Embracing the Suckage- My Vacuum Cleaner Journey

As someone who loves researching products, I have read excellent reviews of top-of-the-line vacuum cleaners that cost an arm and a leg. Still, I thought owning a $400 vacuum cleaner fell somewhere between ridiculous and extravagant for my family. I guessed that these reviews were written by people whose employers purchased the devices to test and write about. In that case, what’s not to love? I figured that if I had all the money in the world, I would get one, but it didn’t seem to make sense for a regular family like mine.

So, for years we purchased mid-range, moderately sucky vacuum cleaners that balanced extremely okay-ish reviews and a reasonable-ish price. Repeat x 25 years.

I don’t regret the many vacuum cleaners I tried before (except the giant landfill disaster they contributed to) because they helped me understand exactly how much suckage I actually need in my life. I would have to spend more money to get my ideal vacuum cleaner, and I wasn’t sure it would be worth the price. Let me save you the existential crisis. Buying an expensive vacuum cleaner was worth it. We ended up buying two.

First, we bought the Dyson V8 Animal ($399 on Dyson’s website, but often on sale elsewhere). We intended this small and light little vac to work alongside our heavy, clunky vacuum cleaner when we didn’t want to lug it up and down the stairs to clean up small messes. Turns out, this little powerhouse could handle more than small messes, and we basically never used our clonker again.

I’m not going to tell you all the reasons that Dysons are great, including their excellent warranties, because you’ve read them already. If not, read this. But I will tell you that if you can spend $400 on a vacuum cleaner, this machine is worth it.

Then came the pandemic, and while you’d think that not leaving the house would give us more time to vacuum, all the time in the world wasn’t going to make the Dyson vacuum by itself while we taught from home and helped our kids do school. After many months of research about 16 different robot vacuums, including their reliability, repairability, pet-hair detecting, edge cleaning, suction power, mapping multiple areas of the house, decibel levels, self-cleaning, apps, scheduling, and virtual boundaries, we purchased an automatically emptying Roomba i8 ($799 at Costco; the i7 has the same specs and is sold everywhere else).

We opted for the more costly version of the most expensive brand because it was the only one that did everything we wanted, especially mapping multiple levels of our house and emptying itself. We figured that it was worth the extra money to check all the boxes. While others can tell you all the specs and why Roombas are great (read this), I can tell you that this expensive vacuum cleaner has been a game-changer for my family.

So, to answer the question about whether these two extravagant vacuum cleaner purchases are worth it for a regular non-fancy busy family, my answer is an unequivocal yes.