Narwal V50 Cube: two-minute review

For its first stick vacuum, Narwal did a great job with the V50 Cube. It launched in November 2026 as an extremely lightweight and cordless stick vac with an extendable wand and a dock that does more than charge and auto empty. Over the course of two weeks, I used the vacuum to clean debris from my laminate and hardwood floors, the cobwebs in my windowsills, and dust from my ceiling.

Even with just a maximum 28,000 Pa suction (I’ve tested robovacs with more power), the V50 Cube did pretty well cleaning fine and thick materials, especially on my rugs. Most of the time, I used the AI or auto mode (and sometimes the turbo mode) as the eco mode wasn’t as effective.

The only time the vacuum struggled with a cleaning task was suctioning Cheerios from my hard floors. Other than that, I was very satisfied with its performance thanks to its dirt detecting capabilities which increased the suction power when debris was detected. I even appreciated the aqua headlight that showed me exactly where to clean as it magnifies dust more so than a regular white headlight. The front edge cleaning was poor, but at least the side edge cleaning was anywhere between zero and half an inch.

The charging dock auto empties the dust and debris and reverses the brush roll to prevent tangling. The two-in-one crevice tool is hidden away inside the dock when not in use. There, you’ll also find an extra battery that is always charged and ready to go. This is good since one battery only lasts seven minutes on turbo, 20 minutes on AI or auto mode, and 55 minutes on eco mode.

There are other little details about the design that’s amazing like how it automatically lowers a brush plate when cleaning a carpet to pull more dust and debris – or the way it’s outfitted with a manual scraper to pull off residue stuck in the dust cup. Sure, there are some drawbacks, like how the vacuum head and wand buttons sometimes stick or the crevice tool fell off a few times, but when weighing the pros and cons, I believe there is a lot of value in this vacuum and a promise from Narwal of more to come.

Narwal V50 Cube: price and availability

• List price: $649.99 (about £480 / AU$930)
• Launched: November 2026
• Available: US, Canada, China, and selected EU countries (Germany, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Belarus)

The Narwal V50 launched in November 2026 with a price tag of $649.99, becoming the brand’s first stick vacuum in the US. That works out at roughly £480 / AU$930, but it's not currently available in the UK or Australia. It is, however, being sold in Canada, China, and the EU.

You may also be able to find it more cheaply in one of Narwal's regular sales. Despite its recent release, at the time of writing it has received a $150 discount in Narwal's Black Friday deals, bringing its price down to $449.99.

The relatively high price tag comes from the fact that the vacuum has sensors that detect floor type and dirt. It’s also sold with a charging base with auto-empty features, and an extra battery that doubles your battery life. Considering these features, I’d say the price makes sense.

• Value score: 4 out of 5

Narwal V50 Cube: specs

Narwal V50 Cube: design

• Extremely lightweight cordless vacuum that maneuvers easily
• Aqua headlight magnifies dust, dirt, and debris
• AI capabilities sense floor types and dirt

As Narwal’s first stick vacuum, the V5 has a lot going for it in terms of its design. The black and gray vacuum is modern, sleek, and compact. After pulling it from the base, I have to extend the wand to make it more comfortable to use (I’m 5’5”). The buttons on the vacuum can stick when it comes to removing the vacuum head or the handheld from the wand, but I never had an issue with the extension button. Unfortunately, the vacuum can’t stand on its own, but it can lie 180 degrees flat.

At only 3lbs., the V50 is super lightweight, which made it easy for me to move the vacuum across my floors or hold it up high above my head to clean ceiling corners. The vacuum head is 9.5 inches wide and it’s maneuverable without being uncontrollable, allowing me to clean around chair legs easily.

The grip on the vacuum is very comfortable with the power button and mode switch button in easy reach. A small screen shows the mode and battery life displayed as an icon. When in AI auto mode, the display screen has a curved line to highlight the dirt level. Purple tells you that the floor is clean, while red indicates unseen dirt.

I’ve always been a fan of headlights on vacuums, but this one really takes the cake. The aqua light covers 145 degrees, magnifying every bit of dust on your floor. It works very well in tandem with the AI DirtSense technology which detects dust and dirt, thereby automatically increasing the suction power. The AI technology senses rugs or carpets and lowers a brush plate to create a seal to better pull dust from the fibers of the carpet.

