Dyson V6 Mattress Review
- Details
We recently got our hands on the Dyson V6 Mattress handheld vacuum cleaner. Dyson tout this as a very powerful handheld vacuum designed to remove allergens from your mattress. It is a rechargeable, lightweight machine with something of a sterile, futuristic look about it. It comes with a specialized mattress cleaning tool as well as a HEPA filter and a sealed body. It is indeed powerful and we found that it did pull materials out of our Sealy Posturepedic Mattress that we never knew were there. On the other hand, the battery on Max Mode, has a very short run time.
Allergens in the air around us can be tiny – some less than 1/200th the width of a human hair. Unfortunately this is small enough for us to easily inhale. These particles can cause physical reactions such as watery eyes, itching, sneezing, runny nose, coughing, etc. Our homes can be a hotbed for all sorts of problematic particles.
But do you need to remove allergens from your mattress? Well, consider that the Dyson website states the average bed contains as many as 2 million dust mites and that approximately 20 million Americans are allergic to dust mite droppings. Also, a single gram of dust in a house can contain as much as 100,000 mold spores, and dust is found in carpets, in rugs, in upholstery, and yes, even mattresses.
So how often do you need to clean your mattress and how do you go about it? A good rule of thumb is to clean your mattress about every 6 months and there are typically several steps:
1) Wash and dry all bedding on high heat to kill any bugs and germs
2) Vacuum the mattress
3) Remove stains (Some good tips here)
4) Deodorize the mattress with baking soda
5) Vacuum the mattress again
As one can see, a key component of cleaning your mattress is vacuuming. Enter the Dyson V6 Mattress, a cordless, rechargeable handheld vacuum with specialized features for cleaning mattresses and dealing with allergens.
Dyson V6 Mattress Details
When you buy this vacuum you get the following in the box:
- Dyson V6 Mattress vacuum
- AC Adapter
- Motorized Mattress Tool
- Soft Dusting Brush
- Combo Tool
- Crevice Tool
- Instruction Manual
- 2-Year Warranty
The V6 Mattress is a very distinctive bright white and silver color with a few green and red accents. It looks a little clinical to be honest, but perhaps that was the idea. The vacuum is pretty much ready to go when you get it. However it may require charging although ours came partially charged.
The V6 uses a Lithium Ion battery. These are good batteries as they provide something the industry calls “fade free power”. This means the battery imparts full power until such time as it is completely exhausted. So you don’t experience the suction power slowly waning over time as the battery is being drawn down. You get full power and then it just stops, at which point it requires a recharge.
A full recharge of the V6 Mattress battery takes about 3.5 hours which isn’t too long in the world of rechargeable vacuums. Note that the vacuum will not run while plugged in and charging so you can’t use this like a corded vacuum.
The machine has 2 power modes. Standard (28 air watts of suction) and Max (100 air watts of suction). When using the motorized mattress tool on Standard Mode you will get 17 minutes of run time and on Max Mode 6 minutes of run time. With the other non-motorized tools (dusting brush, combo tool, crevice tool) Standard Mode will give you 20 minutes of run time but still only about 6 minutes on Max Mode. It would appear that Max Mode is so power intensive that it makes little difference if you are using a motorized tool or a non-motorized tool.
There are no bags with this machine and it has a clear dust canister that collects all the dust/dirt/debris. The canister opens up at the bottom via the push of a button and you can empty it over a garbage bin or into a bag. The dust canister has a capacity of 0.12 gallons which is a reasonable size for a handheld. If you are only using it for mattresses you won’t have to empty it often, but if you are using the vacuum around the house it will require more frequent emptying.
The V6 Mattress only weighs 3.6 lbs so it is very easy to lift and maneuver. We never felt any strain on our hands or arms when using the machine. The mattress tool is heavier than the other tools so it is a little harder to use for long periods of time but still no big deal.
Another great feature on this machine – and one you don’t find on too many handheld vacuums – is HEPA filtration. HEPA filtration is a very important feature if you have allergies and certainly in a vacuum designed to pull allergens from a mattress. A HEPA filter has very, very small pores and it will remove 99.97% of all particles with a diameter or 0.3 microns or larger. This helps remove things like mold spores, dust mites, tobacco smoke, pet dander, etc. The HEPA filter on this machine can be washed so you save money by not having to buy another when this one gets dirty.
