The Dyson V15s Detect Submarine adds mopping abilities to my favorite Dyson vacuum — but is it worth $1,000?

I'm completely obsessed with my Dyson V15 Detect vacuum. So much so that when friends visit, I whip out my trusty cordless to show off the little green laser that illuminates the dust and debris invisible to the eye.

So when Dyson debuted an update dubbed the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine, which has an attachment called the Submarine Wet Roller Head that allows you to also mop, I had to be the one on the team to try.

The Dyson V15s Detect Submarine retails for a whopping $950, making it $200 more than the V15 Detect. Below, I share my experience — the highs and the lows — with Dyson's latest innovation and how clean the Submarine left my dirty floors.

Setup and design

Many small parts and components are strategically placed within the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine's box. At the top, you'll immediately notice the handheld power unit and the bright teal Submarine brush head.

Each piece is deftly secured in recyclable cardboard, while the wand is wrapped in paper.

The vacuum comes with three different cleaner heads: the signature Digital Motorbar Cleaner Head for carpet and hard floor cleaning, with stiff nylon brushes for digging into carpets and hair removal vanes that automatically clear hair from the brush bar; the Fluffy Optic Cleaner Head, a soft brush featuring Dyson's proprietary green laser for hard floors that reveals dust and dirt undetectable to the eye; and the new Submarine Wet Roller Head, also for hard floors with a small drip tray. It comes with typical Dyson accessories like the combination brush, crevice tool, and hair screw tool, a small clip that attaches to the wand, a wall docking station, and a charger.

As I unwrapped each piece, I paid special attention to the Submarine Floor Head, as that was the component I was eager to try first. Given that this newfound technology does not offer the same ease as the plug-and-play of its vacuuming floorheads, I knew I needed to consult the directions, as it was not immediately obvious how to set up the Submarine. The box contained an infographic about how to assemble, fill the water reservoir, and clean the Submarine Floor Head, but it lacked words to explain the photos. I had to go online to find the actual manual.

The first thing I noticed about the Submarine Floor Head was that it snaps into the wand but does not have an airway to reach the handheld. The unit is fully contained within the floorhead, which makes sense because you don't want any water to reach the vacuum.

My first impression was that it reminded me of the roller sweep broom designs you see in restaurants and movie theaters, just in a cheery teal color. It's fully plastic, which keeps it lightweight but makes it feel more like a toy than a high-powered cleaning device. A red knob depresses to slide out the water tank reservoir and is marked with numbers to indicate the various steps for filling and cleaning. The water tank has a screw cap design and is easy to carry over to the sink to fill before snapping back into place.

The vacuum arrived about 35% charged, but I knew from my years of testing cordless vacuums to pop it on the charger before actually taking the vacuum for a spin.

Our review of the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine

Ease of use

Maneuvering the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine is extraordinarily easy, and I find the vacuum lightweight to glide about the house. The V15s still retains the trigger power mechanism that must be pressed for operation, which is one of my chief gripes with Dyson vacuums.

The top of the handheld portion houses a small round LCD screen that displays battery life with a little round button to toggle between settings and power modes. When powered on, you'll also see the data from the Piezo sensor, which creates graphs of how much of a particular particle size has been collected. Watching that number grow gamifies cleaning. I find that you'll pay attention to it at the beginning of ownership before it loses its novelty. Of course, the Piezo sensor is essential if you want to use auto mode, which automatically adjusts suction based on how much dirt is detected.

Vacuuming performance

For general cleaning, the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine is a star. I love whisking the Fluffy Optic Laser Head across the hard floors. It's almost a game to see how much dirt and dust has accumulated since the last time I vacuumed and to hunt it out.

It seemed to chomp over dog kibble better than my original two-year-old V15 Detect. It's also just wide enough to take on my hardwood stairs, so I don't have to kneel or change its configuration.