The charging dock is one of the most compact ones I’ve seen — and definitely ever tested. In fact, the vacuum won’t fit on the dock unless you unextend the wand. The charging dock automatically removes dust and debris from the dust cup into a sealed bag that holds up to 100 days’ worth of dirt. Dual H13 HEPA filtration and UVC+ Silver Ion Sterilization ensure that the dust stays locked away.

Narwal also added an anti-tangle hand tool to the dust cup that scrapes away tough residue. There’s a scraping ring under the vacuum that prevents hair or thread wrapping. And when you place the vacuum on the dock, the brush roll undergoes reverse rotation to flush everything out into the dust bag.

Behind the front panel of the dock, there’s a compartment that holds the 2-in-1 crevice tool and another one that charges an extra battery. I really admire that Narwal created a space to hide the accessory and the battery in the dock — something that not enough brands do in my opinion. My only critique would be to have the front panel placed on a hinge in the future.

Setup took no time at all. I added the wand and the vacuum head to the handheld, charged it up, and started cleaning.

• Design score: 4 out of 5

Narwal V50 Cube: battery life

• 20 min on auto mode, 55 min on eco mode, and 7 min on turbo mode
• Extra battery stays charged in the charging base
• Took about two hours for the vacuum to fully recharge

The Narwal V50’s battery life differs depending on which mode you use and the dirt level of your floors. In my testing, the eco mode lasted the longest at 55 minutes, while the battery on turbo mode lasted only seven minutes.

The battery died on AI mode, or the dirt detection mode, after 20 minutes. In that time, I was able to clean about three quarters of the hardwood floors in my home, however, I was moving fast to achieve that. My floors were particularly dusty and dirty, so I’m not surprised that the battery lasted only 20 minutes. Each time the vacuum recognized dirt or dust, it increased the suction which used more power. To that effect, you may see the battery life adjust a bit depending on if you’re using the vacuum on carpet or hardwood floors, as carpet or rugs will cause the vacuum to increase the suction.

The battery life is quite average compared to others, and I wish it lasted a bit longer on the dirt detection mode. However, the cool thing about this vacuum is that it comes with a backup battery that always stays charged in the charging base. So whenever the battery dies, I can grab the other battery, fit it to the Narwal V50 and continue cleaning. It effectively doubles the battery life of the vacuum, allowing you to clean way more at once.

The vacuum took about two hours to recharge on the dock.

• Battery life score: 4 out of 5

Narwal V50 Cube: performance

• Powerful carpet suction, with decent edge cleaning
• Headlight and auto dirt detection work together to pick up dust and debris
• Very lightweight and nimble for cleaning floors or high spaces

The Narwal V50 is a fascinating vacuum. With a turbo suction power of only 28,000 Pa, it’s not the strongest vacuum I’ve tested, and yet, it performed surprisingly well in a lot of ways. I used the vacuum to clean my floors as I normally would, and ran a few tests to see how well it suctioned a variety of materials on different floor types.

One of my favorite aspects of this stick vacuum is its lightweight nature and the smaller vacuum head size. It’s so nimble and twists and turns easily so I could clean around a lot of my furniture without having to move it. The aqua headlight magnifies dust and debris considerably. (I was astounded by how much dust collects on my floors daily!) The ability to lie 180 degrees flat was a big bonus and because the vacuum head and the wand are so thin, I was able to clean under a dresser that I’ve never been able to reach with any other vacuum I’ve tested.

I was very satisfied with how the vacuum picked up dust and debris on the turbo mode and AI or auto mode. I used the V50 most days to pick up food droppings in my kitchen or to clean up dirt I trekked into my mudroom. I was also very glad that I could break down this vacuum and use it as a handheld with the 2-in-1 crevice tool to clean cobwebs from my ceilings and windows or dust from my base boards. I should note that the crevice tool fell off the wand a few times. I even struggled to remove the handheld from the wand too.

The eco mode performed better with the vacuum head on the body of the vacuum (rather than as a handheld), but I doubt I will use that mode from herein out since the suction power was quite low.

Edge cleaning wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be. There was about an inch along the front edge of the vacuum. The side edge cleaning was better, ranging anywhere from 0.5 inches to no space along the side. Unfortunately, I never figured out why the side edge cleaning was not consistent.

To test the Narwal V50, I laid out Cheerios, rice, baking soda (on a rug), and flour (on hard floors) on my different floor types and used the AI dirt detect mode to see how well the vacuum picked up these materials. The vacuum performed perfectly on the rug, suctioning everything in a single go.

