Dyson V16 Piston Animal Submarine - Re-Setting the Standard

I'm no vacuuming expert - although I have been reviewing all kinds of vacuums for a while now.

I'm also in charge of vacuuming at our house, so if I'm not an official expert, I am at least experienced.

Anyway, for what it's worth, in my view, there's nothing quite like a Dyson.

Because of Dyson's driving philosophy of innovation, I think you'd be hard-pushed to come up with another brand that consistently manages to reinvent itself in such revolutionary ways, others struggle to keep up.

And wouldn't you just know it? They've gone and done it again.

As you might be able to deduce from its somewhat multi-barrelled name, the Dyson V16 Piston Animal Submarine has a lot going on. In fact, unboxing this thing is a bit like spending Christmas with your slightly crazy uncle who thinks it's funny to wrap every present in 17 different layers of wrapping paper to maximise the enjoymnent.

Except in this case, every compartment of every box-within-the-box holds a new and exciting present that you really weren't expecting.

Even the accessories are painstakingly designed for ultimate performance. The Combi Tool has long been my favourite car-cleaning aid, with its retractable brush allowing me to quickly swap between two heads depending on whether I'm vacuuming hard or soft surfaces. 

When Dyson first introduced the Hair Screw Tool, I thought its ability to dispose of even the longest of hair was so groundbreaking, I dedicated a whole review to it. Version 2.0 has been modified to remove even longer hair still and there are now "rug strips" to keep soft furnishings like covers of duvets and cushions from being sucked in and causing the tool to stop spinning.

They've even made the Crevice Tool longer, because who doesn't want the longest Crevice Tool possible?

But the main "head"-lines are the titular Submarine 2.0 Wet Roller head and the All Floors Cones Sense cleaner head.

Both of these are classic examples of Dyson's engineers being told to go out and start again from the beginning; design a wet mopping head and an all-purpose one from scratch, paying special attention to the pain points current users experience.

With the Submarine 2.0 Wet Roller, they certainly nailed the cleaning part. I never trialled the original version of this head, so I'm not sure exactly how it's been improved, other than it now offers two levels of hydration - so you can up the amount of water being applied to the roller to help remove more stubborn messes from your hard floors

It's a breeze to use and even though it's quite a large head, it's well balanced and the connecting joint folds down almost flat to allow you access under furniture. It cleans throughly with every pass, and unlike other similar devices I've used with rotating, disc-shaped mop heads - or even manual mopping for that matter - the Submarine 2.0 leaves a streak-free finish and the precisely measured water flow means floors are dry in minutes. For me, it worked particularly well on the bathroom tiles and was easy to manoeuvre under vanities and into other tight spaces.

There is a downside; the cleanup afterwards.

The Submarine 2.0 is not a vacuum head as such - unlike a robot vacuum, for example, which might vacuum at the front then mop at the back on the same pass, Dyson's method forces any hard debris up into the head where it is trapped in a thin, removable collection tray, which requires rinsing off after ever clean. As does the roller and the head itself. This is all a bit of hands-on and gross - and bear in mind, I'm a father of two so I've seen plenty of hands-on and gross in my time. The roller and head then need to dry out - which takes days, not hours.

There's a base/cover just for the Submarine 2.0 head, to keep everything tidy. I'd prefer this to be some kind of auto-cleaning and drying station, in a similar vein to the various robot vacuums I've reviewed lately. As great a job as this cleaning head does, I'm not sure it justifies the inconvenience of the cleanup afterwards.

On the other hand, the All Floors Cones Sense head couldn't be more user-friendly - and effective.

Dyson has obviously gone all in on cones. I've already mentioned the cone-based Hair Screw Tool 2.0. I reviewed the PencilVac Fluffy Cones cleaner a few weeks back. The All Floors Cones Sense head takes that philosophy to new heights.

The duo of conical brush bars are each wrapped in a twin spiral of sturdy, nylon bristles to help loosen any bits and pieces from carpet and a softer, wider brush that polishes hard floors without scratching them. The head automatically detects what surface it's on and can adjust the suction power accordingly. And best of all, this is the most tangle-free full-sized vacuum head I've ever used.

As long as I've been vacuuming, I've been untangling hair wrapped around the cleaning brush. For years. I've actually become pretty good at it. I've even collected up a few useful tools to help me do it along the way.

Told you I'd seen "hands-on and gross."

Ah, the stories I could tell.

The problem with the All Floors Cones Sense head is I don't get to use those skills anymore. At all. Since I've been using the V16, I haven't had to remove a single hair, not one. In fact, the conical brushes are so effective, when I'm vacuuming particularly hairy spaces -  like where the hair drying and straightening happens - the first pass leaves a tidy little hairball behind which is then easily sucked up on the next pass. It's a miracle.

The newest incarnation of Dyson's Hyperdymium motor never misses a beat, of course. The 900w motor drives up to 315AW of suction. Don't worry if you don't know that AW stands for Air Watt - just trust me; there's all the power you need and more.

The battery behind it all should last around 70 minutes on a full charge and if that's not enough, you can purchase a second one as they swap out easily. Even now, so few of Dyson's competitors offer anything like the detailed, colour LCD display on the top of the device. Never underestimate how useful it is to know what your remaining battery life is in minutes - it can be very motivational. The screen also shows a breakdown of the particles being sucked up by size, so you know when you've got the surface completely clean.

As you'll see in the video below, when you have a vacuum as effective as this one, you may worry about how quickly the 1.35-litre bin fills up. That's where Dyson's next big upgrade comes in; Bin compression. They call it CleanCompaktor technology but it just means you can now squash all the yucky stuff down to the bottom of the bin and keep on vacuuming, drastically reducing the number of times you have to empty the V16.

Even the emptying process is better because that same CleanCompaktor mechanism now ejects all the dust and debris out of the bin without you having to stick anything in there - like your fingers - to work any stubborn clumps of ick out. Essentially, it's the totally hands-off experience I was hoping for with the Submarine head.

By now, it goes without saying Dyson totally aces the filtration system, the durability (yes, I dropped the whole shebang on my hard floor first time I used it) and the app experience; I just updated the firmware this afternoon.

There are so many new and exciting features here, I almost forgot to mention the great ones that have carried over from previous models - like the dust-seeking green light on the brush head and the hidden tools - I mean, how come nobody's talking about the "Easy-Access Wand Tool?" Now you can just push down on the red ring at the top of the main tube to eject the cleaner head without having to bend down. I hate bending down. I love this vacuum.

For the most thorough, tangle-free cleaning experience I've ever encountered from a stick vacuum, the V16 Piston Animal Submarine is the new champ. Now, if we can just get that mop head to clean up after itself, I'd be in vacuum heaven.

        

Click here for more information and pricing on the Dyson V16 Piston Animal Submarine.