Cleaning is a necessary part of life, but like any thing having the right tools can make any task more efficient. Rowenta challenged me to spend a week with the Air Force Flex 560 and five minutes with this it was clear this was a vacuum for men, that I appreciated using.
Taking the Rowenta out of the box the red and white design is eye catching, it assembled quickly and easily without the need of an instruction book. Knowing this cleaning machine was on route I used this as the perfect opportunity to stop cleaning my floors. I’ll spare you detailed shots of a week and half’s filth, but trust me when I say. Ew.
Since this is a week in the life of me cleaning my flat, let’s start off with my Saturday morning general cleaning. I do my floors last because I don’t mind bruising things onto the floor when I’m cleaning. This means they’re often pretty dirty!
The built in LED was a bit of a welcome surprise when I first turned it on. Initially, I thought “what a waste of battery”, but I have to admit that until my vacuum had a headlight I didn’t realize just how much I needed one. Not just to see under the sofa, but because when you have a spot light on the floor you’re better at cleaning it more efficiently. You can really see what you need to pick up instead of just the bigger things.
The highlight of this machine is that you can really see that everything is swept up in one pass. There is no going back and forth to make sure you got everything. It’s excellent suction power is it’s biggest strength. We have 100 to <150 Airwatts in boost mode which we’ll talk about later.
I have a few types of floors in my apartment, wood, tile, carpet and a permanent yoga mat for my Peloton. I don’t have any pets, but I can assure you that I shed like a Corgi, so we can call this a test for animal hair as well. Only on the carpet did I have to go back and forth a few times, but this was more to use the bristles to brush up any dirt embedded in the carpet.
Maneuvering it around the house is a pleasure, there are two drive wheels that are smooth and precise to make tight turns when you need to wrap around a table leg or something.
Sound wise I’d say that I didn’t have to turn my music up much to hear it, if I kept it at my regular listening volume I could still hear it fine while vacuuming.
Since I’m doing a full house clean I changed attachments and did the sofa. It’s great on cloth, getting into all the cracks, grabbing all kinds of things! Large and small! There is a little brush attachment that I liked for upholstery cleaning. It was even gentle enough for me to dust my feather lamp. I was worried that it might pull the feathers right off, but the lamp was well made and the brush allowed me to gently get any dust.
Even holding it up in the air like that I found it ergonomic to hold, it was a tad heavier than what I was used to. The flex mechanism will definitely add a bit of weight.
Speaking of which the flex was quick to engage, I guess I hadn’t been cleaning under there because it took a while for the AirForce to stop making sounds like it was picking stuff up. If I had to decide for slightly less weight or the flex, I would go for the flex. Thinking about it I never vacuum to the back of my sofa and now I can do it weekly.
The handheld vacuum cleaner itself weighs around 1.8 kg, with the extension piece and the large universal brush the Air Force Flex 560 weighs just over 3 kg. It got a bit heavy for me holding it up to clean the lamp, but this isn’t something I would do often. I’m mostly gliding it along the floor where the two wheels make moving it around much easier.
Even with the lamp cleaning and sofa I didn’t run out of battery. The battery is built in, which means that you can’t swap it out, if you run out you’ll have to plug it in and wait for it to charge. This takes about 2 hours. The battery lasts about 35 minutes in normal mode, if you add Turbo mode you only lose 6min.
I had no issues making it through my Saturday clean on one charge, in fact it felt like it took a bit less time because it was more efficient.
Looking at the overall design and when you pair that with the name “Air Force Flex 560” you can’t help but think that this is a gadget targeted at men.
I’m not sure if this was intentional, since the metal appears to be for heat dissipation, but it looks a lot like the creature for the movie Aliens. If this isn’t a vacuum targeted at men, I don’t know what is!
Of course, as a woman, I’ll throw my two cents in about the design. If this is the design that gets my better half to vacuum more, I don’t care what it looks like. The vacuum that I had before this was The Jimmy, it was hot pink. There was protesting in my household about the color, but at the end of the day, it hasn’t stopped him from using it regularly. At least in my world function and utility trump design and aesthetics.
Leaving this gendered gadget talk behind, let’s talk about suction. There is boost mode which picks things up a lot. You can’t hear your music but the power is significant, >150 Airwatts.
Wednesday
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I only needed to use this when I was fixing some holes in the wall, I had to sand a bit and well, the floor was a mess. There was lots of fine powder from the sanding, I have a little video here to show you just how well it managed a VERY dirty floor.
The dirt container sits directly on the “base” and is 650 ml, there is a filter inside that you can take out and washed, but it reduces the capacity by a bit. In two weeks of cleaning it’s still not very full, everyone’s level of filth is different, but I think I’d have to empty it every few months.
Friday Night!
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Cooking dinner I knocked over a bag of rice! No joke, this wasn’t planned! Normally, I would have tried to save some of the rice but I was curious. Again, with one pass!
I have to say, I’ve enjoyed my week with the Rowenta Air Force Flex 560 Animal. The design is key catching and the performance is smooth and efficient! You can pick it up from Amazon for 340EUR, but it seems like a 15% coupon can be applied so you can grab it for 288EUR.
This advertorial was sponsored by Rowenta, all thoughts and ideas are still my own.
