Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones Cordless Vacuum Cleaner

The Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones is for the sort of household where the hard floor looks fine until a shaft of daylight exposes a small civilisation of dust, crumbs and long hair. We admire a product willing to address that indignity with something more considered than a generic brush bar and a prayer.

Its main peculiar trick is the Fluffycones cleaner head: four conical brush bars designed to lift and strip long hair so it can be vacuumed without tangling. That is a genuinely sensible bit of engineering for homes where hair regularly makes a break for the skirting boards. Forward- and rear-facing LEDs also illuminate hard-floor dirt, which may be useful, though it does mean there is nowhere left for the crumbs to plead innocence.

The PencilVac is unusually narrow at 38 mm wide, weighs 1.8 kg and can flatten under furniture as low as 95 mm. We think that makes it a persuasive secondary vacuum for frequent passes through a compact flat or the bits of the home that the larger machine regards as below its dignity.

There is, naturally, a catch. The UK specification gives it up to 30 minutes of runtime and an 0.08 L bin, with a 3.5-hour charge time. This is a precise tool for keeping daily grit in check, not an invitation to postpone cleaning for a fortnight and then attempt an archaeological dig.