Note: This article was first published on 13th July 2017.
The Dyson V8 is the most fun I’ve had with a vacuum cleaner, it’s also the most expensive one I’ve ever used. It is Dyson’s newest cordless vacuum cleaner, with more suction strength than its predecessor, the V6, and double its battery life.
The V8 also costs a pretty penny, at S$999 for the V8 Fluffy Pro and S$1,099 for the V8 Absolute Plus. Both editions ship with the same vacuum, but the Absolute Plus has more accessories, including a direct-drive cleaner head for deeper carpet cleaning.
I’ve used the V8 for a month while I moved, which means I made it clean up many unnameable things. This is what we’ve learned about each other.
Looks like a cross between a Fast and Furious car and a Bayformer
Specifically, a car from the Tokyo Drift movie.
You’ll either love or hate the way the V8 looks, with its exposed innards and bright colors. I think it’s rather attractive in its own way, but not because I love multi-colored glowing keyboards and Japanese car decals.
It’s because I appreciate how intentional its design is. The loud colors are there, for example, to communicate. Red indicates parts you can manipulate, like the red trigger and the attachment points. The blue parts, like the filters, can be cleaned. Nothing about the V8 is superfluous.
Jokes aside, its design is fully functional. The red, for example, indicates parts that you can press and pull.
The one part that looks out of place for this thousand-dollar machine is the sticker that they paste on the extension tube indicating its edition. It’s like if BMW sells you an expensive car then pastes a sticker of the model on the bonnet. For something that costs this much, it’d have been nicer for Dyson to either etch the model name on the surface or leave it out altogether.
The V8 handles like a race car
For a 2.6kg handheld, the V8 handles very well.
If most vacuum cleaners handle like pick-up trucks, the V8 handles like a road-hugging car that responds to every nudge of the wheel.
The V8 weighs 2.6kg, the same as a light dumbbell, which sounds daunting when you think about hauling it through the entire house. For my part, I found it to be fine once I got the hang of it, but heaviness is subjective and I can’t say it’d be a comfortable weight for everyone.
Using it as a handheld cleaner was also fine for me. The one body part that did get tired wasn’t my bicep, but my finger. Continuously holding the trigger down to activate the vacuum got tiresome — it would have been nice to have a trigger lock of some kind.
The V8 also doubles as a handheld portable vacuum.
The V8 offers a lot of tools for the cleaning aficionado. The Fluffy Pro comes with five attachments, the Absolute Plus comes with three more, plus an adaptor and extension hose. I tested the Fluffy Pro, but Dyson recommends the Absolute Plus, which comes with a direct-drive cleaner head, for people with deep carpets or pets.
You can also snap attachments onto the extension tube for added reach.
The soft roller cleaner head, which ships with both, is likely the one you’ll use most of the time, and it’s highly maneuverable. It can rotate parallel to the ground (but the canister gets in the way), and smoothly to the sides, making it easy to get to those tough spots. The other attachments give you quite a bit of flexibility to reach into odd spaces and get the cleaning that you want doing, and there’s even a mini motorized tool that you can use to clean beds with.
The soft roller cleaner head swivels around smoothly, making it easy to get the corners.
If the names of these attachments confuse you, don’t worry — they are confusing, and the manual doesn’t help. The V8’s instruction manual doesn’t contain a description of each attachment and what it’s best used for. I couldn’t find any descriptions on Dyson’s website either, I had to email Dyson to find out.
Which part is best for what? Neither the manual nor the website gives you a clue.
The V8 can last up to 40 minutes on a full charge if you use the crevice and combination tool, up to 30 minutes with the mini motorized tool and soft roller cleaner head, and up to 25 minutes with the direct-drive cleaner head. Turn the V8’s suction power on to maximum effort, however, and you get a flat seven minutes, regardless of the attachment you use.
‘Max’ stands for ‘nitro,’ if we’re going along with the race car metaphor.
I was worried that 30 minutes with the soft roller cleaner head might be too short to complete a full sweep, but I never ran out of juice when using the V8. For a complete sweep of my 1,400 square foot flat, I averaged a cleaning time of 20 to 25 minutes, which is under the Dyson’s maximum run time (just vacuuming, no dusting). It also means that if you have a bigger place than mine, you should probably not get the V8.
Because the V8 takes 5.5 hours to fully recharge, Dyson recommends you plug it in and leave it, which made me worry about increasing my power bill. However, Dyson tells me that the V8 is clever enough to stop charging once it’s done, and doesn’t draw any power once idle.
The V8 showed me how filthy my floors really were
Seeing debris in the canister after a cleaning session is both disgusting and oddly satisfying.
I’m constantly surprised by the amount of dirt that appears in the canister when vacuuming floors that look clean. The V8’s suction power is thanks to the V8 digital motor, which spins at up to 110,000 times a minute to suck air and debris in — that’s five times faster than a Formula One car engine.
