The Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra/Complete is a bagless upright vacuum. It's an updated version of the Dyson Ball Animal 2 with a redesigned floorhead. It features three dedicated surface settings for different floor types and a removable anti-tangle brushroll. The latter feature is very helpful if you have a pet that sheds heavily. Its five-stage filtration system also helps to seal in allergens like pet dander.
While there are multiple variants, they only differ in color and included accessories. Further details on the differences between models are outlined in the Differences Between Variants section of the review.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is very good for cleaning bare floors. It easily clears away small and bulky debris on this floor type, and its powerful suction motor does a fantastic job of sucking up debris in cracks and crevices. However, the vacuum itself doesn't feel especially sturdy in places, particularly the clear plastic dustbin and semi-spherical wheels. Its bulky design can also be a challenge to maneuver in tighter spaces.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is a good option for vacuuming low-pile carpet. Its strong suction motor lets it easily suck up fine and large debris from low-pile carpets. The adjustable floorhead surface settings make pushing it around on carpeted floors easier than its predecessor. Unfortunately, you must still be careful when cleaning around tasseled rugs, which can get caught in the floorhead even with the brushroll turned off.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is very good for vacuuming high-pile carpet. The adjustable floorhead and strong suction motor allow it to clear a mix of debris types fairly easily, though you might still need to make an extra pass to clear away everything. You also still need to be careful when cleaning very dense shag pile carpeting, which can get caught in its floorhead. Its bagless design incurs minimal recurring costs and isn't especially hard to maintain. However, its clear plastic dustbin feels a little fragile, as do its ball wheels.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is impressively well-suited to dealing with pet hair. It can handle pet hair on bare floors and carpet. The anti-tangle vanes in its floorhead are also very effective in minimizing the chances of hair getting tangled within the mechanism. Unlike its predecessor, the brushroll is removable, enabling you to clean it thoroughly. This vacuum variant comes with a dedicated pet grooming tool, ideal for clearing loose fur and dead skin. Its five-stage filtration system is also pretty effective in sealing fine allergens like pet dander. Unfortunately, this vacuum is on the louder end of the scale and might startle animals sensitive to loud noises.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is okay for vacuuming staircases. Its upright body is somewhat heavy and rather bulky, making it a hassle to carry around. That said, you can use it in a semi-handheld configuration by leaving it positioned upright and cleaning with its hose, which is quite long and enables you to reach most faraway areas. Its long power cord also ensures you won't have to swap outlets when vacuuming taller staircases. Make sure you leave it on secure footing so that it doesn't tip over, as some parts of its mainly plastic construction feel a little flimsy, like the dustbin and main wheels.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is an upright vacuum and isn't suitable for cleaning the inside of your car.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is mediocre for light workshop cleaning tasks, as that isn't what it's designed for. It can easily clear away household debris on hard surfaces like concrete floors, not to mention low-pile rugs, but it could be damaged if you use it to suck up heavier debris like metal or wood shavings. It also isn't meant for sucking up liquid spills.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is available in four variants, which differ only in the included attachments. We tested the 'Extra' variant, and you can see its label here. Outlined below is the current Ball Animal 3 model lineup.
Model Name | Parts Included | Canister Color | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Ball Animal 3 | Combination tool, Stair tool | Nickel | |
Ball Animal 3+ | Combination tool, Stair tool, Tangle-Free Turbine tool | Nickel | Only available from Costco |
Ball Animal 3 Advanced | Carbon fiber soft dusting brush, Combination tool, Stair tool, tool holder | Nickel | |
Ball Animal 3 Extra | Pet Groom tool, Combination tool, Tangle-Free Turbine tool, Stair tool | Copper | |
Ball Animal 3 Complete | Reach under tool, Pet groom tool, Combination tool, Tangle-free turbine tool, Stair tool, Articulating hard floor tool, Multi-angle Brush tool, Carbon fiber soft dusting brush, mattress tool, Tool holder, Tool bag | Gold | Only available from Dyson's site |
Let us know in the comments if you encounter another variant of this vacuum, and we'll update our review.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is a bagless upright vacuum. It delivers remarkably strong performance across a wide variety of surfaces, even when compared to high-end models like the discontinued Miele Dynamic U1 PowerLine, and represents a good option for pet owners thanks to its superb pet hair cleaning capability and anti-tangle floorhead. That said, even with its redesigned floorhead, it still suffers some of the same issues as the older Dyson Ball Animal 2. Its strong suction motor can cause it to drag around some lighter rugs and get caught on shag-pile carpeting, though admittedly to a lesser degree than its predecessor.
