When it comes to vacuums, there’s good—and then there’s great. With up to 70 minutes of runtime, a super-powered motor, and unique features like LED illumination and a bagless compacting bin, the Dyson Piston Animal DS60 cordless vacuum falls distinctly into the latter category.
Since Best Buy is the exclusive retail partner for this brand new product, we’re excited to tell you more. If you love a vacuum with all the latest bells and whistles, this one’s for you.
The Piston Animal DS60 cordless stick vacuum cleaner in action
The video below shows the Piston Animal DS60 cordless stick vacuum cleaner in action as well as how I use all the accessories, plus a quick summary of the different features with this brand new model!
What’s in the box of the Dyson Piston Animal DS60 cordless vacuum?
In the box of the Dyson Piston, you’ll find the vacuum, stick, and All Floor Cones™ Sense cleaner head along with three attachments, a charging cable, and a wall dock. The attachments included in the Dyson Piston Animal DS60 are the Hair Screw Tool 2.0, the Smart Crevice Tool, and the Smart Combination Tool.
The Piston Animal is safe for use on all floor types. It can also be used to clean areas such as car floors, ceiling corners, and heavy drapery.
The Dyson Piston’s features
The Dyson Piston was designed to be a high-powered cordless vacuum. It packs a punch for medium to large homes, and it’s great for households with pets and/or long hair. Dyson’s Hyperdymiumᵀᴹ 900W digital motor (featured in the Piston) delivers 315 Air Watts of continuous suction. The brand says it delivers their best cleaning performance yet.
Despite this ultra-powerful motor, the Piston promises up to 70 minutes of run time on a single charge. It features a seven-cell lithium battery to achieve this, though runtimes will be shorter on Normal and Boost modes. The Piston’s battery usage is visible on its built-in LED screen, but the vacuum pairs with Dyson’s MyDyson app to give you more insight into its usage, functions, and custom capabilities.
The Piston comes with an adaptive All Floor Conesᵀᴹ Sense cleaner head. It adapts brush speed and power for carpets and hard floors, with soft fibres on its bottom to prevent scratching hard floors. The All Floor head automatically adapts suction power to give you more power where you need it. It features a manual toggle for floor type (something you don’t often see in modern vacuums), as well as a precisely angled LED light to help guide your vacuuming session.
Finally, before we get into the Piston’s unique features and attachments: This is a vacuum that’s made for households with pets and other allergens. It features whole-machine HEPA filtration with a fully-sealed, five-stage filtration system. The Dyson Piston’s HEPA filter captures 99.99% of particles as small as 0.1 microns—and its filter is hand-washable and easy to clean at home.
What makes the Piston different from Dyson’s other cordless vacuums?
There are three features that, for me, really make the Dyson Piston a standout vacuum.
Firstly, there’s the Piston’s cone-shaped dual brush rolls (discussed above). These conical rolls are genius, and they work incredibly well.
Secondly, there’s the Piston’s built-in LED light. This floor-level light illuminates dust, debris, and pet hair like a champ. I find so much debris on my floor with the help of this light. There are so many areas that look clean to my untrained eye, but when the light is illuminating the floor, I can see the buildup of dust and dander! (Other Dyson Detect models also have this feature.)
Thirdly and finally, there’s the Dyson CleanCompaktorᵀᴹ bin. This is a feature that I haven’t seen in any other vacuum before. It’s amazing, and it serves two functions. You can use the compactor to compress the material in your Piston’s dustbin, allowing it to fit 3x more dust and debris. Or, you can use the compactor to clean out your dustbin without getting your hands dirty. It does a great job of pushing everything forward, cleaning out anything from playground sand to pet hair.
These three features are fairly (if not entirely) unique to the Dyson Piston. They make this vacuum a great choice for households with pets, allergies, or both.
The Dyson Piston Animal attachments
One of my favourite things about the Dyson cordless vacuum lineup is that most of their vacuums come in different variations. That means that they all include the same motor, stick vacuum tube, and all-floor head. Their attachments, however, are customized to fit your needs. I like to think of the system as a series of pre-built kits. They’re there to streamline the process of choosing a vacuum. The different variations make it easy to make sure you’re getting the right product for you.
Smart Combination and Smart Crevice Tools
The Piston featured in this review is the Animal version (the DS60). That means the attachments it comes with are perfect for cleaning hair out of furniture and crevices. The Smart Combination Tool and Smart Crevice Tool are longstanding Dyson attachments. (You’ll recognize them from your previous vacuums, if you’ve had a Dyson before). They’re great, multi-use tools that I love for getting into small spaces like window ledges and the corner of your floorboards. I use my Smart Crevice Tool a lot; it’s just the right size for cleaning the tops of my baseboards. (It also fits into the crevices around my oven perfectly—a key feature, as I’m a bit of a messy baker.)
