We are reviewing the Bissell Crosswave Cordless Max 2554A and comparing it with its courted counterpart, the Bissell Crosswave Pet Pro.
Overview
The Bissell Crosswave Cordless Max should not be confused with the Bissell Crosswave Cordless, which looks a lot more like the Corded Crosswave, but without the cord. The Crosswave Cordless Max has been significantly redesigned and upgraded.
For example, the Crosswave Cordless Max has a new tank design which is able to fit under shallow sinks where the old-style Crosswave and Crosswave cordless couldn’t. The Crosswave cordless max has a thicker brush than the old style, which is better for resisting tangles. It has a totally new electronic system with a light-up display for battery life and floor type. It has Wifi connectivity so we can connect it to a smartphone app. It’s also lighter and has a longer battery life than the regular Crosswave cordless.
Pros
Multi-surface cleaning
Hard floor and carpet
Starting off with the pros, especially its features and specs, when being tested the dry vacuuming, the Crosswave Cordless Max did really well at picking up debris off of the surface of carpet and hard floors. It is hard to believe to deep clean carpets or anything but for hard floor or low pile vacuuming, it was really good, even better than many dedicated vacuums in certain respects by picking up even extra large debris. The regular Corded Crosswave could do all this as well, it was just a little bit worse with picking up larger debris than the Cordless Max was.
Water spill
For wet spills, we first need to fill up the water tank to the desired level. With a water solution mix, press the trigger periodically to keep the brush saturated with water and it works really well. It was tested in a variety of ways. First with basic wet spills where it did awesome then with several consistencies of spills including larger messy spills which were unfairly piled up, its capacity was pretty impressive. However, at the same time it wasn’t that much different than its Corded Counterpart except that again, the Crosswave cordless max is slightly better at larger debris pickup than the old style Crosswave.
Dry stain
For the dried on stain test, for example with one tablespoon of Coke, great juice and V8 juice dry overnight and Crosswave Cordless was able to pick up the stains in about three and a half passes, which is pretty much from all the other cordless cleaners today.
These dried on stain are pretty hard to pick up so if it can do that, it can also function well with anything. It can be said here that the old style Crosswave has a slight advantage with tough dried on stains because it has a cord which means it has more power to devote to the brush and although it was minimal, like maybe it picked up stains a half a pass faster than the cordless version, it was still more powerful.
Noise level
This actually brings up another pro for the cordless one though, which is that the Crosswave cordless max is a lot quieter than the corded version. It’s like six decibels difference, which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s actually pretty noticeable.
Weight and Maneuverability
It weighs about 11 and a half pounds the same as the Corded version and it’s very easy to maneuver with its two-axis swivel. Obviously the fact that it’s cordless means it just feels a lot better using it without much worrying about the cord.
Battery
Its battery life is also considered to be a pro as well. In our test they got 31 minutes in hard floor mode, which is really good though. That number would surely vary depending on how much we use the water spraying mechanism, but in any case it was better than many regular cordless vacuums with that 30 minute runtime and it should be more than enough for even large houses with wall-to-wall hard floors.
Self-cleaning cycle
Besides, one major pro with the cordless max is its cleanup mode, so once it’s on the charger we can press the self-cleaning button and it goes through this automatic cycle that is really effective.
To be compared, this new self-cleaning cycle is much better than any manual cleaning trays in the past with other Crosswaves and similar machines.
Cons
Moving on to the cons, the third Bissell Crosswave model also has the same complaint with the other models.
Disassembility and Cleanup
Mainly that if we are using this to clean up messy spills or anything other than light jobs, the time and energy it takes to clean up all the components is more than it would have taken to clean up the spill with traditional means. If we want to use the Cordless Crosswave to essentially replace our mop with its added benefit, vacuuming up light debris at the same time, the Crosswaves are a great solution for that mainly because in that scenario they aren’t getting that dirty and we can get away with running the cleaning cycle once or twice and then leaving it until next time.
But if there is a lot of debris or anything particularly messy, it will be likely to get debris in every nook and cranny of the components and running. The cleaning cycle helps, but we need to break it all down to clean it up and in that case it would be easier just to grab a regular mop. It’s not a con necessarily, but Bissell claiming that the Crosswave can freshen up rugs seemed a bit cautious. It works on rugs and we can use the water spray on rugs, but it’s not a carpet cleaner or a spot cleaner for stains.
Price
The other con is price. Though Crosswaves have always been kind of expensive, the new Cordless Max is a big investment.
Conclusion
In summary, the Bissell Crosswave Cordless Max is really good with dry, wet, and even dried on stains. It’s got a lot of battery life and is well-handled. It will make a good light duty mop replacement if we don’t mind the price. For messy jobs, it is necessary to clean it out thoroughly after each use.