Another key feature on this handheld is that it has what is known as a sealed system. What this does is ensure that none of the air pulled into the vacuum leaks out through poor seals or connections in the vacuum body before it has been run through the HEPA filter. This means that it is not pulling up allergens and then dispersing them into the air in the room. Most handheld units do not have this feature and even though some may have a HEPA filter, without a sealed system they may release many of the allergens into the surrounding air. As a matter of fact, without a “sealed system” these kinds of leaks are likely.
The Dyson V6 Mattress also carries a 2-year limited manufacturer’s parts and labor warranty.
Check out the V6 Mattress & Pricing on Amazon.
Working with the V6 Mattress
We use the V6 Mattress to keep our mattresses clean but we also use the vacuum frequently around the house as a typical handheld unit. Essentially this is a normal handheld vacuum with a few special features that make it effective at cleaning mattresses as well (mattress tool, HEPA filter, sealed system) - but some people forget that it can be used as a normal handheld. That’s why the Dusting Brush, Combo Tool and Crevice Tool are provided. For most cleanups around the house we find Standard Mode to work just fine. Pickup is good. It pulls up all manner or dust and debris and handles larger stuff like dry cereal, dust bunnies, hair and the like just fine.
When we use the vacuum to clean our mattresses we usually switch over to Max Mode. To properly clean a mattress the vacuum is required to pull up as much dust/allergens as it can from the surface of the mattress and from deeper within the mattress as well – aided by the motorized mattress tool. Therefore it makes sense to use as much suction as the machine will provide, and Max Mode results in over 3 times the suction of Standard Mode. The machine really throttles up in Max Mode and you can hear and feel the difference in suction at the nozzle.
The review video below highlights all the vacuum features and also shows how to use it to clean a mattress.
The vacuum doesn’t come with any mattress cleaning instructions so we simply vacuumed the mattress as one would vacuum any upholstery or other furniture. Of course we first removed the sheets and the mattress cover so that the mattress tool is in direct contact with the mattress surface. You will also want to ensure there are no loose strings or anything for the brushroll (spinning roller brush inside the mattress tool) to get caught up in. Another thing to consider is that you want the mattress surface taught when running over it with the tool. You want to try and avoid the surface bunching up.
The mattress we were cleaning was a Sealy Posturepedic Lyric mattress.
As an aside I tried to look the mattress up online and the only thing I could find was an ad from 1984. It may be time for a new mattress!
We put the mattress tool on the end of the vacuum and pressed the power trigger. The tool is motorized and the brushroll inside is fairly powerful – you can feel it beating the mattress surface. We found that it took about 4-5 minutes or so to clean the mattress surface which is good because on Max mode you only have 6 minutes of power. So you can probably only do one mattress before you would need a recharge.
We couldn’t see any dust or anything else on our mattress surface before or during our cleaning session so we were actually quite surprised to see that a very fine light grey powder had collected at the bottom of the dust canister after we had finished the cleaning. Clearly the vacuum had picked this up from the mattress and although we can’t say exactly what this is, we are glad it has been removed from the mattress.
Emptying the dust canister is a snap but after cleaning a mattress we like to open the canister inside a plastic bag as we don’t want any of the “dust” to escape and be released back into the room. We did find that the canister can be trickier to empty if you have vacuumed up a lot of hair. You can release the bottom of the canister but the hair may remain stuck inside, in which case you will have to reach in and pull the stuff out. Not too pleasant but it doesn’t always happen.
All-in-all the Dyson V6 Mattress is a great handheld vacuum and the fact that it can be used both for mattresses and for other household cleanups is a major plus. It is powerful, lightweight and it does a good job. We were also surprised at what it pulled out of our mattresses. To the naked eye the mattresses looked perfectly clean but that clearly was not the case.
This handheld vacuum is not cheap however and it costs in the neighborhood of $250.
After working with the V6 Mattress we feel it has the following pros and cons:
PROS
- Very powerful on Max Mode
- Not just for mattresses
- Has HEPA filter
- Has sealed system
- Does pull up dust/allergens from mattresses
Cons
- Max Mode only gives 6 minutes of cleaning
- Not easy to get some materials out of the dust canister
- Emptying dust canister can be messy
- Fairly expensive
You may wish to read what other V6 Mattress owners are saying on Amazon.