Shark BlastBoss Review: A handy blower for inside and out

Design and features

• Indoor and outdoor modes
• Comes with brush, wand and precision nozzle
• Integrated battery

There are jobs that vacuum cleaners just aren’t suitable for, whether that’s cleaning leaves off a patio or getting dust out of some hard-to-reach areas. For those kinds of jobs, an air blaster is what you need, and the Shark BlastBoss is the first one that I’ve seen that’s designed for use indoors and out. In that regard, it’s part leaf blower and part air duster.

As this is Shark, the BlastBoss is available in five colours, so you can find the one that best suits your style. I’ve got the green one on review, and really like it.

Looking a little like a hair dryer, the idea behind the BlastBoss is that it shoots out a jet of fast air to dislodge dust. That’s typical of a handheld air blaster, the type of which I often use for reviews to get dust off before I take a photo.

The main difference here is that the BlastBoss is larger than your average air duster, although at 0.66kg, it’s far from heavy and feels very comfortable in the hand.

Air dusters are designed to be used close-up indoors, but the BlastBoss has two modes, selectable via the switch on the top: indoor and outdoor. The switch adjusts the maximum power available, dishing out a home-safe level of air on one, and a more powerful gust of air when set to outdoor mode.

There’s also a Boost mode to activate the turbo mode, which is available in either indoor or outdoor modes.

Rather than a single power mode, there’s a variable speed trigger: the more you press it the faster the air flow. It’s handy to have. I found, for example, that a gentle blast is good for getting crumbs off a counter (to be vacuumed later), but a full blast is needed to clean out a radiator.

In standard handheld mode, the BlastBoss shoots air out of the wide opening at the front.

If you want more precision, there’s a precision nozzle in the box, which directs the airflow through a small nozzle. The manual also mentions a dusting brush and an agitator model, but neither are provided and you can’t currently buy them, which is a shame.

There is an extendable wand, which comes in two sections and can be clipped together. However, once clipped together, the two sections can’t be easily detached, as they’re held in place by a hidden clip. That’s a missed opportunity, as the BlastBoss would be easier to store if it could be broken back down into its component parts.

With the wand attached, you get more reach, but you can’t attach the precision tool to the end of it.

Instead, the wand can be attached to the BlastBroom, which is exactly as it sounds: a broom with a vent on the front for blowing, so you can combine sweeping larger bits of debris with airflow to dislodge smaller bits.

Charging is via the provided adaptor, which plugs into the side of the BlastBoss and takes three hours to fully charge. There’s not much in the way of a battery-life meter: the white light stays on until battery life hits 30%, then the light turns orange until battery life hits 5%, and then the light flashes orange until it runs out.

Performance

• Powerful air flow
• Decent battery life (for its intended job)
• Loud

I started by measuring the air flow from 1m away. On the indoor setting, air moves at 4.65m/sec on the standard power mode. Close-up, that’s good for the likes of cleaning out a keyboard or pushing out dust from under a chest of drawers.

On outside mode, the Shark BlastBoss starts at 8.61m/sec, which is a much bigger gust of air. That’s less than a lot of traditional leaf blowers, and the gust of air is quite concentrated. 

Moving to Boost, I measured airflow at 10.91m/s, which is considerably more powerful. 

I decided to put the BlastBoss through tests inside and out, starting inside. For most jobs, I’d typically say a vacuum cleaner is better, as they remove dirt. However, there are some jobs that vacuum cleaners aren’t very good at.

Cleaning radiators is one of them. With my old radiators, dust collects in the middle between the two panels, and no amount of suction is enough to get them out. With the BlastBoss, I used the precision nozzle, and had to up the power to Boost, but the dust was pushed out the bottom, ready to be vacuumed.

My modern radiator upstairs collects dust behind the bars, and it’s pretty much impossible to get a vacuum cleaner nozzle in there. Fortunately, the BlastBoss managed to blow the dust out, ready for vacuuming. My word of advice is to start slow with these jobs, and angle the air down, so that dust is not being thrown into the air.

I also found the BlastBoss useful for getting out dust from under chests of drawers and even the bed. With three cats, the hair tends to clump and then blow into places the vacuum can’t reach, but the BlastBoss lets me blow it out. Again, be careful with air speed and angle, as it’s easy to shoot a hairball into the air and spread it further; used carefully, the BlastBoss can tease out a mess, making it possible to reach it with a vacuum.

I get quite a few cobwebs around the skylight in the kitchen, but the BlastBoss deals with these. The air blows the web together into a ball, and then dislodges it for vacuuming.

Moving outside, the Shark BlastBoss doesn’t quite take the place of a leaf blower. Its airflow is quite narrow, covering a relatively small area.

Trying to move a leaf on grass, I’d often find that the air would pin the debris down, rather than blowing it out of the way. If you need to clean up leaves, buy one of our best leaf blowers instead.

But, for general jobs, the Shark BlastBoss is very useful. Cat hair on the outdoor sofa? No problems, it’s blasted off. Dust and leaves on outdoor chairs and tables? Same thing, gone quickly.

The broom attachment is very useful. Crass cuttings on my decking were easily removed with a combination of sweeping and using air flow to speed up the job and catch smaller particles.

I also used the full power to blast off old cobwebs around the top of my office and the external shades I have.

Overall, I found the BlastBoss extremely useful inside and out, and it’s a new tool in my cleaning arsenal that I use at least every few days.

As versatile as the Shark BlastBoss is, be aware that it’s loud. Even on the standard setting, I measured it at 83.6dB, increasing to 89.1dB outside and 90.2dB on the Boost setting. 

Battery life maxes out at 21-minutes on indoor mode, and you’ll get around 17m on outdoor mode and under 10 on Boost. That’s not a huge amount of time, but the initial charge was enough to clean my radiators, cobwebs in the kitchen, under the bed and the drawers in the walk-through wardrobe, and to dust off the outdoor decking. If you’ve got a large outdoor space, a traditional leaf blower might be better.

Should you buy it?