The hard floor results were not as good as the rug test. The Narwal V50 appeared to pick up all the flour from the hard floor, but there was a slight film of flour left behind that required the turbo mode to completely remove. While the vacuum picked up all the rice in a single pass, it struggled with the Cheerios. At first, it picked up some of the Cheerios, but after that, the vacuum just pushed the Cheerios forward. Even when I moved the vacuum head slower, I was only able to suction a few more Cheerios, which still left about five behind on the floor.

No matter what, I can’t praise the convenience of the charging base and its auto-empty capabilities. I love the ease of being able to put the vacuum on the base and going about my day, knowing that it suctions all the dirt and dust and keeps it fully contained until it needs to be replaced. The manual scraper tool inside the dust cup of the vacuum is also quite unique in that it removes stubborn residue that the suction power of the base might not be able to do on its own. I haven’t seen that with other vacuums so that’s a great maintenance feature.

I would by no means rely on the Narwal V50 to be your go-to vacuum to clean carpeted rooms. It’s great for cleaning rugs, but it doesn’t have the suction power to handle a house with mostly carpet. Instead, I’d utilize it as a quick-cleaning tool to pick up scraps of food, random bits of dirt, dust from your windowsills, or pet hair that clumps under furniture. It would also be a good choice for smaller homes or apartments.

• Performance: 3.5/5

Should you buy the Narwal V50 Cube?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

Narwal V50 Cube: also consider

If the Narwal V50 Cube isn't the right vacuum for your home, here are two other options that you should consider:

How I tested the Narwal V50 Cube

Over the course of a few weeks, I tested the Narwal V50 in my 1,600-square-foot house outfitted with historic hardwood and laminate floors and two large rugs. I used the vacuum to clean my floors, windowsills, baseboards, and ceilings, noting how it suctioned fine dust and large debris. After running multiple tests, I got a great sense of the battery life, maintenance required, and ease of use.

Read more about how we test vacuum cleaners.

First reviewed November 2026

Shark PowerDetect Transformer: two-minute review

The Shark PowerDetect Transformer is a wired vacuum cleaner that combines an upright, stick and handheld vacuum all in one. It offers plenty of the premium features you might expect, including tangle-free brush bar and dirt-illuminating LED, but also comes crammed with smart features like automatic dirt, surface and edge detection.

The Shark PowerDetect Transformer admittedly isn’t the most easily wielded vacuum cleaner in its upright form — weighing in at 17.6 lbs / 8kg — but it has a trick up its sleeve. Press a single button and its vacuum pod pops off, turning it into a svelte stick vacuum with its own discrete dust bin. Need even more flexibility? Pop off the top section and it becomes a handy handheld vac. Switching between each system is seriously swift, which is really smart design.

On top of this, the PowerDetect Transformer also offers an excellent range of accessories for different tasks, so you’re not just limited to its talented DuoClean Detect nozzle. The HairPro Self-Cleaning Pet Power brush is great for getting pet hair off your rugs and furniture — with its anti-tangle tech preventing the bar getting clogged — and it also includes old classics like a crevice tool and a multi-surface brush. On top of this, it has built-in HEPA certified filtration and an anti-allergen seal, which the asthma sufferers in my house definitely appreciate.

In my book though, the thing that helps the PowerDetect Transformer rival the best vacuum cleaners is how hassle-free it makes sucking up crud from your carpets and hard flooring. Absolutely chock full of auto-detection features, it will dial the level of its suction up and down depending on your floor type, the amount of dirt it detects or the direction you’re dragging it in. Even smarter is its edge detection, which senses when you’re vacuuming against furniture and along room boundaries and directs its suction toward them to more completely do away with detritus.

I’ll admit that being smart doesn’t necessarily always translate being capable. Fortunately, all these smarts do make Shark’s vacuum seriously good at shifting dirt. Pretty much every test I put the PowerDetect Transformer through it aced, getting up coarse dirt from a hard floor and dust out of a shallow pile carpet in a single sweep. And when vacuuming room edges — the achilles heel of many vacuum cleaners — every single lentil I’d tossed down vanished in one movement. The fact pretty much all of this happened without me having to tap a single button is just the icing on the cake.

