Just eight months ago, Dyson announced an ultra-innovative new vacuum cleaner. It was called the PencilVac and its USP was that all its main components, from its motor to its battery to its dust cup, had been shrunk down to fit into its broom-shaped handle.
The design was – I was told – the result of a lot of painstaking work by Dyson, requiring the engineers to create a tiny new motor just 2.8cm in diameter. It would be worth it though: there was nothing else quite like it.
I’m in the process of testing the Dyson PencilVac (full review goes live when the embargo is lifted in early February) and I’m impressed so far. Now, the Narwhal’s version is clearly not finished yet – it doesn’t have a name yet, very minimal information is available, and I was only able to look at the prototype, but not touch it.
Double roof
In terms of design, the two are unmistakably similar – it’s clear what Narwal based his design on. There is the same streamlined construction, with mechanics squeezed into the handle; Narwal’s handle is more elongated than round, but otherwise it looks basically the same, with Power switch, small info screen, battery at the top and dust cup at the bottom.
I wasn’t able to pick it up, so I can’t comment on maneuverability or weight, but I’d say the PencilVac excels in those areas, based on my testing so far. The Narwal version is described as having ‘360-degree swivel’, and a brand representative told me that its version would be lighter than the PencilVac, though no specs were provided, so I’m hesitant to take that for granted.
Dyson’s PencilVac has an unusual floor head with soft, cone-shaped rollers designed to prevent hair wrapping. The Narwal’s prototype version is more standard – the roller is still soft (suggesting that this model, like Dyson’s, is intended for hard floors rather than carpets), but it only has one parallel roller. Dyson has mounted dirt-illuminating lasers on both sides of its floor head, and the Narwal also lists “a dirt-detecting headlight” in its features list.
Dyson deviations
One big area where the Narwal has deviated from Dyson’s design is the inclusion of an auto-empty dock. This is essentially a base that holds a larger dust cup/bag into which the vacuum cleaner’s smaller built-in container automatically empties when the vacuum cleaner is docked. These are becoming more and more common on regular stick vacuums and are even planned to be added to Dyson’s lineup. However, there isn’t one on the PencilVac.
An auto-empty dock is a logical addition because the whole concept of this type of vacuum means there isn’t much room for a large dust cup. Dyson has included air-powered compression on its PencilVac dust cup to maximize space, but there’s still only 0.8L available – I have a pet that falls and I find the dust cup fills up with hair quite quickly. An automatic emptying dock that takes the mess and effort out of emptying the bin makes a lot of sense.
Other things that may well cause Dyson headaches are the listed specifications for battery life and suction power. Narwal promises 140AW suction on its dupe compared to 55AW for the PencilVac. And while PencilVac can handle up to 30 minutes of cleaning per charging, Narwal says its version will last either 50 minutes (according to the press release) or 45 (according to the specs shown at CES). It is a significant difference in both cases.
Of course, the big caveat here is that the Narwal vacuum is still in the prototype stage, so I wouldn’t take any of these specs for granted just yet – the inconsistency in runtime information is telling. While Narwal has produced some very good robot vacuums, its report card is a bit more uneven than Dyson’s, and for me, it’s not up there in terms of quality or reliability either.
That said, I’ll still be watching with interest to see what happens when this interventionist hits the market.
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