Dyson, techno-centric design and social consumption

I had a terrible experience trying to replace failed battery packs for a family member's dyson handheld hoover. They seem to fail every 2 years or so, and the first time around we ordered the wrong part (all the different models seem to have slightly different interfaces). Dyson wouldn't allow us to return either the failed or functional but incorrect batteries, so now we have a pile of 3 or 4 hoover batteries in the cupboard!

that is totally not my experience. you don't have to buy the latest and greatest, I've bought a V8 a few years ago. it does it's job perfectly fine like in the first day. it's the only vacuum (of the ones I've owned) that is capable of cleaning the cat hair from my sofa. maybe there are other products capable of that now, some years have passed, but the quality of dyson is pretty top notch.

Push forward, push backward, lift up cord and turn to the right

Push forward, push backward, lift up cord and turn to the right

I used to work for Dyson and I think this is quite off in many ways.

* The industrial design of Dyson products is generally great. I don't think they poke you or anything like that. They even have nice affordances like all the things you can use being red. Contrast that with my terrible Shark where everything is black. Took me a good few seconds to find the bin release button. It also has an atrocious UX - a slow on/off button instead of a trigger, and an amazingly useless "smart power" feature that just varies the power almost completely randomly as you vacuum.

When I worked there all the vacuum guys were worried about Shark because their pickup is apparently better. They needn't have worried because their UX is so abysmal. Although I guess in fairness Which doesn't know UX exists.

* Some of the criticisms of the tech are valid, e.g. the hand dryers spraying water everywhere (they easily erode painted walls and now they generally install them only on tiles). But those are just flaws of the tech, they don't negate the fact that the hand dryers are much better than the standard cheap ones. He quotes the claimed hand drying time for a cheapo dryer as being close to an air blade but anyone that has ever used one knows how much of a lie that is. The washing machines did damage clothes but apparently the main reason they stopped making them was a manufacturing issue with the drum.

* I don't think anyone really believes that James Dyson is personally inventing all Dyson products now. That doesn't mean he has no influence. When I worked there (about 10 years ago tbf) he still had huge influence over the designs, especially the ones he cared about.

The one thing that is true is that Dyson won't make anything that isn't patentable because James Dyson dislikes his products being cloned so much. So even though though could make really good versions of normal products, they don't.

Also they are way too expensive. Though in fairness my shitty Shark was expensive too.

Don't buy a Shark.