I didn’t have another vacuum to gauge the V8 against, but The Sweet Home compared more than a dozen cordless vacuum cleaners and found the Dyson V6 to be the most powerful of the lot. Since the V8’s digital motor is more powerful than the V6’s, I feel confident in saying that you won’t find the V8’s cleaning ability to be lacking.
Instead of roaring like other vacuum cleaners, the V8 runs with a diminished, higher-pitched whine that’s supposed to be 50% quieter than its older vacuums. It’s not whisper quiet, but you can almost have a conversation over it. If you hold your face near the back of the V8, you’ll find a cool breeze blowing there. That’s where the air that’s being sucked in is ejected, and through a HEPA filter no less, which means the air going out of the V8 is likely cleaner than the air that’s going in.
The blue cap houses a HEPA filter, which can be detached and washed.
After weeks of using the various attachments, I’ve noticed that each has its various quirks. The soft roller picks up debris best when moving forwards, not back. It can suck in things it rolls over, but not so much things at its very edges. The combination tool is good for brushing dust, but its suction is stronger when you pull the bristles back.
I found the hard-edged tools seem to suck with more strength than the soft ones; pulling the bristles back on the combination tool seems to pick up more dirt.
There were hard to reach debris that also resisted my efforts to get them, but turning the V8 to maximum power helped to resolve that — I wish the vacuum could be set to max strength all the time, but the battery drains in mere minutes when you do.
The V8 is a bagless vacuum, which means that you save money down the line by not having to buy bag replacements. But it also means that you have to empty the dirt from the canister yourself. It’s not a terrible chore, but it’s one of the inconveniences that bagged vacuums don’t suffer from.
You have to pull twice to eject the canister, which makes it hard to do accidentally.
The V8 makes it difficult to accidentally empty the canister, you have to pull twice on the ejection handle to open the bottom lid. I push the V8 as far into the trash can as I can to contain the ejection, as some dust will invariably float around. I find that hair tends to get stuck inside, and I’ve had to pluck them out from time to time. Be careful when you push the motor back in, as the force will expel more dust out the bottom.
And the V8 runs on battery, which means that the battery will eventually run down. Anyone who’s owned a smartphone for a few years knows that the battery will hold a lesser charge through time, that’s just how current battery technology works.
The battery is rated for up to 1,000 full charging cycles, so slightly more than two and a half years if you discharge and charge it daily, more if you don’t. A new battery from Dyson costs S$148, which isn’t terribly expensive, especially if you can get a few more years’ use out of the V8.
We got really meta together too
Dyson recommends you wash this filter once a month.
Dyson recommends you clean the filter once a month. The soft roller cleaner head, as well as the main canister, can also be disassembled and cleaned. Some people might find cleaning the vacuum a hassle, but I appreciate that the V8 is built for maintenance; cleaning the cleaner is both meta and satisfying. Disassembling the various parts was surprisingly easy, and so was putting them back again.
Even the main body can be taken apart and cleansed.
So good, so expensive
After a month of getting to know the Dyson V8 in all sorts of dirty situations, I’ve found it to be a thoughtfully designed machine.
It’s easy to handle, maneuverable, and the various attachments give it a lot of cleaning reach and flexibility. 30 minutes of battery life (with the soft roller cleaner head) will be short for some, but I always managed to vacuum my 1,400 square foot flat within 25 minutes.
But that price, though. For most people, S$999 to S$1,099 is a lot of coin to drop for a vacuum cleaner. If you’ve been blessed by the gods of fortune and can drop that amount without hesitation, then I think you’ll find the V8 a good vacuum cleaner.
For those who need to chew on it more, here’s what I’d think might make the V8 worthwhile: Convenience and power.
The V8 is cordless, and because of how easy it is to unplug and go, I’ve vacuumed more than I would’ve with my old corded vacuum. The V8 doubles as a handheld, which is great for dusting, and also for cleaning the car, something I usually have to pay to get done.
I actually enjoy cleaning and keeping things neat, and the V8 makes it easy to do that. In the past, I waited until I had spare time to do a proper sweep of the house, since bringing out my old corded vacuum felt like a small ceremony of its own.
But with the V8, I’ve performed more acts of random cleaning, whenever I’ve had a few spare minutes or spotted some dirt lying around. The V8 makes it easy; unplug, vacuum, plug it back. No fumbling with power cords or lugging around a vacuum involved.
You can get other cordless vacuums for the same convenience and cheaper price, but the V8 also has power, with enough suction for most filthy needs. A ‘Max’ switch is there to dial up the power for when you need more.
If you enjoy cleaning like I do, then the V8 is a tool that makes it a little more delightful. And if you don’t, well, maybe the V8’s convenience — and the price you pay for it — will encourage you to do it a little more.
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