A few weeks ago, I attended the private online reveal of the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene hard-floor cleaner with the Dyson product team. Having recently tested the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI robot vacuum cleaner, I was curious about where those two products intersect and how they could potentially complement each other.
Everything became clearer when I had the chance to use both products side-by-side, so read on for more.
To start with, the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene is not a vacuum cleaner. It collects dirt from hard floors thanks to hundreds of nylon bristles spread throughout the roller, which has 84,000 microfibre filaments used to mop the floor.
Those bristles pick up dirt on the floor first, then the roller does the wet clean pass. Solid debris is filtered out, and the waste liquid goes into a 0.75 L reservoir. A comb presses the roller, ensuring it remains free of tangled hair and pet fur.
Because there’s no suction, the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene is a quiet machine.
Mopping can be done with clean water, or you can add a floor cleaner to the water to ensure a more thorough clean. You can use Dyson's own Dyson 02 Probiotic Hard floor cleaning solution, the same one used for the robot. You can also use other brands, but the recommendation is to avoid soap-based ones, though.
Since we already have the Dyson 02 Probiotic Hard floor cleaning solution here, this is what I used with the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene. You only need a 20 ml dose for a full tank, so a 500 ml bottle should last you for a while. I found that the Dyson cleaning solution works well, leaving a very light clean smell, and definitely seems to break down dirt from the floor, based on the contents of the dirty water tank after a few passes.
The operation is simple, and you just have to unlock the handle and push the ON button for the roller to start spinning. A small LCD will show you the battery life and the current cleaning mode, with low mode used for normal cleaning, up to max, used for most stubborn messes.
A special mechanism allows you to lay the handle flat on the floor, so you can clean under any furniture with a minimum of 120 mm clearance from the floor. It’s also light, and at 3.8 Kg you can easily manoeuvre the cleaner around obstacles.
How much clean water is needed will depend on the cleaning mode being used and the floor plan size. I found that a full tank can clean my 110 sq m house, in low mode.
Once you have cleaned the floors, you empty the dry tray and wet tank. A single lever allows you to unlock the set and remove it from the machine. You then slide the debris filter and unscrew the cap to empty the dirty water reservoir. Wash these and click them back in place.
The design intentionally placed these in the head to avoid tubes that could clog up with debris, accumulating dirty water and causing bad-smelling bacteria growth.
After emptying the trays, you can place the cleaner on its dock and set it to run a self-cleaning process. This self-cleaning uses water from the clean tank to wash the roller and, at the end, dries it with jets of air heated up to 85 °C. This process can be a bit noisy, but is quieter than those hand air dryers you find in some restrooms.
I strongly recommend you empty the dirty water tank after each cleaning and before starting the self-clean process. Not doing so risks filling the dirty tank and causing spills when removing it. By emptying in between the cleaning steps, things will be a lot tidier. I know it, as I was caught on my first use of the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene.
Assembling it is easy, with only a couple of parts needing to be clicked into each other. The docking station is used for charging, so it should be near a power socket.
I also suggest you add it to the Dyson app. Unlike the robot, you can’t control the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene from the app, but it will start your warranty period and also guide you through some videos explaining how it all works. I am glad I watched those, and you will be too, as there's a lot of information there to help you get the best use out of this device.
So, to answer the question posed at the start of this review, where does it fit?
First, you must remember that this is a hard-floor cleaning tool only. You can’t use it on carpets. For those, you will still need to use a vacuum cleaner, either a manual one or a robot.
For hard floors, you get the convenience of instant use. The robot usually needs to be primed and takes time to leave the dock, find its current position and move to the next cleaning location. With the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene, you can grab it and clean that accidental spill in an instant. I can also see this as a device with uses in small retail floors.
This is, in fact, a perfect complement to the vacuum cleaner. The flexibility of use, the wet cleaning and speed fill the gaps where a normal vacuum cleaner could not do the job.
The Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene is now available in New Zealand.