On top of this, its brush bars were able to remove a disturbing quantity of cat hair from my upholstery without getting clogged, making it easy to clean up after my champion shedder. However, while the bars themselves were great at avoiding tangles, I did find that a couple of times a snarl of hair got caught around the exit into the cyclone chamber, causing it to get slightly backed up. This only happened a few times and won’t matter much as long as you empty the vacuum often enough to stop the hose getting backed up, but it’s worth bearing in mind for the hairiest households.

Once you’re finished, emptying the Shark is also seriously straightforward. After using either its handheld or stick modes, clipping its vacuum pod back on triggers its self-emptying cycle, rapidly emptying its smaller dust bin. And when you want to empty the vacuum pod itself, all you have to do is press the bin switch to detach the larger bin, hold it over your bin and unhook a catch to open the bottom and jettison its contents.

Perhaps the one criticism I do have of the PowerDetect Transformer’s performance is it’s very loud — measuring it with a sound level meter, it hit 74dB during upright use and a raucous 82dB during its self-cleaning cycle. So if you have sensitive neighbors or, like mine, your cat tends toward the scaredy, it might not be the one for you.

Still though, all in all, the Shark PowerDetect Transformer is an impressive vacuum cleaner. Not only is it powerful, it’s smart, easy to use and flexible enough to vacuum pretty much every area of your home. Yes, wireless is always a nice to have — although its 8m cable meant I didn’t miss this as much as I thought I would — it’s loud and it occasionally gets a bit backed up. But I’m happy to forgive these minor quibbles given how much easier it makes day-to-day cleaning.

Shark PowerDetect Transformer review: price & availability

• Launched June 30, 2026
• Costs $529.99 / £499.99 / AU$699.99

Having launched on June 30, 2026, the Shark PowerDetect Transformer is widely available now. It goes for a list price of $529.99 / £499.99 / AU$699.99 — although at the time of writing, in the US, you can use the code TRIO at the checkout to save $130, bringing it down to $399.99.

That price is hardly chicken feed but, for what you’re getting, it’s still reasonable value. For example, the Shark PowerDetect Cordless — our current pick for the best vacuum cleaner out there — is priced at a roughly equivalent $429.99 / £499.99 / AU$849.99 and while unlike the Transformer it’s fully wireless, it can’t convert into a full, high-capacity upright. Meanwhile, the premium Dyson Gen5detect is much more spendy at $949.99 / £769.99 / AU$1,549, while rocking relatively similar features.

In return for your spend, you’re not only getting three vacuums in one but also a solid range of accessories. It comes with the classics such as brush and crevice tools but it also packs a stair tool, the HairPro Pet Power Brush for powered action against pet fuzz and an anti-allergen dusting brush. It also comes with a handy accessory bag to keep them all in.

Finally, the Shark PowerDetect Transformer comes in two tasty colorways: Chimera Blue — a dusky sky blue — and Deep Sage Green. Both of these really pop, especially with those gold highlights, although I’d say I just marginally prefer the former.

Shark PowerDetect Transformer review: specs

Shark PowerDetect Transformer review: design

• Flexible, modular design
• Stuffed with auto-detection features
• Wired only

Okay, I’ll admit when I first heard the name Shark Transformer, I was hoping I was going to be getting a toy robot that converted into a toothy, predatory fish. Fortunately, the design of this vacuum cleaner is nearly as cool. Its modular design makes it easy to switch between three different modes — heavy-duty upright vacuum cleaner, lightweight stick vac and flexible handheld — at the click of a button.

Moreover, unlike previous 3-in-1 vacuum cleaners Shark has created, this one is a hoseless design, meaning you don’t have to hook and unhook elephant trunk tubing every time you want to switch modes. Sliding the vacuum pod on and off the wand, it just clicks into place and connects to the vacuum’s airlock in one smooth movement. It’s clever design and makes selecting the right tool for your job feel effortless.

Naturally, as a result of this protean form, it’s quite hard to comment on the overall size and weight of the device. Because in its upright vacuum final evolution it’s a pretty bulky and hefty beast but pop off a couple of sections and suddenly you’re left with something super light and flexible. So it’s a bit of a quantum vacuum cleaner: a superposition of heavy and light at the same time.