Hair Screw Tool 2.0
The big draw of the Piston Animal is Dyson’s Hair Screw Tool 2.0. This tool is awesome. It’s like a single-screw version of the Piston’s Conesᵀᴹ all floor head. It has a motorized cone to lift and suck hair up into the vacuum, and it works like a charm. The Hair Screw Tool 2.0 is great for long and short hair alike. It does a fantastic job of cleaning items like pet beds, couches, and armchairs. The detail that I really enjoy about the Hair Screw is its strip of nubbly silicone “teeth.” These “teeth” help lift pet hair out of textiles, delivering a much deeper clean than other attachments.
Mopping and vacuuming in one: The Dyson Piston Animal Submarine DS60
The other big Dyson Piston variation is the Dyson Piston Animal Submarine DS60. The Submarineᵀᴹ 2.0 attachment is a cleaning head that takes the Piston from a dry floor vacuum to a wet/dry vacuum. It’s honestly a bit wild that the Dyson Submarineᵀᴹ 2.0 even exists. Most vacuums are designed to be wet or dry; it’s extremely rare to find one that can do both (but doesn’t necessarily have to).
As someone who’s a fiend for a sparklingly clean floor, the wet/dry head is a big pull for the Dyson Piston vacuum. You almost never see wet vacuums that are backed by a motor as strong as the Piston’s, and the Submarineᵀᴹ 2.0 cleaner head even features a Boost mode for deeper spot cleaning. If you have hard floors throughout your house, the Submarineᵀᴹ 2.0 is definitely something to consider! It comes with all of the same attachments as the Piston Animal, plus the wet attachment.
My experience with the Dyson Piston Vacuum
As a multi-pet owner with a partner who has asthma, I am all about powerful vacuums and floor cleaners—but product experience matters to me, too. While the results are important, so is the process.
For me, the Dyson Piston is a vacuum that strikes a great balance between power, ease of use, and air filtration. I love how seamless Dyson cordless vacuums are to use. This one is no exception. Its included attachments are perfect for the average home (pets or no pets), and the Piston’s new motorhead design is fantastic. Hair truly does not get tangled up in it, which feels like a huge leap forward in vacuum technology. Even my hair, which is super long, didn’t tangle up anywhere!
I also love the new, tapered shape of the motorhead used in the Piston. It looks a bit clunkier than older models, but it’s actually amazing. Its thicker-in-the-centre design swivels around furniture perfectly, cleaning right up to the edge of cabinets, table legs, and even curved surfaces.
The Dyson Piston vs older models: Is an upgrade right for you?
The Piston is more powerful than Dyson’s other cordless vacuums, but it’s also heavier. In fact, it’s wider, longer, and heavier than my old, reliable Dyson V10 that I bought in 2020. (It’s still going strong—Dysons are built to last!) There are some things you have to sacrifice to upgrade to the Piston from Dyson’s V line of cordless vacuums, but there are plenty of features that you gain, too. I’ll use the V11 as a comparison, as it’s such a popular model for an all-around household cleaner.
| Feature | Dyson Piston (DS60) | Dyson V11 |
| Launched | 2025 | 2019 |
| Canister size | Larger (plus compression) | Smaller (no compression) |
| Battery life | Up to 70 minutes | Up to 60 minutes |
| Intensity levels | 3 | 3 |
| Maximum suction power | 315 AW | 185 AW |
| Brush roll | Anti-tangle dual cones | Anti-tangle Motorbar™ with hair removal vanes (not conical) |
| LED light guide | Yes | No |
| One-handed use | No (operates with a top-side power button) | Yes (operates with a finger trigger) |
| Attachment-free use | Targeted with a built-in nose | Diffuse |
Overall, I think the Piston is an excellent vacuum to add to any household. If weight is your top priority, I’d recommend going with a lighter model like the Dyson V8 Origin or V11 instead. (You can check out Best Buy’s Ultimate Guide to Dyson Vacuums to help you narrow down your options.) If power and features are your top concern, however, then the Piston is a great choice.
In conclusion
The Dyson Piston Cordless Animal Vacuum positions itself as the most powerful anti-tangle cordless vacuum available. I have to admit: I think it absolutely nails that objective. It’s an excellent product, and it’s both powerful and thoughtfully designed.
The Dyson Piston touts significantly more suction power than most stick vacuums. Its brush rolls never seem to end up with tangled hair around them, and its CleanCompaktorᵀᴹ bin both compacts your dustbin (to hold up to 3x more) and makes it easy to empty. And as other pet owners with allergies know… Not having to touch your pet’s hair after you vacuum it up? Well, that’s the holy grail of all vacuum technologies.
The Dyson Piston is now available at Best Buy Canada (exclusive retail partner). Find it online now.
