Dyson V8 Fluffy: A family friendly vacuum cleaner

Two decades. That’s how long our vacuum cleaner has been sleeping in a box, kept away in the storeroom.

Looking like a ladybird – red and black but without the small black spots –  the 10-kilogram heavy noisy machine sucks dirt and has a very long wire to lug it around. It also never saw the daylight because the cleaner head could cause scratches on marble flooring.

But over the years household cleaning equipment have evolved and a certain cleaning stick and wet wipes, and mop have served our cleaning needs well.

That is until Dyson’s V8 Fluffy entered our household. The British technology company is a familiar household name due to their uber cool bladeless fans, and most recently its Supersonic hair dryer that got women standing in line at a retailer’s mid-year sale.

It was hard to resist the call to review Dyson V8 Fluffy when the company’s representatives confidently assured me that V8’s soft roller cleaner head is invented for hard floors and suitable for marble flooring.

When unboxed, a futuristic looking machine that is bright and cheery was unveiled – red, blue and yellowish gold.

It weighs about a quarter of our ancient vacuum cleaner at 2.6kg. Still, some family members found it heavy on the wrist and felt tired after 20 minutes of usage.

Inside Dyson cord-free vaccums, key components like the motor and battery are positioned near the handle. This shifts the centre of gravity, making the cleaning end of the vacuum supposedly much lighter.

What got us more excited is the fact that Dyson V8 Fluffy has no cord. This means there’s nothing to unravel, plug in, and drag a cleaning machine around our HDB flat.

The only time a wire is needed is when it needs charging. On a single charge (mind you, it takes five hours), the battery runtime lasts about 40 minutes which is sufficient to clean our flat twice over in one charge.

Even on a second cleaning session, the suction remains powerful – starts strong and stays strong.

Technology wise, Dyson’s patented Root Cyclone technology and V8’s improved filtration system promise to capture allergens, such as pollen and dust mite faeces, and expels cleaner air. This is very important in my household because dirt and allergies cannot live with us.

The Home Test

Over three-and-a-half weeks, we used Dyson V8 Fluffy and soft roller cleaner head daily to vacuum our living room, bedrooms and kitchen.

Honestly, it cleans very well – picking up almost every speck of dirt and chunks of food including corn kernels and an earphone plug.

That’s how powerful Dyson digital motor V8 is – compact and can spin at up to 110,000 rpm. Sucks well, fast and deep.

Let’s put it to a test. We used a cleaning stick and a wet wipe to go over a bedroom. Obvious to the eyes, the floor was very dirty.

We used Dyson V8 Fluffy and soft roller cleaner head to vacuum another bedroom. To test the cleanliness of the floor further, we used a cleaning stick and a wet wipe to go over once. The wipe returned visibly less dirtier.

There were instances where the swivel neck that pivots to reach into awkward places was hard to turn. So if you have items with legs in the house – study desk and a chair, dining table, dining chairs, clothing racks and memorabilia stored in boxes – you could experience a similar situation. It is a matter of working around it.

Switching to a different accessory was easy. Simply click to unlock, pop in a new tool and click to lock. We managed to convert from a stick mode to handheld mode easily.

We used the crevice tool to vacuum hard-to-reach places such as window rails and behind the TV console and shelf.

Clearing the waste was an easy affair. A single ejection empties trapped dust and debris. There was no need to touch the dirt at all. We used a damp cloth to clean the interior of the bin.

With a four-month old baby living next door, we took it upon ourselves to vacuum only in the mid mornings and not for too long. The V8 is said to be 50% quieter than previous generation machines. Well, we didn’t receive any complaints or deadly stares from our neighbour.

At S$999, the Dyson V8 Fluffy is a costly household cleaning appliance.

To qualify a household cleaning tool that’s been put through about 18 months of research and development work with about 500,000 hours of testing and a line of products with impressive technology and reliability, it’s an investment.

There is no additional cost such as dust bags needed to maintain its capabilities. It comes with a soft roller cleaner head, mini motorised tool, combination tool and the crevice tool, mattress tool, up top tool and elbow joint tool. It is a cordless feature and a single multipurpose machine.

In the 26 days the Dyson V8 was in our hands, our house was very clean, just the way we are used to living, and relatively dust-free.

I just wished I had the courage (and the heart) to suck a lizard when neither an insect killer spray nor a family member was around.

Besides a cheaper price tag, also on our wish list is a vacuum cleaner that can also be used in bathrooms.

The Dyson V8 Fluffy is available at major departmental and electrical stores including Tangs, Takashimaya, Harvey Norman, Best Denki, Courts and Gain City. The machine includes a two-year warranty on parts and labour. More details here. 

All views expressed are the writer’s. The review set was from Dyson.