HAVING a robot to clean up while you put your feet up once seemed like the stuff of Back to the Future.
But now robot vacuum cleaners are becoming commonplace in British homes, with more than half of owners loving them so much, they’ve given them pet names.
Dyson 360 Vis Nav Robot Vacuum, £1,199.99 from Dyson
They’re affordable too, with prices starting at around £200 for models from leading brands like Eufy, Beko, Hoover and iRobot.
But at the opposite end of the scale, at a whopping £1,199.99, is the Dyson 360 Viz Nav — and in this review, I’ll be weighing up whether the extra £900 is worth it.
Surprisingly, it’s the iconic cleaner brand’s only robot model, launching in the UK in September 2023, 30 years after the prototype for James Dyson’s revolutionary bagless DC01.
The company claims the high price tag is justified by being the most powerful robovac on the market, with six times more suction than competitors at 22,000Pa (Pascals).
It also has a unique D-shape, 27 sensors giving 360-degree vision to aid mapping and navigation, a full-width brush and a lifelong HEPA filter.
Dyson seems to have put all of its eggs in one basket with this high-spec model.
But how well does it keep on top of the daily dust and dirt generated by my family while I get on with cooking the kids’ tea? I put it to work to find out.
Pros:
- Supercharged, dust-responsive suction
- Up to 65 minutes run time
- Full-width roller brush
- User-friendly app
- Four cleaning modes
- Lifetime HEPA filter
- Mapping and zoning capability
- Scheduled cleaning function
- Effective charging station
- Visible dust box so you can spot when it’s full
- Bright light for dark areas and night cleaning
Cons:
- Mapping can be patchy
- Struggles with smaller homes
- No physical or app-based remote control
- Too bulky for some corners
- Sloppy edge cleaning function
- Expensive
- No mopping
Rating: 5/10
How I tested the Dyson 360 Vis Nav
1
Dyson 360 Vis Nav Robot Vacuum, £1,199.99 from Dyson
As the mum of two messy boys (and the wife of one messy husband), I used the 360 Vis Nav most days over several weeks, for general cleaning and picking up the never-ending crumbs under my sofa, dining table and kitchen counters.
I set it loose on mud from trainers and even pot plant spills, with my Victorian terraced house offering a mixture of surfaces for the vac to tackle — wood, tiles, vinyl, rugs and good old carpet.
To see how it fared in a more modern property with less pokey rooms, I also took it on a weekend trip to my parents’ detached house, which has predominantly laminate floors.
Dyson 360 Vis Nav review: Quickfire Q&A
How much is the Dyson 360 Vis Nav? At an eye-watering £1,199.99 for a model with one charging dock and £1,249.99 for two, this high-end vac is a big investment.
Who’s it best for? Families who have to vacuum daily to keep on top of crumbs, dust and pet hair, and have large open-plan houses without tricky, tight corners.
What we loved: The extra strong dust-busting suction, slick app that guides you through fixing faults and effective charging station.
What we didn’t: The sloppy edge cleaning, glitchy functions (so frustrating!) and lack of mop.
Dyson 360 Vis Nav review: The Nitty Gritty
First impressions
Dyson 360 Vis Nav Robot Vacuum, £1,199.99 from Dyson
Having previously tested six budget robot vacs with mixed results, I was excited to get my hands on the 360 Vis Nav.
I’ve had one of Dyson’s cordless vacs for seven years without complaint and am a fan of its innovative WashG1 wet floor cleaner.
Given the hefty price tag (the G1 is a ‘mere’ £599 in comparison), I was expecting Dyson’s robot vacuum to leave my floors sparkling with no more effort than lifting my phone.
I also assumed that the irritating glitches I’d experienced with cheaper models — poor mapping, sloppy suction, difficult navigating between surfaces — would’ve been ironed out by the brand’s world-leading boffins.
Dyson 360 Vis Nav Robot Vacuum, £1,199.99 from Dyson
Like all Dyson products, the vacuum arrived with the ‘wow factor’ in a smart box with no assembly required.
While its competitors tend to be boring black and occasionally white, this is an eye-catching blue and grey, with a pop of red. I’m a fan, but if you favour a neutral home aesthetic, this won’t blend in.
While it looks hefty, it’s surprisingly light to lift, weighing 5kg, with a handle on the dust box.
The box includes the machine and dust box, charging deck, plug and HEPA filter. There’s no instruction pack, just a QR code to set up the MyDyson app, which was simple to install and start using — the vac synced with my phone immediately (an instant win given I’m not very tech savvy).
It took time to crack certain functions, though, so an old-fashioned paper guidebook would have been helpful.
Before it could get cleaning, the robot needed to map the floors, and I hit my first hiccup. It needs to be ‘launched’ from the charger to do this, with an unobstructed position crucial to help it navigate home.
On the ground floor, I only had one suitable socket that wasn’t behind furniture or posing a trip hazard. Upstairs, there were none, and I had to create a temporary solution in my son’s bedroom.
When it works, the mapping is incredibly accurate, letting you set zones to send the vacuum to specific places and schedule cleans.
But on both floors, the first maps were wrong — part of the kitchen was left out downstairs, and an entire room was omitted upstairs, despite the robot launching from there.
I also have a step breaking up each floor, meaning my bathroom and the kids’ playroom could not be mapped unless I moved the charger again.
