Dyson helped pioneer it cordless vacuum space, and now it’s testing its waters robotic vacuum the arena. The Dyson 360 Vis Nav it’s been available in other parts of the world for a while, but recently went on sale stateside for $1,200. The company claims that its 360-degree vision system, complete with cameras and LED lights, and suction power similar to stick vacuum cleaners sets the 360 Vis Nav apart from its competitors. But while that may be true, Dyson is undeniably late to the party. Robot vacuum cleaners have improved a lot over the last three to five years, and there are dozens on the market, including some that offer more features for the same price. That said, Dyson pulled an Apple and shook up the product category despite being a late entrant on the scene? I spent some time with the 360 Vis Nav to find out.
Installation and design
Unboxing and setting up the 360 Vis Nav is like any other robot vacuum cleaner. In addition to the device, the box contains a charging cable and the base of the vacuum, a rectangular, purple device with two black-and-white checkered spots on either corner. While it’s refreshing to see a gadget that doesn’t wear the typical black or gray uniform, the 360 Vis Nav and its dock stick out like a sore thumb among other items and furniture in my home. With this robo-vac, there’s nothing like “blending into the decor.”
Engadget
Dyson’s first robot vacuum may be a late arrival on the scene, but it impresses with its excellent suction power and remarkable obstacle avoidance. However, its $1200 will be quite expensive for some.
- Excellent suction power
- Effective obstacle avoidance thanks to the 360-degree vision system
- D-shaped design cleans room corners better
- The display on the device provides necessary installation and cleaning instructions
- Super expensive
- There is no self-discharge base
- No erasability
Upon first installation, the Dyson 360 Vis Nav’s small on-board display invites you to select your preferred language and connect via the mobile app. The screen also doubles as a button, so you can fully press it to select options and advance through the installation process. As I learned while using the machine, the display also shows helpful technical tips and accompanying graphics when you need to clean the robot’s sensors. The My Dyson app (on iOS and Android) provides the same information and more, and will guide you through connecting the machine to your home Wi-Fi network, updating the software if needed, and completing the prerequisites before you start cleaning. Aside from waiting a few minutes for my review unit to update its firmware, the whole process only took me about 15 minutes.
Let’s revisit a few of Dyson’s claims to get to the bottom of the earth Disconnect the 360 Vis Nav from other robotic vacuum cleaners. The D-shaped design isn’t one of them, but it certainly helps the drive on the side of the machine when cleaning the corners of the room. Dyson claims that the actuator only turns on when cleaning such corners, and it uses suction (rather than sweepers like other robot vacuums) to grab debris from these hard-to-reach places. In addition, the machine has a 360-degree vision system that helps you map your home and clean around furniture and other objects, and it also has a sensor that detects the amount of dust present, so that it can speed up the vacuuming when necessary. a heat map of the dirtiest parts of your home. These are the main differentiators, along with the 360 Vis Nav’s claim that it has the same suction power as one of Dyson’s cordless stick vacuums.
Performance
But how did all this come together in practice? Pretty good, apparently. For the initial go-around, I cleaned the main floor of my house with the Dyson 360 Vis Nav instead of mapping it out first. I did this mostly because I like the chaos, but also because I wanted to see how the car would move around coffee tables, couches and other furniture, plus little things like cat toys that got in its way. Dyson makes it very clear in the setup process that you need to clear all the little obstacles out of the way of the 360 Vis Nav before it can be cleaned – I took a reusable bag from our last grocery run and a couple of smaller cat toys, but I knocked some charging cables on the ground because let’s be real, most people aren’t going to clean the robot they buy before sending it out to do its job.
I was quickly surprised at how many times the Dyson 360 Vis Nav stopped completely, “looked around” and continued to move during the first clean. He did a decent job avoiding large pieces of furniture like chairs and sofas because – when he got close to such pieces – he felt a few inches before hitting it and then he was able to stop and reorient himself. Most often mixed with a coffee table with a support beam extending to the floor between two legs. The 360 Vis Nav has adjustable wheels that allow it to “climb” over things like thicker carpets when cleaning, and I think it messed about 0.5” of support beam for decor. Robo-vac tried hard to climb onto it; It was borderline, but I was hooked all the way through. He actually managed to climb over the beam, land back down and continue cleaning, so kudos to the little guy for never giving up.