While the Digital Motobar Floor Cleaner is built to work on carpet and hard floors, I typically reserve its use for carpet because I love watching the Fluffy Optic Laser Head unearth what I can't see. If you don't feel like switching between floor types, it's just as comprehensive on wood and tile. The Digital Motorbar cleaned a delicate wool woven rug that I was quite hesitant to run over, filling up the dustbin of the 8' x 10' area rug in minutes. It also pulled all the dust bunnies and grime that had settled into my carpeting with ease.

The standardized tests we put all our best vacuums through evaluate how well each vacuum picks up substances of varying sizes like flour, sugar, coffee grounds, rice, Cheerios, and pet hair on hard floors and carpets. In the case of the Dyson, it could pick up all substances to satisfaction. However, I'll note that the Digital Motorbar struggled to pick up the large cereal pieces on hard floors, and that while it could handle the fine grain of flour, residue deposited along the internal sides of the cleaner head and required extra cleaning attention. And of course, the question on all pet parents' minds: Strands of hair did not wrap around the brush rolls and deposited into the dustbin.

Mopping performance

A core part of the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine is its motorized mopping feature. It's lightweight and easy to propel along — and shockingly quiet, too. It works with water or by mixing a cleaning solution or detergent of your choice. The 300 mL tank should cover up to 1,200 square feet. I don't have that much hard floor to cover (maybe about 500 square feet), of which I went over the space twice, with plenty of battery life and clean water left.

It took a few minutes of cleaning for the water to come out at an even flow rate as I noticed that my floor looked a little streaky initially, though it eventually reached an even saturation. The mopping mode operates on just one setting, with no ability to adjust scrubbing or water flow rates.

When I tasked the Submarine with recent messes like spilled barbecue sauce, ketchup, syrup, and tracked-in dirt, it easily scrubbed those up. Dried-up stains that lingered overnight; however, took multiple passes and also used more water as I repeatedly went over the stains for a few minutes until the floor was no longer sticky.

It also could not quite pick up pieces of dog food left on the floor, and the few pieces it did, I found soggy and stuck in various parts of the cleaner head.

Cleaning and maintenance

The Submarine attachment functions completely separate from the dust bin and handheld, and must be cleaned immediately after each use. It's definitely a more hands-on experience and not for the squeamish. While most wet/dry vacuums have a clean water and a dirty water tank, the Submarine is compartmentalized, but only the clean water tank is sealed. The brushroll sends the dirty water and debris directly into an open compartment that is exposed and must stay upright. When it came time to dump out the dirty water, some larger debris lingered and had to be dug out with fingers or a paper towel.

For vacuuming maintenance, all of the brush rolls are washable, though must be completely dry before being reassembled and used again. The machine alerts you when it senses a clog or if it's time to wash the filter, which is the colorful purple knob placed at the top of the handheld that simply screws off.

Dustbin

The Dyson V15s employs Dysons's signature ejection mechanism that directs debris straight down into the garbage. Sometimes, you need to stick your hand up there for hair caught along the dustbin or if you've cleaned past the max fill line.

Battery life

The Dyson V15s Detect Submarine advertises up to 60 minutes of power. I typically clean on the auto mode, where it adjusts to work harder when it senses more dirt. On this mode, I get about 45 minutes of cleaning since battery life is optimized based on how much dirt is detected. When vacuuming, the LCD screen shows a sort of countdown in minutes; during mopping, it shows a percentage that I found pretty accurate. In boost mode, the vacuum lasted nine minutes and 30 seconds with the Digital Motorbar Cleaner Head (which works extra hard to dig up the smallest particles from carpets) and about 17 minutes with the Fluffy Optic Cleaner Head, both of which were pretty spot-on with the display's countdown. Rather than slowly lose suction as the battery depletes, the vacuum simply shuts off when it can't perform the task fully powered.

