Review: Is the Dyson V12s Detect Slim Submarine worth its $1,499 price tag?

Dyson's first wet vacuum cleaner is here, and we tested it out to see how effective it is

By Cheryl Chan - 4 Aug 2023

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There comes a time in every young person’s life when you’ve come to the realisation that you’re a real, proper, full-fledged adult.

No, it’s not the moment when you look around for an adult for help before realising you’re the adult. It’s also not choosing to only buy one pint of ice cream even though you’d like to buy three (although, props to you for practising self-restraint).

It’s the revelation that household cleaning products excite you.

Before Dyson, and After Dyson

As someone who moved out a couple of years ago, I classify my solo home journey into two timelines — B.D (before Dyson) and A.D (after Dyson). While self-explanatory, I did not realise how proper cleaning tools made a world of a difference when it came to the cleanliness of my house, and, more importantly, the amount of effort I would need to put in to maintain said cleanliness level.

In the beginning, my priorities were off-base, focusing on cute decor and expensive bedsheets so that my apartment would look cute. But what I came to realise as time progresses, is that all the cute Tao Bao-sourced decor in the world didn’t matter if cleaning the apartment took forever. And when a former housemate of mine sprang for a Dyson vacuum cleaner for the first time, and then subsequently took it along with her when she moved out, I had no idea how much I would miss it. (The Dyson, not the housemate.)

(I kid, I miss them both dearly and not a day goes by where I don’t think about either of them.)

Now that Dyson has launched the V12s Detect Slim Submarine Complete, a vacuum that does both wet and dry cleaning, I jumped at the chance to try out a test model and see if it’s worth the $1,499 price tag.

Mopping? We don’t know her

With rental prices soaring in Singapore, space is of the utmost importance in an apartment, and with the new wet roller head attachment, I was pleased that I could finally do away with a separate mop in my home. My apartment doesn’t have a store room, so I always found it a real eye sore to leave my mop out in the kitchen. One of the things I really like about Dyson’s vacuums is that all the parts are detachable, making it super easy to store away.

Dubbed the Submarine, this attachment is Dyson’s first wet roller head and functions exactly like a regular mop. It’s also water efficient — the clean water tank holds 300ml of water, which is enough to clean up to 100sqm, the size of an average 5-room HDB flat. A separate 360ml dirty water tank ensures no dirt or debris is transferred back onto the floor, ensuring the roller remains saturated with clean water from start to finish. FYI, it also works on stains and slightly viscous liquids such as sauces.

The separate water tanks alone really streamline the cleaning process, as this means you can say goodbye to filling up pails of water and having to double-dip your mop back into the dirty water as you clean the floors. I liked that the floors aren’t left excessively wet and cleaning the entire attachment was super easy – just detach it into four separate pieces and you can easily run them through the sink.

Think your floors are clean? Think again

For users of Dyson’s vacuum cleaners, you might be familiar with the original Fluffy cleaner head. Well, for this version, meet the Fluffy Optic, a cleaner head that illuminates green light to showcase dust particles that you might have missed out on. This option is really useful, especially if your house collects dust easily and isn't lit very brightly, but it did make me feel a bit paranoid at seeing the amount of dirt that I was potentially missing each time.

The attachment that will change your life

One of my favourite pieces of decor in my house is a retro black and white checkerboard carpet. It’s one of the first few things I bought to make my rental apartment feel more “me”, and I love how it instantly gives my room a bit more personality. The downside? The carpet gets dirty SO easily and I hate how you can see a ton of dust and hair on the white parts of the carpet. Even with weekly cleaning, my current machine (a very sad Dyson dupe) can’t suck up all the debris and hair, so on days when I can be bothered, I use a piece of tape to pick up the excess dirt. But realistically, I don’t have time to do that constantly.

Dyson’s answer to my carpet woes? The new Hair Screw Tool. It’s an anti-tangle brush bar that can remove hair and dirt from pet beds, car seats, sofas and carpets quickly and efficiently. At the showroom, the Dyson staff showcased the strength of this tool by layering six pieces of fabric over a pile of dust. After running the tool over the patch, I quickly removed the layers to see… nothing! But, the fabric was thin and porous, I was slightly sceptical to see how this would fare over my… not so clean carpet.

Excited to test this out, I quickly swapped out the attachments and went to town on my carpet. In just a few minutes, the tool sucked out all the hair and debris from my carpet, and then some. And I have to be honest. When I saw how much dust and hair managed to be sucked out of my 230cm x 170 cm, I was honestly shook. Consider me impressed. My carpet looked even cleaner than when I first bought it!

Final thoughts

In terms of performance, I truly love how efficient and convenient this machine is to use. There are 60 minutes of battery life (20 minutes if you’re using turbo mode), which is enough to clean my entire apartment. The new LCD screen also shows how much battery life there is left and the amount of dust particles collected. Other improvements include a power button that you only have to press once to switch the machine on, which is a major upgrade from the previous trigger mechanism.

The only downside is that because this vacuum comes with a new and improved engine, it won’t be compatible with the other attachments from the older models. Hopefully, future editions will allow for that as it would be nice to be able to purchase the new attachments like the Submarine and the Hair Screw Tool separately, as opposed to buying an entirely new machine each time Dyson launches a new iteration.

At $1,299 – $1,499, it’s definitely an investment, but if you have the spare funds and really appreciate the convenience, then this is the tool for you. If not here are some other machines you can try!