Dreame H12 Dual FlexReach review: Best cordless handheld wet and dry vacuum cleaner under Rs 50000?

There was a time when vacuum cleaners were largely designed for dry surfaces, but today’s models are trying to do much more. The Dreame H12 Dual FlexReach, for instance, can vacuum and mop hard floors, clean under low furniture, and convert into a dry vacuum for jobs such as removing pet hair from sofas and cobwebs from corners. It is essentially trying to replace several cleaning tools with one machine. At Rs 44,999 in India, though, that versatility comes at a premium. So, how well does it all work, and is it worth the price?

Setting it up takes some patience

I was slightly stunned to see the large box of the Dreame vacuum cleaner. The H12 Dual FlexReach has a lot of components, and I got help from the official tutorial video on Dreame’s YouTube channel. Still, the setup was complicated as it involved identifying different parts of the puzzle and putting them together. Someone who is not particularly comfortable with gadgets may find this confusing, especially an elderly user.

That said, the modular design is what makes it a Swiss Army knife of vacuum cleaners. Once assembled, there is a main unit, which is the wet-and-dry floor cleaner. The dry vacuum cleaner attaches next to the main unit’s charging base, but the attachment feels a little loose, and hence, the dry cleaner sways to the left. And even though the main unit’s battery and motor are meant to be attached to the dry cleaner for use, this combined unit feels too unbalanced.

In terms of design, outer build material of the different components and attachments is good-grade plastic, and the black colour gives it a restrained yet suave look. The locking mechanism for attachments is simple and secure. It is just that after attachments, both machines are quite heavy and not the easiest things to carry around.

Effective floor cleaning

The Dreame H12 Dual FlexReach vacuums and mops the floor at the same time. Dreame claims 23,000Pa of suction, while its 180-degree lie-flat design allows it to reach under beds and sofas. The combination of strong suction and a flexible body is something you don’t often get with lower-end vacuum cleaners. If you are comfortable bending down, the 180-degree design lets you push the vacuum further under furniture and reach areas that are otherwise difficult to access. If you are not, you may be better off with a 90-degree design such as the one on the Bosch Unlimited 7. The H12 Dual FlexReach’s body can go down to around 14cm when reclined, while the brush head needs about 9.6cm of clearance.

The main unit is fairly well balanced for its size, too. Despite weighing 5.4kg, I could manoeuvre it with relatively little effort, and the roller moved easily across uneven sections of the floor. There are also different cleaning modes for different situations, although I mostly used Smart and Turbo modes. Smart mode adjusts the cleaning behaviour based on how dirty the floor is, which is useful when moving between areas with different levels of dirt.

The bigger issue is the size of the water tanks. The H12 Dual FlexReach has separate 780ml fresh-water and 700ml dirty-water containers, and I wish both were larger. I cleaned around 750 sq ft of space and also used the dry-vacuum attachments to pick up pet hair from a sofa and remove spider webs from ceiling corners. During the overall cleaning session, I had to empty the dirty-water tank three times and refill the fresh-water tank three times.

This isn’t a deal-breaker, but it does add to the manual work involved in using the vacuum. Someone who isn’t used to this type of cleaner may find the repeated refilling and emptying annoying. Considering the machine is already quite heavy, I would still have preferred larger tanks, even if that meant adding a little more weight.

Does more than floor cleaning

The H12 Dual FlexReach is also useful away from the floor. Once the motor and battery module are attached to the dry vacuum cleaner, you can use it to clean dry waste on the floor and carpet. The roller tends to turn in directions I don’t want it to, making the vacuum difficult to manoeuvre.

Another attachment is a brush to clean pet and human hair, dander, dust and other particles from upholstery and mattresses. I even cleaned my lab’s hair from clothes using this. The company has also added a TangleCut Resilient Scraper to cut through hair and push it towards the suction path, which is useful. Furthermore, the built-in light on top of the brush lets you see what you are cleaning under the bed, sofa and crevices where neither eye nor hand can reach.

There is also a brush/vacuum that lets you remove spider webs from ceiling corners. It can be elongated to reach further distances. Yes, there are lighter manual cleaning brushes for these purposes. But I appreciate Dreame giving it all in one kit.

Routine maintenance is largely manual with some smarts

Cleaning the cleaner is the least appealing aspect of any vacuum cleaner. Everyday maintenance includes emptying tanks, cleaning brushes, filters and rollers.

Also Read: Mova E40 Ultra review: A reliable robot vacuum cleaner under Rs 50000

The H12 Dual FlexReach does ease that process to some extent. It comes with a self-cleaning cycle that uses up to 90°C hot water, followed by heated-air drying. This should help remove the chances of germs building up and any resulting foul smells over time.

Serviceable battery life

Dreame claims up to 60 minutes of runtime in dry vacuuming, while wet floor cleaning can run for up to 50 minutes depending on the mode. This should be enough to clean most homes of moderate size. Larger homes may need charging breaks, but topping that battery up is very time-consuming. It took me about 2 hours to fully charge this thing.

The battery is easily removable, though. If you buy an additional battery pack, then you can extend cleaning time. But yeah, that also adds to the overall cost.

Should you buy the Dreame H12 Dual FlexReach?

The Dreame H12 Dual FlexReach’s biggest strength is also its biggest selling point: it tries to do the job of several cleaning tools in one package. The wet-and-dry vacuum is very reliable, not just because of its suction power, but also because of its 180-degree design that lets you clean under furniture. Further, the dry-vacuum attachments add another layer of usefulness, particularly if you have pets, sofas that collect hair or hard-to-reach corners that gather cobwebs.

The design choice to have a separate handheld dry-vacuum module makes it more useful for cleaning sofas, mattresses, etc than some of its competitors.

But there are compromises, like the machine is heavy and not so easy to manoeuvre. The water tanks could feel small when cleaning a larger area. The charging time could seem slow considering the speeds you get from modern gadgets these days. And the attach-and-detach work could seem like a complicated chore to some.

Still and all, if you want one machine that can handle vacuuming, mopping, under-furniture cleaning, and some above-floor cleaning, and know what you are signing up for, then the H12 Dual FlexReach would make sense to you. Despite the added complexity, its versatility is the main reason to consider it. And if you want that, you can find it online for Rs 44,999.

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Also Read: Dreame L50S Pro Ultra review: A premium vacuum cleaner, pet monitor and home companion in one