Hoover - ONEPWR Wet/Dry Utility Canister Vacuum - Blue
Model: BH57125
SKU: 6352903
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The Hoover ONEPWR Cordless Vacuum is an excellent addition to my garage, and home. I have been disappointed by other cordless shop (wet/dry) vacuums. They simply lacked the power / suction to serve the intended purpose of vacuuming up more than a little dust or lint. This vacuum is part of a new line of Hoover cordless tools, including stick vacuums, a carpet cleaner and leaf blowers. The specification of 65 CFM for this Hoover ONEPWR resulted in my comparing the capability of the ONEPWR with other shop vacuums. Apparently, most vacuums advertise their power and efficiency levels in terms of Peak Horsepower, CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute), Sealed Pressure and Peak Air Watts. I discovered that corded shop vacuums which advertised similar CFM ratings had motors rated at around 3 Peak HP. I also discovered that other cordless shop vacuums were delivering less than half of the CFM performance of the ONEPWR. Once I tried the ONEPWR I was immediately impressed with the powerful suction of this vacuum, which far exceeded what I had previously experienced with the other, weak performing cordless vacuums. The ONEPWR performs like a corded vacuum, with powerful suction. Cleaning the interiors of our cars was greatly facilitated with the convenience of the ONEPWR being cordless and very easy to move around. Likewise, it is terrifically convenient for quick pick-up tasks around the house and the garage. Skipping the extension cord hassle is a welcome benefit. The ONEPWR has a large, 6 gallon dry capacity. It is easy to maneuver and is very stable, owing to the large, center wheels, and small stabilizing casters at either end. It is powered by a 20 volt, 4 amp lithium-ion rechargeable battery which provides approximately 10 minutes of run-time. It would be very helpful and beneficial to have a second battery, especially since battery charging requires several hours. However, the additional batteries are expensive, even with the current price discount. The tool set includes a 7ft plastic hose, two plastic extensions, an 8in wide nozzle and a crevice tool. The accessories conveniently stow on-board the vacuum body, and are retained by elastic straps. It would be nice to have a “fabric/dusting” brush attachment. I find that tool to be particularly useful and helpful when cleaning the car interior plastic surfaces (dash, console, etc.), as well as for vacuuming leather seats (which can be scratched or damaged by hard plastic tools), and for many other applications. The ONEPWR came packed with all of the accessories stored inside the vacuum, and the charger and battery in two separate small boxes which were packed loose on top of the vacuum. Setting it up for first use took just a very few minutes. Opening and closing the vacuum canister is managed by four, large, all plastic construction clamping latches that operate easily but have a lot of play. Still, they appear secure. Those latches appear to be relatively light in their physical construction, including the plastic pins which join/hinge the movable segment and the fixed/attached section. The top shell, which is comprised of two large plastic pieces attached with screws, and which houses the motor, mates with the bottom shell which collects the refuse and to which the wheels are externally attached to plastic lugs. The mating surface has a captive, flexible (rubber type material) sealing gasket. All of the cleaning tools (hose, extensions and nozzles) connect by friction-fit without any mechanical latching, with the exception of the hose attachment to the canister which includes a plastic latch arm, which is essential since the vacuum is intended to be towed along by the hose. The dry-use filter is easily removed and reinstalled. It must be removed prior to vacuuming liquids. Neither the Hoover Owner’s Manual or the Hoover website list a replacement filter. In fact, there are no replacement parts or accessories listed as being available, except for the battery and battery charger. Again, the replacement/additional battery is expensive. Filters typically require replacement over time, and hoses, etc. often may also require eventual replacement. Hopefully Hoover will make them available for purchase at some point in the future. The external battery charger is rated at 21 volts, 1.5 amps, and is evidently not a rapid-charger. It took over 2.5 hours to bring the partially charged battery to full capacity for the initial charge, and 3 hours for recharging. There are four LED lamps on the battery which indicate the state of charge when the button is depressed, which is very helpful. Those same LEDs on the battery flash and illuminate progressively as charge is accumulated. A light on the battery charger also flashes continuously during the charge cycle, and both the LEDs on the battery and the lamp on the charger shut off to indicate when the battery has reached full charge. A second, red lamp on the charger will illuminate if the battery is defective and cannot be charged. The 72 Wh, 4 Ah battery is the largest capacity battery in the ONEPWR series. Overall, the cleaning performance of the ONEPWR vacuum is very impressive. It has powerful suction which cleans well. However, the short run-time available from a single battery requires that you work fast, or run out of battery capacity. If you discharge the battery, the wait for recharging it is lengthy; three hours. It would be nice to have a longer run-time, or at least a second battery (which would yield about 20 operating minutes, followed by about 6 hours of battery charging). The construction of the vacuum can be characterized as “standard-duty” or “household-duty”, not heavy-duty. Additionally, due to the battery limitations, the appropriate expectation is that of intermittent use for reasonably short intervals. Due to the relatively short operating time available from the battery, the ONEPWR will not replace a conventional, A/C powered, heavy-duty shop vacuum, which is suitable for lengthy run-time and garage/shop utilization. I don’t think that Hoover intended for it to be such a replacement. It is great for quick pick-ups in and around the home, and a quick clean-out of a family vehicle. It is very handy and very convenient. Its portability and the freedom from extension cords is a great strength. It appears comparably powerful to many corded vacuums and has great suction, which I find to be remarkable. We are pleased with the Hoover ONEPWR Cordless Vacuum, and especially appreciate that it is powerful enough to get the job done, without dealing with the inconvenience of power cords.
