Karcher is a popular German brand that makes a variety of home and garden cleaning products and has a professional cleaning tools division. This includes everything from lawnmowers to high-pressure washers to floor polishers to window cleaners and a range of outdoor and indoor vacuums. I’ve been cleaning with the Karcher VC 7 Cordless YourMax stick vacuum for the past week to see how it performs.
The VC 7 is a mid-range model, with a price tag of $799. It boasts a low weight, bagless filter, dust sensor and 60-minute run time.
Inside its compact body is a 350-watt BLDC motor with variable suction. This depends on how much dirt the dust sensor detects, and this also helps extend the VC 7’s battery life. In the box, you also get a motorised power brush for cleaning carpets and hard floors, a crevice tool for nooks and crannies, a 2-in-1 nozzle for furniture and upholstery, and a soft brush for delicate surfaces. These connect to a metal suction tube, and there’s also a filter cleaning tool and bracket for mounting the VC 7 on a wall.
Karcher VC 7 Cordless YourMax specifications
| Price | $799 |
| Warranty | 60-day money back guarantee, 1 year |
| Product page | Karcher |
| Type of current (Phases/Volt/Hertz) | 1 / 100 – 240 / 50 – 60 |
| Sound power level (Decibel) | < 78 |
| Container capacity (Millilitre) | 800 |
| Battery type | Lithium-ion battery |
| Voltage (Volt) | 25.2 |
| Capacity (Ampere-hour) | 2.5 |
| Runtime per battery charging (/Minute) | Normal mode: / Approx. 60 Boost mode: / Approx. 8 |
| Charging time with standard charger (Minute) | 220 |
| Weight without accessories (Kilogram) | 2.57 |
| Weight incl. packaging (Kilogram) | 5.65 |
| Dimensions (L x W x H) (Millimetre) | 235 x 266 x 1130 |
| Accessories | Soft grip handle, metal suction tube, wall-mount bracket, 1 x battery, 2 x air intake filters, crevice nozzle, 2-in-1 brush, soft brush, motorised power brush, filter cleaning tool, AC charger |
Design and ergonomics
In terms of design, the VC 7 is clad in Karcher’s signature yellow paint, which gives it a sort of industrial look, which I quite like. It has a long green LED indicator that changes depending on the suction level, and beneath is an LED battery charge indicator. There’s a large Boost button for maximum suction on the top of the unit and a comfortably shaped rubberised hand grip.
What’s the Karcher VC 7 like to use?
The first thing I noticed when compared to my Dyson Gen5 Detect ‘daily driver’ was just how light and easy the VC 7 is to move about. The Dyson does feel a bit heavy after a while, and with the Karcher weighing just under 2.7kg versus the Dyson’s 4kg, you really feel the difference. (Note that these are weights without the accessories attached).
Another nice touch is there’s a power trigger that you hold to keep it operating, and you can also flip a lock switch so it stays on without pressing the trigger.
The bagless dust container is pretty much an expectation for a vacuum of this price point, and you can empty the container with one button. I’ve noticed that the Dyson’s release mechanism can sometimes get clogged up with gunk, so it’s good to see that the VC 7’s mechanism is simple and works well.
The dust container is also large enough to hold a fair amount of fur, dust and dirt, and strikes a usable balance between portability and practicality.
Long run time
A long battery is an important factor for a stick vac, as there’s nothing worse than cleaning part of your house or apartment and having to wait for the battery to charge up to finish it. The VC 7 has a 25.2-volt Lithium-ion battery that’s rated to last for 60 minutes. It’s also removable, so if you need to have another one handy, you can get right back to work. Bear in mind that you’ll need to buy a spare, as only one is included in the package.
It’s difficult to tell for certain if the battery lasts a full 60 minutes as the dust sensor will vary the suction depending on how much dirt it detects on the floor. So, if your house has a lot of dirt, your battery life may be less. Also, there’s a boost button that cranks the suction up to maximum, and this really drains the charge quickly. I watched the charge indicator go from three to two LEDs in about five minutes on Boost mode, so it will probably give you about 10 minutes overall before the battery runs flat.
Also, keep in mind that a motorised accessory will impact your total battery life versus using a passive brush. Still, from my experience, there was plenty of charge left after a full cleaning of my flat, which is about 120 square meters, so you should be okay with cleaning most spaces.
When you need to top up the battery, you simply plug it into the included wall charger, or you can route power via the included wall-mountable bracket and charge it that way. Charging takes a couple of hours from empty to full.
Cleaning up
The motor is fairly quiet during normal operation and didn’t even worry my cat, whereas she hates the Dyson Gen5 Detect. It’s rated for less than 78 decibels and isn’t so bad when set on Boost mode either.
The motorised power brush has a bank of LEDs that help illuminate the floor just in front of it. While intended to help show up dust, which it does to some degree, it doesn’t hold a patch on Dyson’s bright green Fluffy Optic cleaner head.
Suction-wise, while Karcher doesn’t appear to provide a suction rating, it would be about average for the stick vacs that I’ve used. On fairly clean surfaces, it doesn’t appear to be working very hard at all but does leave a clean path behind it. In fact, the dust sensor appears to be quite accurate, as each time I put the vacuum head under my sofa, which hasn’t been cleaned in a while, the VC 7 detects the extra dust and increases the suction. So, when the floor gets dirtier, it works harder. However, I often found myself switching into Boost mode on dirtier areas of carpet just to make sure that I was getting the maximum clean.
For tiles and wooden floors, the same motorised brush head does well to suck up hair and fur as well as crumbs, grains of rice and cereal. It’s also able to get under low tables and the sofa. The 2-in-1 brush has removable bristles, so you can take these off when cleaning the top of coffee tables and other harder surfaces. There’s a layer of cushioned fabric to protect from scratching too. The crevice tool is nothing fancy, however, you can get a bendable tube attachment separately from the Karcher website should you need to get into some really tight spaces.
Maintenance
Maintaining the VC 7 is fairly straightforward. Most surfaces can be wiped clean with a cloth and the HEPA filter can be washed with water, dried out and re-used. There’s a dust filter as well that you can clean with an included attachment. A spare dust filter is included in the package too, so you put the dirty one into the cleaning attachment, connect this to the vacuum tube, and put the replacement filter into the vacuum. You can switch on Boost mode and suck the dust out of the dirty filter. It’s good to see that you can clean the filters yourself without needing to buy new ones, however, you can order new ones from the Karcher site if you wish as well. The HEPA filter costs $29.90 and a new dust filter is $19.90.
Cleaning the motorised brush head requires the removal of one locking pin and then you can access the roller. There doesn’t appear to be any mechanism to help it manage hair tangles, or break it into little pieces, however, which you will find on some Dyson motorised brushes.
Who’s the Karcher VC 7 for?
This Karcher VC 7 is a handy stick vacuum that’s lightweight and easy to use. It’s also compact and the wall attachment makes it easy to conceal in a closet. The long battery life means you don’t need to worry about running out of charge in normal mode, and the Boost suction mode provides intensive cleaning for small dirtier areas. Still, the VC 7 is best suited for smaller homes or offices, and probably not ideal for a large family with younger kids, where something more heavy-duty will be needed to pick up larger messes.
Given that you can now buy a Dyson V10 for $799 on sale, the Karcher VC 7 is on the expensive side given that the V10 comes with more attachments, and the technology is on another level. Assuming that the VC 7 can be found for less than its original asking price, it’s a good little stick vac that is both capable and pleasant to use, and the long run time is certainly a bonus.
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