If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that Dyson vacuums are some of the best the industry has to offer. The brand has good options across cordless, upright, handheld, and robot vacuums, and now it’s competing for the top spot in the cordless category with a new launch that aims to tackle both long hair and wet spills.
Those used to Dyson appliances will be familiar with some of the brand’s popular tech, including dust illumination, allergy-friendly filters and 2-in-1 handheld functionality. The new V16 piston animal keeps those tried and tested features but adds Dyson’s most powerful motor yet, the Hyperdymium. This 900W upgrade is the vacuum version of the motor used in Dyson’s new airwrap co-anda 2x, and Dyson claims it delivers 315AW (air watts) of fade-free suction. That’s enough – in theory – to lift a small pile of coins.
With this new motor comes innovative attachments designed to untangle hair, with a conical brush head designed to prevent long hair from tangling in the bristles. The submarine edition I tested also includes a wet cleaning head for removing tough stains on hard floors.
But with a whopping £899 price tag, you need to be sure you’re getting your money’s worth. I got my hands on the device before it launched to find out if it lives up to the marketing.
How I tested
With both hard (vinyl) and carpeted (deep pile) floors in my home, I was able to test all of the new V16 vacuum’s attachments on flooring, upholstery, and hard-to-reach spots. I live in a small two-bedroom flat, so my home quickly develops dust and dirt, especially when pet-sitting the family dog. I tested the vacuum by the following criteria:
- Suction power – I recorded how many passes it took to clean up dirt and stains.
- Dirt disposal and cleaning – I gauged how simple it was to empty the dust bin and clean the submarine 2.0 attachment after exposing it to sticky sauces and liquid. I was particularly interested in how it handled long hair.
- Ease of use – I assessed how smooth it was to clip on each attachment, manage the LCD display and store the various parts after use.
- App functionality – I considered the advantages of using the vacuum together with the MyDyson app.
- Size, weight and storage – I compared the size and weight of the vacuum against market competitors and evaluated how easy it was to store the vacuuum in my home.
Why you can trust IndyBest reviews
Lucy Smith has been writing product reviews for IndyBest since July 2024, and has reviewed several vacuums throughout her career. Lucy has also reviewed several of Dyson’s haircare products, including the latest airwrap co-anda 2x and the supersonic hair dryer. This put her in good standing to review the new V16’s anti-tangle technology.
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Dyson V16 piston animal submarine vacuum cleaner
Bagless: Yes
Dust capacity: 1.35l
Charging time: 3.5 hours
Battery life: 70 minutes
Weight: 3.4kg
Dimensions: 130cm x 26cm x 25cm
Why we love it
- Picks up large wads of hair without becoming tangled
- Cleancompaktor bin makes for easy emptying and more vacuuming time between empties
- Auto setting is very effective on thick-pile carpet
Take note
- Submarine 2.0 attachment leaves grey water residue on floor and is hard to clean after use
- Eco mode requires several passes on large crumbs
Increased suction power
The V16 is much more powerful than its most recent predecessors, the V15s detect submarine (£649.99, Dyson.co.uk) and Gen5detect (£609.99, Dyson.co.uk). The “hyperdymium” motor in the V16 offers an upgraded 315AW (air wattage). That’s 35AW more than the gen5detect, and a huge 75AW increase over the V15s. This AW rating is reflective of the vacuum in its boost mode, which is the most powerful of the three settings, which also include eco and auto.
Another key improvement is the combination of two brush attachments – the old “fluffy optic” hard floor head and “digital motorbar” carpet heads are now in a single floorhead. It’s an unwieldy name, but this new “all floors cones sense” cleaner head instantly adapts to different surfaces.
New features
This floor head can manage long hair up to 25 inches without getting tangled or caught. It’s by far the best feature of this vacuum. Unlike other vacuums, the brushes on the V16 taper to the end. This prevents hair from wrapping around in a single spot; the shape wraps any hair into a tight hairball while shunting it to the outside of the floorhead to be sucked straight into the dustbin.
This feature, combined with powerful suction, meant I never had the gross job of cutting hair out of the brush bar. This conical design also translates to the hair screw tool 2.0, so you can take advantage of it on upholstery and soft furnishings, too.
One of my favourite additions to the V16 is a thumb-sized red lever on the rear of the dust canister. Called the “cleancompaktor”, this simple but effective feature compresses the debris and build-up within your bin so you can vacuum for longer between empties. Plus, when the time for emptying inevitably swings around, it’s considerably easier to leverage and dispose of that compacted dirt.
While the Dyson V12 slim detect absolute (£499.99, Dyson.co.uk) is the brand’s lightest vacuum at 2.2kg, the V16 is slightly lighter than its immediate predecessors, coming in at 100g and 400g lighter than the gen5detect and V15s, respectively.
