Dyson 360 Heuristically Navigates While Siphoning Charge - An In-Depth Appraisal of the Capricious Vacuuming Wizard

Key Takeaways

• Powerful suction and a large dustbin make the Dyson 360 Vis Nav great at picking up dirt, but short battery life and limited controls detract.
• Navigation can be confusing with uneven cleaning patterns, controls are scattered and battery life is surprisingly short on boost mode.
• Despite limitations, there are niceties like scheduled cleaning notifications and a hidden side brush.

Unlike most premium robot vacuums on the market, the Dyson 360 Vis Nav doesn’t mop or have a big self-emptying charging station. It’s just an autonomous vacuum. I wanted it to be the strongest, slickest vacuum around just sucking up every bit of dust around, and it almost is, but I had some concerns about its battery life and its other quirks that dampen my enthusiasm.

Dyson 360 Vis Nav

6/ 10

The Dyson 360 Vis Nav sucks up more than any other robot on all floors. The company’s first brush bar to combine three ways to deep clean is engineered with a wide diameter to reduce long hair and pet hair tangling.

Pros

• Powerful vacuum suction
• Large onboard dustbin
• Simple mobile app to navigate

Cons

• Very short battery life on most powerful setting
• Limited controls
• Uneven cleaning patterns

$1179 at Amazon $1199.99 at Dyson $1199.99 at Best Buy

How We Test and Review Products

Price and Availability

The Dyson 360 Vis Nav retails for $1,199.99 and is now available in the U.S. The only color it comes in currently is blue. (Yes, it looks purple to me too.)

Specifications

Dustbin Capacity

0.13 gallons

Power

450W

Weight

11lbs

Connectivity

Wi-Fi

Cleaning Modes

Four modes

Charge Time

165 minutes

Battery

Up to 65 minutes

Mop

No

Robot Dimensions

3.9 x 13 x 12.6in

Noise

75dB

Expand

A Vacuum That’s Just a Vacuum

Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek

Firstly, I think it’s fine that the Dyson 360 Vis Nav is “only” a robot vacuum. The capability to mop can be handy, but there are plenty of areas or types of homes that feature goes unused. Personally, with the addition of a thick, shag carpeting rug, I’ve been dying to have a beefy robot vacuum that could tackle that area where crumbs surely cash in their 401Ks and take up retirement. I care much less about mopping the few places where hardwood shows in the room.

The 360 Vis Nav has proved to be a worthy machine for that tough area. It’s never gotten stuck and, as far as my analysis has shown, it picks up a lot of junk. I scattered white rice on the thick rug and a lower profile one and the vacuum took care of both areas nearly completely. Its dustbin also showed the amount of hidden dust it was regularly collecting.

But separate from specific contexts like that, the robot just isn’t as robust as I had wished it would be. For every cool or smart thing the 360 Vis Nav does, there’s something equally confounding it does too.

The Path of Vacuuming Is Confusing

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Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek

Presumably, Dyson put “Nav” in the product’s name because it’s good at navigation, but in practice, it seemed average at best. It didn’t ram furniture or even bump items in my home too often, but there were plenty of times it didn’t seem to know where it was going.

Whereas most modern, LiDAR-enabled, robot vacuums follow rigid paths and show those lines inside their mobile apps, the 360 Vis Nav doesn’t. Using its auto mode, it more freely roams and then displays a dirt heat map in its app after it’s done—not in real-time.

Looking at the cleaning history provided insight into what areas it thought were the dirtiest, but I question how accurate those were since it would sometimes show cleaning happening beyond the actual dimensions of the rooms. Several times I saw areas it said it cleaned that were blocked by walls or steps that it had no access to. Once or twice it showed cleaning in between walls.

That brings me back to its navigation. I can’t judge whether its 360-degree camera is on par with other robot’s visual systems from a technical standpoint but it doesn’t give the appearance of being as good. LiDAR-enabled robots tend to be more methodical and always stick to the boundaries of the room (and the limits of the physical world).

The Controls Are Scattered

Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek

Directly on the robot is a touchscreen, though it might be more accurate to call it a “pushscreen.” The color display shows directions and troubleshooting tips as well as having settings and cleaning options. To select something on the screen you press it in and the whole thing dips down and clicks.

Even after some time using the screen, I’m conflicted about whether I like it or just tolerate it. Either way, it definitely took me a couple of minutes to figure out how it worked.

Interestingly, there’s no way to tell a vacuum to return to its dock from its onboard screen (that I could find). That meant I had to carry the robot back to its dock a few times after a malfunctioning roller brush had issues.

More frustrating was the frequency with which the app could not connect to the vacuum. Regularly, it would take two or three tries to wirelessly connect to it through the app.

Battery Life Is Surprisingly Short

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From the robot’s screen, or in the app, you can choose between quick, quiet, auto, or boost cleaning modes. I had no problems with those types of cleaning options, but the time required for each is wild.

For my rooms, the app estimated that quick, quiet, or auto cleanings would range from 18 to 28 minutes. The boost mode unbelievably jumped to more than 3 hours. What? That’s because the boost mode only gets about 12 minutes of battery life—twelve minutes!

The longest of the modes is about 65 minutes. To clean my three downstairs rooms with the boost mode the app estimated it would take over nine hours. That mode is a bit loud too.

Dyson claims around two times more suction than any other robot. The price for that performance, however, is battery life and time. The vacuum is powerful, but I repeatedly wondered how useful the suction was for such little time to use it. The Achilles heel, however, might be the speed of the charging dock. The battery only lasts up to 65 minutes, but the dock will take around 165 minutes to recharge the vacuum.

There Are Plenty of Nice Features Too

Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek

The 360 Vis Nav has some clear flaws in its current state, but I did find a few details I liked about how it operates worth nothing.

Most of the robot vacuums I’ve tested don’t warn you ahead of their scheduled cleanings. They just start and usually, they’re startling. Dyson sends a notification 10 minutes ahead of a scheduled start time. It’s a small, but meaningful detail I liked a lot.

There’s a tiny side brush that pops out when it needs to clean along a wall and then retreats when it’s not needed. That’s cool.

Even though the charging station won’t empty the dirt from the vacuum or collect extended amounts of debris, I liked the large dust bin on the vacuum itself. One push of the button on the handle will open the bottom of it into the trash can. Because there’s no water involved for mopping, everything stays dry too.

The charging dock should charge the device faster, but I did like its minimalism. Its purple-ish blue color is not exactly camouflage, but it is tiny enough to stick nearly anywhere.

If you like using Alexa or Google voice commands to control smart home gadgets, that’s available too. Unfortunately, Siri isn’t present.

Should You Buy the Dyson 360 Vis Nav?

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Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek

The Dyson 360 Vis Nav is the robot vacuum I’ve been wanting in a lot of ways. It has powerful suction that can tackle a high pile rug if needed. It’s close to being a Dyson stick vac that can move on its own.

It’s a great idea that’s plagued by some questionable decisions. I think pet owners and people with very specific cleaning needs might benefit from the 360 Vis Nav offers, but for its $1,200 retail price, I think more people than not will come away disappointed by this vacuum’s current form and feature set. It is the kind of product I think a lot of people would want, myself included, so I do remain hopeful that some software improvements and a second revision of the hardware can revive it into something better.

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Dyson 360 Vis Nav

6/ 10

The Dyson 360 Vis Nav sucks up more than any other robot on all floors. The company’s first brush bar to combine three ways to deep clean is engineered with a wide diameter to reduce long hair and pet hair tangling.

$1179 at Amazon $1199.99 at Dyson $1199.99 at Best Buy