cleaning gadget.