Dyson V15 Review
Advantages
- ✔️ Great suction
- ✔️ Amazing battery life
- ✔️ Attachments/tools for every scenario
- ✔️ Green laser to spot dirt
Disadvantages
- ❌ Pricey
- ❌ Questionable features
Contents
Our Rating
92%
Our Review
Introduction
The Dyson V15 is Dyson's latest and greatest (at time of writing, of course) cordless vacuum cleaner. It follows the same naming convention as the other models, and follows the same general design where there is a body containing the motor, battery, screen and bin that connects to a long neck for normal vacuuming. The neck can be detached to turn the vacuum into a handheld cleaner for tackling stairs and furniture.
Although there is a general improvement of all areas of the cordless vacuum, including the two most important factors; the battery and suction, one of the most talked about features of the Dyson's V15 is the ability for it to detect and report on the different types of dirt that it has collected during the clean. More on that below.
The Dyson V15 follows on from the great work from the Dyson V8 and Dyson V12, both great vacuums which we have reviewed.
You can read a bit about Dyson's V15 and its features on Dyson's V15 website, but read on for our independent review.
Performance
Alright, let's start with the most important part of the review; the Dyson V15's performance in terms of how well it can clean. Realistically, everything else is just a bonus, we really want to know how well the Dyson is going to clean our floors, right?
As with all of our vacuum reviews we do a few tests:
Vacuum a hard floor. In our case we have a wooden floor (not laminate, a grained wood floor).
Vacuum a textured stone floor.
Vacuum a medium-pile carpet. This is your standard carpet you'd find in most homes.
Vacuum a high-pile rug. This is often a challenge, as the fibres are sometimes too long for brush heads to handle.
The tests all happen in a house over the course of a month, so these aren't necessarily staged one-off tests, but us living with the vacuum to really tell you how it performs. To make things more challenging, we have a black labrador that sheds a lot of hair.
Hard Floors
Getting to it then, the Dyson V15 performed as we would expect on the two hard floors; brilliantly. It picked up all of the dirt across both floors without any issue.
Interestingly, the V15 comes with two different motorised brush heads. There's the standard head that comes with most Dyson cordless vacuums, but also a 'furry' head which works particularly well on hard floors like ours.
The addition of the green laser on the front of the vacuum illuminates dust on the ground as you move round. Our hard floors are in a room with a load of natural light, so this wasn't as effective during the day as it would be at night, but it did still work during daytime.
Medium-Pile Carpet
Onto the medium-pile carpet test next. Our carpets are normal household carpets, which are heavily used throughout the house. As mentioned earlier, we have a black labrador so the carpet is usually saturated with black dog hair, which makes the task a little more challenging.
To no surprised the Dyson V15 absolutely smashed this test. We used the standard motorised brush head, which has stiff bristles in a spiral shape that spin at high speeds to dislodge dirt and hair from the carpet as it goes. The suction is noticeably stronger than our usual Dyson V8 that we use.
All-in-all the Dyson cleaned the carpets as well as any vacuum we've used. This is no surprise, Dyson's are pretty well rounded to all floor types and all of the previous models we've reviewed have done exceptionally well in this area.
High-Pile Rug
This test is actually a little unfair on vacuums but we like to include it anyway. We have a high pile rug (a "shag rug"), which nearly every vacuum struggles to clean because the long fibres just get sucked up and around the motorised brush head.
The Dyson V15 is no different. You do have options available to you to make this a little easier on the V15 though. You can disable to spinning of the brush head, which minimises the amount of tangling that takes place. We ended up running the vacuum in eco mode to reduce suction greatly, turning off the motorised head and trying to slowly clean the carpet in slow consistent strokes. For the parts that it couldn't handle we were able to use the crevice tool to pull the fibres away, cleaning them as we go.
Being honest, we may end up removing this from the test in future. It's an unfair test of a vacuums cleaning capabilities, and I'm unsure there will ever be something that can consistently clean it well. I don't even like the rug!
Design and Features
As already mentioned the Dyson V15 has the same overall design as the other Dyson models. It has a base unit which houses the motor, battery and dust bin and can be used in an upright position by using the long neck, or in a handheld position by removing that neck.
The screen & dirt reporting
The top unit houses a screen which traditionally has done very little other than show the battery level and current suction profile (eco, normal or boost), and this hasn't changed with the Dyson V15, however the screen does a lot more now.
The Dyson V15 has what is called a "piezo sensor" installed in the main body. Traditionally a piezo sensor measures differences in pressure, but the Dyson V15 uses it to detect the size of particles that are being sucked into the bin by the Dyson vacuum. These particles are recorded during each session and the screen will show you a breakdown chart of what dirt particles were collected during the cleaning session.
The reason for this? I'm honestly not entirely sure, but it is pretty interesting. In actually using the vacuum at different times throughout the month you do notice differences in particle sizes, usually resulting from whether mud has been brought into the house and dried, or whether there has been something dropped. It is interesting to see the differences from room-to-room too, with the lesser-used rooms in the house being almost entirely tiny dust.
Obviously this isn't a clincher when buying a vacuum, but it's certainly unique.
Green laser
Similarly to the Dyson V12, the Dyson V15 comes with a green laser on the front of the motorised head. The laser projects a wide, flat green light in front of the vacuum. It acts to illuminate all dust particles in front of the vacuum to make it easier to spot any dirt on your floor.
