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

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)

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.

Thanks for the video!

http://www.crunchnow.com