Dyson just announced the PencilWash, a wet-and-dry floor cleaner that looks more like a broom handle than a cleaning appliance. It’s the company’s thinnest wet floor cleaner, it’s slimmer than anything else on the market, and it somehow costs less than Dyson’s own dry-only vacuum. Here’s everything worth knowing before it goes on sale.
Price:: $349
Where to Buy: Dyson
The handle is 1.5 inches across
That’s thinner than most broomsticks. The entire handle, battery, motor, and electronics included, weighs 0.84 pounds. That’s lighter than most smartphones with a case on them. Dyson calls it the slimmest wet-and-dry cleaner on the market, and nobody’s in a position to argue. A small screen on the handle shows battery life and cleaning status, so there’s no guesswork mid-session.
The controls sit right above that screen, within thumb’s reach while you’re holding the handle upright. It’s a clean layout. Dyson didn’t try to cram buttons everywhere or bury settings in an app. You pick a mode, you clean, you dock it. That kind of restraint feels intentional for a product built around simplicity, and it’s a welcome contrast to competitors that ship with 47-page quick start guides.
The whole unit weighs under 5 pounds
Without water in the tank, the PencilWash tips the scale at 4.9 pounds. For context, Tineco’s Floor One S5 weighs close to 10 pounds. Bissell’s CrossWave HydroSteam comes in over 12. The wet-dry vacuum market has spent the last two years getting bigger and heavier. Dyson went the other direction entirely, and the weight difference isn’t subtle.
Pick up the PencilWash and it genuinely feels like you’re holding a mop, not a machine. It moves like one, too. There’s no front-heavy pull, no awkward balance point where the motor drags the head into the floor. The 2.2 kg sits evenly across the full length of the unit, which makes one-handed use feel natural instead of forced. For anyone who cleans in quick bursts between tasks, that lightness isn’t a spec. It’s the reason you’ll actually pull it out of the dock.
It costs $251 less than the dry-only PencilVac
This is the part that doesn’t follow normal Dyson pricing logic. The PencilVac Fluffycones, Dyson’s ultra-thin cordless vacuum, debuted nine months ago at $600 and only handles dry debris. The PencilWash does wet and dry cleaning for $349. The version that does more costs significantly less. Both machines share the same 1.5-inch handle form factor, but the PencilWash ships with a charging dock in the box. The PencilVac didn’t.
Dyson hasn’t explained why the wet-and-dry model costs less than the dry-only one. The motor is different, the cleaning head is different, and the engineering challenges aren’t directly comparable. But the optics are hard to ignore. A customer comparing the two on Dyson.com will see a machine that does more for $251 less than the top-tier PencilVac, and that’s not a positioning accident. It reads like Dyson wants the PencilWash to be the entry point into this form factor, not the PencilVac.
It cleans under furniture without moving it
The pivoting handle lies almost completely flat, letting the cleaner slide under couches, bed frames, and low cabinets that bulkier machines can’t reach. Most wet-dry vacuums are designed to stand upright and push forward. The PencilWash treats the space under your furniture like it’s part of your floor, because it is. If you’ve ever moved a couch just to clean behind it, this is the feature you’ll notice first.
The floorhead itself is compact enough to navigate around chair legs and into corners without the usual bumping and reversing. It doesn’t feel like you’re steering a floor cleaner. It feels closer to sweeping, just with water and suction doing the actual work. That’s a subtle shift in how the thing behaves in a room, and it matters more than the spec sheet suggests.
There’s no traditional filter
Instead of trapping dirty water in a filter that gets musty after a few weeks, the PencilWash uses automatic waste separation on the backend. A pressurized hydration system delivers fresh water through a high-density microfiber roller, the roller scrubs and collects dirty water in one pass, and the machine handles the rest internally. Dyson says eliminating the filter removes the trapped dirt and smell that plague conventional wet-dry cleaners over time.
Anyone who’s owned a wet-dry vacuum for more than three months knows the smell. That damp, sour odor that clings to the filter housing no matter how often you rinse it. If Dyson’s waste separation system actually prevents that, it solves a problem most people tolerate but nobody enjoys. The microfiber roller packs 64,000 filaments per square centimeter, which is dense enough to feel almost velvet-like against hard floors. You can also add Dyson’s own non-foaming probiotic cleaning solution to the water tank for deeper stain removal.
The battery swaps out in seconds
Battery life runs about 30 minutes on a full charge. When it dies, the battery pops off the end of the handle for swapping. Dyson will sell replacements separately for anyone whose home needs more than a half-hour session. The charging dock holds the handle upright between uses and comes included at the $349 price point. That’s a nice touch considering Dyson typically sells docks as separate accessories.
It’s the second piece of a bigger puzzle
The PencilWash shares its 1.5-inch handle form factor with the PencilVac. Two products in nine months built around the same handle platform suggests Dyson is assembling a modular cleaning ecosystem. More attachments or machines are likely on the way.
Whether that means a carpet-specific variant, a handheld steamer, or something else entirely isn’t clear yet. But the 38mm handle is starting to look less like a design choice and more like a standard. Dyson doesn’t usually build one-off form factors. When the company commits to a platform, it tends to build a family around it. The PencilWash is the second member. It probably won’t be the last.
Price:: $349
Where to Buy: Dyson
The PencilWash is built exclusively for hard floors: tile, laminate, and sealed wood. No exact US release date yet, but the product page is live on Dyson.com with a “coming soon” tag. At $349, it lands in unusual territory for Dyson: actually affordable by the company’s own standards, and thin enough to store in spaces most people don’t think of as storage.
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