Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

Dyson has this week released details of their end of year 2009 performance and generally paints a positive picture. Highlights include:-

• Despite the recession, global sales for the company increased 23% to 770m GBP
• Operating profits more than doubled from 90m to 190m GBP
• The Dyson Air Multiplier is a top seller in Australia; within 6 weeks, representing 64% of the market for desk fans, by value.
• In the UK and US markets, the updated 'ball' range represents more than half of the Dyson cleaners sold.
• In the UK, the company has a total market share for vacuum cleaners, by value, of 40%.
• Dyson is the market leader for vacuum cleaner sales (by value) in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Ireland and New Zealand.

Looking ahead, the company talks about new product launches scheduled towards the end of 2010 - a fair number of which (my speculation) are likely to continue the trend of offering a completive advantage by using digital motor technology. Ironically, a technology originally developed for use in their full-size vacuums, while all current models continue to use traditional motors.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/dyson-profits-double-thanks-to-rd-investment-1983841.html

http://www.themanufacturer.com/uk/content/10603/Dyson_cleans_up

http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/channel/Entrepreneurship/news/1006022/sales-vacuum-dyson-gadgets-cost-worth-paying/

http://www.eurekamagazine.co.uk/article/25296/Dyson-doubles-operating-profits.aspx - note: this has the statement 'The company has also confirmed plans to launch a robotic version of its bagless vacuum cleaner' - dunno if that's significant, but I haven't seen it reported elsewhere.

CarmineD wrote:

Putting the cart before the horse?  I have heard that the air dryers require frequent cleanups/sterilization by humans.  Labor costs and human factor are a con for offsetting the money saved on paper towel costs/storage.  I don't presume to know for sure exactly the hygiene concerns preventing AirBlade from passing tests for infection control.  I suspect it's the dyson hand/arm drying well.  Why?  The well accumulates human skin particles in the dried water/soap residue which builds up in the dry well.  Being a haven for storing and hibernating these germs which may or may not be killed with cleaning.  Since this well is an integral feature of dyson's AirBlade, it appears acquiring the health certification, based on the unit's current design, is almost next to impossible.

Carmine D.

----

Everything you've said there sounds plausible. The 'well' is one postive over traditional driers, which shoot water on to the floor - but I can see how it would need regular checking and maintaince and is likely the major issue with infection control.

I can imagine paper towels being a huge expense; 1) purchase 2) transportation 3) storage, 4) replenishment 5) disposal.... but seemingly the most hygienic method, for the moment.

CarmineD wrote:
Off the top of my head, Dyson has patents / designs for use in the following kitchenware appliances:-

• Hot water dispenser / kettle with removable reservoir
  The reservior sounds similar to the arrangement on the Tassimo drink machines, poss. with 'express' one drink heating, as seen in other kettles.
  
  
• Coffee machine
  Intergrated bean grinder / expresso dispensssor. Longer lasting mechanism. Option for milk foamer.
  
  
• Bread toaster
  Enclosed toaster, where you insert slices of bread like a cassette tape. Being enclosed is said to help with speed / quality of toasting.
  
  
• Kitchen TV / radio
  More resilient to spills than a traditional device
  
  
• Food processer
  
  
• blender
  
  
• Juicer
  Juices fruit and vegetables

Kitchen work top appliances can be *really* cheap these days. I can buy a small, practical plastic kettle for as little as 5 GBP, spend 30 GBP on a mid-range or 100 GBP on stylish model. The truely unique, added value features between these models is very limited. They're effectively a commodity, with many brands competing for your attention on the store shelf.

Going by these Dyson patents, there's two main advantages they hope to bring with their introduction 1) Use of their digital motor tech to reduce the size and offer improved functions using compressed airflow. 2) Ensure that each appliance is a common size - a cuboid, which means that two or more units can be linked together, taking up less work / cupboard space and reducing power cable clutter. Controls are flush and wiping them clean is easy.

What I think might turn out to be effective is the following senario: Price the appliances between 150 - 200 GBP, apart from the kettle, which is priced at say £75. This would make it a perfect candidate for a Christmas / Birthday gift. The recipant of the gift would be much more tempted to stay brand loyal to Dyson when considering further purchases, so they can 'clip' the cubes together and save on workspace. In my experience, people are frequently brand loyal with TV, PVR, DVD and audio equipment, but this doesn't follow through in to the kitchen work area. It sounds like Dyson are hoping to change this in the near future.

M00seUK wrote:

If the "hand/arm dry well" is in fact the dyson design flaw preventing hygiene certification, and I don't know that for a fact for sure, then at least with regard to hospital usage it is not a positive over conventional hand dryers, which sell for half the cost of an AirMultiplier.  The AirMultiplier dry well lends itself easily to direct contact by users and collects all the airborne germs teaming in wash/restrooms and toilets.  Exacerbating the infection control issue for this product.  The floor does too but users wear shoes [usually] and don't pass infectious germs along with shoes but do with hands, especially to themselves.  Both conventional driers and towels, at least for now, are more hygienic than the AirBlade.  For both hygiene and cost, conventional hand dryers trump dyson's AirBlade.  IMHO.  

Carmine D.

