Dyson reminds us lasers are cool, leaves house cleaning tech rivals behind

A few years ago, you probably wouldn’t have imagined a tech heavy approach to the mission of countering dust inside your house. For most houses, a rudimentary broom and mop routine was the be all and end all. For some, there was a fancy upgrade to a vacuum cleaner. Yet, vacuum cleaners seem to be stuck in a time warp. But, what could technology do in the simple task of picking up the dust that you see and moving it along to the dustbin? There is a chasm, dividing dust busters that haven’t evolved over the years, and those that have. For the latter segment, this latest step forward quite relevant. UK technology company Dyson has done two things with the new Dyson V12 Detect Slim. First, reduce the size and weight. Secondly, think of a Class 1 lasers, sensors that tell you the exact specifics of what’s been collected and upgraded filtration. You would probably have three questions at this time. First, how much has been shaved off in terms of bulk? Secondly, has that compromised suction power and cleaning performance? Third, are there any rivals? Let us take this one one. The Dyson V12 Detect Slim weighs 2.2kg, which is significantly lower than its larger siblings – V11 (around 2.9kg) and V10 (around 2.67kg). The immediate advantage is it’ll be nimble if you’re looking to clean the upper echelons of a house layout – curtains, racks etc. The bin is 0.35 litre in capacity, which is a bit smaller than the 0.54 litre in the V11 – this means it’s a better fit for apartments rather than large houses, if you intend to do the cleaning in one go. Or, you must empty this, depending on how dusty your house is. Despite the smaller size, the Dyson V12 Detect Slim retains the same suction power as the larger V10 – 150 air watts compared with 151 air watts. The Hyperdymium motor spins at 1,25,000 rpm, or revolutions per minute. The cyclone method of sucking in the dust is the same capacity too, as its siblings. No compromise on the battery run time either – up to 60 minutes, and the battery is easily replaceable too. Now on to the cool quotient of lasers. And that really is the Dyson V12 Detect Slim’s party piece. This vacuum comes with a new Laser Slim Fluffy cleaner head attachment, which uses a Class 1 laser to illuminate the dust on floors and other surfaces – the sort that our eyes will never be able to see, allowing us to live in the illusion that everything around us is clean. The green colour laser is mounted on the cleaning head, and it’s green in colour, something that the human eyes work better compared with other colours. Why aren’t rivals using laser tech in house cleaning gadgets? The answer is two pronged. First, rivals that make similar form factor vacuum cleaners, such as Prosenic (they have the P11), haven’t gotten around to the point in product evolution to implement this before Dyson. Secondly, robot vacuum cleaners do use lasers, but that is mostly for navigation and mapping your house’s layout – not for detecting and mopping up dust. Irrespective of which cleaning head attachment you use, and there are 7 that come in the box including a new hair screw tool, you’ll be able to take advantage of the piezo sensor. As you go about vacuuming the house, this will constantly keep log of the size and quantity of dust particles. In case it detects a lot of dust input compared with earlier, it’ll dial up the motor power. And slow it down when the dust density reduces. The circular LCD screen on the back of the cleaner tells you the stats – exact number of particles of different sizes included. The dialled up tech quotient aside, there are tweaks that should make it more usable. The new trigger button doesn’t need to be kept pressed while the vacuum is working – but you can’t operate this with the same hand that’s holding the Dyson V12 Detect Slim. Should you buy one? It is a serious investment for a cleaner house, at ₹55,900. Weirdly, this is the lightest and smallest vacuum in Dyson’s line-up in India, and yet the most expensive. Make of that what you will. You do get the most powerful slim and light vacuum though. Add in the laser finding the dust for you and the piezo sensor doing the monitoring smarts, and these devices don’t get much smarter than this. Yes, battery life will be lesser if this keeps cranking up to the more powerful cleaning mode. The slimmer and lighter design somehow doesn’t feel as solid as a V11. Yet, you’ll probably ignore those foibles, for the cleaning prowess this has. The other thing with Dyson vacuums is they last really long, which means you’ll derive value from this, for many years to come. Here we are – Dyson’s house cleaning tech still doesn’t have any genuine rivals.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vishal Mathur is Technology Editor for Hindustan Times. When not making sense of technology, he often searches for an elusive analog space in a digital world.
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