Vital Baby UV steriliser vs. Tommee Tippee UV steriliser
Both Tommee Tippee and Vital Baby are well known, trusted brands and both make great UV sterilisers. The question is, which one is best for you and your family?
It’s the battle of the UV sterilisers as we pit the Tommee Tippee Ultra UV 3-in-1 against the Vital Baby Nurture Advanced Pro UV Steriliser and Dryer.
Keeping your baby's milk-feeding products sterile is essential, making a good steriliser a core part of your parenting toolkit.
As advised by the NHS, you need to sterilise all your baby’s milk-feeding products until they are 12 months old to avoid the build up of germs and harmful bacteria that could cause illnesses such as gastroenteritis, diarrhoea and vomiting as a result of young babies' immature immune systems.
Currently, there are 3 types of sterilisers to choose from – steam sterilisers, cold water sterilisers and, the subject of today's versus, UV sterilisers.
Vital Baby UV vs. Tommee Tippee UV at a glance:
- Vital Baby Advanced Pro UV Steriliser & Dryer,
£129.99£84.99 at Amazon (Save £45 or 35%) - Tommee Tippee Ultra UV 3-in-1 Steriliser, Dryer and Storage,
£149.99£86.99 at Amazon (Save £63 or 42%)
UV sterilisers employ the same kind of tech used in hospitals and dentists to clean pretty much anything you can fit inside, including bottles, dummies and even your phone or AirPods. They use ultraviolet light instead of steam or water making them fast, effective and a lot easier to maintain as they won’t need descaling.
Despite their high price point, the Tommee Tippee and the Vital Baby UV sterilisers are 2 of the most popular options on the market. Both trusted brands landed solid reviews from MadeForMums reviewers and the Vital Baby took home a Gold Award in the 2024 MadeForMums Awards.
So, we know the benefits of UV sterilisers and we know that the Vital Baby and Tommee Tippee are both good, but which one should you buy?
For more steriliser options, check out our list of the best baby sterilisers. We've also got our Vital Baby Nurture Advanced Pro UV Steriliser and Dryer review as well as our Tommee Tippee Ultra UV 3-in-1 Steriliser, Dryer and Storage review, which go into more detail about both products individually.
Design and Capacity
Both the Vital Baby and Tommee Tippee UV sterilisers look sleek and modern, especially when compared with some of their steam and cold-water counterparts.
The Tommee Tippee resembles a mini-fridge in its vertical design with simple, easy to use touch screen controls and a small window to allow you to see the contents. It comes in black and white colourways – the white looks particularly cool – and has a reasonably good capacity, especially compared with other UV sterilisers. It has room to sterilise, dry and store up to six 260ml bottles but we did find it a bit awkward to load due to the vertical orientation.
The main drawback in terms of the Tommee Tippee’s design is its size. With that larger capacity comes a much larger footprint on your countertop - as mentioned before, it’s like a mini-fridge. Another issue I encountered was the glossy plastic housing. Even during my testing I found it got dirty and picked up a lot of fingerprints, which I found frustrating.
"It’s about 2/3 the size of a microwave, so it’s not small," noted parent tester Hazelann in her review.
The Vital Baby on the other hand, is much sleeker and takes up about the same amount of counter space as a 4-slice toaster. With that smaller size does come a smaller capacity of only 4 bottles, which might make it a no go for larger families.
“When using MAM bottles I could only fit 2 bottles in the unit, as there cannot be anything blocking the UV rays," noted parent tester Colleen. "The greatest drawback is that it cannot hold more bottles, particularly if you’ve been out and have a few to sterilise at once.”
The Vital Baby UV is similarly sleek and modern in its design, with the recently updated version coming in a range of 4 colourways to help you fit it in with your kitchen. It uses touch screen controls like the Tommee Tippee and has great build quality, especially compared with some of the plastic-feeling steam alternatives. It also has a matte finish everywhere except the touch screen on the lid making it a lot less prone to picking up fingerprints than the Tommee Tippee.
In terms of design and capacity, the best option here will depend on your needs. If you need a larger capacity and don’t mind sacrificing counter space, then the Tommee Tippee is the easy winner. However, if capacity isn’t a huge concern then the Vital Baby is the option we’d recommend.
UV Steriliser Performance
Both the Vital Baby and Tommee Tippee UV have sterilising, drying and storage modes and both promise to kill 99.9% of harmful bacteria. Where they really differ is in their speed.
The Vital Baby has 4 modes: Auto, which dries and sterilises in 22 minutes; Dry, which, as you might expect, doesn’t sterilise it just dries in 17 minutes; Sterilise, which is the fastest mode at 5 minutes; and Store, which keeps objects sterilized for 72 hours. Vital Baby touts it as “the fastest UV steriliser and dryer on the market” and it’s easy to see why. Its auto cycle is 7 minutes faster than the already fast previous model.
MFM parent tester Shelby, who used the Vital Baby Nurture Advanced Pro UV Steriliser and Dryer with her 3-month-old, also complimented its performance. “This steriliser is so quick and easy to use, it makes my life so much easier by saving me time. It's just one button to turn it on and one button to start the cycle, which is so easy and foolproof.”
Then there’s the Tommee Tippee, which has a disappointing 35-minute sterilising and drying time, 13 minutes slower than the Vital Baby. The Tommee Tippee has similar sterilise-only, dry-only, storage and auto modes to the Vital Baby but all of them are significantly slower than the Vital Baby. The Tommee Tippee’s sterilise-only mode takes twice as long as the Vital Baby while the dry-only mode takes 13-minutes more on its fastest cycle.
This is the one place where there’s a clear winner with the speedy performance of the Vital Baby being pretty much unbeatable.
If you’re keeping score, that’s 1 a piece.
Are the UV sterilisers worth the money?
UV sterilisers in general are more expensive than steam or cold-water options, so both of these are at the top end of the market. That being said, I’d say they’re both well worth the money.
The Tommee Tippee is one of the cheaper UV sterilisers on the market, with a slightly lower RRP than the Vital Baby UV. Given the capacity and the fact that this sterilises and dries to a high standard – albeit quite slowly – this is definitely worth the cost, especially considering it comes from such a trusted brand as Tommee Tippee.
The Vital Baby UV is similarly good value despite that high price point. For the price, you’re getting incredibly fast performance and a minimalist, modern design that makes it worth spending that bit extra.
It’s also worth pointing out that, considering you can use them to sterilise things like books, keys, phones and more, UV sterilisers will likely last you a lot longer making them a solid investment.
Our Verdict
Both the Tommee Tippee UV and Vital Baby UV are great sterilisers.
They both clean and dry well, they both look modern and come in a several colour options and they both have the lower power consumption and wide array of functionality common with UV sterilisers.
Ultimately, the Tommee Tippee UV steriliser is better suited for parents who don’t mind sacrificing the quicker sterilisation cycles for increased capacity while the Vital Baby UV is a great for smaller kitchens and parents who are often on the move.
Where can I buy the Tommee Tippee Ultra UV 3-in-1 Steriliser, Dryer and Storage steriliser?
Available from: Tommee Tippee, Amazon and Currys
Where can I buy the Vital Baby Nurture Advanced Pro UV Steriliser and Dryer?
Available from: Vital Baby and Amazon
Don't miss
- What items you need to sterilise and when
- Mums' tips on buying sterilisers
- Can you use a dishwasher instead of a steriliser?