Fortunately, when it comes to its appearance, the PowerDetect Transformer is far less paradoxical. I’m definitely picking up what Shark is throwing down here: in its stick and handheld modes, the Transformer looks seriously sleek and although the vacuum pod is pretty hulking, it’s still excellently engineered. On top of this, the colorways on offer are stunning — the deep sage green colorway I tested looks great but the chimera blue version is genuinely droolworthy. Genuinely, it gives me the same vibes as my sky blue MacBook Air and I wants it.

Setting the Shark up for the first time is pretty straightforward, even if compared to other wired vacuums there is some assembly required. Essentially, all you need to do is click the wand into place on the nozzle, slide the vacuum pod into its home on the stick and insert the hand vacuum into the top.

After this, you’re basically all set to start sucking up grit right away, because the Transformer neither has smart home features to set up or battery to charge. And don’t sweat this last omission too much — its eight-meter cable means you should be able to comfortably reach most areas of your home.

Alongside all of these modules, the Transformer also features all of the usual suspects in terms of accessories, such as the brush and the crevice tool. However, it doesn’t stop there: it also includes Shark’s HairPro Self-Cleaning Pet Power brush, a miniature brush bar tool with anti-wrap technology for getting pet hair and dander out from carpets and upholstery.

But by far its smartest tool is its DuoClean Detect nozzle. On top of its self-cleaning brush roll that picks up hair without getting tangled and targeted LED lighting for showing up barely visible specs of dirt, it’s also absolutely crammed with smart auto-detection features. Whether it’s sensing your floor type, adjusting to the quantity of dirt, directing suction forward or backward depending on the direction you’re moving in or automatically targeting its air inflow to gulp down detritus right up to the edge of rooms, it does all the hard work so you can just focus on practicing your Freddie Mercury impression.

Given all of these auto-detection features, the controls on the Shark PowerDetect Transformer are almost comically uncomplicated. There’s an on button… and that’s basically all you need to understand. If you’re a real control freak, you can manually set its suction to match hard floor, shallow pile or deep pile carpet but honestly I never needed to manually control this, as its auto-detect features did a perfectly effective job at dialing its suction up and down.

Finally, given I live with someone who both suffers from asthma and has the nasal sensitivity of a sommelier with a Neti pot, I definitely appreciate how the Transformer handles dust and disagreeable odors. Its HEPA-certified filtration and anti-allergen seal keeps all of that bronchial-irritating crud locked away. And once you’ve popped one of Shark’s odor-neutralizing cartridges into the nozzle, you can dial its stench-scrubbing capabilities up or down to remove any distressing scents the grime kicks up.

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

Shark PowerDetect Transformer review: performance

• Fantastic suction in almost every scenario
• Emptying is wonderfully easy
• Startlingly loud

Given how clever its features are, this vacuum cleaner is clearly a real bright shark. But how does that translate into real-world performance? After all, what good is the cold, calculating mind of a great white if it’s stuck in the ungainly body of a sunfish? Fortunately, you don’t need to worry on this front — the Shark PowerDetect Transformer cuts through dirt like a dorsal fin through water.

As I’ve already remarked above, the bulk and weight of the Transformer really depends on which mode you use it in. In its upright form, it’s definitely on the husky side — I lift weights multiple times a week, yet I still felt the effort of dragging it round. Fortunately, its two-axis joint makes it pretty easy to maneuver around furniture and once you strip it back to its stick or handheld forms, it’s considerably easier to wield.

Keen to really put the PowerDetect Transformer through its paces, I not only vacuumed my house top to bottom but conducted our full battery of standardized tests. First off, I sprinkled the contents of a teabag on a range of different flooring types to simulate the finer dust the Transformer would have to tackle. On my laminate flooring, the Transformer scarfed down those loose leaves in a single pass — even when repeating this test on my medium-pile carpet, the vacuum cleaner didn’t leave a single scrap behind.

Wanting to see how it fared with more substantial debris, I tried this same test with a small quantity of lentils. Once again, on a hard floor, the Shark snorted up every single pulse without hesitation. Admittedly, when I tried this out on carpet, it left behind three lentils out of about 50. But with a single swipe backward, its automatic direction sensing flipped the direction of its suction and it wolfed them down without issue.

Even trickier debris like pet hair didn’t seem to faze it. Trying it out on a ball of fuzz from my cat’s brush, the vacuum wolfed it down like cotton candy. I even put it to work on the cat’s favorite chair — which was so disgustingly furry that our previous vacuum cleaner had threatened to take industrial action — and yet Shark’s anti-hair wrap tool cut through it easily. And despite going up against upholstery more covered in hair than Hugh Jackman, it lived up to its name and didn’t get clogged or tangled.

