Miele Triflex HX2 Pro

It’s a touch fiddly to convert between its modes, but the option to switch between upright, stick and handheld modes makes the Miele Triflex HX2 Pro a very flexible vacuum cleaner. It’s also exceptionally powerful, making short work of all of my cleaning tests. With dual batteries delivering long-lasting cleaning, this is a great replacement for a plug-in cleaner.

Introduction

If you’ve ever picked up a cordless vacuum cleaner and thought that the weight balance isn’t quite right, then the Miele Triflex HX2 Pro could well be for you.

This vacuum cleaner can be assembled in three different ways, adjusting where the main vacuum cleaner sits for each one, giving more comfort whether you’re using it handheld, as a regular cleaner or to get more reach.

Design and features

• Two batteries in the box
• Choice of three modes
• Extremely well built

The problem with most stick cleaners is that they put the main weight in your hand, making you hold the entire vacuum cleaner for the duration of the clean. The Miele Triflex HX2 Pro is designed to give you more options, with three possible configuration modes.

First, there’s Comfort Mode, which puts the main vacuum cleaner close to the floor head, so the main weight of the vacuum cleaner is closer to the floor. That effectively makes the Triflex a cordless upright cleaner in a similar way to the Shark ICZ300UKT. Like that vacuum cleaner, the Miele Triflex HX2 Pro can stand up by itself in this mode. That’s quite a time saver, as I could just leave the vacuum cleaner every time I needed to pause vacuuming, say to move something out of the way.

Next, there’s Reach mode. This turns the Miele Triflex HX2 Pro into more of a traditional stick vacuum cleaner, with the wand attached to the end of the handheld unit. As the wand can take all of the accessories, this mode is useful for getting underneath furniture with the floor head.

Finally, there’s Handheld mode, where the accessories clip straight into the main vacuum cleaner.

In Handheld and Reach modes, the handle goes at the top of the vacuum cleaner. Trying to clean up high means tilting the entire 3.6kg weight back, which is a bit of a struggle. Most vacuum cleaners, such as the Dyson V15 Detect, put the handle at the back in the middle to make this kind of action easier.

Switching between the three modes is a bit of a faff, as both the handle and wand have to move positions. It involves a fair amount of unplugging and replugging to do it.

Cleverly, Miele has put the controls on a slider on the handle, so they’re within reach of a thumb no matter which cleaner mode you’re in. There are three power modes to choose from: Min, Eco and Max.

It’s worth picking which mode you want to use the vacuum cleaner in the most, as this also affects where the wall dock goes: it has to be low to the ground in Comfort mode or higher up for Reach mode. I found that Comfort mode was ideal for me, as I used this the vast majority of the time.

This vacuum cleaner uses removable batteries. One can be charged in the vacuum cleaner’s body, while Miele provides an external battery charger for the other one. That means you need two plugs, but the advantage is that you can have both batteries ready to go at the same time. And, when you swap batteries, the dead one can go straight on charge.

There’s no fancy battery meter here: just a set of three LEDs that extinguish one at a time as the power runs out.

This model has a decent 0.5-litre bin, which is generally enough to handle an entire house clean. The bin pulls out of the back of the vacuum cleaner, but to empty it I had to manually open the flap at the bottom. An eject button would have been neater.

At the top of the bin is a dial. Spin this in the direction marked Comfort Clean, and small bits of dust are released from the filter, keeping it in excellent working condition. From time to time, you’ll need to give it a proper wash, which is easy as the filter pulls out of the top.

Miele provides a decent range of accessories with this model. There’s a wide upholstery tool, dusting brush and crevice tool. You’ll need the PET edition to get the mini motorised brush.

There’s only a single floor head, but this comes with three rollers: a regular carpet one, a delicate carpet brush and a soft roller for hard floors. Switching between this is tool free, but having dedicated floor heads for different surfaces would be quicker.

The wall dock has space for all of the main accessories, plus there’s an accessory clip on the back of the vacuum cleaner that can take the two you use most.

Performance

• Maximum power can struggle on carpet
• Excellent pick-up
• Relatively quiet

I measured the raw power of the Miele Triflex HX2 Pro in AirWatts (AW) at the handle. On minimum power it was 40AW, jumping to a more powerful and usable 99AW on its mid Eco setting, and a maximum power of 145AW on its highest setting, which is similar to the Vax ONEPWR Edge upright vacuum cleaner.

I’ve seen cordless vacuum cleaners with more power in handheld mode, but the figures here suggest that this vacuum cleaner is good for most jobs. 

What’s important with day-to-day cleaning is the power of the floor head. The motorised roller is designed to agitate dirt, so that it can easily be lifted away. A more powerful head can make up for lower suction, as was the case here.

First, I put the Miele Triflex HX2 Pro through my carpet test, sprinkling a teaspoon of flour onto the carpet. Running it through on Eco power, I found that it left a clean, wide strip through the middle.

I then attempted to clean the top of the carpet on Min mode and the bottom on Max. It struggles with Max mode, as the brush bar got stuck on the carpet and wouldn’t turn; this is a mode that works better on hard floors or very short carpet. Even so, Min mode did an alright job, only leaving a bit of dust behind.

Next, I moved to my tricky edge test, putting flour up to the skirting board on carpet tiles. Here, I was impressed with the result, with the Miele Triflex HX2 Pro managing to remove all of the dirt, right to the edge of the room on its Eco power setting.

This power setting was enough to deal with pet hair on the carpet, too, removing every strand of my combed-in cat hair.

Moving to the hard floor, I switched out the brush for the soft roller. Putting a teaspoon of rice onto the floor, I managed to suck up all of the mess with a single sweep on Eco mode. No grains of rice fell out at the end.

I measured the vacuum cleaner at just 70.2dB on Eco mode with the floor head turned on. The main vacuum cleaner is very quiet, and most of the noise is from the brush spinning around.

Battery life is quoted at up to 120 minutes, although that’s with two batteries and on the lowest power setting with no powered tools. I tested with the brush turned on, and the vacuum cleaner lasted for just under 19 minutes on its Eco power setting, so you’ll get around 40-minutes of cleaning time on the regular mode. I think that’s enough to tackle most average-sized homes.

On the highest power setting, battery life drops to just eight minutes. Based on my testing, you won’t need to use this mode very often.

Once the batteries are depleted, they take 240 minutes to recharge, which is around average for a cordless vacuum cleaner.

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As part of this mission, whenever we review a product we send the company a series of questions to help us gauge and make transparent the impact the device has on the environment.

We currently haven’t received answers to the questions on this product, but will update this page the moment we do. You can see a detailed breakdown of the questions we ask and why in our sustainability info page.