Dyson V16 Piston Animal Submarine  Vacuum Review

This vacuum's build quality is good, a notable improvement over earlier Dyson vacuums. In particular, the plastic construction is more rigid than its predecessor, the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine, making the vacuum feel fairly robust despite the occasional creak as you move it.

All components click together well, with a release at the top and bottom of the wand to detach the connected tool. The Submarine mopping floorhead is well-made and easy to clean, though it's not very well-sealed, and water can leak out if you tip it.

The Dyson V16 Piston Animal Submarine is decently easy to maintain, though there are a lot of parts you have to keep clean. Fortunately, all parts are easy to access.

The dirt compartment's piston helps keep the dirt compartment clean, even though some hair might stick to it. It moves all debris to the bottom of the dirt compartment, making the dirt easy to remove once you open the compartment's bottom flap using a release button. You can also separate the dirt compartment from the vacuum body using two tabs on the sides of the dustbin for deeper cleaning.

The dual conical roll anti-tangle floorhead doesn't clog with hair like other vacuums, but it does roll hair into a ball and trap it behind the rollers. Thankfully, it's easy to remove the rollers to clean out the hair.

The conical turbo brush doesn't have the same issue, but you can simply push a latch to remove the roller for cleaning if needed.

You can service the Submarine mop roller head by sliding a small release latch. Inside, you'll find the brush roller, the clean water tank, and the dirty water reservoir. You should drain the dirty water tank after each use and clean the tanks regularly with a diluted household antimicrobial solution to prevent odors.

The exhaust filter at the top of the vacuum body can be unlocked by twisting it counterclockwise. The manufacturer recommends you wash it under cold water on a regular basis. Allow 24 hours for it to fully dry before reinstalling the filter in the vacuum.

The Dyson V16 Piston Animal Submarine incurs somewhat low recurring costs. Not many parts need to be replaced on a regular basis. However, these parts are hard to find in most regions.

• Filter: The exhaust filter should last the lifetime of the vacuum if it's cleaned according to manufacturer recommendations and only needs replacement if it's damaged.
• Submarine Head Wet Roller: The manufacturer recommends you replace the wet roller in the Submarine floorhead after six months of normal use. It's best practice to replace this roller whenever you notice significant wear and tear.

This vacuum is relatively easy to store, though the Submarine floorhead and docking station require a slightly deeper space than most other cordless stick vacuums. There's also no wand clip for storing accessories. You can store two attachments on the docking station, but you'll have to find space for everything else. 

This vacuum's dirt compartment offers a decent capacity. It's a little on the small side of average for a cordless stick vacuum. The piston feature compresses debris to maximize capacity, though this only works with compressible materials like hair. Hard debris won't compress much, so you'll need to empty more often depending on what you're vacuuming.

• Dyson V16 Piston Animal Submarine vacuum
  • Vacuum body/dirt compartment
  • Filter
  • Battery
  • Dual conical roll anti-tangle floorhead
  • Submarine wet roller floorhead
  • Wand
• Tools and brushes
  • Conical turbo brush
  • 2-in-1 combination tool (upholstery tool, soft bristle brush)
  • Crevice tool
• Docking station
  • Dock hanger
  • Docking station
  • Drip tray
  • Charger with charging cable
• Guides and manuals
  • Warranty information
  • Submarine floorhead information
  • Dock installation manual with mounting screws
  • Quick Start Guide

Since this is a cordless vacuum, its range is limited only by the remaining battery life and the room left in its dirt compartment.

The Dyson V16 is quite portable. Its total weight is slightly under its predecessor, the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine, though there's a little more weight on the handle. Its weight is low enough that it's reasonably easy to carry around.

The Submarine V2 head weighs exactly the same as the previous version:

• Empty: 3.09 lbs (1.4 kg)
• With full clean water reservoir: 3.75 lbs (1.7 kg)
• With full clean water and dirty water reservoirs: 4.52 lbs (2.05 kg)

We will be updating this review to our latest test bench shortly. We wanted to make our test results public as soon as possible. Check back for updated test data.

This vacuum has many quality-of-life features. The floorhead has a built-in LED to illuminate fine debris. When you install the floorhead, you can choose between Eco, Auto, and Boost suction modes, with Auto being the default. Auto adjusts suction based on the surface it detects and the number of particles it senses with its particle counter, which it shows on the display. Auto mode changes to Med mode when you use this vacuum in a handheld configuration, which deactivates the sensors.

The dual conical floorhead has a manual suction slider gate, allowing you to choose between Large Objects or More Suction. There's more room to accommodate large objects in the floorhead when you set this to Large Objects, while More Suction seals off the floorhead hose, concentrating the suction.

When you connect the Submarine mopping head, you can choose between Wet and Max. Wet is the default wet mopping setting, while Max temporarily increases the mopping head's pump power to increase water flow, though this doesn't increase roller speed or have much effect on power consumption. In mopping mode, the display only shows the battery percentage, not the time remaining, as it would in vacuum mode.

