I spent a month with Dyson's new PencilVac Fluffycones, and I hate how much I love it

Dyson first announced its game-changing PencilVac Fluffycones back in May 2025, but as of today, it's officially available to buy. According to Dyson, this is the "world's slimmest vacuum cleaner" — a feat that was achieved by removing the bin and handle altogether. Instead, the PencilVac looks like a broom, with control buttons and the waste storage container housed inside the stick itself. Truly, I've never seen anything like it. But how does it perform?

Well, after 10 months of patiently waiting, I got to try the PencilVac in my own home for the month of January, and I was shocked at how easily it replaced by beloved V15 Detect. The PencilVac is more than a concept, it's a fully-fledged hard floor cleaner, with Dyson's fan-favorite laser tech and handy user insights, all displayed on a smart screen on-board the handle.

But while it's far from a gimmick, is it the best vacuum cleaner for you? Here's my verdict.

Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones: Specs

Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones: First impressions

As with every Dyson product I've tried, the Dyson PencilVac arrived packaged entirely in cardboard and housed securely in a space-efficient box. I was stunned by how narrow even the box itself was, and the assembly instructions were the first thing I spotted when I opened it.

Inside is a handle (which comes in two parts), a Fluffycone roller head that clicks onto said handle, and a charging base. The base slots together in seconds, and has room to store the included dust attachment. I enjoyed that the base was freestanding, and it's been sitting in my kitchen since the day I received the Dyson PencilVac. The vacuum sticks magnetically to the base and its initial charge was complete in under an hour.

You can also pair the Dyson PencilVac with the Dyson app. Now, I'm an app-skeptic at the best of times, and having tested countless gadgets over the years, I have far too many lurking on my phone which haven't made a tangible improvement to how I use the product they're paired to.

I do already use my Dyson app to get my robot vacuum up and running, so while I don't think I'll be checking in on my vacuum's battery level remotely all too often, it's at least not a pain to pair your vacuum to it. And if you do run into problems, the app can help with troubleshooting.

Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones: Controls

Despite its tiny size, the control panel on the Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones is remarkably useful. There's a power button to turn the vacuum on, and then a second button to allow you to toggle between the three settings: Eco, Medium and Boost.

Toggling between the settings is seamless, and unlike most of the vacuums I test, I felt that Eco mode was more than sufficient for my daily cleans.

The vacuum also tells you the time left in your battery, in a countdown, as you switch between settings. Keen to try this out, I turned on the Eco setting from a 100% battery and started a timer while I cleaned.

According to the display, the vacuum had 23 minutes and 9 seconds of use left, and it shut itself off after 23 minutes and 6 seconds, which is startlingly accurate! I found those 23 minutes more than sufficient to clean my entire apartment, so a good portion of that time was spent doing laps of the kitchen.

While it only happened the one time during my testing (and wasn't tricky to fix), when my vacuum became blocked after a particularly in-depth cleaning day, the display showed on-board steps to disassemble the vacuum and locate the blockage. For a display about the size of a coin, that's quite a nifty feature.

Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones: Performance

There is definitely a learning curve to using the Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones. Those four rollers make it feel lightweight to handle, almost like it's floating on air. But sometimes when vacuuming, it's satisfying to feel like you're charging up and down your room in clear, straight lines. Due to just how nimble this vacuum is, it almost felt like I wasn't vacuuming at all.

Fortunately, the proof that the PencilVac really can clean is right where you can see it — inside the handle. It's a little gross, but also very satisfying, to see dirt build up in the PencilVac's handle throughout your clean. After one sweep of my 75 square meter apartment, the vac was 75% full, so if you are working with a larger space you should be prepared to empty it multiple times in one clean.

With four fluffy cone rollers on the cleaning head, and two of Dyson's signature lasers, the PencilVac features a new type of multi-directional cleaning which is also being rolled out on the Dyson's V16 Piston Animal. One feature of this roller type borrows from Dyson's hair screw cleaning tools, picking up hairs and rolling them down to the narrower side of the fluffy roller where, in theory, the vacuum will pick up the clump of hair in one go.

In practice, while this worked well on shorter hair such as pet hair, I found this feature hit-and-miss with longer strands. With larger clumps of hair, the vacuum would occasionally struggle to pick them up altogether, and with smaller clumps it would occasionally resume rolling them down the rollers and out the side of the vacuum once more.

Aside from being disgustingly satisfying, the ability to light the way and identify any missed spots is a genuinely useful feature that you'll enjoy using with this vac. You can also shimmy it to the side and slide it sideways along narrower spots in your home due to the multi-directional cleaning.

Although the vacuum is smaller and lighter, it's not quieter than Dyson's other models. My go-to V15 Detect usually hits 75dB when cleaning with its fluffy roller, and the PencilVac did the same, starting at 72dB on Eco mode and hitting 83dB on its highest setting.

How does it compare?

My usual vacuum is the Dyson V15 Detect, which retails for $850. The Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones is $250 cheaper, but a lot less versatile, with the ability to clean only hard floors and only one extra attachment. With that being said, the PencilVac did a perfectly good job on my low-pile carpets, both in the living room and the kitchen.

Dyson's V16 Piston is not yet available in the U.S., but retails for £250 more in the U.K.. Featuring Dyson's Fluffycone roller head alongside a roller brush for carpets, it could be worth the wait if you're intrigued by the PencilVac but want an option that can tackle a range of floor types.

Should you buy the Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones?

Aside from a large rug in the living room, my apartment is mostly hard floors, which makes the PencilVac Fluffycones perfectly suited to my space. It's especially useful in the kitchen, where I vacuum up crumbs at least daily. However, it's not the vacuum for anyone with a mix of carpet and hard floor. At $599 / £499, there's no point splashing out on such an expensive vacuum if you'll still need another option for some rooms.

I didn't expect to be such a fan of this vacuum, but its mix of ingenuity and genuinely useful features makes it hard to critique. It's nimble, enjoyable to use, and makes (literally) light work of my daily run-around.