When you get a product that has the word “submarine” in its title, you automatically think that it is going to be something really cool and mysterious. Or at least I do. So the latest Dyson, the V15s Detect Submarine, was something to look forward to testing.
How cool you think it is depends, I think, on your age, living circumstances, and how wisely you have chosen the floors in your home. For example, we have white, high-gloss tiles that require cleaning about 15 times a day or they look as if we live in squalor. And that is just with the adult members of the household; add in two small children with slapdash shoe-wiping habits and a cat that sheds like you wouldn’t believe, and it’s a recipe for disaster that is only just kept in check via robot vacuums and a robust steam mop.
This isn’t the first time that Dyson has tried its hand at a hard floor mop. About a decade ago the company announced the DC56, which was a combo vacuum cleaner and mop with disposable wet pads. Useful for some, but ultimately not a product that stuck around.
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The Dyson V15s Detect may fare better. The new cleaner is essentially a V15 Detect vacuum, complete with the laser fluffy head that highlights the dust on your floor, adaptive suction power and information on the types of particles you are sucking up, with the addition of the new wet floor cleaning head. That new tools comes with two tanks for holding liquid: one clean, one dirty. You get all the information you never wanted to know about how dirty your house has become, plus an extra way to keep it clean, all in one handy machine.
That mop head – the Submarine part of the equation – has a motorised wet roller that picks up liquids and debris. As the roller moves, it picks up the clean water from a small internal tank and deposits the dirt and debris into the waste tank with each rotation. And all you do is push it around the floor.
Not only does it wash your floor, but it also comes in handy for liquid spills around the home. Just remember to rinse out the fluffy roller afterwards, especially – and I can’t stress this enough – if milk is involved.
But why buy a whole new cleaner? Most of Dyson’s new tools are compatible with older cordless cleaners, so surely the Submarine head would work the same, saving you a bit of cash in the process? Unfortunately not, in this case.
I discovered this lack of a seal by lifting up the mop head to get a better look, and emptied the dirty water all over myself
It’s not just a matter of buying the Submarine’s floor mop head for your existing Dyson, not even if you have the V15 Detect. The two devices have different software, and if you put the Submarine on the older Dyson, you will get a blockage error on the machine and the head just won’t work.
The Submarine head is essentially closed off, creating the appearance of a blockage to the older machines. No water goes anywhere near the dust bin on the V15s, a feature that means you won’t be clearing gunk from your vacuum on a regular basis. All the water stays in the Submarine head.
On the whole it works quite well. The motorised head has enough power to scrub the daily – or hourly – grime off the floors without requiring too much effort on your part. At times it felt like I was being pulled slightly by the cleaner as it scrubbed.
However, be sure to empty the dirty water out regularly. One mop of my relatively average-sized kitchen and diningroom was enough to fill it, and as it is not sealed, on occasion it left a few streaks of water behind as the water was close to overflowing. Unfortunately, I discovered this lack of a seal by lifting up the mop head to get a better look, and emptied the dirty water all over myself.
Good
Will remove stubborn(ish) marks from the floor, although one or two still required the big guns to shift. That was with just plain water, though, and a few sprays of floor cleaner directly on the stains usually was enough to tip it over the edge. You can use detergent with the device, but make sure to follow the instructions for dilution – and don’t be tempted to put it in neat.
The Submarine head also picks up the dust and dirt rather than simply moving it to another place, although unless you want to have to deal with sludgy grime in the water tank, you are probably better off running the vacuum cleaner over the floor to pick up the worst of the debris first.
There are no disposable parts to this one, either, although some particularly grim clean-up tasks may be better suited to cleaning materials you can throw in the bin afterwards.
Bad
The lack of a sealed dirty water tank may make it easy to empty, but it can sometimes leave deposits of water on the floor.
It can also be quite heavy at times, and the price could be off-putting for many users. It’s not a budget Dyson machine by any stretch of the imagination.
Everything else
The V15s Detect Submarine also has the LED screen that shows you how much time you have left in your battery, what type of particles your cleaner is picking up, and what mode you are using.
Battery life is about what you would expect – about an hour, depending on the floor type and they tools you are using. You get three cleaning heads and five tools, including the screw tool for picking up hair without tangling in the brush bar.
The verdict
Sometimes requires careful use, but the V15s Detect Submarine is a useful cleaning tool to have around.