So, all in all, I found its suction pretty impressive. But even more noteworthy are how those smarts I mentioned above improve cleaning performance across the board. Thanks to the Transformer’s Dirt Detect feature, during normal cleaning it regularly dialled up its suction strength to tackle denser piles of dust without me having to even think about it. And its edge-of-room performance is fantastic — trying to vacuum up lentils I scattered right up to the baseboard, the vacuum’s Edge Detect feature targeted its suction to pick up every last legume in a single sweep.

The Transformer’s other modes don’t offer quite as much smarts or power as the upright mode but they’re just as capable when tackling their own respective niches. The stick vacuum offers the same level of flexibility but a much lighter weight, making it the perfect tool for a quick runaround in a single room. Meanwhile, its handheld mode made short work of cleaning problem areas like the inside of my sofa and raised surfaces like my piano — without a bulky cyclone chamber attached, it felt so much more flexible than any other convertible vacuum handheld I’ve used.

And once you’re done cleaning, emptying the Transformer feels like a breeze, especially compared to older vacuums. Once you’ve used the stick or handheld vacuums, all you need to do is re-attach the vacuum pod and it will automatically suck out all the dust you’ve gathered into that main chamber.

Clearing out the vacuum pod itself is almost as easy. Detach it using the eject button and the dust bin and cyclone section come away, leaving the filter and vacuum components behind. Then all you need to do is open the bottom clip above the bin and it empties downward — far easier than banging it upside down against the bin till something finally dislodges.

Easy to clean though the Transformer is, I still wouldn’t say this process is absolutely foolproof. One thing I noticed a couple of times when emptying it out is that occasionally hair clogs would get snagged in the airlock into the vacuum pod, meaning that long fibers would start clogging up the main cyclone. Now, both my feline and my human housemates are world champion shedders, meaning this issue might not affect you as often, but it does make me worry you could quickly lose suction if you don’t stay on top of this.

One other slight drawback to the Transformer is a direct consequence of all its convenience and power: the noise. Reaching a volume of 74dB in upright mode and max volume of 82dB during its self-cleaning cycle, it hits the same rough volume as heavy traffic or a blender. While this didn’t bother the humans in my house that much, my cat HATED it — he found the noise while vacuuming upsetting enough but the automatic cleaning cycle sent him flying out of the room like he’d witnessed the Terminator itself. Turns out machines bellowing in rage without apparent human input is where he nopes out.

Ongoing maintenance of the device is a lot less stressful, fortunately. Although you need to clean the pre-motor filters of both chambers every month, the hand vac’s post-motor filter only needs cleaning every six months and replacing every 2.5 years, while the upright’s post-motor filter only needs cleaning once a year and replacing every three. Occasionally, you might also need to wipe those smart sensors to ensure they continue functioning properly but, all in all, this isn’t particularly punishing.

• Performance score: 4.5 / 5

Should I buy the Shark PowerDetect Transformer?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Shark PowerDetect Transformer review: also consider

How I tested the Shark PowerDetect Transformer

• Tested it for several weeks
• Tried it out on a range of flooring and with different materials
• Set it to work on shed pet hair

I tested the Shark PowerDetect Transformer over a period of several weeks. To test its general suction, I scattered loose tea and lentils over hard floor and carpet to simulate how it would handle dust and larger debris and see how many passes it would take to suction them up. I also scattered both of these items along the edge of the room to see how well the Shark would maintain suction at the edges.

On top of this, I used it to clean my whole house several times, as well as trying it out in a few specific scenarios. I tested how well it sucked up shed fur from my pet cat, as well as trying its HairPro Self-Cleaning Pet Power brush on upholstery and on the stairs to see how it removed built up hair from soft furnishings. Finally, I used a sound level meter to record how loud it was in use, recording its max volume in both upright mode and during self cleaning.

I’ve been testing tech and gadgets for around 10 years, as well as editing reviews of smart home gear and appliances. When it comes to first-hand experience, I’ve tested an array of small appliances for TechRadar, including fans and coffee machines. You’ll also be pleased to hear I’m no stranger to vacuuming — otherwise, after 20 years of adulthood, the quantity of dust in my home would be approaching the level of an Egyptian tomb.

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• First reviewed: October 2026