Verdict
No bigger than a mop, the Dyson PencilWash is a full hard floor cleaner, with a self-dosing roller and the ability to collect liquid and solid messes. It’s incredibly light and easy to use in confined spaces, reaching areas that other hard floor cleaners can’t touch. It’s also ideal for anyone who’s struggled to use a bulky hard floor cleaner and for smaller homes. It’s a touch slow to clean the toughest stains, and the lack of a self-cleaning mode does make the PencilWash fiddly to deal with after use. This cleaner is also very similar to Dyson’s Submarine heads for its vacuum cleaners; if you have a Submarine head already, there’s no real reason to buy the PencilWash. While a larger hard floor cleaner may suit most homes better, if you value ease of use and flexibility above raw cleaning performance, then this is the cleaner for you.
-
Light and small -
No filter -
Cleans standard messes well
-
No self-cleaning mode -
Slow on tough stains
Key Features
-
Collects solids and liquids
The filter-free design picks up mess with the roller and deposits it in the dirty tank -
Super light
Weighs just 2.2kg
Introduction
With the PencilVac, Dyson redefined how small a vacuum cleaner could be; now it’s taking on hard floor cleaners with the Dyson PencilWash. Similar to its vacuum sibling, the PencilWash is just 38mm thick through the pole, making it super light and easy to push around.
But, while the body might be lighter, the mopping head is very similar to the one on the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine (and other Submarine heads for the other vacuum cleaners), so you don’t get the same cleaning performance as with Dyson’s larger floor cleaners. It all comes down to what your priority is: size and manoeuvrability or raw performance.
Design and Features
- Brilliantly simple to use
- Separate clean and dirty tanks
- No self-cleaning mode
Most hard floor cleaners, including the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene, tend to be quite big and bulky. The smaller, more mop-like models, such as the Philips OneUp 5000 Series Electric Mop, don’t have all the same features, such as the ability to collect solids.
Step forward the Dyson PencilWash, which has the form factor of a regular mop but all the dirt-collection and cleaning functions of a hard-floor cleaner.
As with the PencilVac, the core part of the PencilWash is in the wand, which is just 38mm across. There’s almost nothing to it, and the slim battery clips into the end. All together, the PencilWash weighs just 2.2kg.
Charging is a little different with this floor cleaner (and, indeed, with the PencilVac). Here, the charging dock takes the wand only, leaving it jutting up into the air, with a blue light flashing to show you that it’s charging.
The floor head is stored separately. For some, this may be a bit of a faff, having to split the cleaner up, but it can also work quite well for some people, myself included.
I keep my vacuum cleaner and hard floor cleaner in an understairs cupboard, but find it a squeeze to lift a regular model in and out of its charging base. I found it much easier to store the PencilWash, splitting it into two.
If you look closely, the PencilWash’s floor head is very similar to the company’s Submarine floor heads, which are available for a wide range of its cordless stick vacuum cleaners. Like the Submarine, the PencilWash’s floor head has everything built in, including the clean and used water tanks, and the stick provides power only.
Submarine floor head
PencilWash floor head
Strangely, while the PencilVac could talk to the MyDyson app, the PencilWash can not, so the wand is literally just a stick to push the cleaner around and somewhere to house the power button and battery.
I could still scan the cleaner into the MyDyson app, but this just gives shortcuts to instructional and maintenance videos, which are still useful.
There’s a 0.3-litre clean water tank, which can be mixed with non-foaming detergent (Dyson’s or otherwise).
There’s no suction on this floor cleaner. Instead, water is squeegeed off the roller and deposited into the floor head’s 0.34-litre tank, with solids accumulating on the top tray; that’s an improvement over the V15s’ Submarine head, where everything went into the tank.
It’s a smart design and no suction means no filters, so you shouldn’t get a build-up of odours, and there’s less to physically clean.
Using the PencilWash is easy. There’s a single power button to turn the cleaner on, and it defaults to its standard mode. Tap the Max button, and the water flow is increased for five seconds, before returning to the normal mode.
Both the manual and instructional video in the MyDyson app say that pressing and holding the Max engages the boost mode for 60 seconds, but I couldn’t get this to work. After checking with Dyson, it turns out that you have to press and hold the Max button for continuous use. Given how light the PencilWash is, that’s not too tricky to do.
