Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones Review: Absolutely Sold on This Innovative Design

The Dyson PencilVac looks like something beamed in from a sci-fi future. All the guts—motor, filters, battery, and dust cup—are packed into a wand just 1.5 inches / 3.8cm in diameter. That’s not the only mind-bending twist: the floorhead features four fluffy conical rollers that rotate in opposite directions, buffing floors clean while lifting dirt.

In use, it’s the most agile vacuum I’ve ever tested. The head seems to float across the floor, works forwards or backwards, and can lie completely flat. With a little practice, you can pull off figure-eights. Those rollers are tuned for hard floors—no agitation for carpet fibers—and the suction power is modest at 55AW, less than half what you get from most Dyson stick vacs.

But that’s plenty for hard floors. Dog hair, dust, and crumbs vanish in a single pass. Lasers embedded in the front and back of the head spotlight every last speck, so you never miss hidden dirt.

There are a couple of trade-offs for the ultra-light, ultra-streamlined design. Battery life tops out at 30 minutes per charge, and the dust bin is tiny—though air compression squishes debris to maximize space.

The only real design flaw I see is the pointed floorhead, which can’t sit flush against a wall. That makes edge cleaning a pain, especially given how much Dyson emphasizes maneuverability. The tapering rollers are meant to prevent hair wrap, but other Dyson heads do that without sacrificing wall-hugging ability.

Still, this is an engineering marvel that’s genuinely useful. If you have mostly hard floors and want a nimble, lightweight vacuum that highlights hidden dust as you clean, you’ll struggle to find something better.

Dyson PencilVac: Two-Minute Review

Design: Revolutionary, compact, and lightweight. All components hidden in a 1.5-inch handle. Extremely maneuverable, works both directions. Small dust cup but uses air compression to maximize capacity. Score: 4.5/5

Performance: Excellent pickup on hard floors, even in Eco mode. Not designed for carpet. Laser lights are effective and useful. Score: 4/5

Battery Life: 30 minutes in Eco, 20 in Medium, 5 in Boost. 2-hour recharge. Battery is removable and swappable. Score: 3.5/5

Value: Premium price bracket, mainly because of the innovative, unique design. Score: 3.5/5

Dyson PencilVac Review: Price & Availability

• List price: US TBC / £429.99 / AU$949
• Available: US TBC / UK 10 Dec / Australia August 2025
• Launched: Summer 2025

The PencilVac launched in Australia in August 2025, followed by the UK in December. US availability is still unknown. At list price, it costs £429.99 / AU$949 (currently discounted to AU$798 in Australia), roughly equivalent to $590 USD.

That puts it in the premium price bracket. You’re paying extra for the unique design and Dyson’s engineering prowess. In terms of raw specs—suction power, runtime, features—it doesn’t stack up favorably against other models. But if you want something ultra-light and maneuverable, there’s nothing else like it.

Dyson PencilVac Specs

Dyson PencilVac Review: Design

The design is unlike anything else on the market. No visible battery, motor, filter, or dust cup—just a sleek wand that houses everything. Dyson re-engineered its motor to the incredibly compact Hyperdymium 140k motor (just 1.1 inches / 2.8cm wide), hidden entirely within the handle.

The PencilVac is very lightweight at 4lbs / 1.8kg (by comparison, the V8 is 5.5 lbs / 2.5kg with wand and floorhead attached), and extremely nimble.

The battery forms the top section of the wand and can be removed and swapped. Moving down you’ll find the controls—just two buttons: On/Off and mode selection (Eco, Med, Boost; no auto-adjustment). A small screen displays the current mode and remaining runtime.

Further down is the dust cup behind a transparent casing, allowing you to see it fill up. Unusually, dust collects at the top of the bin section. The capacity is tiny at 0.08L (most Dyson stick vacs have 0.8L bins), but Dyson says air compression allows it to hold up to five times its physical volume.

To empty, remove the floorhead and slide the casing down. Dust shoots out the bottom. The process is straightforward but particles can get stuck around the bin casing.

At the end of the wand is the new Fluffycones floorhead—a hybrid between the All Floors Cones Sense head (from the V16 Piston Animal) and the Fluffy head (from the V15 Detect). Instead of one or two tube-shaped rollers, this has four conical ones. The tapering shape is designed to prevent hair wrap: strands should travel down to the small end of the cone and drop off in clumps.

Unlike the All Floors Cones Sense, these rollers are entirely covered with soft, fluffy fabric—perfect for hard floors without scratching, but not suited for carpet since there’s no agitation.

Dyson added green lasers to both front and back of the Fluffycones head to highlight specks of dirt.

The cones extend past the hard plastic casing and rotate in opposite directions, allowing the PencilVac to pick up debris when pushed forwards or pulled backwards. Because it’s symmetrical, you can use it either way around.

Since the “wand” contains all mechanisms, the PencilVac isn’t as versatile as traditional stick vacuums. You can’t remove the wand to use it as a hand vac. However, you can swap the floorhead for a detail tool. My review model included a “Rotating combi-crevice tool” that works as a traditional crevice tool or with the brush engaged to sweep dirt (though it doesn’t actually rotate).