Posted by Curmudgeon1
I'm a fan of this new Hoover battery-operated household products line. One of my other reviews is for the 'dust buster' style of hand-held vacuum (pic attached) and now this one: a shop-vac-esque wet/dry vac. As Hoover is using a common battery platform, I can use the same batteries and chargers for the two products I have! There was really no assembly here. The filter was already installed and the hose, attachments, battery and charger were inside of the vac for shipping. Once those are out, there are elastic hair-tie style holders for both the poles and attachments; the hose wraps around the handle in the middle. I found it interesting, that all the loops to hold the accessories, are from the same elastic. For example, pull one loop and the other gets smaller. I can see this being an issue later in its life – where degradation causes one piece of the elastic to break, but instead of it just impacting a single loop, the entire system fails on that side. Removal of the lid is fast and easy; four latches and it's off. Inside is the previously mentioned filter and that's about it. Initial charging of the 4 Ah battery took about 4 hours and it was ready for use. Even though this is a relatively compact wet/dry vac, it's not small by any stretch; a 6 Gal vac will collect a lot of junk. I used the vac outside in around 32 degree weather to clean out two cars. Now that it's winter in New England, sand from the roads makes its way into the car very easily. With 4 lights on the battery indicating a full charge, I connected the battery and flipped the switch. Just like the dust buster, this thing is LOUD. It's a different type of loud from a traditional shop vac, just as the dust buster is. It's a higher pitch, so I made sure to keep it away from my ears. The wheels on the vac are very smooth and because of this, it rolls if there's even a slight pitch in the ground; my driveway runs a bit down-hill, so it was constantly rolling away and needed to be pulled in all the time, which I found a bit frustrating (I didn't want it rolling into my other car). Suction was great and the attachments fit well and didn't need any tightening or fixing during the use. I ran the vac for about 8 minutes across two cars, front and back seats, car seats and trunk. When I was done, I brought it inside and saw that it collected more than I had anticipated! Additionally, there were still two 'dots' left on the battery, indicating it had quite a few more minutes left. Given the estimated run-time of 11.5 minutes, I think I may have been able to squeeze a bit more than 12 minutes out of it. My final use-case for this was when it was time to take the Christmas Tree down. The base was still full of water and instead of going to get my shop vac, and plug it in, I busted out the Hoover. The filter removal was funny as it looks like there's a nut that needs to come off first, or you may need to spin the filter off, but that's not the case; just pull it straight out. The vac had no issue at all removing the water from the tree base; there was no sign of struggling to keep up and there was no issue with suction (pic attached). I did find it a bit odd that there isn’t a plug to pull, to drain the vac. This is a great wet/dry vac and if you're good with battery maintenance (like I am with my drills, etc), then this is another great tool to have in your collection!
Posted by nhtechie
The Hoover ONEPWR High Capacity Wet/Dry vacuum is a cordless 6-gallon utility vacuum. This wet/dry vacuum is part of Hoover’s larger family of cordless tools and appliances (stick vac, leaf blower, carpet cleaner, etc.). This is the larger of the 2 available wet/dry vacs from Hoover – the other is a 3 gallon capacity version. This wet/dry vacuum comes with a 4 amp hour battery (largest capacity available from Hoover), a 7 ft flexible hose, 2 16” extensions, a crevice tool, and a wide head floor tool. The body of the vac has 2 large side wheels and a swivel wheel in the front and back, which allows it to turn easily and prevent tipping over. The body honestly resembles and Igloo cooler with wheels. Its short and boxy in shape, which is a large departure from traditional shop vac shapes. The vacuum has storage locations for all the attachments around the outside, and the hose can easily be coiled up on top (there’s even a pattern in the plastic showing the outline of the hose coil which is neat). There are 2 free locations for additional attachments as you acquire them. Claimed specs on the vacuum : Capacity – 6 gallon Weight – 18.4 lbs Airflow – 65 CFM Runtime – 11.5 min Charge time – 3.5 hours I also have an older Shop-Vac brand wet/dry vac that has similar specs (65 CFM, 6 gallon) that I used side-by-side for comparison. The first thing I did with the vacuum was cleaning out my car. It was due for a good cleaning, so I pulled the mats and went to town. I did side by side cleaning of the mats with each vacuum. First thing I noticed was the included wide head tool was not well suited for cleaning the low-pile car mats. I couldn’t get a good seal since the tool has toothed/comb like contact surface – something better suited for longer carpet or on surfaces where you don’t want/need the head to suction itself down. My old shop-vac on the other hand had the proper wide head for this application and it worked much better – much better suction and could form a seal on the mat. For the ONEPWR I switched to using the crevice tool, which took a lot longer to vacuum the same surface area. I ran the vacuum for about 15 min before running the battery down – just enough to complete the cleaning of my car. Based on this experience I came up with a couple of pros/cons. Pros: Cordless let me move quickly and easily around my car – big plus over the 8ft cord