The Controls And The Dock
Three buttons on the handle: power, mode, and self-clean. The self-clean button only works when the machine is sitting on the dock — that's where it charges, and that's where you press it when you're finished. There's one more button around the back for the voice prompts: press it once to mute the voice, or press and hold it to change the language or connect it to your Wi-Fi.
The clean water tank is big, which I love, and it's easy to fill: water plus one capful of the Tineco deodorizing and cleaning solution. That solution is a concentrate, so it has to be diluted — don't pour it in straight. And you can use warm water in it, up to 140°F. Snap the tank shut, drop it back in, and go.
The iLoop Sensor — The Reason To Buy This
In Auto mode there's no trigger at all. The machine puts solution down and adjusts suction based on how much dirt and debris it's finding, and there's a sensor watching the dirty water coming up into the chamber. When it finds a mess, the display and the ring turn red, and it ramps up both the suction and the solution. As the floor gets clean, it fades back to blue and eases off.
That's the feature. Not because it's clever, but because it answers a question no other mop answers honestly: is this floor actually clean? You keep going until the ring is blue, and then you know. It also saves battery, because you're not running full power over a floor that doesn't need it. Max mode is there if you want it — maximum suction, maximum solution, all the time — but your battery won't last nearly as long.
Cleaning Performance
I put down chocolate syrup, spilled cereal and ketchup and ran it in Auto mode. The display went red immediately, it ramped up, and it cleaned the whole thing up. It does push a little bit of the mess forward ahead of the roller, so you come back over that once and it's gone. When I was done the floor was relatively dry — not wet, not streaky, just clean. For a machine this age competing against everything that's come out since, that's still a good showing.
The dirty water tank comes off with one grab and dumps out easily, and the filter lifts out so you can see exactly what it pulled up. There's a strainer in there that holds hair and the hard chunks, which means the mess goes in the garbage can instead of into my disposal.
Self-Cleaning And Maintenance
Dock it, press self-clean, and it throws solution onto the roller while spinning it, flushing the roller and the inner tubing. It even detects whether the roller needs a deep clean — mine did after the syrup, so it ran a longer cycle. Learn from my mistake: empty the dirty water tank and make sure there's water and solution in the clean tank before you start, or it'll stop partway through and tell you it's out. When it's finished, it prompts you to empty the dirty tank again, and you should.
The roller comes out easily — pop the cover off, pull the little handle, and it slides off the gear drive. After the self-clean, mine looked genuinely good, though once in a while you'll pull some hair off by hand. There's one maintenance job people miss: the dirt-detect sensor lives down in the tank area, and it needs a scrub with the little brush that comes in the box every so often so it keeps reading correctly. Tineco includes a spare filter and a spare roller too, which I appreciate.
The App
Pairing is a bit of a dance — take it off the dock, turn it on but leave the handle upright so it doesn't start running, then hold the Wi-Fi button for three seconds and scan the code with your phone. Once it's connected you can start or cancel a self-clean from the phone, change the voice volume, switch languages, check for firmware updates, and pull up a report of what you've cleaned. It also shows battery percentage and time to full charge, which is genuinely handy. You don't need the app, but it's more useful here than on most machines.
What Bugs Me
One real gripe: the dirty water tank. I love that it's big, but getting it in and out — and especially getting it to snap in — can be tricky. When mine was new it didn't want to seat at all; you hold it back a little and it goes. It got easier with use, but it's the one part of the machine that feels fussy. The other small thing is the sticker on the body that doesn't want to come off cleanly, which is a nitpick but it's there. That's about the length of the complaint list.
Is It Worth It?
Yes — this is one of my top picks and it has been for a long time. Newer machines have added lay-flat designs and heated roller drying, and if those matter to you there are options that do them. But the core job — clean the floor, know when it's clean, keep the roller from turning into a smell — the S5 does that well, and the iLoop sensor is still one of the best ideas in this whole category. Big tank, warm water, real self-clean, a genuinely useful app, and a spare filter and roller in the box.