Did Dyson really get it right? I say bring back the Bag!

As the Dyson business opens its new software hub in Bristol and the Dyson head-hunters are inviting budding engineers to escape from a series of smart rooms by solving a series of cryptic engineering challenges you have to wonder if the vacuum cleaner is reached a plateau in its development. Will the focus now be on the internet of things so that your ‘smart’ Dyson vacuum knows when you’re going out and does the carpets for you? That would be nice!

There are some great futuristic designs out there such as the Nanophea which uses Nano (that’s extremely small things!) to drop super tiny little droplets of water on your carpet that attract the dust before the Nano gobbles them back up, filters them and spits them out again. Science fiction becomes fact. I’m sure Dyson will be working on plenty of robotics and maybe they’ll even solve the Dalek problem of getting upstairs. We’ve all seen the little robot lawnmower on the Honda Film 4 ads so it’s not a great leap to put a sucker instead of a cutter on the underneath.

The lack of bag has gone down a storm but how are you getting on with all those filters that have cropped up? Do you ever remember to clean them? They are there because being nice to the environment (which includes you) means that we don’t want those allergenic dust particles up our noses and this is also a main driver for the market.

Of course, in the good old days the bag was also the filter. The Dyson cyclone still has to exhaust the air back into the room somewhere and it is doing this through a series of filters which, like the bag, slowly get clogged up and must reduce the airflow and therefore the suction. Perhaps we should just take the filters out and wear a gas mask!

And then there’s energy. The EU has already passed a law which limits the horsepower of your vacuum to 1600W so we are going to have to rethink how we best use this power to get the job done. Perhaps this is where the new Dyson software hub can dream up some solution about adjusting power to suit how much dirt is present.

So enough of what Dyson may or may not be up to – Apex is thinking in a slightly retro fashion with a best of both worlds twist. I’ve been hanging round in various department stores stalking potential vacuum buyers and asking them how they’ve been getting on without their vacuum bags. 8 out of 10 owners said it was all good except the emptying part. As soon as you open the trap door and start shaking out the clod of cat hairs you are releasing a bazillion particles straight into your lungs –  especially if you are doing it outside and the wind changes! All the effort of those filters has gone to waste and the environmental progress has been scuppered.

There is no good design reason why the bag can’t be used with the cyclone and indeed some of the early Dyson patents use one. The thing that Apex have cracked is a super hygienic solution that means all that allergenic harm and environmental damage are locked up instead of escaping up your nose.

As always if you’d like to know more just leave a reply or head over to the website portfolio.