Dyson V12 Detect Slim Review: Vacuum With Laser Detection To Help You Clean Up Every Speck of Dust

I must admit, I'm sometimes prone to cutting corners when I'm vacuuming my room. As long as my main walking areas are clean and I don't see any dust or dirt on my floors, I'm happy. For better or for worse, trying out the new Dyson V12 Detect Slim Total Clean vacuum over the past week has turned me into something of a cleaning maniac.

Credit: Dyson

Let's talk about the major reason you'll get this vacuum first: the Laser Slim Fluffy cleaning head. That's right, there's now a cleaning head that has an embedded laser in the corner, shining out a blade of green light that will illuminate your floors or surfaces and highlight any dust that might be there. This means you can actually see even thin layers of dust that might not always be visible to the eye.

It sounds like a bit of a gimmick, but I did find this especially helpful when vacuuming close to my walls, since I noticed that there was a slight line of dust that the Laser Slim Fluffy couldn't pick up, so I swapped to the crevice tool instead.

Here's a photo of the Laser Slim Fluffy in action, under one of the tables in my home that hasn't been touched in a few weeks. You'll be able to see that not only are the larger clumps of dust illuminated, but you can also clearly see the finer dust that hasn't yet clumped up.

It's nothing revolutionary like robot vacuums and the likes, but it's a quality of life addition that will really let you be more thorough in your vacuuming process. The one area that it doesn't do so well is on thick carpet. It works fine for low-pile rugs and the likes, but if you have a high-pile carpet, you'll probably want to go with another cleaning head.

That's not all though. In the box, you also get a direct drive cleaning head, combination tool, soft dusting brush, stubborn dirt tool, light pipe crevice tool and the new hair screw tool.

If you or your family members have long hair, or if you have pets, you'll know the pains of vacuuming. Hair and fur gets stuck and tangled in the vacuum head, and it's definitely troublesome to stop halfway and untangle hair from the rollers.

Well, Dyson has solved that. The hair screw tool looks pretty normal from the outside, but inside, you'll notice a conical tapered roller that Dyson claims is anti-tangle. Because of the conical shape, hair doesn't tangle around the brush bar. It gets pulled off the tapered end and ends up being sucked directly into the bin.

I have two people in the household with long hair, and while Dyson's original cleaner heads already did a pretty good job at not getting too much hair tangled, this was even better. For people who hate having to slowly pick at the brush bar trying to get hair strands out, this is a godsend.

And as always, it's super easy to take apart the cleaner head for a thorough clean of the bristles and such.

The one problem I think people might have with the V12 Detect Slim is the bin capacity. It's smaller than most other full-fledged vacuums from Dyson, at just around 0.35L. That being said, it's already bigger than the 0.2L bin in the Omni-glide, so the bin capacity isn't that big a dealbreaker for me since it's enough for my house. People with much larger homes, though, might find themselves making a trip to empty the bin midway through a vacuum session. That being said, there's still the lever that you can pull to empty the bin without having to get your hands dirty, which is one of my favourite things about a Dyson vacuum.

Credit: Dyson

Dyson has gone back to the standard handle design, although they've opted for a large red button on the top of the machine for turning it on or off instead of the trigger they've used previously. Personally, I think this is great. Holding down the trigger was quite uncomfortable, especially if you're vacuuming for a long period of time.

You get the standard eco and boost power modes, along with an auto mode which will allow the machine to automatically ramp up power if it detects a large amount of dust. I did try this in a few situations, with the super dusty area under the table, for one, and on a few floor mats that we use. In most situations where I would expect there to be more dust, the vacuum did increase suction power, so that's good. The hyperdymium motor inside does provide up to 150 air watts of suction, which does perfectly fine to suck up all the dust and dirt. There's also an LCD screen on the top which shows you the amount of dust collected, separated based on particle size. How, you might ask?

Well, Dyson has included an interesting acoustic piezo sensor in the bin inlet, which is a tiny metal plate inside that all the dust sucked up needs to hit before going into the bin. The vibrations are then converted into electrical signals to calculate how much dust of a particular size has been collected. It's a nice little feature, not one that really makes much of a functional difference, but it's a good indicator of what kind of dust you have in your home. Mine, for example, has plenty of dust particles under 10μm, although I reckon most people would end up seeing pretty similar results.

You can also see the amount of runtime left, and the red pill-shaped button on the bottom allows for swapping between eco, boost and auto mode. The machine itself is also lighter than other full-fledged vacuums, weighing in at 2.2kg, which is just slightly heavier than the Omni-glide. I did find the Omni-glide easier to manoeuvre around, but that's definitely because of the omnidirectional cleaner head on that vacuum.

Credit: Dyson

The machine has a runtime of around 60 minutes on eco mode with non-motorised, which is more than enough for my house, and it also comes with the swappable battery located in the handle, so a second battery could be purchased and kept topped up for easy swapping if needed. I left it on auto mode and the battery lasted for around 39 minutes or so with the Laser Slim Fluffy head, which was enough for one quick pass around my house with more attention paid to my room.

All in all, it's a great vacuum for people who require a compact, lightweight vacuum but still want to get pretty decent suction power. The green laser light is fantastic if you're like me, the kind of person who will cut corners when cleaning if dust can't be seen, and the new hair screw tool is invaluable if you've been struggling with hair getting tangled in your vacuum.

The Dyson V12 Detect Slim range starts from S$899 and is on sale now at Dyson's website and Dyson Demo stores at Dyson Service Centre, Capitol Singapore and Westgate.

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Written by Cheryl Tan