Quad-core processor, LED-lit camera, 10GB of memory, 450,000 lines of code, tank treads. Yes, tank treads. Far from a weaponised smartphone, these are in fact the specs for a robot vacuum cleaner, the Dyson 360 Heurist to be exact.

Unveiled a few years ago, with a limited release in Canada, China and Japan, Dyson’s miniature dust-guzzler is now available to trundle its way across UK floors, keeping pesky dust, biscuit crumbs and pet hair at bay. At £800, it arrives with the same price tag as the company’s originally released 360 Eye, though it promises improvements across the board in manoeuvrability, brains and power. Ahead of the robot vacuum's launch, we were lucky enough to spend some time with a special transparent 360 Heurist that let us glimpse its tech-packed innards.

Under the hood

Dyson’s engineers have managed to cram plenty of tech in and around this vacuum's miniature body. For starters, the 360 fish-eye camera from the original Dyson 360 Eye makes a return. This time it’s surrounded by eight LEDs for improved low-light navigation, since the Heurist's predecessor, which lacked LED support, occasionally faltered underneath furniture in dark conditions. The camera mount, by the way, is made from aircraft-grade aluminium and can withstand a load of 60kg – just in case you’ve got a habit of clomping around with reckless abandon.

Eight sensors dotted around the body allow the 360 Heurist to see a four-metre diameter around it, helping to avoid accidents. Two wall sensors let it clean as close to walls as possible, while longer range sensors can detect obstacles at a distance, killing the speed before any vases are knocked over. Two drop sensors should also prevent it from any nasty tumbles down stairs.

The tank treads also make a return, as Dyson believes they offer better mobility while being able to tackle tough terrain, such as deep-pile carpets. Plus, of course, you get to tell people your robot vacuum has tank treads – a benefit that shouldn’t be understated.

Come on and Slam

Thanks to its re-engineered innards, Dyson now promises 20 per cent more suction and 20 times more memory than its predecessor. The latter, incidentally, provides eight times more short-term memory and 32 times more long-term memory, which brings us to its simultaneous localisation and mapping tech, otherwise known as “Slam”.

Essentially, this means that the 360 Heurist always knows where it is in a room, as its numerous sensors take measurements every 20 milliseconds. In other words, it’s always aware of where it’s cleaned and what spots it has yet to cover.

Speaking of cleaning, here are some robot vac stats. Thanks to cyclone tech based on Dyson’s full-size and corded vacuums, the 360 Heurist can ramp up to 78,000rpm – a 20 per cent increase in performance – along with a brush bar speed boosted to 1,600rpm. We’ve yet to scatter coffee beans and sand across our flat to test out these larger numbers, but presumably those Kenco grounds won’t stand a chance.

Customised cleaning

While the 360 Heurist will happily crack on with its dust-busting duties before scooting back to its adorable charging dock, the Dyson Link app, which has been improved since its original launch, offers more tricks to customise your vacuuming experience.

For starters, you can split your home into different sections, specifying which particular rooms you want cleaned or ignored on a particular day. You can even dive deep and black out no-go zones in every room, ensuring it avoids troublesome areas such as rug tassels or cat beds.

Three modes also let you specify the power levels depending on the chosen type of clean. Quiet mode is for gentle cleans and a longer run time, high mode is for powerful cleaning, and max mode is for when you’ve smashed a bowl of granola and wish you’d gone for Bran Flakes instead.

We plan to trash our floor with a whole host of different particles to put the Dyson 360 Heurist through its paces, but if you fancy adopting one for yourself before then, it’s available in the UK right now, for £800.

£800. dyson.co.uk

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