Shark Hydrovac XL vs. Bissell Crosswave

Shark Hydrovac XL vs. Bissell Crosswave. The Clash of the Corded Cleaning Titans. The Bissell CrossWave Pet Pro and the Shark Hydrovac XL are being compared.

Both of these are hard floor wet dry cleaners that can vacuum and mop your floors at the same time. 

The Bissell CrossWave was the Pioneer in this hard floor combo product category and it's been a super bestseller for Bissell ever since. But recently Shark has released their competitor to the CrossWave which they call the Hydrovac XL.

The basics

So who are these wet-dry vacuum mop combos for and what is the best way to use them? 

Maybe the people that would benefit the most from these types of machines are people with mostly hard floors in the house.

And they're best used for normal vacuuming and mopping jobs. That is to say, you need to vacuum hard floors but you also need to mop them. So why not do both at the same time they're. 

Both are unusually good vacuums for hard floors as they both have soft brushes which are amazing for dust and fine debris. But they can also easily conform to larger debris without losing the seal. 

Both manufacturers say that you can use these for vacuuming and even washing small rugs. But that's not the best way to use these as there's nothing about their brushes or water distribution. That seems beneficial to me for use on rugs but technically they can be used that way. 

Features

One similarity that needs should mention off the bat is that these are both corded products.

Both manufacturers produce a cordless version as well and while cordless options are more convenient they aren't always better. In fact, in a recent hard floor cleaner test we did was found that the corded Bissell CrossWave outperformed pretty much every cordless version we tested. 

One big difference is in the way that they operate. 

The Bissell CrossWave uses a trigger that dispenses water when it's held down and doesn't when it's not whereas. The Shark's water is automatically dispensed when you turn the vacuum on.

Which is better comes down to preference if you don't want to think about it then the Shark is better on the other hand Bissell's trigger system gives you much more control over when and how much water to dispense. 

Another big difference is the cleanup process. 

They both have methods for separating solids from the dirty water tank which is nice. But the filter on the Bissell is much more difficult to clean whereas the Shark's filter is more of a sponge type and easier to clean. 

Also while they both have trays that you can set them in to run their self-cleaning mode.

The Shark is the only one that can self-clean automatically with a push of a button. With the Bissell, you need to physically be there to hold the handle the whole time since it won't run by itself in the upright position.

They both have quality swivels on their forehead which makes them very maneuverable. But the Shark swivel is better designed and has more range making it feel more agile with fewer wrist movements needed.

Also, they both have similar features:

• LED lights on the floor head (though the Sharks are placed nearer to the floor and are more useful in my opinion)
• identical cord links and cleaning path widths
• weigh about the same with the Shark being just a little bit lighter

But for example, the Bissell does have a larger water tank and though they are in the same basic price range the Shark is about 20% cheaper.

Bench tests

According to the sticker on the back of the units the Bissell CrossWave consumers almost double the power that the Shark does and in both the sealed and unsealed suction tests that we do that difference was more or less confirmed.

The Bissell CrossWave Pet Pro had quite a bit more raw power than the Shark. It did come at a cost of the noise level though where the Bissell was significantly louder than the Shark. 

But while bench tests like this are helpful they don't often tell us how good a product is at its actual job. 

Bissell CrossWave Pet Pro

Smart-touch controls on the handle allow you to easily switch between cleaning hard floors and area rugs and control your solution with an on-demand solution trigger.

$219.99 on Amazon

Pickup tests

They're both incredibly good hard-floor vacuums. 

We also extensively tested them with large wet messes and as far as a pickup with no streaks goes they were both flawless. 

Though the Bissell did have a shorter front gate so larger piles of stuff would be more likely to get the floor head dirty on the Bissell than the Shark. 

With the glow-in-the-dark test, we really try to give them a torture test and this is where it was a pretty interesting result. With the dried-on tests where these difficult-to-remove stains had been there for days. I think the Shark did better than the Bissell but not by all that much. Maybe the Bissell required one extra pass than the Shark to fully clean the stains. But in general, they were both incredibly impressive for such a difficult test. 

However, when I attempted to overload them with wet material the Bissell seemed to do better than the Shark. Probably because the Shark's brush is a bit thicker. 

So you could say that the Shark Hydrovac was slightly better with dried-on stains whereas the Bissell was better with not streaking large amounts of wet material. 

Shark Hydrovac XL

Brushroll treated with an antimicrobial substance to preserve roller and resist bacterial odors on the brushroll.

$159.99 on Amazon

Summary

The Shark Hydrovac XL is cheaper it has an auto mode and a better self-cleaning mode with generally better features and it's really good at its main job of vacuuming and mopping floors at the same time. 

But the Bissell CrossWave Pet Pro is just as good at vacuuming and mopping hard floors and while it's louder and a little less feature-rich. It's much more powerful and better at picking up lots of wet material without streaks. It also gives you more control with its trigger mechanism.

• shark
• bissell
• wet dry vacuum