Dyson PencilVac Review: Performance

The first thing to emphasize is how comfortable it is to use. While it takes a moment to get used to the broom-like grip instead of a traditional stick vacuum grip, it’s very light in the hand and maneuvers incredibly well. You can use it forwards or backwards, and the floorhead pivots with ease. With the detail tool attached, it’s also super easy to clean up high or in tight spaces.

Unfortunately, the floorhead design isn’t as impressive. Since it comes to a slight point at the front, it can’t sit flush to a wall. This was one of my main complaints with the similarly shaped All Floors Cones Sense floorhead, and it’s no less annoying here. If you can’t approach an edge side-on, it’s tricky to achieve a thorough clean. This kind of vacuum should be perfect for stairs, say… except the reality is that using the PencilVac to clean along all those straight edges is a nightmare.

This isn’t the most powerful Dyson vacuum—you’re getting a maximum 55AW of suction, where most Dyson stick vacs have double that. Also, the floorhead design doesn’t lend itself to being ultra-sucky. Usually, the casing around the edges would descend to the floor around all four edges, creating a “vacuum” (in the original sense of the word) underneath. That isn’t the case here. And because the rollers are soft all over, there’s nothing to agitate embedded dust.

None of that is an issue if you’re just using the PencilVac on hard flooring, which is its intended use. You don’t need a ton of suction to clean hard floors because all the dust and dirt is sat right there on the surface. But if you’re seeking something for carpet, or even a vacuum that will pull the dirt from the cracks and crevices in your floorboards, this isn’t it.

To get a more objective view of how well the PencilVac cleans, I ran a series of tests using dry, loose tea (to represent fine particles) and a dry couscous/oat mix (to represent chunky debris) on the large tiles of my kitchen floor. The results were very impressive: the vacuum picked up everything in a single pass, even on the lowest Eco mode. There was minimal pinging of large particles, and the fact that the head cleans from both sides meant I could clear the spillage in half the time.

In general use, the PencilVac was a dream to use in my kitchen. The Fluffycones head seemed to hover across floors, moving smoothly and with minimal effort on my part, whisking away dirt and pet hair as it went. The lasers did a great job of illuminating dust in dingy areas, and I could easily direct the vacuum into tight corners—down the side of a sofa, for example. The only annoyance was that awkwardly angled floorhead.

Although this vacuum isn’t really built for carpets, I still ran my standard carpet tests to see how it would cope. It pulled up a decent amount of chunky debris in a single forward pass in Medium mode, although it did flick other bits about.

Medium mode wasn’t enough to pull many of the flecks of fine dry tea from my mid-pile carpet, and even after several passes I could still see a shadow where the tea had been sprinkled.

I also decided to try the PencilVac on the canvas-style mat in my kitchen. It pulled up a good amount of debris, and there was less pinging than there had been on the carpet. It’s certainly capable of pulling surface dirt from this kind of flooring, and perfectly fine for everyday cleaning.

Dyson PencilVac Review: Battery Life

The main compromise you’re making for the lightweight, compact build is a smaller battery. Larger, heavier Dyson vacuums last over an hour in their lowest-powered mode, but the runtimes on the PencilVac are much shorter. Dyson promises 30 minutes in Eco mode, 20 in Medium and 5 in the most powerful Boost mode. The battery recharges in a relatively speedy 2 hours.

Medium mode is the one I’d typically default to, and it lasted for 18 minutes at the power (less than Dyson’s listed specs). That’s really quite short for a middle mode, although it did give me enough time to clean three bathrooms, a large kitchen and utility room, so maybe it isn’t too much of an issue. I’d also say that for hard flooring, Eco mode will actually usually be sucky enough for most situations.

I’ve been testing vacuums for a while now, and with the PencilVac I missed having a dirt-detecting Auto mode, although I can see why it wasn’t included here. I’m pleased to see that despite the battery taking a different format, it’s still removable and replaceable, which should help with the longevity of the PencilVac overall.

Should You Buy the Dyson PencilVac?

The Dyson PencilVac is a triumph of engineering that delivers on its promise of being the most maneuverable vacuum you can buy. If you have mostly hard floors and value lightweight, agile cleaning over raw power and long battery life, this is absolutely worth considering. The Fluffycones floorhead with its anti-hair-wrap design and dirt-illuminating lasers make it genuinely useful for everyday cleaning.

However, if you have significant carpet areas, need longer runtime, or want better edge cleaning, you’ll want to look elsewhere. The angled floorhead is a genuine frustration, and the modest suction means it’s not suitable for deep cleaning carpets or pulling dirt from crevices.

At its premium price point, the PencilVac is an investment in convenience and innovation rather than raw cleaning power. For the right user—someone with mostly hard floors who values maneuverability above all else—it’s a game-changer. For everyone else, it’s a fascinating but expensive niche product.

How I Tested the Dyson PencilVac

I used the Dyson PencilVac regularly for a couple of months to get a general feel for its performance and usefulness. I also ran specific cleaning tests including chunky particles (dry couscous/oat mix) and fine particles (dry, loose tea) on my hard floor, thin mats and carpet. I compared my findings with other vacuums I’ve tested, and assessed if it offered strong value for money.

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