Core77

Coverage sponsored by the IHA

Images courtesy of Dyson

Believe it or not, 2012 marks Dyson's very first IHHS... and Chicago is the home of their US headquarters. In addition to exhibiting their impressive lineup of air multipliers, Dyson Hot and their existing vacuum offerings, Dyson is pleased to unveil the DC39, their first canister vacuum with Ball technology.

Canister cleaners are often awkward to steer and can topple. They lurch into furniture, veer off at tangents and may be difficult to pull. Like an errant shopping cart, their crude casters drift across hard floors and get buried in carpets—more force is needed to keep them on track. And reliant on bags—they can lose suction, too.

Sitting on a ball, DC39 has a lower center of gravity and is easier to pull without snagging on corners or the carpet pile. Coupled with a unique central steering system, it uses an articulating chassis and central pivot point for negotiating tight turns and circumnavigating sofas. And equipped with Dyson's Radial Root Cyclone™ technology, it captures more microscopic dust than any other.

Design Engineer Robert Green obliged us with a rundown of the specs and a quick demo of the DC39 in action:

Full specs:
- 500+ prototypes
- Three years' intensive R&D by a team of 70 Dyson engineers
- The Ball contains 112 components
- 64 patent applications & 55 registered design applications

And some of the myriad robotic and man-made tests—"one test involved 50,000 repetitions of pulling the machine around corners to ensure its stability"—are illustrated in this video by Dyson:

Stay tuned for a full review of the Dyson DC39 in the next couple weeks...