Filtration

Dyson's whole-machine filtration is a fully-sealed system that traps microscopic dust, expelling cleaner air. It uses cyclone technology to spin air and separate particles from airflow, with the dustbin being just one layer of collected debris we see. The pre-and post-motor filters can remove 99.97% of particles invisible to the human eye as small as 0.3 microns, according to Dyson. Dyson avoids using the term HEPA to describe their filters, though they qualify in every aspect but name. You can also "upgrade" at no extra cost to the Dyson-exclusive Absolute edition for HEPA-rated filtration, which collects particles down to 0.1 microns in size.

Cons to consider

This is Dyson's first generation of a mop, and I found it more novel than fully functional. While marketed as a wet/dry mop, it will not replace vacuuming. It operates as an electric mop, unlike the best wet-dry vacuum cleaners, which actually accomplish vacuuming and mopping at the same time. You'll want to vacuum first, followed by mopping. And if you have a particularly large floorplan, you may be unable to vacuum and mop without pausing to charge, though I did not have any battery life issues.

While it easily scrubbed up fresh spills and light stains, it fully struggled with dried-on stains from barbecue sauce, syrup, ketchup, tomato pasta sauce, and coffee creamer.

I also did not enjoy the clean-up process, which still required me to use my hands or numerous paper towels to remove the little pieces of debris. Also, unlike true wet-dry vacuums, many of which have self-cleaning modes to help dry the wet brush roll, this has no such feature or place to store the mopping brush. I resorted to patting excess water with a paper towel and storing it on a cloth next to the sink to let it dry. I also found it fidgety to snap the two pieces of the floorhead back together again; they had to align within the grooves perfectly, or they would not sit correctly.

Another note on the Submarine mop: According to Dyson, this new attachment is only available with the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine model and is not compatible with previous models due to how the V15s is programmed. Those like me who already own the Dyson V15 Detect and want to try the latest Submarine will have no choice but to repurchase this version if they decide they want a Dyson that cleans both wet and dry.

What are your alternatives?

The Dyson V15s Detect Submarine is Dyson's first vacuum-mop design but functions more or less as a mop head attachment. It reminds me more of how a robot vacuum can vacuum and mop, but you have to switch between the two to accomplish both. The Dyson V15 Detect offers identical features, without the mopping attachment, for $200 less.It's a top pick in our guide to the best cordless vacuums.

The V15s Detect Submarine shares a price tag with the Dyson Gen5Detect, whose main callouts include HEPA filtration and a marginally increased battery life and suction power over the V15 Detect, but doesn't have any mopping capabilities.

Dyson also recently released what it claims is a dedicated wet-dry vac called the WashG1. We tested it and found that it doesn't really vacuum, since it doesn't use suction. Read our full review of the Dyson WashG1.

For a true wet-dry vacuum design, Tineco offers a great lineup of smart options, like the Tineco Floor One S7 Pro, with a large water tank, LCD screen and dirt detection, and self-cleaning brushrolls.

If you're after the best mop to clean up tough messages and like the idea of power mopping, you can also find high-speed power scrubbing with Bissell's Spinwave Hard Floor Spin Mop, which leaves floors clean and polished.

The bottom line

I'm curious to see where Dyson goes with its Submarine technology; it mops well enough, and I love the vacuuming performance, but the maintenance process left something to be desired. I also don't love its incompatibility with existing Dyson products, which leaves behind owners who might have jumped at the chance to upgrade. I myself now have two nearly identical vacuums sitting in my house. It's also not truly the vac-mop it's marketed as since I'll still have to go through and vacuum first. I saw one customer review describe it as "not ready for prime time," and I echo the sentiments.

For those in small spaces who do want a power mop, I can see the convenience of getting the mop functionality in one compact cordless design, without having to purchase a dedicated vac-mop or stick mop. The Submarine Floor Head can easily be stored away on a shelf or closet when not in use, like the other attachments.

The Dyson V15s Detect Submarine is novel and fun to use for cleaning, albeit pricey; however, the involved cleanup process is a trade-off, and you'll have to decide for yourself whether it is worth it.

The post The Dyson V15s Detect Submarine adds mopping abilities to my favorite Dyson vacuum — but is it worth $1,000? appeared first on Business Insider