Dyson’s pitch for the V16 Piston Animal starts with two chores owners can stop complaining about: swapping cleaner heads and pulling hair off the brush bar. And we dived a little deeper into that during our interaction with a Dyson engineer on the sidelines of the V16 Piston Animal’s launch.
Dyson launched the V16 Piston Animal in India last month for Rs 79,900, calling it its most powerful anti-tangle cordless vacuum. It combines a new 900W Hyperdymium motor producing 315AW of suction with a cleaner head that senses floor type.
International Business Times spoke to Tim Hare, a design and development engineer at Dyson, about which problems the V16 targets. “Dyson engineers solve the problems others ignore,” he said.
Excerpts from the interview:
IBT: What makes the V16 different from the rest of the range?
Tim Hare: “The key one is we have more sensing technology than ever. Our all floors cleaner head is detecting exactly which floor type you’re on. On carpet, it will change its brush bar speed and increase suction power. On the hard floor, it will tailor the cleaner head settings to get the best performance and best runtime.”
He added that the machine has “the best anti-tangle ever” with its new conical cleaner heads, which he said “can detangle 25 inch hair.”
IBT: How does it sense the floor?
Tim Hare: “We’re detecting the pressure inside the head. We’re detecting a current drawn by the motor. And we also have a piezo in here that’s measuring the dirt that’s being sucked up. Then we piece all that information together into an algorithm that can tell what carpet type you’re on or what hard floor type you’re on.”
The machine then adjusts suction and brush bar speed to suit the surface, he said.
IBT: Hair wrap is a familiar complaint with vacuums. How does the V16 address it?
Tim Hare: “This is a very unique engineering challenge that hair wraps tightly around brush bars. You’ll notice here that our brush bars are actually cone-shaped. As the hair wraps around, it migrates down to the thinner section of the cone until it gets all the way to the end and then is ejected out and sucked up into the machine, which means you’re not getting any hair trapped on your tool.”
Dyson says the hair is ejected from the brush bar directly into the bin as you clean, so users no longer cut or pull it out.
IBT: Many Indian homes have mostly hard floors with some rugs. How did that shape the design?
Tim Hare: “We did an India cleaning study and we found that they are predominantly hard floors, but you’ve also got rugs and carpets. People get annoyed switching between their heads when they’re moving between. So we designed this head to have the best hard floor performance. When you need to go to your rug or your little bit of carpet, it will automatically adjust. You don’t need to change the head to a fluffy head, for example. It can all be done in one go.”
In effect, the new head folds two of Dyson’s existing heads into one. It combines the carpet performance of the Digital Motorbar with the hard-floor performance of the Fluffy head.
IBT: Fitting this much power into a handheld machine is a challenge. How did Dyson manage it?
Tim Hare: “This is our Hyperdymium motor. At Dyson we spent four years developing this from the ground up. What it means for our latest machine is you’ve got 900 watts of power, and for the vacuum cleaner it means you’ve got 315 air watts.”
He said heat dissipation was one of the key challenges in packing that much power into so small a motor. He said the motor is encased in ceramic, and the air it moves carries heat away from that material. Dyson says the motor is 50% more powerful than its predecessor, and the suction is tested in Boost mode.
IBT: Where does AI come in?
Tim Hare: “We have sensing technologies. What we’ve worked really hard on is taking those data inputs and making algorithms that bring real user benefit. The V16 has Bluetooth. On your phone, we’re getting real data insights that we’re using AI to interpret, to bring real benefit to the customer. And the sky’s the limit now.”
Dyson describes the MyDyson app as offering additional settings, real-time maintenance alerts, including when and how to clean the filter, and step-by-step care guidance.