Dyson - PencilVac Fluffycones Cordless Vacuum - Black/Black

We’ve had our Dyson Fluffycones for several weeks now and are loving it! We’ve had several of the cordless vacs, but this doesn’t compare. This is easier than grabbing a broom to sweep up! We find it is used at least once a day, but usually multiple times. We have an almost 2-yr-old granddaughter that I keep during the workdays - and there is always something needing to be cleaned up. This is powerful, so lightweight, easy to just grab from the charger that is stands on, and simple to dump the dirt. It doesn’t hold a lot of dirt, but it’s so lightweight and easy to clean out that it isn’t an issue. And it vacuums up an incredible amount - so it seems our floors are staying cleaner on a daily basis.

I have owned a ton of Dyson vacuums and still do, but after we changed the majority of our flooring to tile or engineered wood, the traditional vacuums weren't cutting it as much. I was a tad skeptical of the Fluffycones but I should be smacked for even thinking to doubt the fine folks at Dyson. This thing gets everywhere and is so incredibly agile. I feel like Fred Astaire dancing around and vacuuming. The dual lasers make sure I get everything instead of just pushing it around. Now instead of a much longer vacuuming every week or so, I can do quick touch-ups as I see them and for that the battery life and bin capacity are perfect. Also easier to fit into my day. Do a couple rooms, empty the bin, put back on charger (even though I still had plenty of time left), and then do it again in a day or two. So easy!

This product glide very smooth in all directions and the battery life is pretty decent for it size

PROS: Ease of use (weight and size) Excellent build quality Green LED illumination Fluffycones (they look brand new even after heavy use with dog hair) Excellent engineering SO-SO: Runtime before charging (30 mins on ECO mode) Price CONS: Small debris capacity Doesn't do well with heavy carpet or thicker rugs The charging base is too light, and it's too easy to move around I’ll admit it; I'm a big fan of Dyson. Over the years, they’ve made remarkable strides in the wireless vacuuming arena, nudging other brands to follow their lead in the quest to innovate home and personal electronics. We use a lot of Dyson products, including upright, stick, and robot vacuums, as well as headphones, air purifiers, and hair dryers. Currently, we’re still using a V11 that we purchased over seven years ago, and it’s in fantastic shape, even with a shedding Duck Toller pup in our home. One of the standout features of Dyson vacuums is their user-friendliness. They’re light and can be picked up at a moment’s notice, which is truly how Dyson changed the game when they first launched their wireless "stick vacuum." Enter the new Dyson Pencilvac, which is incredibly lightweight yet powerful enough to tackle hardwood floors with ease. In our home, the upstairs is completely carpeted, where we use our Dyson Vis Nav, while the downstairs features hardwood flooring. Initially, we didn’t think we needed a dedicated vacuum for the hardwood, but that all changed once we got the Pencilvac. Like most Dyson products, the design and craftsmanship set it apart from the competition; every component feels expertly engineered and crafted from high-quality materials. We already had the MyDyson app installed on our devices, which made it a breeze to connect to the Pencilvac. While the app is quite useful for our headphones and air purifier, providing settings, firmware updates, and usage stats, I’m not entirely convinced it's necessary for the Pencilvac. That said, it did have an update ready to go when I first started using it. Connecting it to the app automatically registers the vacuum and activates its generous two-year warranty. The Pencilvac consists of three distinct parts: the top section houses the battery, the middle section includes the collection chamber and controls, and the main brush head completes the assembly. Additionally, it comes with a handy crevice and brush combo tool for those specific cleaning tasks. Battery life is sufficient for our needs, offering about 10 minutes of use on the most powerful mode—plenty of time to clean our entire downstairs area in our 2500 sq ft home. For larger spaces, it’s recommended to use balanced mode, while eco mode is ideal for everyday maintenance. On eco mode, the battery lasts around 30 minutes, about 20 minutes on balanced mode, and a solid 10 minutes on the most powerful setting. Fortunately, it charges quickly, so you can easily top it off if 10 minutes isn’t enough. If the battery runs completely out, though that’s hard to imagine, it takes a few hours to fully recharge. The Pencilvac truly shines when it comes to quiet cleaning; it glides effortlessly over hardwood and tile floors and reaches tricky spots with ease thanks to its cone brush. In fact, my kindergartener loves using it to help out with cleaning. One of my favorite features is the bright green LED lights that illuminate both the front and back of the vacuum. These lights make it simple to spot dirt and dust, even in well-lit rooms. They ensure that you can pick up all the hair and give you a good sense of how much vacuuming is needed. Without those LED lights, you might miss a lot of dust and hair. Some potential buyers may wonder whether this vacuum can clean carpets effectively. In our experience, it does navigate a few thin area rugs, but when it comes to standard carpeting, it tends to struggle. Another version of Dyson's products (such as the V series) vacuum would definitely outperform it in those situations. However, there is one aspect I’m not particularly fond of: the lightweight plastic charging stand. I wish it were made of metal or at least sturdier because it tends to wiggle around when you pull the vacuum off. The trick is to step on the front of the stand while pulling the vacuum off, but it still feels a bit awkward. Our older V11 has a third-party metal stand that doesn't present this issue, despite the V11 being much heavier than the Pencilvac. Currently priced at $600, the Pencilvac is certainly on the higher end compared to many other options, but it offers exceptional quality in return. While Dyson products tend to come at a premium, you might want to explore other Dyson models in this price range, especially if you need something that excels on heavy carpets or features mopping.

