In its never-ending quest to build the perfect the vacuum, Dyson has solved a problem you probably didn’t even realize you had: Your dirty filter is totally messing up the efficiency of your machine. Chances are you don’t care, at least not enough to actually clean the damn thing on a regular basis. Ergo, Dyson’s newest model does away with filters entirely. The new Cinetic Big Ball replaces filters with a novel mechanism that moves at blurring speed.

Dyson prides itself on history of innovation. More than 20 years ago the company got rid of vacuum bags. Banishing the filter was next. After nine years of research and development, the engineers finally landed on the answer: Make the cyclones smaller. Dyson's cyclone technology is essentially a hyper-efficient way to separate dust and dirt from the airflow. As dirt enters the cone-shape containers (the cyclones), a stream of fast-moving air whips it around, creating centrifugal force that flings the dirty bits against the container's walls, where they then fall into the bin. The smaller the cone, the faster the air spins, which means the cyclones can separate tinier and tinier pieces of dirt. Problem with that is, the smaller the cyclone, the more likely it is to clog, too.

The vibrating rubber nozzles. Dyson

To battle blockage, Dyson engineered rubber tips that sit at the end of the 32 cyclones. These tips, made from a proprietary material that is flexible yet stiff enough to not collapse under suction, vibrate 350 times per second. “That’s very, very fast,” says Rob Green, one of Dyson’s senior engineers. Green compares the oscillating tips to sifting flour through a sieve. Sitting on top of the sieve, the powder clumps together, but as soon as you start shaking, it breaks up and floats to the bottom. The tips are effectively a filterless filter.

Dyson claims its newest model, which will cost $600 when it's available in March, sucks up bits as small as .5 microns and deposits them into the bin. That doesn't sound terribly exciting, does it? The real innovation is one you probably won’t notice (unless you cleaned your filters often). It’s just one step closer to making the ultimate, autonomous vacuum cleaner. Dyson already has a robot cleaner. It won’t be employing the Cinetic technology there quite yet, but when it does, just think about how easy that would make cleaning. The only thing that’s missing? “The last big challenge is not having to empty it,” says Green. “At that point I think you've got the perfect vacuum cleaner.”