The most exciting things about Dyson's new V16 Piston Animal are the usability improvements
Dyson unveiled a whole suite of new products at IFA last week, and I got to go hands-on at a small event in Sydney. What impressed me most wasn't the suction.
I know I make the joke almost every time, but vacuuming sucks.
It's not the suction that sucks, though. It's the effort. It's the working your way through the house, pushing your arm back and forth to make sure the vacuum captures every possible bit of dust.
It's the changing cleaning heads so you can get into the cracks. It's the emptying the dustbin. It's the storage, where you have attachments scattered through your laundry because there's nowhere else to put them.
So last week, when I got the chance to check out the new Dyson V16 Piston Animal at a media event following its IFA unveiling, it wasn't the suction stats that impressed me. It was all the other simple changes Dyson made to the vacuum to make the act of vacuuming easier.
Yes, the V16 is Dyson's most powerful cordless vacuum ever. It has 315 Air Watts of suction, which is a lot. Roborock's recent H60 Hub Ultra, as a point of comparison, has 210 Air Watts. The Dyson V15 Detect Absolute offered 240.
It uses extra cyclones in Boost mode to really pump up that suction when you need it, a while the dust detect sensor counts particles at 15,000 times a second to adapt suction accordingly.
It can run for 70 minutes on eco mode, giving you enough time to clean your whole home hassle free.
And if you opt for the premium package, you get a dedicate "Submarine" head in the box, which gives you a wet-floor attachment that's easy to clean and keeps everything running through the head unit, so there's no possibility of mouldy filters or clogged pipes.
But it's the simple things that are best
I have four different stick vacuums in for review at the moment, and one thing you notice when reviewing four different stick vacuums is how annoying it is to reach down to the ground to change the attachments.
I know, I know, it's not that big of a challenge – unless you have mobility issues, of course.
But the Dyson V16 Piston Animal has redesigned the attachments and connectors. For a start, it means that the vacuum without the extension pole or anything else attached, has a male connector that acts like a small crevice tool. I've never seen this before, and it's genius in its simplicity.
But on the extension pole itself is a quick release lever, that will detach the extension pole from the attachment on the ground, without you needing to crouch to the ground. The powerhead (and submarine head) are designed to have their connectors stand tall when they aren't attached, so you can easily slot the V16 into the power head.
The main power head uses the same conical design as the PencilVac Fluffycones (still the best product name ever), except these aren't fluffy. They are designed to push hair as long as 25 inches to the ends of the cones and then suck that hair up as a hair ball, all without tangling.
Inbuilt sensors automatically detect floor type and adjust cleaning to suit, which is all nice. But the tangle free design is there the real ingenuity lies.
Then there's the barrel.
It seems so basic, but the V16 has a red lever around the barrel that allows you to compress all the dust, dirt and debris the vacuum sucks, so you can continue vacuuming before you have to empty it.
Then, when you do empty the barrel, the same lever can be used to expel all the contents, without you having to get your fingers dirty pulling out the hair and dust piles.
Emptying the dust barrel is arguably the worst part of any vacuum. While I have come around to the idea of an auto-empty station to do it for me, this solution is easily the next best thing.
Because the dust is all compressed, it shouldn't waft everywhere, either, as you empty it. Genius.
The last thing I want to point out about the V16's design is that it comes with an elegant stand that not only holds and charges the vacuum, but has enough space to hold all the supplied attachments as well.
This is a real problem for vacuum cleaners generally. I'm testing the Electrolux 800 series at the moment, and it comes with six different attachments in the box – but nowhere to put them. Even the Shark Cordless Detect Pro I reviewed last year has a bunch of attachments with no home.
Dyson's V16 Piston Animal is priced at $1,399 for the standard package, or $1,599 for the Submarine package.
And while you do get a lot of suck for that price, for me it's the usability features that make it feel that the price tag isn't too high.
I'm hoping to get my hands on the V16 Piston Animal for a full review soon, and I have the Pencilvac Fluffycones review coming shortly, so stay tuned for that.
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Nick Broughall
Nick Broughall
Nick Broughall