If you're looking for an alternative, look at our list of recommendations for the best upright vacuums, the best bagless vacuums, and the best vacuums for pet hair.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is better than the Shark Stratos Upright. The Dyson is easier to maintain, thanks to its removable brushroll, has a height-adjustable floorhead to allow for improved maneuverability on surfaces like thick carpeting and delivers better overall debris pickup performance. Pricier variants of the Dyson also come with a wider array of attachments. Conversely, the Shark feels better built and has an odor-neutralization feature.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra/Complete is better than the Shark Navigator Lift-Away Deluxe. The Dyson has a height-adjustable floorhead, making it easier to maneuver on thick carpeting, a more powerful suction motor, and a longer range. It also incurs lower recurring costs and is easier to maneuver despite its heavier build. That said, the Shark's 'Lift-Away' design does make it a little easier to clean tight spots.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is a notable improvement over the Dyson Ball Animal 2 Total Clean/Origin. The two vacuums are similar in design, but the Animal 3's updated floorhead makes all the difference. Unlike the Animal 2, it can be detached from the vacuum and has a removable brushroll, making it easier to clean. The Animal 3's floorhead also has anti-tangle vanes that are effective in minimizing hair wraps, and it offers three levels of surface adjustment, resulting in improved performance and suction force across a wide range of surfaces. In contrast, the Animal 2 has a self-adjusting floorhead that doesn't allow you to manually select a surface setting, which makes it slightly harder to maneuver on uneven floors.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra/Complete and Dyson Cinetic Big Ball Animal are different types of vacuums, with the former being an upright and the latter being a canister, but they each have their own advantages. The Ball Animal 3 is the best choice if you need something for cleaning thick carpeting, as it's equipped with a more powerful suction motor and has a height-adjustable powerhead. It also has a longer power cord than its canister counterpart. That being said, the Big Ball is a much smaller, more maneuverable option that could be a better fit if you live in a smaller home and don't require the upright's sheer power.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is better than the Shark Navigator Lift-Away Speed. The Dyson has a far more powerful suction motor, resulting in better debris pickup across a wide range of surfaces, is easier to maintain, comes with a wider assortment of attachments, and is easier to maneuver thanks to its ball-shaped wheel. However, the Shark is slightly lighter and makes a little less noise.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is better than the Shark Vertex Pro Powered Lift-Away for most uses, though these are still differently designed vacuums with different uses. The Dyson is a more conventional corded upright that's better suited for longer cleaning sessions, as it can run for as long as it's plugged into an electrical socket. It's also easier to maintain, has a larger dustbin, and features an adjustable floorhead that yields significantly better performance on carpeted floors. However, the Shark is cordless, allowing you to clean hard-to-reach areas like the inside of your car with relative ease. It's also quieter and lighter than the Dyson, with a 'Lift-Away' design that lets you use it as a handheld by picking up and carrying its canister body independently of its floorhead.
The Dyson Outsize and Dyson Ball Animal 3 are differently designed vacuums with different intended uses. The Outsize is a cordless vacuum with a large dustbin meant to bridge the gap between a more maneuverable cordless stick vacuum and a traditional upright with a higher overall debris capacity. It's easier to store and carry around than the Ball Animal, and it features a larger dustbin. Since it comes with two batteries, you can continue using the Outsize for quite a while without running out of charge, though the Ball Animal is still a better fit for long cleaning sessions thanks to its corded design. The Ball Animal also delivers significantly stronger performance on carpeted floors, even if it lacks the Outsize's automatic power adjustment capability.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is better for most uses than the Shark APEX Upright. The Dyson is easier to clean, has a longer overall range, comes with a wider assortment of tools, including a dedicated pet grooming attachment, and delivers superior performance on carpeted floors. That said, the Shark's 'Lift-Away' configuration does make it easier to clean hard-to-reach areas, as you can pick up and carry its motor unit independently of its floorhead. It's also noticeably quieter than the Dyson.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is reasonably well-built. It's mainly made out of plastic. Compared to the Dyson Ball Animal 2, its redesigned floorhead sees a significant improvement in overall build quality. It's smaller but uses a thicker removable brushroll with closer-spaced nylon bristles, not to mention a series of detangling vanes that help reduce the chances of hair getting tangled within the mechanism. That said, it does share several weak points with its predecessor. The vacuum's semi-spherical wheels and clear plastic dirt compartment feel flimsy.
Out-of-box setup is a little finicky. You'll need to put together quite a few components when taking it out of the box, and while it does use a series of easy-clip mechanisms to attach parts to each other, they're of a different, less user-friendly design compared to the clips used on other Dyson vacuums like the Dyson V11.
User maintenance isn't very hard.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is fairly easy to store, especially for a vacuum of this type. It's a little shorter than other bagless uprights, like the Shark Rotator Lift-Away ADV, but also a little thicker, so it might be hard to push it to the back of a closet. Thankfully, onboard storage for its combination and stair/upholstery tool is available. Unfortunately, you'll have to wind up its cord manually, as there's no automatic cord retraction system, which is disappointing for a vacuum at this high price point.
The dirt compartment is well-sized. It's the same size as the one in the older Dyson Ball Animal 2, and there's a max fill line to give you an idea of how close it is to being filled.
The following accessories are exclusive to the Ball Animal 3 Complete variant:
This vacuum has an impressively long range. Its power cord is long enough to clean faraway areas without having to swap outlets, and its hose offers more than enough additional slack to make cleaning on top of shelves and dressers pretty easy.