of the Shop-Vac Noise was lower with the ONEPWR so it was better on the ears than my Shop-Vac Crevice tool had plenty of suction to get my car clean Cons Suction didn’t seem nearly as strong as the Shop-Vac even though identical CFM Attachments weren’t well suited for this application Battery life is pretty abysmal even though it managed to run longer than advertised I did some wet cleanup with the vac, and it did a good job. Remember to remove the filter before starting wet vacuuming. I was using the vac to suction some water out of a car body panel I was working on. It pulled the water well enough using the crevice tool, so good news there. This is a limited use case for me honestly – I usually towel dry and just set a blower to dry things out. Compared to my Shop-Vac, switching over to wet mode was more or less the same, except there’s no option to use a bag in the ONEPWR. One of the nice use cases I came across was attaching the vac to the dust port on my saw. I work in my garage often enough in the winter and I like to run a heater while I’m working. Unfortunately I can’t use my heater, Shop-Vac, and saw all at the same time – I will trip the breaker with that load. With the ONEPWR hooked up to the saw I can run my heater and not trip the breaker. A niche use case for sure but a useful one. As far as hooking up to power tool dust ports I had no issue hooking up to my saw and by orbital sander. It should be noted that the ONEPWR has a somewhat strange pipe end diameter – it’s a 1.5” ID/1.75” OD. This actually works out well since most smaller power tool dust ports are designed to work with 1.25” (Standard Shop-Vac size) hose, which slips inside the tool dust port connection. The ONEPWR pipe instead slips over the port and manages to work perfectly. Drawbacks One of the things I don’t care for about the ONEPWR system is the lack of accessories available for this vac. The vacuum body has space for 4 different attachments, but only comes with 2 in the box. That leads me to believe there are additional ones available, but I could not find any on Hoover’s website or anywhere. So that lead me to seek out accessories from Shop-Vac which has an established accessory lineup. I went to my local hardware store to check to see what fit. Turns out none of the accessories fit the ONEPWR right out of the gate – 1.25”, 1.5”, or 2.5”. Shop-Vac defines their hoses/accessories by their outside diameter (OD). The OD of the ONEPWR is 1.75”, which does not align with any of the standard sizes (this goes for sizes used by Rigid and Craftsman as well). My solution came in the form of a size adapter kit (P/N 80117) from Shop-Vac that includes a 1.5” to 1.25” coupler. This coupler is supposed to slip over a 1.5” OD hose/tube, but instead slips inside the ONEPWR hose/tube. This allowed me to use 1.25” accessories from any of the other shop vacuum manufacturers. I really shouldn’t have to go through this to put different nozzles on this vacuum. Another drawback to this vacuum is a feature I really wish it had. Every shop vacuum I have ever used has had the ability to blow out. The ONEPWR sadly does not have this function. I was really hoping it would just for the usefulness of using the vac to blow up an air mattress on a camping trip or something. Regardless this isn’t a deal breaker, but its not a good look to have fewer features. Another drawback of this system is its overall design. I really like the look and design of the vacuum, but it does come at a price. This unit has a decently large footprint. Its noticeably bigger than my equally sized Shop-Vac, albeit several inches shorter in height. This allows you to store it under something but will likely just take up more floor space for the most people. This larger footprint does make it very difficult to tip it over while vacuuming – something I wish I could say about my Shop-Vac. Last drawback I have comes down to the battery. The main perk of this system is the universal battery. However, picking up a second battery carries a $100 price tag for a 4 AH battery pack. When the battery life is only 10-15 minutes on this vac you are going to want another battery - especially if you find yourself using it often. That adds 50% to the cost of the system, and it totally shouldn’t. Power tool batteries are notorious for price gouging (except for Kobalt) and charge around $12-15/AH (Bosch is $25/AH but are the outlier). By this math the 4 AH battery at most should only cost $60 and could even be priced under 50. Right now, their battery and system pricing is relatable to buying a new printer instead of buying ink for the old one. Overall the ONEPWR system has a number of things going for it. It has a cool looking design, its very portable, battery can be used for other devices, and has pretty good performance. Unfortunately, it has a lot of downsides that are hard to overlook. The battery runtime is short, accessories are not available, no blowout feature, extra batteries are overpriced, and a cheap corded shop vacuum has better performance/feature set. I really wanted to love this vacuum because it had so much potential, but in the end it fell short. I will still look into the stick vacuum that’s part of the ONEPWR family, but I’m not sold on the shop vacuum.
Posted by DaveW
The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products, promotional considerations or entries into drawings for honest, helpful reviews.
Customers find value in the ONEPWR Wet/Dry Utility Canister Vacuum's cordless convenience, allowing for easy maneuverability without the hassle of cords. They appreciate its powerful suction that effectively tackles various cleaning tasks. However, some users express concerns about its limited battery life, which restricts its usage time to around 30 minutes.