Instead, I resigned myself to tackling these manually by moving the vacuum to these areas and pressing the screen on top, with no option to operate via the app.
Does it deliver?
Dyson 360 Vis Nav Robot Vacuum, £1,199.99 from Dyson
There are things the Dyson does incredibly, and others it’s surprisingly poor at.
The main pro is unparalleled suction. It’s a cut above the competitors — you can see the results when you empty the dust trap, which is packed with fine particles, not just surface crumbs.
I favoured Auto mode, which adapts to the dirt level and could hear it boosting as it hit rugs and heavy-use areas. It’s not unbearably noisy, though, even in Boost mode.
There’s great battery life, with 65 minutes in Quiet, 60 in Auto, 50 in Quick and 12 in Boost. That meant it never ran out as my average-sized rooms took between 12 to 20 minutes each in Auto. A full charge takes up to 75 minutes.
I also liked the dust box, which has a 0.5l capacity. It’s positioned at the front when charging and is see-through, so you can observe the dirt level.
When you detach it, there’s a carry handle with a button to flip open the bottom for emptying. You can remove the base and sides for handwashing, but cleaning the filter and lid was tricky. I’d have liked a brush included, as cheaper models have.
Now the downsides, which are significant and all the more irritating given the high price.
For a start, the edge cleaning function – where the robot goes round the edges at the end of a room to clean – was sloppy, quite literally cutting corners. Other robovacs I’ve tested are round and have one or two spinning brushes that stick out and flick dirt out of corners into their path.
Dyson 360 Vis Nav Robot Vacuum, £1,199.99 from Dyson
But the Dyson is D-shaped to allow a full width roller at the front, with a retractable sucker on the left for edge cleaning. The machine is so bulky that it misses spots, particularly if there is furniture or an alcove.
Unfortunately, it was the same problem when I took it to my parents’ bigger property, and I had to get a dustpan out after it had finished.
While it did get under things like our sofa and freestanding bath with no trouble, and had a strong cliff drop response, it sometimes got stuck navigating a chunkier rug and had to be rescued.
And although the app is straightforward, there were many times when it couldn’t get the robot to do what I’d ask. Even though my bedroom was mapped, the vacuum would fail to travel there when instructed or scheduled.
This wasn’t a one-off — it happened with my kitchen and living room too, with no error warning or explanation.
It meant I wasted a long time trying to resolve the issue before having to settle for a manually operated clean. Not the point of the product.
How much is the Dyson 360 Vis Nav?
The Dyson 360 Vis Nav is an eye-watering £1,199.99 with one charging station and £1,249.99 with two.
Buying two might seem unnecessary, but as you can only use the mapping and app functions by launching it from a station, it saves you the hassle of moving it from floor to floor.
Dyson 360 Vis Nav Robot Vacuum, £1,199.99 from Dyson
If you’re already dropping over a grand on such a fancy labour-saving gadget, what’s an extra £50, right?!
Look out for deals as Dyson recently had an Easter sale with £200 off, while John Lewis is offering it for £949.99 as of late April 2025.
Is it worth it? They say you get what you pay for, but for me, the 360 Vis Nav doesn’t offer good value compared to other robot vacs.
Yes, it has strong suction, but the edge cleaning is sloppy, and for all the ‘cutting edge’ tech, it just didn’t get on with my run-of-the-mill terraced house.
I’d expect immaculate results and glitch-free cleaning for all that cash. Nor does it offer mopping, unlike much more affordable hybrid competitors.
Where to buy the Dyson 360 Vis Nav
The Dyson 360 Vis Nav can be bought directly from the brand’s website, but it’s also stocked by high street retailers like John Lewis and Argos.
Here’s a full list of stockists:
Dyson 360 Vis Nav alternatives
Given the hefty cost, you may want to consider cheaper alternatives to the Dyson, especially if you’ve not used a robot vacuum before.
The Hobot Legge Q10 also has mapping and scheduling, with six cleaning modes, for £299.
While suction is a fraction of the Dyson, at 5,000Pa, the extendable side cleaning brush gets into crevices in a way that shamed the Vis Nav. It has effective mopping and isn’t too noisy either.
More affordable still is the £159.99 Ultenic D10, which has effective and fast mapping, heading to the rooms you request without issue.
There’s automatic suction increase on carpeted spaces, with up to 4000Pa of power, but the battery life isn’t as good as advertised.
If you’re looking for something similarly priced to the Dyson, check out the Dreame X50 Ultra, which comes with robotic legs to help it climb small thresholds.
Dyson 360 Vis Nav review: The Verdict
I set out to see whether the Dyson 360 Vis Nav is really worth an extra £900 compared to a budget robot vacuum cleaner — and to be blunt, it’s not.
For such a large investment, you’d rightly expect a stress-free, user-friendly experience with superior suction.
While it does have superb suction, the shape of the robot actually makes for poorer cleaning coverage of floors.
A £1200 vacuum should not miss crumbs you can see from space.
The mapping and app functions are also too glitchy to let you forget about the bot while you get on with more important jobs, which surely isn’t the point of one of these machines.
My advice is to stick to a cheaper model, which may not be perfect but won’t leave you out of pocket.
- Dyson 360 Vis Nav Robot Vacuum, £1,199.99 from Dyson – buy here