Lucky1 wrote:
Well, actually that's how Miele differentiate their models. Don't know about the prices in the U.S but in the UK you can buy the optional tools at cheaper cost including the filters and buy a base Miele machine to match the top specs on the latests.

So many other brands are doing the same though with pet hair tools and a HEPA filter to covet and cover the "Pet" owning associations.

Dyson products are at long last being sold in Malaysia:-
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2010/6/30/lifeliving/6497471&sec=lifeliving

It's quite novel to see a regional Dyson web site, proudly proclaiming where their products are made:-
http://www.dyson.my/

From the Malaysian Star article above:-

"...that last product [AirBlade], however, does have its detractors, specifically, paper towel companies, which claim that hand dryers harbour germs."

Clearly the Kimberly Clark's of this world have a lot to lose should someone invent an electric hand drier with a completive hygiene standard. I'd imagine Dyson have engineers trying to meet that goal, but how feasible that is remains to be seen.

M00seUK wrote:

I respectively disagree with the author's statement.  Specifically "paper towel companies [which] claim hand dryers harbour germs."  The author of the article can't speak for all paper towel companies and she should have restricted her statement to dyson Air Multipliers, the subject of that particular part of the article.  Hand dryers have been around for years and years, although the AirMultiplier has only been around since 2006.  For as long as I've been on God's green earth, and I'm considered rather long in the tooth, paper towels AND hand dryers have coexisted in all public restrooms and washrooms that I've visited going back to my days of public schools.  Not AirMultipliers.  We can debate the reasons for the latter but I'm not inclined.  With touchless and motion sensor hand dryers and towel distributors, user hygiene is kept to a maximum degree for hand drying.  Except that the former may disperse germs into the air and on the floor vice the latter which confines the bulk of the hand germs to paper towels and refuse container used to dispose of them.  Contrast these two widely accepted and used options with an AirMulitplier which from the above exchanges is, based on the design of the AirMultiplier at least currently, a depository for hand/air borne germs. 

Carmine D.  

vacmanuk wrote:

Hi,

I wish it were so here but it is definitely not.  Miele sells a utility ("universal") dusting tool vaguely similar to the elongated dusting brush in the Dyson kit.  I picked a new one up off eBay for $20.00, shipping included, at a saving of about $5.00.  There is a newer version of this tool that has a neck that swivels.  A nice idea but it sells for approxomately $35.00.

Miele also offers crevice tools from about $20.00 to $30.00.  Lengths range from 6 to 22 inches.  I know the company offered a mattress tool in Europe but I haven't seen the like here.  However, the small turbo tool still sells here for about $70.00.

The SBB-300 parquet brush allows for extra swivel possibilities that actually lets you start cleaning stairs from the top landing down.  I just carry the canister clean each stair tread in front of me with no stooping involved.  BUT -- the tool costs $70.00 and I would not have one had it not come with the cleaner.

That said, price considered versus what the tools are actually good for is ridiculous.  I've had the Miele out to do the car once or twice and did an absolutely great job with just standard attachments.  Around the house the "univeral dusting brush" is fine for cleaning broad expanses of hard surfaces above the floor becauase it affords a wider cleaning swath than the round one.

In my assesmenbt the Dyson tools just like the Miele tools are made for people with more money than sense. 

Venson

Well said Venson! Ive only ever been impressed with their extension add on hose and the car clean set. Years ago someone sent me a Miele dusting brush (long handled) that they had received with a second hand Sebo X1 (obviously didn't fit, so I sent her a Sebo X1 dusting brush instead as a postal/exchange) and I couldn't wait to get rid of it after using it a couple of times. Apart from being made of thick plastic I found it to be of not much use and pretty useless of cleaning anything, favouring the standard 360 degree rotational ones you get with the uprights.

M00seUK wrote:

Dyson launched 2 new vacuum products this year, if you can call them new.  A DC33 and DC35.  Not sure the canister addition is really new as much as new to the markets they were launched in this year.  In any event, all appear variations on existing dyson themes, not really new.  Which brings me to the point of this earlier speculation by M00seUK.  What happened?  We're rapidly approaching the Christmas sales season and no word yet on the kitchenware products from dyson.  Speculation on your part as you said or the best kept secret by dyson in the history of its brand? 

WRT tepid acceptance of dyson's AirBlades, I opine that Prevention Magazine's research and findings from doctors and scientists that paper is more hygienic than hot blowing air may be the reasons.  Wherever I see the hand dryers, and I've not seen a dyson yet thou they have been out since 2006, I always see paper towels too.  I admit when I choose between the options, I always go with the paper towels not the hot air.  Defeats the purpose to use both.  No cost savings which is dyson's sales pitch.  Have to wonder when dyson will sell off that albatross. 

Carmine D. 

M00seUK wrote:

Interesting ideas but Porsche have already designed the cassette type toaster. Launched a few years ago I recall seeing it in John Lewis last year! The Siemens TT911P2 was designed by Porsche and has two sides that open up cassette style to toast the bread and automatically close through the toasting stage.




In the UK kettles are the norm, Moose but in the States they're not so common and not so cheap. I'd be interested to see how Dyson would get around the small household appliances, regardless of if they have patents or not. It may just be patents that have been put in at the design level, not necessarily to go all the way through to production stages.