Even though this vacuum is mainly plastic, it's quite heavy for a vacuum of this type, so it can be a bit of a hassle to pick up and carry. That said, it feels lightweight in your hand when pushing it around.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is a corded vacuum with no battery.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 has a couple of quality-of-life features. Unlike the Dyson Ball Animal 2, you can manually toggle between three different surface settings using the slider on its floorhead, which change the head height and its suction force. The leftmost setting is intended for hard surfaces and embedded dirt and debris, the center for cleaning solid debris from low-pile carpet, and the rightmost setting is meant for cleaning high-pile carpet. You can see a video of the vacuum head being toggled through these settings here. You can also turn the brushroll off to avoid scratching bare floors and scattering debris everywhere. Like its predecessor, suction is directed through the hose when positioned at a fully upright angle. You need to tilt the vacuum backward to direct the suction through the floorhead.
The Extra variant of the Dyson Ball Animal 3 has several attachments. There's a dedicated grooming tool for sucking away loose hair, dander, and dead skin from your pet, a crevice tool with a slide-on soft-bristle dusting brush, a turbo brush for cleaning fabric and carpeted surfaces, and a dedicated stair/upholstery tool. It also comes with a telescopic wand to help extend your reach.
The Complete variant of this vacuum comes with all of these attachments, along with a slim soft bristle dusting brush that you can use to clean fine dust from delicate surfaces like TV screens, an articulating pure suction floorhead for cleaning messes on hard floors, a reach under tool for cleaning awkward spaces, a multi-angle brush for cleaning on top of shelves, and a wider-nozzle upholstery tool.
You can use this vacuum in a semi-handheld configuration by leaving it completely upright, which causes suction to be diverted through the wand. If you want an upright vacuum but find yourself cleaning hard-to-reach areas often, you might want to consider an upright with a detachable canister unit, like the Shark Stratos Upright.
This vacuum delivers great performance on bare floors. Unlike most other conventional upright vacuums, its bristled brushroll doesn't scatter around larger debris on hard floors. Instead, it aids performance, directing both fine debris like sand and bulky debris like cereal towards its suction inlet. That said, a small amount of debris can remain trapped in the floorhead, only to fall back out again when the vacuum is turned off.
This vacuum does a satisfactory job of dealing with debris on low-pile carpet. Its powerful suction motor, combined with the good surface agitation from its powered floorhead, allows it to clear away the vast majority of fine debris like sand within a single pass, though a small amount can be left behind. Its floorhead also sits high enough to roll over bulky debris like cereal so that the vacuum can suck it up. However, the floorhead's bulky design means it can struggle with debris pushed up close to walls.
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 exerts great suction power through its floorhead. With the Motorbar floorhead set to its hard floor configuration, it generates a relatively tight seal against the ground, allowing it to draw away debris embedded in carpet fibers or cracks and crevices. Its raw motor suction, measured directly from the floorhead, is also very potent, enabling it to clear away stubborn debris with its hose and array of attachments.
This vacuum has great airflow. It won't have any trouble lifting away heavier debris or larger messes. That said, you should still consider a canister model like the Miele Complete C3 if raw airflow performance is what you're after.
This vacuum is on the noisier side of things. It's substantially louder than premium models like the SEBO Airbelt D4 Premium, and the sound of it running is sufficient to drown out most conversation happening within the same room.
Maneuverability is good, especially for a vacuum of this type. The Dyson's ball-shaped articulating wheel mechanism makes it easier to maneuver around obstacles than most conventional uprights. Still, the floorhead doesn't pivot all that smoothly, which makes it a little unwieldy to use in tight spaces.
Since the Extra variant of this vacuum doesn't come with a slimline hard floor tool, it can be tricky to maneuver under tables and chairs. You can easily swap between the included tools thanks to the onboard storage clip. Compared to the Dyson Ball Animal 2, which could get caught on shag-pile rugs and drag them around, it's easier to maneuver on thick carpeted floors thanks to the redesigned floorhead with manually adjustable surface configurations. Be aware that you'll need to crouch over the floorhead to change modes and that the vacuum can still sometimes get stuck on shag-pile carpeting.
The Extra variant of the Dyson Ball Animal 3 does a fantastic job cleaning pet hair from furniture using the Stair tool, which is effectively a straight-suction upholstery tool with a lint strip across the rear of the suction inlet. It requires minimal effort to move around and clears short and long strands of hair. You can also use the turbo brush attachment, but the lighter weight of the Stair tool makes it easier to use.
This vacuum does a great job of sealing in fine particles. It has a five-stage filtration system with an onboard HEPA filter. Altogether, the manufacturer advertises the vacuum as able to trap 99.97% of particles as small as 0.3 microns.
This vacuum does a superb job of cleaning debris from cracks. Its powerful motor and height-adjustable floorhead help it draw away debris from shallow and medium-depth cracks when using its floorhead. Be careful not to set the floorhead too low when cleaning linoleum or hardwood floors since the rotating brushroll can create micro-scratches on delicate surfaces.