At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you’ll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.
Before I opened the Dyson V12 Detect Slim I had one brief: can this thing make my landlord believe a cat didn’t live with me? But I ended up with a lot more than just a ‘yes’ to this question – I was overwhelmed with how filthy my clean-looking apartment actually was. And I was also given a reminder of how freaking cool lasers are.
The Dyson V12 Detect Slim is the slim version of the Dyson V12 Detect – the company’s smart cordless vacuum cleaner that detects dust and even counts it for you.
The Slim adds to the smarts found in the Dyson V12 Detect but makes it less clunky. It’s marketed as the cordless vac for apartment living but it actually is Dyson’s most powerful, compact cordless vacuum cleaner. And it somehow makes cleaning fun and stress-free.
Setting up and using the Dyson V12 Detect Slim
The Dyson V12 Detect Slim showed up in a neat box, it was a little heavy at 5.2 kgs but easy enough to lay flat on the floor to unpack. The time it took from then through to when I glided over the first area of carpet was 3 minutes and 10 seconds. Set up is exceptionally easy, there’s just a lot of packaging.
There’s a number of heads that do a number of usual things, but the two I really put under some pressure were the laser head and the one you use to clean your car.
I can report I filled half the barrel almost with sand my car accumulated from a day trip to the beach. It cleaned the car perfectly.
I currently use a Dyson V6 Animal Origin and until I held the V12 Detect Slim, I thought it did an exceptional job. Understandably, with new iterations of things we get modifications to the device itself. One thing I wish Dyson kept was the adjustable stick – I’m just a bit too short for this length to be comfortable. A massive improvement, however, is the on/off button in lieu of a trigger you had to hold down the entire time on previous versions.
From full charge, I got through my two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment without needing a recharge. I also let it sit overnight off charge and was able to run over the entire place again. Dyson says you can get up to 60 minutes of run time, which proved to be about right.
When it comes time to charge it, you will need to set aside at around 3 hours. There’s no quick charging function here, meaning if you lose battery halfway through a clean you may have a significant wait to finish up. While that does seem like a long time to charge, it’s actually quite good when it comes to standard vacuums. The V15 Slim does perform rather well.
Our recommendation would be to get in the habit of popping it on charge after a large clean or overnight.
The whole thing weighs just 2.2 kgs so I have no complaints about my arm getting tired. It’s super quiet in comparison to other cordless vacuum cleaners I’ve used and emptying the bin is straightforward and doesn’t result in dust getting everywhere.
I do feel like the stick is going to snap when I rest it on the floor, however, it’s just so very thin.
What makes it better than those before it?
I have a bit of a Dyson graveyard in my spare room. I mentioned above I was using the Dyson V6 Animal Origin, but prior to that it was the Dyson Big Ball barrel vac I would lug around from power point to power point. I can’t imagine ever going back to a vac with a cord – but I do appreciate some of you have larger spaces to cover off. The V12 Detect Slim could still easily work in a larger space, you might just need to have a coffee break (or a nap) in between.
Dyson has always been known for making good vacuum cleaners, but it took a bit of a gamble making it ‘smart’. Sometimes making something ‘smart’ comes with the question, ‘Why?’. But the Dyson V12 Detect Slim is so good because of its smarts.
What about the laser?
This iteration of the vacuum sports the green laser that highlights dust and particles as you clean so you can see just how dirty your home really is. If you live in a clean home, the statistics won’t be too shocking but the laser can be very helpful for identifying those harder-to-reach places you might have missed on a regular vacuum.
The vac sizes and counts dust particles – and it shows the results on a screen as you clean. The laser detects the particles we can’t see and the ‘Piezo’ sensor continuously counts the dust particles.
Yellow is particles the size of allergens and pollen, orange is particles the size of microscopic dust and skin flakes, pink is particles the size of dust mites and fine sand and purple is particles the size of sugar and fleas.
TIL each mite produces about 20 droppings a day, which continue to cause symptoms even after the mite has died. Yuck.
Oh, and the green numbers below indicate how long is left on the vac before it needs some more juice.
The vac also boasts Dyson’s Hyperdymium motor, which basically means the V12 Detect Slim increases suction power when higher dust volumes are identified. This confused me at first because I thought I had accidentally activated the throttle, but no, this is automatic and you can literally see the cat hair filling the bin (which I thoroughly enjoyed, in some disgusting insanity).
What improvements could be made?
Aside from having an adjustable stick, I want to see smarts extend to the vac heads. With my hair measuring a little under 80 cms in length, after a few swipes the head is a tangled mess of my hair. I’m sure my request probably defies physics, but I’m looking forward to a time when I don’t have to pause vacuuming to cut the hair from the head.
There is an anti-tangle conical brush, which may work fine for dog hair and those of you that aren’t competing with Rapunzel, but given it isn’t as wide as the main heads, it’s just not practical to use on the entire apartment.
The Dyson V12 Detect Slim sucks
It sucks real good. Better than any vacuum cleaner I’ve ever used. The amount of crap it picked up on a surface that looked clean was insane.
There’s no denying the smarts are a gimmick. No one needs to see how much dust they’re collecting. But this nerd loves it and I actually think it’s worth the $1,299. This is how I know I’m officially an adult.
