Best carpet cleaners 2023: Cordless, handheld and lightweight models

The pet design model is a new update on the bestselling Vax platinum smartwash, which is an upright and a spot cleaner in one. It’s a huge beast that’s capable of covering multiple carpets in one session, but it also comes with tools so you can use it as a spot cleaner and give extra treatment to stubborn stains.

It’s got a sprayer handle, designed to target pet messes with pet stain- and odour-remover, helping animal-lovers take back control of the smell of their house. We also used this on a mess made by a potty-training toddler and were impressed by how all traces of the accident were erased. The odour-remover was a welcome relief, too.

Simple to set up, we liked that it had three tanks, which immediately made it stand out from all the others we tested. One’s for clean water, one’s for dirty water and the other is for concentrated detergent. It comes with a bottle of platinum antibacterial solution, which you can just pour into the tank without the need to mix. We found this helped us avoid wasting solution, as we could just pour any unused detergent from the tank back into the bottle when we’d finished.

Another standout feature is Vax’s unique motion sense technology. Simply switch on and the carpet washer detects when you move forwards to wash, and dries when you pull back. In the forwards mode it automatically releases cleaning solution, which is why there’s no need for a trigger, and activates vacuum mode when you are in reverse. We liked that it made cleaning carpets as simple as walking forwards and backwards without the need to bend down, scrub or even push that hard.

With a 2.5m hose and a spun scrub attachment, we also tried this on an aged sofa, and it was shocking to see how much dirt it pulled out.