Besides Dyson’s line of robot vacuums, the V16 is the brand’s first full-size cordless device with app functionality. Together with the MyDyson app (as demonstrated above), users can take a deeper dive into the ins and outs of their cleans with session reports, maintenance alerts and a whole library of how-to guides.
I enjoyed the cleaning reports, but I don’t think I’ll be using this function that frequently. Most people just need clean floors; they don’t need to go into the minutiae of cleaning them. If the app doesn’t blow your socks off, the V16 works without it, so if you don’t like using an app – or feel that it’s a little pointless – you don’t need to worry about navigating Bluetooth connections.
The V16 tweaks the submarine attachment from the V15s to bring a new max mode, which introduces boosted hydration for dried-in, particularly stubborn stains.
Carpet
Considering I vacuum all the rooms in my house in one fell swoop, the new brush head meant I could quickly clean both hard and carpeted floors.
The attachment felt particularly suited to carpet and picked up the crumbs I placed in its path in a single pass, leaving behind satisfying vacuum lines like a professional cleaner.
When I placed a hefty wad of hair on the floor, the V16 made quick work of it and, in the blink of an eye, I could see the strands in the dustbin. This was a stark change from my usual vacuum, and I was shocked not to hear the signature loud whirring of my old device struggling to process the buildup of hair on my carpets.
Hard floors
On hard floors, I was slightly less convinced. If anything, it’s a victim of its own success. It’s so powerful in auto mode that it can be tricky to push. It will pick almost everything up, but this friction on the floor made the device feel a lot heavier than 3.4kg. Dropping down into eco mode helped with this, but it’s obviously not as effective. In eco mode, it took me several passes to pick up all the crumbs from a handful of oats, with some of them falling out of the brush head.
It’s a similar story with the submarine attachment. With the option to buy the V16 with or without it, I’d opt for the latter (dry version, £749.99, Dyson.co.uk). Plenty of V15s owners found their old submarine attachments would leave trails of water in their wake, and were tricky to clean. Aside from the max mode for dried-in stains, the new V16 submarine attachment doesn’t feature any other notable changes, so these gripes from the previous model remain
The first few passes of the mop head were very impressive and, as the video above demonstrates, the submarine attachment did away with my hefty ketchup spill efficiently. However, it was once these spills made their way into the grey water tank that my issues began. After around one minute of use, the ketchup-tainted water began spilling out the side of the mop head, leaving a stream of red residue in its wake. If you’re quick enough, you can speedily mop these new trails away before new ones make their way out of the system, but, if I’m honest, it’s not worth an extra £150, especially when you can buy a great steam cleaner for less than £100.
While assembling the submarine is simple enough – if a bit clunky – disassembling is impractical. The design of the grey water tank needs rethinking; at the moment, the runoff from the mop roller sits in the crevices on the underside of the attachment. If encountering messier spills (like the ketchup above), you’ll have to extract those liquids from every plastic ridge.
Emptying the dirty water tank was unproblematic; I just wish the entirety of the waste had landed within the tank and not on the ins and outs of all the plastic components. You’ll also have to rinse the mop roller and leave all the components out to dry. It’s a lot more faff – and more expensive – than a good old-fashioned floor mop and soapy water.
Handheld attachments
The combi and crevice tools proved particularly handy around skirting boards, dusty plug sockets and ceiling dust. It was especially helpful that I was able to use these attachments with and without the long arm, as this wasn’t a feature of my previous vacuum. I found the brush element of the combi tool worked wonders on dust, while the crevice tool came into its own when cleaning away crumbs between sofa cushions.
The addition of rug strips on the hair screw tool 2.0 meant that the attachment was able to glide across my sofas and fabric bed frames without stalling on the material. This tool was surprisingly one of the quickest to pick up crumbs and, I’d argue, puts the V16 on par with many of the industry’s most popular handheld vacuums. In fact, it worked just as well as my own Shark wandvac 2.0 (£130, Argos.co.uk) – though it’s admittedly heavier.
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Buy now £899.99, Dyson.co.uk
Is the Dyson V16 piston animal vacuum worth it?
The motor at the core of the Dyson V16piston animal submarine vacuum makes it one of the best models on the market in 2025, but I wouldn’t pay the extra £150 for the submarine attachment.
In the dry version, you’ll benefit from four attachments, adjustable settings and excellent waste disposal – all of which come together to ensure a quick, thorough clean. It’s best suited to carpeted homes, and I cannot understate its performance on long hair. When it comes to hair, it is easily the best vacuum experience I’ve ever had.
But in its current iteration, the submarine mop head is lacking – it’s messy, labour-intensive and not on par with competitors. After more than a week with the new Dyson V16, I don’t think the wet-floor submarine head is as fast or effective as a simple sponge or a mop, and for an extra £150 – on top of £700 for the dry unit – you certainly want it to be.
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