After this thrilling show, I left the 360 Vis Nav to its own devices. He continued cleaning the main floor of my house for almost an hour, hearing the suction when he discovered a more messy area. In particular, it looked better than other robot vacuums I’ve tried. Yes, it broke a few things, but the number of things that happened was no small thing. The first run I did was on Auto, the default cleaning setting and one of four you have to choose from, and while the machine is a bit loud, it’s nothing that will keep pets or young children out of the room. The loudest sound is when the machine automatically kicks the motor into high gear after detecting a high dust area, which it did several times in the high traffic areas of my kitchen and over a few area rugs. Like any other robotic vacuum cleaner worth its salt, the 360 Vis Nav returned to its dock to recharge automatically when the battery ran out.
I found the first cleanup to be a success, and it was the same when I did the first mapping run. 360 Vis Nav is quieter as it sweeps around your home, it doesn’t suck up dirt, instead it uses its vision system to map your home, all furniture and obstacles. The map it created of my main floor was accurate, and the Dyson app makes it easy to add boundaries and create rooms you can label. Once you’ve done this, you can create other restrictions, such as no-go zones and brushless cleaning. Like many other vacuums with smart mapping, you can tell the 360 Vis Nav to clean only certain rooms in each job.
Like most other robot vacuums, the assistant app experience focuses on home maps, schedules, and basic on-off controls. Dyson lets you choose between Auto, Quick, Silent and Powerful cleaning modes before you start, and if you have rooms assigned on your map, you can customize the cleaning modes for each room each time. For example, I could tell the machine to clean my kitchen in Auto mode and then clean the nest in Quiet mode. The app provides a heat map of your home after each job, which highlights the areas with the most dust, which is interesting to look at, but doesn’t give me a ton of meaningful information. It didn’t surprise me that the dirtiest places on my main floor were almost always near my front door and deck door.
Ultimately, the two things that impressed me most about the Dyson 360 Vis Nav were its suction power and ability to avoid obstacles. I live in a one-cat household, but if you saw how much cat hair my cordless stick vacuum picks up every time I use it, you’d think I lived with several more cats. After cleaning the upstairs of my house, there is always more fur in the bin because it is carpeted. After leaving the 360 Vis Nav upstairs to clean for almost an hour, I was surprised to find that the contents of the bin after cleaning there were almost identical to my cordless stick vacuum. Even the best robot vacuums I’ve used in the past have never picked up this much pet dander on carpeted floors – it’s impressive.
As for obstacle avoidance, I wasn’t expecting much from the 360 Vis Nav in that department, as the instructions tell you more than once to clear your floors of any obstacles before cleaning. Most of the time, there would be at least a couple of pairs of shoes, a couple of charging cables, and other small items on the floor while cleaning the car, but I never got an alert that it was stuck. Some of the robot vacuums I’ve tried sent me about half a dozen warnings during a cleaning job, and I had to remove the object they were choking on before they would start again. This has never happened with Dyson’s machine.
Competition
With the Dyson 360 Vis Nav coming in at $1,200, the competition in this price range is pretty weak. The $1400 iRobot Roomba Combo j9+ it’s certainly its most direct competitor, offering a bit more for an extra $200. (We’ve seen the Combo j9+ drop as low as $1,000 in the past, so you can get it for less than Dyo’s machine.) As a “Combi” device, the j9+ vacuums and cleans without help. from human (basically) and is smart enough to know when to switch from vacuuming to mopping using a built-in scrub pad and reservoir. It also comes with a self-draining base that can hold dry litter for up to 60 days and fill the reservoir with clean water. While automatic cleaning is nicer than requiring a robot vacuum, it’s a pain that Dyon’s $1,000-plus machine doesn’t come with a clean base-piece of equipment. some models at half price.
Collection
When you get your head around the robot-vacuum landscape, the Dyson 360 Vis Nav seems almost quaint — and a little confusing. Robot vacuums aren’t new, they’ve been around for a long time — long enough that you can get a pretty decent vacuum here for under $300. Spending $1,200 on Dyson’s machine gets you a very good robot vacuum with the best suction power, effective obstacle avoidance, good home maps, and a clean application experience. But none of these features are unique to the 360 Vis Nav. Its suction power and obstacle avoidance might be superior, but is that enough to justify the expense? If you’re already willing to shell out $1,000 or more for a robot vacuum, there are other options that will give you similar features and more, including self-cleaning and self-emptying capabilities. However, there are two groups of people I would recommend the 360 Vis Nav to: those willing to give up advanced features in exchange for the most suction power possible (and money to burn), and Dyson diehards.