You can connect this vacuum to your phone to check the vacuum's status and settings, and update the vacuum's firmware.

The Dyson V16 Piston Animal Submarine comes with a dual conical roll floorhead with a central LED light, a conical hair screw turbo brush, a 2-in-1 upholstery tool and soft bristle brush, a crevice tool, and a mopping floorhead.

You can reconfigure this vacuum into a handheld model by removing its wand. You don't always need to clip a tool to the vacuum body since the body has a small built-in crevice tool, which should suffice for many tasks.

This vacuum delivers great performance on hard floors. The dual conical roller floorhead easily picks up all fine debris as well as most medium and large material when you set the suction slider on the floorhead to Large Objects. If you select Maximum Suction, you'll leave more medium and large debris behind.

The Dyson V16 Piston Animal Submarine offers fair performance on high-pile carpet. It clears most fine, medium, and large debris with the floorhead's suction gate in the Large Objects setting. If you select the Maximum Suction setting, you'll leave more medium and large debris behind, but it still won't increase performance on fine material.

The floorhead's V-shaped design makes it difficult to maneuver into edges and corners, leaving material behind in these places. There's also a sealed, unpowered area along the middle of the floorhead, which leaves strips of debris behind, requiring you to make another pass.

This vacuum's performance on low-pile carpet is reasonable. With the suction gate at its Large Objects setting, it picks up most fine, medium, and large debris, but leaves uncleaned areas along the center of the floorhead, requiring a second pass. Setting the floorhead's suction gate to Maximum Suction leaves a little more large debris behind and doesn't increase performance for other material sizes.

The floorhead's wedge shape makes cleaning wall edges and corners quite difficult, requiring you to pivot it while still leaving behind debris.

This vacuum's pet hair pickup performance on low-pile carpet is remarkable. The twin hair screw rollers built into the floorhead pick up nearly every hair, including deeply embedded hairs. However, the dead zone at the center of the floorhead leaves hair behind, requiring you to make a second pass offset from the first.

This vacuum delivers reasonable suction. That said, the dual conical roll floorhead is larger than the floorheads on older Dyson vacuums, distributing suction over a larger surface area, so the suction is lower. Also, the floorhead doesn't seal as well to the floor as older floorheads, limiting suction.

The airflow through the hose is good, and this vacuum has plenty of power to lift even large debris.

This vacuum is fairly quiet and shouldn't be too disruptive when you're having a conversation or watching TV. The dual conical roll floorhead is just as quiet as the earlier Dyson V15s Detect Submarine's Digital Motorbar floorhead on bare floor, and a little quieter on carpet.

This vacuum is decently maneuverable. It's easy to get under couches or low tables, provided you crouch. On furniture, it's no problem to move it wherever you need to clean, and the multiple attachments make cleaning tasks easier. With a little practice, you can vacuum tasseled rugs and high-pile carpet without the floorhead getting stuck, and electrical cords won't jam in the roller either.

However, the unit is poorly balanced, and extended use will cause wrist pain, making it unsuitable for people with limited mobility. You'll also find the convex floorhead difficult to position against straight edges, requiring constant twisting to clean right to the edge. And although the built-in nozzle is convenient to use without an attachment, the opening is very small, making it hard to clean a large area.

The Dyson V16 Piston Animal Submarine delivers excellent performance picking up pet hair from upholstered furniture using its hair screw turbo tool. This turbo head offers enough agitation, and the vacuum provides enough suction to pick up nearly every hair. The tool tends to push hair forward into a clump that can be left behind. You'll need to lift the tool and vacuum directly over this clump to avoid distributing the hair back down on the upholstery.

This vacuum's HEPA filter results in good air filtration performance.

This vacuum does a decent job of removing debris from cracks. Performance is worse than that of older models like the Dyson Gen5detect with its Fluffy Optic floorhead because the V16 floorhead distributes suction over a larger surface area and doesn't seal as well to the floor. It's much easier to pick up this debris using the other attachments with the vacuum at full power.

This vacuum offers satisfactory performance cleaning stains. Its Submarine V2 floorhead features a high-power Max mode, the only difference over the older Submarine head used with the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine. Performance heavily depends on the pressure you apply. Stain removal performance is decent with just the weight of the head, but if you push down on the floorhead, you can increase the friction and agitation, improving performance at the expense of greater physical effort.

The mopping system is nearly identical to that of the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine: it uses an absorbent roller that soaks up water, and a pump that pulls water from the roller and discharges it into a separate tank. The tank isn't fully sealed, so the water can spill out if the tank is nearly full and you move the floorhead too quickly, or if you pick the floorhead up at an angle. Soaking up water this way is a slow process, and it's not much more effective than a manual mop. It may appear fine at first because the water is spread very thin, but another pass with a higher concentration of dye shows there's still a lot of water present, and a final pass shows little improvement.