After a period of relative inactivity, Dyson has emerged blinking in the sunlight, and dumped a whole load of new products on us. Alongside an unexpected new robot vacuum and a desktop purifier inspired by a jet engine, there are two new manual stick vacuums – one ultra-pricey new flagship and one reimagining of a Dyson classic.
I’ve been knee-deep in Dyson news for a fortnight, so I’ve only just got round to reading the small print on the press releases on the stick vacuums, and it seems like there’s an even more intriguing update heading our way.
Tucked at the bottom of the press release for the V8 Cyclone and the V16 Piston Animal, there’s a line that says: “Looking ahead, owners will be able to purchase a compatible self-emptying docking station.”
Dyson is not the first vacuum brand to explore this feature – some of the best cordless vacuums have optional auto-empty docks. The likes of Shark and Samsung have already launched vacuums with emptying stations, and Roborock’s new manual vacuum has one too. I didn’t expect Dyson to get on board with the idea – it seems to like to be the brand setting trends, rather than following them – but I’m thrilled that it has.
The idea is simple: slot the vacuum onto the dock and everything that has accumulated in the bin on the previous cleaning session will whoosh out, via a closed system, into a much larger bin (or bag) in the base. It’s the same kind of thing you’d get with most robot vacuums, but scaled up.
So far, I know that the docks for the V16 and the V8 Cyclone will capture 99.99% of dust and have a 2.5L bin capacity, capable of holding up to 60 days’ worth of dust. There’s no pricing information, nor do I have any idea of when these docks might arrive. Despite this relative lack of information, I’m excited.
I wasn’t sure about them at first, but I’ve recently become an auto-empty convert. They remove a significant pain point from the vacuum cleaning process. No more clouds of dust escaping back into the air and down the side of the bin liner, no more sticking your fingers into the dust cup to dislodge stubborn clumps of hair. The dock does it for you – and provides somewhere for the vacuum to live, and charge, at the same time.
It’s even better news for allergy sufferers, because it means you only need to empty the bin once in a blue moon, rather than every time you clean. And Dyson is especially good at meticulously filtering particles, so I’m willing to bet its bases will do an excellent job at ensuring nothing escapes.
It’s interesting that Dyson is offering this option, not just with its top-of-the-range, flagship model (the V15) but also an affordable option – the V8 Cyclone is a reboot of the older V8 vacuum, and is set to be one of the cheapest stick vacuums in the Dyson lineup. That suggests it might be something that will be rolled out with all new launches.
A question of style
The potential sticking point with auto-empty dock is what it looks like; this is something that’s going to be on show in your home, after all. These docks need to be quite bulky, and based on existing efforts, it can be difficult to make them look stylish. Shark’s chunky, white triangular docks (as featured on the PowerDetect Cordless) are a low point for me, while Samsung’s gray, tube-shaped base (accompanying the Bespoke AI Jet Ultra) is more successful.
I’m intrigued to see what the Dyson dock looks like. A tiny rendering in the press release shows an uninspiring, dark grey plinth, with no detailing to speak of. I’m hoping some more design flourishes might be added before it comes to market.
Dyson might also struggle with height limitations. Any auto-empty dock needs to connect directly to the bin section of the vacuum, which means it needs to be quite tall (in fact, the rendering I have so far shows the dock extending to the full height of the vacuum). To avoid a dock being too imposing, other brands have added telescopic wands to their vacuums, so they can collapse down somewhat to slot into a shorter dock. That’s unlikely to happen here, because the docks are being added to existing vacuums.
Either way, I’ll be watching closely, and I’m excited to see what Dyson comes up with.
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