I had an old Sears central vac hose in great shape, and many Kenmore canisters with bad hoses.

So, I came up with this ..

It works well on the stairs.

I could easily add a central vac power nozzle, but this is fine for its needs. :)

Adding a power switch would be easy.

Have done the stairs, and the van.

This particular hose is long, lightweight, and flexible. The end is smaller than 1-1/4.

Almost threw it out a while back.

Never really thought about why the Kenmore hoses are expensive, until I realized it has three wires in it, instead of two (like a central vac). The power switch is on the handle.

this particular central vac hose has removable pigtails, so it is very easy to adapt to other systems.

I can hardwire a pigtail to the Kenmore end that plugs into the vacuum, and run it to the hose.

Right now, to turn the vacuum on, I just plug the adapter into the vacuum, and it starts up.