Dyson V15 Detect Total Clean review

The Dyson V15 Detect Total Clean comes with three notable new features: a dust-illuminating laser, acoustic dust sensing, and anti-tangle heads. Before we try out these “improvements”, how does it perform in our cleaning tests?

Anti-tangle heads

The anti-tangle cleaning heads were easily my favourite feature. Both the small, powered hair screw tool – for cleaning upholstery – and the standard powered carpet head stopped hair from tangling around the brush. This meant no disassembling the head to cut off hair, fur, or threads.

The main carpet head does this by incorporating a comb, which pulls the hair from around the spinning brush and is then sucked up into the dust bin. The upholstery tool’s design is inspired by the Archimedes’ screw (one end of the brush is smaller than the other) and moves the hair to the narrower end of the brush, which then goes the dust bin. Both heads worked excellently and, as someone with long hair, I can’t sing the praises of this feature enough.
Verdict – take my money

Laser dust detection

The laser, only available on the hard floor head, lights up dirt and dust on the floor, making them easier to see and vacuum. However, I found that as long as I vacuumed all the floor, all I could see with the laser was confirmation that I hadn’t missed large areas of dust or dirt. Dyson claims it reveals microscopic dust, but unless you are looking at the floor with a microscope, it’s just a fancy green light.
Verdict – cute but not really useful.

Acoustic dust sensing

The acoustic dust-sensing technology analyses dust particles as they’re sucked up and displays them in a graph on the display. This feature is available no matter what cleaning head you use. It was fun at first, but after a while I found myself just focusing on cleaning the floor. This feature could be useful in homes of people with allergies and asthma, as you can see the number of allergy-aggravating particles reduce as you vacuum. But it didn’t change how I clean.
Verdict – handy in some situations but otherwise limited.

Want the new heads but balk at the price?

As usual, the latest Dyson comes with a high price tag (the V15 Detect Total Clean costs $1499). However, if you already own a Dyson stick vac and want the laser or anti-tangle features, then I have a hack for you.

Go to dyson.co.nz and look up replacement parts (you’ll find it under “Support”). Select a V15 model and you can buy the heads separately. We found they fit the V11 Outsize and V8 models we have in our test lab and worked fine (but there is no guarantee they’ll work on older models as well as they do on the V15 because the electronics are different).

Costs:

• Laser head (Laser slim fluffy cleaner head) – $139
• Powered head with anti-tangle comb (Torque drive motorhead) – $135
• Hair screw tool – $49

Specs

Price: $1499
Bin volume: 0.77L
Dimensions: 126 x 25 (H x W)
Charge time: 4.5 hours
Weight: 3kg

See how the Dyson V15 Detect Total clean performed in our test.

First Looks are trials of new and interesting products from the perspective of our product experts. Our lab-based tests offer truly objective product comparisons. The vacuum was loaned to us by Dyson.