I live in a split-level home where my main floor is mostly tile and hardwood. For these surfaces, the PencilVac is great. It’s easy to maneuver and get into tight spaces, it doesn’t take up much space, and the built-in green LED does a fantastic job of showing you all the corners and crevices that need cleaning. But it’s really only for hard surfaces and it does not do carpets. The dustbin is also quite small and the battery life is much shorter compared to other Dyson vacuums. This is all in service making the vacuum as compact and lightweight as it can be, but for the price you are still giving up quite a lot compared to what you could get from other brands or even other Dyson’s when they’re on sale. I would still recommend it if it fits your needs, but it’s for everyone. With the vacuum, you get the Fluffycones cleaner head and a crevice/duster tool for handheld vacuuming. You also get a charging base that doubles as storage for the vacuum and the crevice tool. The whole setup is remarkably compact and I was able to easily slot this into a space in my living room where it’s easy to get to and doesn’t stand out. The magnetic charging contacts hold the vacuum in place and it’s easy to put in and take out of its base. It’s not the most comprehensive set of cleaning tools, but then again this is not a comprehensive cleaner. The vacuum is extremely compact. There are no protrusions at all from the stick and it’s very light, though not quite as light as I expected it to be. You don’t get a handle, so it’s not the most ergonomic thing to use, but for the quick bursts that I use it in it’s fine. The battery and the dustbin are both integrated directly into the stick. The downside of this is neither are extremely capacious. The battery is good for up to 30 minutes of run time and the dustbin capacity is around 10% of what you’d get from a normal cordless vacuum. For a vacuum that is primarily focusing on hard surfaces, these aren’t as big of cons as they would normally be, but it’s something to be aware of. Using this vacuum is both more and less than I expected it to be. It’s very easy to maneuver and get to almost any place you need it to. The built-in green LED shines brightly on the floor and will show you anything that might be hiding from your eyes - it does such a good job that it makes me feel a little disgusted at everything it finds. I’m not quite Mr. Monk yet, but fair warning it might push you in that direction. The suction is okay - definitely not as good as the Dyson Gen5 I normally use but it does the job on hard surfaces. I did briefly try to run this on a couple of my carpeted surfaces and even on our low-pile carpets it really doesn’t have the suction or the power to do much. I knew it wasn’t going to do as good of a job, but it is to the point where I wouldn’t even consider it. This creates a situation where, if you have both carpet and hard surfaces, you’d need to have 2 vacuums to cover everything, which makes this a tough sell. But for what it’s intended for it does its job well. My main floor is probably around 800 or so square feet of hardwood and tile surfaces and the battery made it through the entire thing. There’s a small LCD display on the handle that shows the charge and you can cycle between different power levels when needed, but I mostly just let it run on its default mode and it did just fine. I did end up having to empty the dustbin about two thirds of the way through though. Since the dustbin is so small though it’s something that I can easily just empty into my kitchen garbage can. The dustbin empties by removing the cleaner head, popping a latch, pushing the tube down, and then shaking it out into the trashcan. The PencilVac has the ability to connect to the MyDyson app, which I have used for their air purifiers. Besides the general charge level though and an overview of past cleaning sessions there isn’t much there, though there was a firmware update for the vacuum when I first connected it. Overall, I think the PencilVac is a good product for what it does, but it’s not really a do-all vacuum cleaner. If you do have mostly hard surfaces it could be a good choice, but you probably still want to have something a little more heavy duty tucked away in a closet somewhere.