Dyson

The appliance maker behind the robots

Dyson is best known for cyclonic vacuum cleaners, and its robot vacuums are a small, slow-moving branch of that business. Wikipedia describes Dyson Limited as a British multinational technology company headquartered in Singapore, founded in 1991 by James Dyson in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England. According to the same article, the company designs and manufactures vacuum cleaners, air purifiers, hand dryers, bladeless fans, heaters, hair dryers and lights, had more than 14,000 employees worldwide as of 2022, and reported revenue of £6.13 billion for 2025. Wikipedia lists James Dyson and the Dyson family as 100% owners. In January 2019, Wikipedia records, the company announced it would move its headquarters to Singapore, citing its wish to be closer to its fastest growing markets in the Asia-Pacific region.

The robot story is a long one. Wikipedia notes that in 2001 the company came close to launching a robot vacuum called the DC06, which James Dyson pulled from the production line because it was too heavy and slow, and that in 2014 Dyson set up a joint robotics lab with Imperial College London to study vision systems. A 2015 Robohub report quotes Dyson saying it had been developing robot technology for over 15 years and that "200 engineers, 420 patents and £28m" had gone into its first robot vacuum.

From the 360 Eye to the Nurovi range

Wikipedia gives the lineage as the 360 Eye in 2016, the 360 Heurist in 2021, the 360 Vis Nav in 2023 and the Spot+Scrub Ai in 2025. Robohub reported that the 360 Eye went on sale across Japan in 2015, in stores and in Dyson's flagship store in Tokyo, after a six-month delay to tune it for Japanese homes, with a US, China and Europe launch planned for 2016. Robohub described its navigation this way: it "creates a panoramic 360º view of the room and then navigates by triangulating fixed visible points." Robohub also relayed Dyson's claim, at the time, that the 360 Eye generated the highest suction of any robot vacuum.

That camera-first approach has stayed the brand's signature. It explains both what Dyson's robots do well and where reviewers have found them awkward.

The newest range, reported by T3 on 3 September 2026, is called Nurovi and has three models. T3 says Dyson combined "its Neural Intelligence technology with its latest vision system" across the lineup.

• R1 Nurovi Dry. The dedicated dry cleaner for carpets and hard floors. T3 reports 21,000Pa of suction, the Twin-capture system, and redesigned side sweepers that extend toward walls and corners and are meant to reduce hair wrapping around the bristles. T3 gives the UK price as £499.99, on sale from launch day.
• R2 Nurovi Wash+Dry. Adds mopping. Instead of round pads, T3 says it uses Reuleaux triangle-shaped pads that keep a constant width as they turn, so they reach further into corners and along edges. It also carries Twin-capture and an acoustic piezo sensor that, per T3, detects dust levels and floor types in real time and adjusts suction and cleaning as the robot moves. T3 lists it at £749.99, on sale from launch day.
• R3 Nurovi Spot+Scrub UV. The flagship, which T3 says follows in early 2027 with pricing still to be confirmed. Its stain detection combines UV light, AI vision and green laser-like illumination to identify nearly 200 household substances and objects, then cleans a stain repeatedly until it is gone. T3 describes a self-cleaning wet roller with a 12-point hydration system applying fresh water heated to 70°C, a full-width microfiber roller that extends by 40mm toward edges, and 30,000Pa of suction for dry cleaning.

Twin-capture, as T3 explains it, splits the work between bristles that sweep larger debris into the robot and a motor that concentrates its suction on fine dust and small particles. The steps up the range are clear: the R1 is vacuum only, the R2 adds mopping and floor sensing, and the R3 adds heated-water wet cleaning and targeted stain removal.

T3 reported that Dyson launched the W1 PencilWash, a wet floor cleaner rather than a robot, alongside the range at £299.99, which tells you the Nurovi robots sit inside a wider floorcare family rather than on their own.

What reviewers found on the earlier machines

TechRadar's long review of the 360 Heurist, since replaced, shows how a Dyson robot behaves in a real home. TechRadar reports the Heurist's upgraded V2 motor delivered 20% more power than the 360 Eye, and a motorized brush bar running the full width of the body gave full suction right to the edges of a room without side brushes. Tank tracks instead of wheels carried it over rugs and changes in floor height. The body is tall and narrow, which TechRadar says lets it slip between chair legs but stops it fitting under some furniture.

The 360-degree camera sits in a dome on top. TechRadar says the Heurist added a ring of LEDs so it could see in dark rooms, fixing the 360 Eye's need for the lights to be on. On privacy, TechRadar reports that no data is transmitted to the cloud and there is no option to view the live camera feed. The bin is a pull-out 0.33-liter unit at the front with a washable filter inside and a second filter at the rear, and the brush bar slides out with a coin so hair can be cut away.

Control runs through the Dyson Link app, which TechRadar notes is shared by all of Dyson's smart products. It stores maps of several floors, splits them into zones labeled by room type, and offers three restriction types: Avoid, No brush bar and No climb. Power modes are Quiet, High and Max, set per zone or for the whole home, with schedules and an estimate of cleaning time and charges needed. TechRadar says the robot returns to its dock to top up and then carries on, and that Alexa and Google Assistant both work with it. TechRadar reported a UK price of £799.99 and an extra dock and power supply at £120 for homes that want charging points on several floors, and said the Heurist was sold in the UK only.

The honest caveats

The camera costs time. TechRadar found the Heurist slow to map, fussy about where its dock sits, and prone to missing whole areas if a door or the dock was badly placed. It measured around 70dB on High, said the robot could not spot and avoid small objects such as cables and shoes, and called it the most expensive robot vacuum it had reviewed. Those findings apply to the older model; the Nurovi range is new, and T3's launch report is an announcement rather than a test, so independent verdicts on the R1 and R2 are still to come. T3 also pointed to Dyson's limited history with robot vacuums, and the brand's past releases have been staggered by country, with the Heurist confined to the UK.

None of that changes the core appeal. Dyson brings a large engineering base, a long robotics program and a clear design point of view to the category.

Who it suits

The R1 Nurovi Dry suits a buyer who wants a Dyson robot for carpets and hard floors and does not need mopping, and it is the easiest way into the range at £499.99 according to T3. The R2 fits a home with more hard flooring, where the triangle-shaped pads and floor-sensing suction earn the higher price. The R3 is for households that deal with spills and sticky marks and are happy to wait for early 2027 and an unannounced price.

Owners of other Dyson appliances already using the Dyson Link app will find the setup familiar. Buyers who want the cheapest possible robot, or who live in a small, crowded apartment where a camera-guided machine struggles for room, as TechRadar found with the Heurist, should weigh that before they buy.