Miele Complete C3 Calima Bagged Canister Vacuum

The Complete C3 Calima is Miele's bagged canister vacuum built on the C3 platform, the wheeled body most Miele shoppers picture when they think of a whole-home machine. Rather than living on your arm, the canister trails behind you on casters while a hose and wand do the reaching, which keeps a long cleaning session from turning into a workout.

Bagged collection is the other half of the Calima's design. Dust, hair, and whatever else the nozzle lifts goes straight into a sealed bag rather than an open bin, so nothing gets stirred back into the air when the bag eventually comes out for disposal. That matters more than people expect once a household includes anyone sensitive to dust or pollen.

Within the Complete C3 lineup, the Calima pairs two floorheads: an air-driven STB 305-3 turbobrush suited to low and medium-pile carpet, and an SBB 300-3 Parquet Twister that swivels to clean smooth floors gently. That combination makes it a natural pick for a household of area rugs, tile, and hardwood, while deep wall-to-wall pile is better served by an electrobrush C3 model.

The tradeoff most shoppers weigh when choosing a canister over an upright comes down to how a house is actually cleaned. An upright is grabbed for one room at a time, while a canister rewards someone who intends to work through several rooms in one pass, since the body rolling along behind on casters means there is nothing heavy to lift or carry once the hose is unwound. Bag changes on a machine like the Calima also take a fraction of the time a bagless bin does, since there is no dust cloud to wait out before the machine goes back to work. As an authorized Miele dealer, Vacuums and More can walk you through where the Calima sits relative to the rest of the C3 range before you buy.

• Format: bagged canister vacuum
• Line: Miele Complete C3
• Collection: sealed Miele GN filter bag, no open dust bin
• Floorheads: STB 305-3 turbobrush and SBB 300-3 Parquet Twister
• Best suited to: mixed-surface homes cleaned as a whole rather than room by room