Bissell CrossWave OmniForce Edge Review

Introduction

Every hard floor cleaner with a roller has had one problem: they can’t clean right up to the edges of rooms.

Some do a good job of getting close, but all leave a small gap around the edge. The Bissell CrossWave OmniForce Edge is the first hard floor cleaner to solve that problem, with a clever little roller extension that lets it clean right to the edges of rooms.

It’s a neat trick, but the Bissell CrossWave OmniForce Edge is also an exceptionally good hard floor cleaner for general messes, cleaning quickly and efficiently.

Design and Features

• Two cleaning solutions
• Automatic cleaning mode
• Clever roller extension

Externally, the Bissell CrossWave OmniForce Edge looks very much like any other hard floor cleaner that I’ve reviewed in the past, with an upright body and floor head at the bottom. It’s in examining the floor head that the difference is clear.

Rollers have to spin, which normally means that they’re connected to a motor at one end and a pin at the other, which means that they can’t reach edge-to-edge. Here, the ZeroGap Multi-Gap Multi-Surface roller is a little different, as it has a screw-in additional section on one end, with a small bit of plastic between this and the main section.

This plastic clip holds the roller in place and allows it to spin, but the extension gives full cleaning right to the edges of rooms on one side.

For cleaning, the entire roller can be removed and the end-cap unscrewed (it unscrews in a clockwise direction to prevent it from falling off while in use). There’s then space in the floor dock for the roller and end-cap.

This dock also doubles up as the charging and self-clean station. Just drop the Bissell CrossWave OmniForce Edge into the dock and it starts charging, and is ready to grab-and-go when you want to clean.

General operation is very similar to other hard floor cleaners, such as the Dyson WashG1, with a clean tank that is dosed onto the roller, and a dirty tank, where dirty water and solids are deposited. This kind of system ensures that only clean water and detergent hit the floor, and dirt is removed, so you don’t get dirt saturating mop cloths and, potentially, being spread around.

It is a 0.63-litre clean water tank, which has to be mixed with cleaning solution (Bissell recommends using its own). There’s a sample pot in the box, but you’ll need to buy the solution quite quickly, with 1-litre options available in a choice of multi-surface, wood, and multi-surface pet option (£13.99 each).

Also in the box is the FreshStart Clean Out Cycle, which is built for the self-cleaning cycle. This sample size will get you four machine cleans, and you can buy a 2-litre replacement for £24.99, which lasts for 32 cleans. I’ve not tested another hard floor cleaner that has this kind of dedicated solution.

There’s a 0.44-litre dirty water tank, which has an integrated filter to separate solids from liquids. Given that some water remains on the floor, for a regular clean, the dirty tank needs to be emptied roughly once per tank of clean water; if you’re sucking up watery mess, then you’ll need to empty more often.

I found the Bissell CrossWave OmniForce Edge very easy to use. At 4.8kg, the cleaner’s not particularly heavy, and it doesn’t need to be lifted very often, just to get it where you want to go.

There’s a power button on top, which turns the cleaner on in its regular power mode, but there’s a boost button that turns the cleaner to its maximum power mode if you need more suction and cleaning power.

For wet spills and vacuuming only, the water droplet button can be pressed to turn off the detergent dispenser. That’s handy, and it’s a feature that surprisingly few hard floor cleaners have.

This cleaner is easy to manoeuvre. I just had to put my foot on the floor head, tilt the handle back and the roller springs into life. There aren’t motorised wheels to help with motion, as with the Roborock F25 Ace and the Dreame H15 Pro Wet and Dry Vacuum Cleaner, but this cleaner is so light and easy to push that this isn’t a problem.

Battery life is displayed as a percentage on the LCD at the top, so I got a good idea of how much power was left.

At the end of a clean, the Clean Out solution can be used with the self-cleaning mode (button on top) to get the hard floor cleaner back to its best.

Performance

• Cleans fast
• Tough on hard stains
• Can suck up any mess

I have standard dried-on test stains that I put all hard floor cleaners with. I started with the dried-on coffee stain. This was removed in a simple forwards and backwards pass, on standard power.

Similarly, the red wine stain was removed with the same kind of motion. That’s incredibly fast, as most hard floor cleaners need a bit more work to deal with this kind of mess.

I then moved on to the mud stain, which has dried-on mud, plus some solid debris to deal with. This took a few passes to clean, but the debris was vacuumed up, and the dirt stain was fully removed.

The toughest stain test is dried-on ketchup. This is a sticky mess, and I found it best to use the Bissell CrossWave OmniForce Edge in its max power mode, allowing it to stand on top of the stain for 30 seconds, before leaving the detergent to seep in for another 30 seconds.

I then needed a few slow movements forward and backwards to remove the stain, but it all lifted easily, leaving me with a clean floor.

To test edge cleaning, I dropped some ketchup next to the kitchen plinth. As you can see from the after result, the only mess left is some of the ketchup that had been swiped up and onto the plinth, and a tiny bit that had got underneath. With a dry stain, this cleaner would have cleaned right to the edge, something that no other roller-based hard floor cleaner has been able to do.

When it comes to hard debris, the Bissell CrossWave OmniForce Edge excels but with some caveats. For example, I managed to pick up all 20g of spilt rice in just a single forwards and backwards pass.

Human hair was also collected without tangling, so the Bissell CrossWave OmniForce Edge can be used as an all-in-one device. However, hair and debris go into the wet tank and need to be separated to be emptied, which isn’t always that easy to do (or even that pleasant).

As with all hard floor cleaners, I think it’s best to vacuum up dry debris with a regular vacuum cleaner first, and then tackle stains and grubby floors with this; and to only vacuum up wet debris if needed.

At the end of cleaning, the roller was quite dirty, particularly because of cleaning up ketchup.

Running the cleaning cycle with the Clean Out detergent, the Bissell CrossWave OmniForce Edge was returned to a nice clean state, with a fresh smell to it. As there’s no heated air drying, I removed the roller to let it air dry.

Battery life is a maximum of 30 minutes on the standard power mode, which is about right in my tests. On higher power modes, battery life drops, but there’s enough juice here to clean the floor of a standard home on a single charge, or give a large space a very deep clean.

I measured the Bissell CrossWave OmniForce Edge at 69.6dB, putting it quieter than your average cordless vacuum cleaner.

Should you buy it?

FAQs