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.

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.

M00seUK wrote:

Hi M00seUK,

So far, press releases full of "I'm gonna, I'm gonna . . ." don't carry much weight in my books. And as for the product patents, it's my feeling that had Dyson anything around to make a serious difference it would have been out by now.

I don't need a Dyson "bladeless" fan. I need a highly efficient and affordable air conditioner which, by the way, I can buy anytime I want for about the same money as I can one of Lord Jimmy's fans.

We're already inundated with with coffee makers that grind beans, and juicers and Cuisinart -- a name as big or bigger than Dyson -- has a corner on the food processor market. Also the company has done something new. They've developed a new machine that ingeniously allows for large and small tasks in a far more easy fashion and eliminated the need for spending $200 or $300 on a food processor and then finding yourself out spending another $20 to $40 for a small electric chopper.

As for robotic vacs, Dyson has been talking this up ever since I first heard the company's name. I feel there's little they can contribute in that area unless they can come up with one of the little devils that has more facility for deep cleaning.

We have begun to embrace some things European. The steam cleaner for one. It's a shame it's taken us 40 years to discover them. The electric kettle has always been around here but now can be found for as low as 20 bucks. The deciding factor deciding factor for small appliances usually being price, generally influences our ideas about necessity. When a kettle costs so much that you wonder why not just buy a complete new range instead, problems arise. As there are many, young and old, living here in small dwelling spaces due to cost/affordability issues actual time-saving small household devices that incorporate thrift by way of power usage will always be welcome.

Most of Dyson's jawing help keep the name and its alleged trendiness out in front of the public. But that's what I think it mostly is -- a lot of jawing.

Best,

Venson

Thanks Venson, I take on board you views. I personally find it enjoyable, reviewing patent filings for Dyson, just like many people do with Apple, as a glimpse as what might one day be released. With proper Robotic vacuums (i.e. not sweepers) it's generally a case of speculating what the major challenges are and how they might be overcome.

I see the Dyson 'fan' regularly in the stores, but like many, the appeal of paying a high price for something that would be used so infrequently is very hard to justify. Recent Dyson patents show they have experimented with mounting heating elements to their fan, so something like that might be more practical for the cooler parts of the world. 

The previously mentioned Dyson kitchen appliances are either due a big launch in the near future, or a huge write off. There's so many patents and the designs shown are very detailed. With many expired patents and little in the way of innovation, kitchen appliances have never been more affordable. The best chance a brand has to increase margins is to offer a chic design.  

The value you place on the space saving aspect can vary hugely. I've visited houses in Orange County with huge sweeping kitchens... and yet seen new small apartments in the city here with virtually no preparation area. Dyson does need to continue to diversify to get a reasonable return of the digital  motor tech... and Dyson won't launch a product unless it can demonstrate a new way of doing things. As said, the deep irony is that they don't currently offer digital motors on any of their mains powered cleaners....

The other angle I like from a business perspective, is making these kitchen appliances linkable / interchangeable. I can't think of many products nowadays that that successfully do this ...but I do know from playing with Transformers and Micro Machines in the 80s, that if a company gets it right, it could be very lucrative for growing the brand's loyalty.