Miele Guard S1 Electro  Vacuum Review

This vacuum's build quality is excellent; it feels sturdy and well-assembled. The vacuum is made primarily of high-grade plastic with a glossy finish on the body and a matte finish on the buttons and hose handle. The telescopic wand is made of metal, and the wheels are plastic. The attachments fit together so tightly that they're a bit hard to assemble at first, but this ensures a solid, leak-free connection, and they'll become easier to put together once the vacuum wears in a little.

The exception to the high-quality fit and finish is the canister buttons, which feel loose and unsteady.

This vacuum is impressively easy to maintain. Only the brushroll, filter, and dirtbag need maintenance, and they're all easy to access. You can easily clean hair stuck on the brushroll without removing it. If you need to remove the brushroll for deeper cleaning, you only need a screwdriver. To open the canister cover to access the dirtbag, you must detach the hose. This requires a bit of effort, since the clips that retain the hose are very stiff and have very little travel. Opening the canister cover partially removes the dirtbag, making it very easy to lift out. Once you have the cover open, it's very simple to remove and replace the filter, though it requires a bit of force.

You'll find complete details in the manual.

The Miele Guard S1 Electro has high recurring costs since you'll need to replace the following parts regularly:

• Active AirClean filter (You could also use the HEPA AirClean filter)
• Dirtbag (4-pack)

This vacuum has decent storage capability. You can store all the attachments on a holder near the bag inlet and clip the Electrobrush into the rear holster. There are also two side holsters that accommodate floorheads when you store the canister vertically, but the Electrobrush is too heavy for these holsters and will cause the canister to tip over.

This vacuum has an impressive capacity. While it can't hold the full 3.5L Miele advertises, it can still contain a significant volume of debris. There's a low suction indicator at the base of the hose that changes color when the bag is full.

• Vacuum canister
• Telescopic suction wand
• Suction hose with handle and electric cord
• Electrobrush powered floorhead
• Brushroll
• Brushroll guard
• Parquet Twister straight-suction floorhead
• Crevice tool
• Upholstery tool
• Soft brush tool
• Attachment holder
• Left and right holster covers
• 1x 3.5L dirtbag
• 1x AirClean post-motor filter
• 1x pre-motor filter
• Operating instructions
• Electrobrush operating manual
• Quick start guide

This vacuum has a decent range, and it shouldn't be hard to reach an outlet in most large rooms. That said, the cord is shorter than Miele's previous Complete C3 vacuums.

This vacuum is decently portable. Though the canister is heavy, the caster wheels carry most of the load, so you only feel a small portion of it through the hose handle. However, lifting the entire canister up and down stairs or out to the car will require some effort.

This is a corded vacuum.

Though the Miele Guard S1 Electro has foot-activated buttons for power and cord retraction, you'll have to bend down to adjust the suction power level using a dial. There are four power levels:

• Curtains (Min., 1/4 power)
• High-Pile Carpets (1/2 power)
• Low-Pile Carpets (3/4 power)
• Hard Floor (Max., full power)

There's also a brushroll on/off switch on the hose handle.

You can use this vacuum in a handheld configuration by disconnecting the extension wand and mounting a tool directly to the handle.

The Miele Guard S1 Electro offers disappointing performance on hard floors using its straight-suction Parquet Twister floorhead. While it picks up fine and medium debris without issue, the floorhead's low clearance prevents it from capturing large material. Instead, it pushes large debris around in front of and behind the floorhead, sweeping some medium and fine debris along with it. You can lift the floorhead slightly on a backward pass to pick up large debris, but you'll still need multiple passes to clean up everything it has pushed around.

The Electrobrush powered floorhead has better clearance and delivers better performance, though it scatters fine debris. If you turn the brushroll off, it picks up more fine debris but doesn't capture as much medium and large material. However, Miele doesn't recommend using this floorhead on hard floors, since it may leave scratches.

The Miele Guard S1 Electro delivers satisfactory performance on high-pile carpets. Performance picking up fine debris would suffer at the recommended 1/2 power (High-Pile Carpet) setting, and you can't use full power because the suction is too strong to move the floorhead. At the 3/4 (Low-Pile Carpet) power setting, it picks up most debris but struggles somewhat with fine material like sand. It also pushes some large debris forward.

This vacuum offers decent performance picking up debris from low-pile carpets. At its highest suction level, it clears most fine, medium, and large material, but it leaves behind enough to require a second pass. It leaves a little material along edges and in corners as well. It pushes around a bit of large debris ahead of the floorhead, but it sits higher off the floor than Miele's previous design with the Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog's floorhead, pulling in more large debris.

This vacuum delivers remarkable performance when picking up pet hair. The brushroll provides high agitation, lifting nearly every strand of pet hair.

The Miele Guard S1 Electro produces poor suction at its floorhead. However, suction is much better at the hose.

The suction through the Electrobrush powerhead measures:

• Maximum: 3.7 inH₂O (0.92 kPa)
• Normal: 2.6 inH₂O (0.65 kPa)

This vacuum delivers outstanding airflow. The 1200W motor produces enough airflow to lift every kind of debris.

The Miele Guard S1 Electro is fairly quiet and shouldn't disrupt conversations or other social activities. That said, its powered Electrobrush is a lot noisier on low-pile carpet than its predecessor, the Miele Complete C3 Alize. The suction motor in the canister itself is quite quiet, though.

This vacuum offers good maneuverability. A vacuuming session isn't fatiguing because the canister moves very smoothly and the wand is well-balanced. Reaching under furniture and low tables is easy, provided you crouch. You can tilt the wand to extend your reach, but extending it too much causes the floorhead to lift off the ground and lose suction. You won't have any issues with electrical cords; the vacuum doesn't snag them or attempt to suck them up.

It's very easy to clean shelves and tables with the soft-bristle brush, although the tool's small size makes the task take longer than it should. The straight-suction floorhead works well on loose rugs, but the powered floorhead tends to pull the rug up, causing it to jam.

This vacuum delivers remarkable performance clearing pet hair from upholstered furniture. It'll take a few passes to lift every embedded strand of hair, and hair sticks to the upholstery tool occasionally, but the end result is outstanding.

Despite its lack of a true HEPA filter, this vacuum's filtration system does a good job of containing visible fine particles.

The Miele Guard S1 Electro does a fantastic job cleaning debris from cracks. Its Parquet Twister floorhead seals tightly to the floor and picks up nearly all fine material out of cracks. It leaves only a small amount of debris in the deepest cracks, which you can lift using the crevice tool.

The Miele Guard S1 Electro does an awful job of removing stains since it's not designed for this type of mess.

This vacuum isn't designed to pick up liquids.