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The Pure One S15 Pet is a lightweight, powerful vacuum that handles pet hair with ease. It’s a great addition to your cleaning kit if you’re willing to pay the premium its performance demands.

For such a straightforward task, vacuuming has spawned a rapid evolution of tools over the last several years. Stick vacuums are one of the more curious. Who would think that paying a premium for a less-powerful version of your stand-up vacuum would be an attractive proposition?

Stick vacs have proven popular because they provide a nimble, lightweight alternative to more cumbersome conventional models, and they leverage cutting-edge technology to make a hated household chore more efficient and effective. Tineco’s Pure One 15 Pet is a prime example of the value a stick vac can offer.

There are three models in the Tineco Pure One S15 family: The $499 Pet reviewed here resides between the $399 Essentials and the $599 Pro. All three models are sleek and slender tools that look not much different from the Pure One S12 we reviewed a while back. Out of the box, the S15 Pet’s array of attachments can feel a little overwhelming, but the vacuum is surprisingly easy to put together. Once you attach the dual-tube assembly to the main body housing the motor, you just need to choose an attachment for the job at hand. The S15 Pet includes four options: a direct-drive power brush, a mini power brush, a soft dusting brush, and a crevice tool.

The S15 comes with two sizes of roller brush, a dusting attachment, and a crevice tool

The multi-tasking direct-drive power brush is meant to be the main option and was designed with Tineco’s ZeroTangle tech—a roller outfitted with V-shaped bristles and a dual comb design that lifts and vacuums pet hair without wrapping the fibers around the roller. I put it to the test on hard and carpeted floors in the home I share with two cats and a dog to see how well it fared and it exceeded my expectations. Typically, I must clear a tangle or two every time I vacuum, whether I’m testing the latest robot or stick vacuum or using my own conventional stand-up vacuum. In the two weeks I used the S15 Pet, I didn’t need to detangle its power brush even once.

The S15 Pet’s other accessory attachments aren’t as high-tech, but they perform their respective tasks ably, and all the accessories can be attached directly to the main body to create a compact handheld vacuum for cleaning furniture, car interiors, and other areas where the full vacuum assembly would be too unwieldy.

The vacuum is equipped with Tineco’s iLoop Smart Sensor Technology, which enables it to detect the amount of dirt on the floor and adjust its suction power accordingly. You can hear the vacuum kick into high gear, but it also provides real-time visual feedback on its digital display, where a monitoring loop glows red when the dirt is detected and blue when it’s not. This handy indicator takes the guesswork out of deciding how many passes to make over a particular area. The display also shows you the current battery level and Wi-Fi signal strength, and it can alert you to problems such as a blocked air channel or obstructed brush. If you want to get nerdy, you can download the Tineco app, which displays the same information in addition to tracking your cleaning history. 

The lightweight S15 Pet is much easier to maneuver than a stand-up vacuum. It’s agile around corners, and its slim proportions allow you to get in between chair legs, under couches, and into cabinet toe spaces with little effort. But because all the weight is in the main body, raising it overhead to get cobwebs gets tiring quickly. 

The S15 Pet’s charging dock also houses all its accessory attachments.

The S15 Pet comes with a charging dock on which the vacuum can stand freely. The stand also houses all its attachments, to keep things tidy when it’s not in use. It takes 3-4 hours to fully charge the vacuum and, typical of stick vacuums, you don’t get a lot of return: about 40 minutes when using the Auto mode that increases power efficiency by adjusting suction to the job at hand. Using Max power gives you a paltry 10 minutes or so. This makes the S15 Pet best suited for daily maintenance in between deeper cleanings with a more powerful corded vacuum.

The Tineco Pure One S15 Pet is a great stick vacuum, particularly if you have pets; but in the end, it presents the same conundrum as all stick vacuums: Is the high price tag–$499 in this case–justified for what is realistically a support tool for your main vacuum? That’s something only you can decide, but on its performance merits alone, this appliance well worth your consideration.

Michael Ansaldo is veteran consumer and small-business technology journalist. He contributes regularly to TechHive and PCWorld.