Dyson V16 Piston Animal with Submarine review: Doing chores shouldn’t be this much fun

Doing the vacuuming might just be the only enjoyable cleaning chore out there. There’s a simple satisfaction to sucking up visible debris from your floor like some sort of hygiene-addicted Ghostbuster, and Dyson’s cool-looking cordless models have always helped fuel that ‘vacuuming-makes-me-feel-good’ analogy.

But this one, the Dyson V16 Piston Animal, shoots out a green sci-fi beam onto your floor so you can plan your attack against every tiny, doomed dust particle, like you’ve been sent from the future to rid the world of kitchen crumbs. Throw in a new Submarine 2.0 wet-head roller add-on for sorting out spills and sticky stains, and you’ve got the complete floor cleaning package.

Want the full run down on what makes the Dyson V16 Piston Animal so great? Here’s 5 reasons why you want it in your cleaning cupboard.

Dyson V16 Piston Animal with Submarine: In Short…

• Powerful motor: Dyson’s Hyperdymium 900w motor offers ‘fade-free’ suction at 315 air watts
• Great battery life: 70 minute run time and a convenient removable battery
• Adaptive roller head: Main head automatically recognises hard floors and carpets, changing settings on the fly to best suit both
• Big bin capacity: With a smart compression feature to squeeze in more dust
• Tangle-free roller: Meaning you don’t have to worry about unravelling trapped hair
• Built in light: For illuminating even hidden dust
• Wet cleaning option: Submarine 2.0 add-on can replace your mop
• Price and availability: From £749.99, available now. £899.99 with Submarine add-on

1. This thing sucks

Yes, it’s an old joke at this point, but we’re going to use it again — the Dyson V16 Piston Animal sucks, in the best possible way. Dyson’s continual pursuit of miniaturised power presents itself this year in the Hyperdymium 900w motor. If this had existed in the 80s, the Honey I Shrunk The Kids gang would have never stood a chance. It has no problem pulling in even heavier particles, or stubborn fine grit stuck in grouting or flooring crevices.

Built into the main unit of the Dyson V16 Piston Animal is a small round LCD screen, letting you see in real-time the types of gunk the motor is sucking up, with a button letting you switch between eco, medium and high-strength suction settings. While I missed the trigger-button on/off suction starter of old, the vacuum remains ergonomic and easily manoeuvrable around tight spaces.

2. A sci-fi cleaning head for every task

Arguably the most notable change for the V16 Piston Animal is its redesigned main cleaning head. Whereas older Dyson models have had you change the head depending on whether you’re working on soft carpet or hard floors, this new vacuum cleaner boasts an ‘auto-adaptive’ head, the ‘All Floors Cones Sense’, that can intelligently spot when it’s on carpet or a harder surface, and adapt suction accordingly.

It’s using two conical bars sat side by side, including two brushes — a stiff one for digging out crumbs from soft surfaces, and a soft one for getting to work smoothly over hard floors. It works seamlessly, quickly changing speeds as surface types change. And I didn’t notice any significant difference in suction quality across surfaces, even with the 2-in-1 head style, while long hairs were mercifully cleanly pulled in, rather than tangling in the bars.

Best of all? The roller head also includes a floor-level green LED light that illuminates the space in front of the vacuum. I was shocked to see how much dirt built up in just a day or so across my home’s floors, clearly visible in the light beam. And it made it doubly satisfying to see it all sucked up as I swept through the collected mess.

For what it’s worth, Dyson has made it easier to remove the head too, with a release button at the standing end of the extension connector pole, despite the fact you’re now going to leave it on 90% of the time.

The only downside? With a tapered, rather than straight-edge end to the head, getting straight into corners can be a little tough at first, requiring more of a pivot to get into the meeting point between walls. But from our tests, the angle also means it performs better once it is slotted into those corners, so there’s some give and take there.

As per usual, Dyson throws in a few other useful attachments — a crevice tool, a hair screw tool ideal for getting rid of stubborn hair for pet lovers, and a combination brush for gently getting at upholstery. It’s worth noting that the main unit also can be used without either an attachment or an extension pole connected this time, too, letting you take the bare minimum with you to do some quick cleaning in tight spaces, such as cleaning a car interior. And, as we’ll get onto in a bit, there’s also an additional optional head for wet cleaning floors, too.

3. A removable battery for easy charging

Vacuum cleaners, even cordless ones, are reasonably large household items, especially when all the attachments are connected to them. So charging them up, even if you’re wall mounting a charging dock (as included in this package), sees them having a reasonable footprint when out of use. As such, it’s great to see Dyson working a removable battery into the V16 Piston Animal, placed in its 'foot', letting you plug just the battery itself into the charger, and pop it out of the way.

As for battery performance, it’s a really respectable 70-odd minutes on a full charge, in eco mode. You’ll get less in-use time from higher suction levels, but honestly, eco mode was good enough for 90% of jobs we faced during testing.

4. The best dust bin in the business

The dust bin on the V16 Piston Animal is a bit like Dr Who’s Tardis — despite being little larger than with previous models, it’s got a significantly higher capacity. You can squeeze 1.3 litres of rubbish into it before needing to empty it, close to double previous capacities.

Dyson’s managed this by tweaking the interior filter mesh, taking up less internal space but still getting the job done admirably. And that’s not all — the bin now has a sliding internal housing that can be used to compress and compact the collected junk to further delay the inevitable distress of having to empty the thing. Even this task is made as painless a process as possible though, with another internal mechanism scraping the insides of the bin to ensure a clean and full emptying with just one sweeping open.

5. Spills and stains, be gone!

You’ve got rid of the grit and dirt, but what about when that glass of wine spills over, or baby’s porridge ends up on the floor? Grab the Dyson V16 Piston Animal package with the revised Submarine 2.0 wet mop roller.

Rather than using suction, the motorised head uses its own fluffy roller to scrub your floor. With a 300ml liquid volume, you add a splash of detergent to the water reservoir, and get rolling across the floor. The smart difference with the Submarine 2.0 roller compared to other solutions is that it’s cleaning the roller as you’re using it, by adding fresh water with every rotation. It helps make sure you’re actually cleaning your surfaces, rather than pushing dirty water around your floor, or smearing spills.

The Submarine 2.0 add-on is pricey though, and the performance-to-pound difference between a vacuum and a broom, versus the submarine and a decent mop, isn’t quite so pronounced. It also needs to be manually cleaned after each use to keep performance at its best and to keep from there being a build up on the head. We’d consider this then a nice to have rather than an essential component.

Verdict

Is it weird that I now look forward to my round of the chores since living with the Dyson V16 Piston Animal? With a load of smart upgrades, and with more versatile cleaning applications than ever before, Dyson’s all-rounder is hard to beat.

If there’s one shadow looming over the whole package, it’s price — Dyson gear always comes at a premium, but the £899 price tag for the full package including the Submarine head is very costly. On top of that, a new generation of Dyson vacs inevitably pushes down the retail cost of the older ones — which remain excellent, and can now be found at a lower price, meaning if you’re on the market, shopping around for a deal on a previous model might be wise.

But that’s not to detract from what’s been achieved here. From smaller tweaks like the removable battery, to more fundamental changes like the dual-purpose main head and dust-compacting bin, Dyson’s done everything it can to make cleaning up frictionless. Dust-busting still makes us feel good.

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