CrunchGear’s Peter Ha got a chance to spend a day at the Dyson test labs in Malmesbury where he spoke with James Dyson about his design and engineering principles. One of his most important principles? The CEO of the company shouldn’t be able to easily break the products. Watch this hilarious/stunning/crazy video and ask yourself: Would the average CE manufacturer beat up his or her product like this on camera? Heck, would the average web service publish their stress-testing stats?
Incidentally, memo to Mike: I think the entire CrunchNetwork team should now wear black jeans, t-shirts, and black and white trainers. It’s very fetching. Check out more Dyson coverage here
dyson is great I hope all good thing for him and the company
http://www.crunchnow.com
I would like to see the same test by my laptop producers…
I do it the same to my sw projects!
I’m a huge fan of Dyson – his book, “Against all Odds” is a great read if you haven’t picked it up yet. He details the trials of the Dyson vacuum – and his other inventions/solutions. A funny yet very interesting read.
Thanks for the video!
Dyson commercials make me laugh. Who’s going to pay a 300% markup for a vacuum cleaner that pivots?
I didn’t think so.
If I was going to break the bank on a Vacuum cleaner, I would get one with a microcontroller and an optical sensor, IE Roomba.
Can I buy youse guys a wireless lavalier or shotgun mike so you can make a decent location shot?
My dog freaked out when Dyson turned on the vacuum! The dog ran around barking, trying to find it. We have a big purple Dyson, which the dog hates, but I love…
@ Julie — hahaha! I can imagine my idiot dog doing the same thing!
I have had one of his overpriced vacuums (ÂŁ200 or $400)for 1 year now. What a piece of s###. Try getting a replacement part. they will not sell it to you as they could not the bothered with the hassle of bringing it in from Malaysia where they are built. save yourself the hassle and buy a 100$ vacuum from Wal-Mart.
My wife and I love our Dyson. However, I was more concerned about him hitting that sofa! That’s the LC3 Grand Modele from DWR.com and they start around $7k! Careful, James!
I always thought Dyson vacuums were overpriced until I tried one.
OK I think Dyson cleaners are fab, (I’ve even got 2 of them). For my mind they are the best cleaners out there.
However, I think they should hire me to break them….
There are two main problems as I see with Dysons. My main gripe is they put all sorts of ‘out of the box’ design features to make it look cool, but they sacrifice usability for design.
The electrics are shoddy with a mixture of bad suppliers (I assume) and bad design (poorly tested). May be rectified in newer models? UK issue?
Dyson # 1 – Early upright model (still working after numerous DIY repairs)
- Molded plug failed after 6 months (ok easy fix)
- Power switch failed (18 months) (not an easy fix – parts are impossible to get)
- Mains cable failure (2 years), replaced old cable. The internal copper had broken at the point where the cable enters into the Dyson. (Bad design)
- Using the ‘hose’ is difficult and often results in the upright crashing to the floor, finally resulting in it breaking.
- The idea of joining the hose to the handle looks like a good idea, very neat from a design point of view. But its very difficult to work with, especially in tight areas.
- If you want to give it a REAL good clean (after a few years of heavy use) it is impossible as 90% of the thing is glued together (arrrggghhhhhh)
- The push on ‘clip’ which holds the top part of the vortex to the body, is just that, a badly designed plastic clip. Perhaps I have bad Karma with plastic clips, but in my hands the only thing they are good for is breaking.
Dyson # 2 1yr old cylinder.
- Power OK so far, but it doesn’t get heavy use.
- The hose is awful and where it joins the cleaner would ALWAYS kink. I got an old hose (with wire ribs) from a cleaner at the tip, swapped out the Dyson one and it works like magic now.
I have a disabled friend that has borrowed my upright, and had issues using it. To start hovering you need to put your foot on the bottom, hold the handle and tilt the main body backwards. For me, so easy that i didnt think about it. For a disabled person its very difficult (and I assume the same is true for the elderly). The problem – the base is too light, the top is too heavy.
The ‘cylinder’ model came with a floor tool which switches between hard floors and carpets. It works great, but is too difficult to use. In theory you put your foot on the tool, press and it switches between carpet and hard floor mode. I have great difficultly using this. The only way my disabled friend could operate this was by picking it up and using his hands, which the tool isnt designed for, and 9 times out of 10 you end up with a nasty blood blister when it bites back.
My mums 20 year old vacuum is easy to use, has only required very minor repairs (replacement of rubber drive belt, new carpet brushes and bags). Ok its made of metal so its much stronger anyway. The tools are easy to use and the hose never kinks. But since its a bag, its very bad at sucking anything up.
I haven’t had the opportunity to test, but I’m sure that if I drop my mums vacuum from a 5 story window, it will still work. Be a funky youtube video… “Mum can I borrow your vacuum for a quick test…..”
Am I the _only_ one that is not impressed by dropping a cleaner less than 1m? If they broke that easily then no-one would buy them. I would be far more impressed if Mr Dyson did the cleaning in his house with one of his cleaners. Now that would be an excellent usability test.
I do find Dyson’s difficult to use, but if you want a vacuum that does an amazing job at cleaning then its ‘Dyson all the way…’ (doubly true if you have pets)
Did I just watch a video of a guy vacuuming?
Yup, and it was the best video in that genre after Queen’s “I want to break free”.
I’ve heard about reliability problems with Dyson before and am not surprised to hear parts are hard to get.
Mr Dyson, if your vacs are so reliable and bulletproof, why not just promise to replace them free if they break? I would certainly buy an overpriced model then as it so much easier to handle than my impossible to steer or lift eurcrapka model.
by the way, can’t wait til your hand dryers are everywhere. Better for the environment, the bottom line and they actually get the job done. Impossible to lift or steer though
I didn’t find this video to be “hilarious/stunning/crazy,” but that’s just me. I found it rather boring and lacking context.
@13 – you win
I would go crazy like that if I tried to vacuum the stairs with that thing.
The video isn’t working for me
Its working fine now
The whole principal of this cyclone vacuum is a fraud. It has an expensive filter at the top, and it would work just as well with one tube in the center.
its the best ever even though its strong i have adc07 and dc03. dc07 is good but dc03 is worst torn hose, worn motor,breaking bin and cyclone catch,broken wand, cleaner head falls off all the time!! i love u dyson!!!!!!!!! im going to be an engineer of dyson. james dyson can u make dc03s more better please thank you.