Because of the angle and power/brightness of the laser the dirt particles and hair on your floor will cast long and obvious shadows on the floor, which makes it clear where you need to clean.
Although this may appear to be a bit of a fad it's actually extremely useful, especially when cleaning hard floors. You can have the best vacuum in the world at picking up dirt, but if miss part of the room then it hasn't done the job.
The green laser does work on carpets too, but it's obviously a little less effective.
As mentioned above, our hard floors are located in a room with a lot of natural light, which of course has an impact on the effectiveness of the Dyson V15's green laser. It did still work though, and we were able to spot dirt particles that wouldn't otherwise be obvious. It clearly works far better in rooms with lower light levels though.
Weight
The Dyson V15 is the heaviest of Dyson's cordless vacuums. Weighing in at 3KG vs the mid-2KG of the other models.
The extra weight is pretty much exclusively from the main body of the vacuum's unit. This is down to the increase in performance and feature set. Compared to previous models of Dyson cordless vacuums you now have additional sensors, better suction and improved battery life. All of these things come with a trade-off of adding weight to the vacuum.
Increased weight isn't necessarily a bad thing though. When in vertical 'mode' (in other words, when you're using the long neck like an upright vacuum) the weight of the Dyson rests on the unit itself, effectively pushing it into the ground, which improves its ability to clean carpets.
There's a trade-off here when using the vacuum in handheld mode, as it becomes that bit more heavier to carry around.
Let's be clear here though, the difference in weight between the V15 and the other models is often less than the weight of a can of beans, so most people probably won't even notice the difference.
Maneuverability
As with the other models the V15 is very maneuverable. It has the same design as most cordless vacuum cleaners so benefits from the same advantages of having a handheld and upright mode, making it easy to lug about.
What gives Dyson the edge over other vacuums is actually the attachments. The neck on the motorised brush heads has a ball-like attachment, making it easy to glide around a room.
The V15 ships with way more attachments than the other models too, which includes plenty of tools to get into hard to each areas. We cover the full toolset below.
Battery Life
Battery life on the V15 is great, coming in at an advertised "up to 60 min", which isn't too far from reality.
In reality, that figure comes from running the Dyson in eco mode, which although possible, most people won't do. Most people actually use 'normal' mode, which sits between eco and boost mode. In our testing you can comfortably get 30 minutes out of normal mode, which is more than enough time to vacuum your whole house.
Eco mode works just fine on hard floors, so if your home has a lot of hard floors then you'll probably find battery life will be dramatically higher. If you have a lot of carpets, pets or hard-wearing areas then you'll see lower battery life, but that's to be expected.
We've used Dyson vacuums for a very long time now, and the batteries tend to have a healthy life span, meaning the battery life you have on day 1 won't be too dissimilar to the battery life on day 1000. The batteries are also easily replaceable, should you ever need to.
Tools and Attachments
There are two models of the V15 available; the "Detect Absolute" or the "Detect Absolute+" models. The vacuum itself is the same, the difference comes from the tools/attachments that come with the vacuum.
With both models you get the following:
Digital motorbar cleaner head - This is the spinning bristle head for normal cleaning.
Fluffy optic cleaner head - This is the soft brush head for hard floors.
Hair screw tool - A small version of the bristled motorbar, mostly used for stairs, pet beds, furniture.
Crevice tool - For reaching the corners of rooms, skirting boards.
Low reach adapter - This nifty gadget is basically a hinge for other tools, allowing you to get the crevice tool behind a bookcase, for example.
Detect Absolute
The standard model then comes with the "Combination tool", which is a tool that is around twice the width of the crevice tool with an optional fluffy cover. It's great for vacuuming surfaces that need dusting, like desks.
Detect Absolute+
There are 2 additional tools with Absolute+, these are:
Mattress tool - This is a wide but skinny head for cleaning mattresses and sofas.
Mini soft dusting brush - A different style of brush with soft bristles for dusting. Similar to the combination tool with Absolute but a little less robust in my opinion.
'Up top' adapter - A connector to attach other tools to. Allows you to reach on the top of cupboards and other hard-to-reach high places.
Honestly, the choice of which to go for is really up to you. We rarely use the 'Up top' tool, but you may have more use for it. The Mattress tool is useful, but you have equivalents on both models, same with the mini soft dusting brush.
The Facts
Power | 240AW |
Battery Run Time | 60 minutes |
Charge Time | 4 hours |
Weight | 3KG |
Capacity/Dust Box | 0.77 Litres |
Noise Level | 76 dB |
Good for Pets? | ✔️ |
Additional Tools | 5 |
The Ratings
Design
9/10Features
9.7/10Price
8/10Summary
The Dyson V15 is a superb cordless vacuum, arguably the best cordless on the market today. It has all of the features you need (and some you probably don't), amazing battery life, superb suction that never drops, a good size bin, reasonable charging time, an LCD screen and every attachment tool you could ever need.
The downside? The price.
Dyson products aren't the cheapest, but you get what you pay for. I've always had Dyson, and while I appreciate they aren't the cheapest option available you can notice the difference in quality and their ability to clean. Some of the features, such as the green laser, may seem like a bit of a fad, but it can be quite useful. The sensor that detects the type of dirt that you're collecting is less useful but in all honesty that isn't what you're paying for; it's the battery, suction and quality of the vacuum itself.