An opportunity to review yet another stick vac, or vacuum cleaner in general, and I jumped at it – I wouldn’t say I’ve become a bit OCD about good vac products, but I really do appreciate a good floor cleaner! Those that know me, or have read my vac reviews before may be nodding along right now “Oh, this is the guy with the cute Jack Russell that drops more fur than the Essendon backline drops marks….” I digress – I was offered the chance to test out and write up the recently released (April 2026) Bissell PowerClean DualBrush 280W – High-Power Stick Vacuum and a couple of weeks later, here we are! [Release date updated for accuracy.]
I currently have three other stick-style vacs in my house, one here in my office and one under the stairs, both in regular duty, and another in my ‘worlds smallest tool shed’ (which was the “mud room” but not anymore!) that is still used, but less frequently as I have a silly-powerful shopVac style sucker in there… The PowerClean Dual comes in much less expensive when compared with my existing cleaners, so I was certainly excited to see how it performed, and got right to it.
First – what’s in the box?
Unpacking the cleaner gave me a good sense of how solidly built the unit was, right away it presented as slightly heavier compared with my existing stick vacs, partly down to the dual-brush head, it’s deeper and a bit taller in its build, but the dual-brush isn’t just gimmick, more on that later.
- PowerClean DualBrush 280W
- Power Supply
- Extra Battery and DUal Battery Charger
- Motorised FurFinder Upholstery tool
- Crevice / Brush tool
- Wall mountable charging dock (that also holds your extra tools)
Right, that’s what is in the box, now let’s get on with how it all performs together!
So as I was saying before the video, Straight out of the box I noticed that the main unit and the attachments were all very sturdy feeling, nodding to myself as I took them out of the box one by one, the dual head notably heavier than my existing units tools, I did wonder at first if that was going to be any sort of hinderance.
First impressions are one thing, but in use, the dual brushed head really proved itself. I had already gone over my office carpet floor with my existing stick-vac, but as the owner (who am I kidding, she’s the boss!) of a Jack Russell Terrier, who somehow manages to drop more hair every day than she has on her tiny body, I feel like I could vacuum forever and not reach the end of the hair mess. Still, having already cleaned, I didn’t really expect that I’d pick up much when I went over the floor with the Bissell. Ohhh was I wrong! The idea of the dual brushed head is that one brush agitates the embedded dirt and pet hair, the other one gets in close and whips it all up into the vacuum and into the 400ml dirt tank… or, in my case, Jack Russell hair retrieval and containment canister!
Built tough, still fits under most of my furniture just fine
I was frankly a little shocked! Maybe I’ve been doing it all wrong, my existing stick vac is a good brand, it works very well, but the dual-brush filled half its tank just in my small office…
The PowerClean DualBrush 280W doesn’t have a snazzy dock that empties it, you have to spend the three minutes and walk to the bin to empty the debris, in the words of my 12yo – it’s not that deep.
The other immediately noticeable difference between this and others that I’ve used is that the front of the dual brush head has headlights all the way across – they call them FurFinder Headlights and they work very well – Illuminating EVERYTHING and making you feel VERY self conscious about the poor job you’ve been doing cleaning up after your hair-dropping beast of a dog!
The Bissell PowerClean Dual Brush Cordless Stick Vac also employs a sealed HEPA 13 filter, which with fine stuff like pet hair and dust is great, as it doesn’t feed those nasties back into the air. You can purchase replacement air filters and all of the spare parts directly from Bissell.
I’ve not dropped a whole bowl of cereal (or dog kibble) on the floor, but Bissell suggest the dual brush config is very good at picking it up, what I did instead was took it out to my car after two soccer games and let it do its best – it did very well! I typically remove my mats to clean them, but I did a quick whip across my floor mat while it was still in the car, with a few rough one-handed passes, it picked up the dust, the dirt, the dry mud, the grass, the dog hair and anything else in its path. The crevice / brush tool works just fine – brush clicks out of place and back into place easily, not much to say about that, really! Does what it’s supposed to do.
The upholstery tool made light-work of the green grandpa chair in my office (worst furniture decision ever…. great chair, catches more dog hair than any other chair I could have chosen) it took a couple of passes, but picked up most of the hair. Don’t judge, but here’s a BEFORE photo of the chair in question and the culprit – smiling like she’s NEVER done anything wrong. (Gives you a good idea of my test environment).
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The wall mount comes with a set of plugs and screw for you to put it on a wall. Make sure you have it close enough to a powerpoint and if you get a chance, before you drill into your wall, check there are no electrical cables behind the plaster!
In use, you have two buttons on the handle: one turns the unit on and off, the other cycles through the three modes — low, high, and auto. In auto mode, the vac will automagically sense when it needs more power and boost itself accordingly.
Bissell rates the unit at 50 minutes (per battery) in eco mode and 15 minutes in turbo. In practice, I’ve only switched to turbo a couple of times to test it out, but largely leave it in eco and let it do its thing. I haven’t run out of battery mid-session yet — though if you do, the kit includes a spare battery that can be swapped out quickly so you can get straight back to it.
The dual charge dock included in the kit uses the same power supply as the wall-mountable dock, (Note: you can only be plugged in to one charger at a time) so you can simply unplug the cable from the wall mount and connect it to the dual charger if you want to charge a flat battery while using the other. In practice, though, I’ve just been docking the vac on the wall mount after each use and letting it charge there. You can see it mounted on its docking station / charger (the cable placement is temporary, I want to make sure I like where I’ve put it, first!) below.
Final thoughts: despite the Bissell coming in slightly heavier, it does a great job on all surfaces I tested it on including carpet, rugs, sofas, the car, my hairy green chair and dark coloured hardwood floors! It fits under cupboards and shines a light on all of the dust you need to suck up! It tracks straight on thick pile carpet, and is easy to empty and clean. I’m very impressed with this sturdy beast and can recommend it for people with pets or messy children!
The Bissell PowerClean Dual Brush 280W has a RRP A$599, and is available from their website and authorised retailers.
DRN would like to thank Bissell for providing the review unit.