Most hard floor cleaners need to have their handles pulled back to engage the motor, which makes using them in confined spaces hard; the GTech Orca, for example, turns off as soon as the handle is lifted a little, which makes it hard to use in confined spaces.
It’s different from the PencilWash, which can work at any angle, so it’s very easy to use anywhere, and I could hold it upright to clean around the sides of the toilet and next to the sink.
At 267x198mm, the floor head is small enough to fit into a lot of gaps and, as there aren’t any bulky tanks or bins to get in the way and just the wand to deal with, the PencilWash easily slots into areas that other cleaners can’t reach.
For example, in my bathroom, there’s a wall-mounted radiator next to the toilet. With a regular hard floor cleaner, I can’t approach it from the right angle to clean underneath the radiator without either hitting the water tank or lifting the handle so high as to turn the cleaner off; with the PencilWash, I can.
Just like the PencilVac, the PencilWash is a joy to use. It’s self-propelled, gently pulling itself along, while its lightweight body and flexible joints make it easy to move in any direction, nimbly moving around furniture. It’s brilliantly simple to use, particularly compared to the bulky, cumbersome floor cleaners that I’m used to.
What the PencilWash misses out on is an automatic cleaning mode. The manual says that the tray and dirty tank should be emptied and then washed; the roller removed and cleaned with soap under a tap; the clean tank removed and emptied; the outside wiped with a damp cloth; and then everything left to dry for 24 hours.
I found that the new tray did work, collecting solids on top that I could tap into a bin. The tray could then be rinsed, leaving just liquids in the dirty tank.
To try and make life easier, the floor head can clip into a plastic tray, which makes it possible to carry without spilling anything, but you do need to be a bit more careful than when emptying a floor cleaner with a sealed dirty tank.
Even so, while manually cleaning the unit isn’t too bad, it’s not as simple as dealing with the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene, which has a self-cleaning mode and then hot-air drying to look after the roller.
Peformance
- Works brilliantly on lighter stains
- Takes a bit longer to clean stuck-on mess
With no suction, the Dyson PencilWash is very quiet in operation. Beyond the sound of a gentle whir, there’s no real sound to it. This is the kind of device you can use at any time of the day without worrying about disturbing people.
I then tried the PencilWash out with my standard stains. I began with the dried-on coffee stain. This was easy for the floor cleaner to remove, with just a couple of swipes needed to pick up the stain, and only slightly slower dirt removal than with the Clean+Wash Hygiene.
I found it was very similar for my red wine stain, with the PencilWash easily removing that mess.
Next, I tackled the mud stain, which had a ground-in stain alongside loose particles. I found that the PencilWash managed to collect the loose particles quickly, but it did take quite a few passes to really get the mud stain off the floor, although it did manage it in the end.
My toughest test is the dried-on ketchup test, which leaves a sticky residue behind. This took quite a long time to remove, with a good ten swipes needed to start reducing the mess. I then found it helpful to leave the stain with the detergent seeping into it.
After coming back, I had to leave the PencilWash on the mess for another minute or two, with a bit of gentle back and forth to remove the stain properly. In the end, the cleaner did remove this stain, but it was slow going.
The Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene, which is a bit more powerful and has a bit more weight, removed this kind of stain slightly faster.
However, for most day-to-day messes, the PencilWash is as quick to remove messes as rival machines; it’s only if you have very dirty messes that you want to clean that you might need something a bit more powerful.
As the PencilWash’s roller doesn’t reach all the way to the sides of the floor head, it can’t clean all the way to the edge of rooms, although you can get close by pushing the roller towards a wall. If you want better edge cleaning, the Bissell CrossWave OmniForce Edge is a better choice.
Battery life is rated for 30 minutes, which seems about right in my tests. That’s for either water mode, as the motor power remains consistent. On the standard mode, Dyson says that you can clean up to 100m; I found that my kitchen took the best part of a tank, so I needed to refill to cater for the rest of downstairs.
Should you buy it?
You want a light and manoeuvrable hard floor cleaner
Brilliantly designed, very light and nimble, this hard floor cleaner can quickly clean hard floors and get into areas others can’t reach.
You want more cleaning power
If you want a more powerful cleaner for very tough stains or just want to clean a larger area on a single tank, then look elsewhere.
Final Thoughts
Look in my guide to the best hard floor cleaners, and you’ll find plenty of options that can clean larger areas, deal with the toughest stains faster, and self-clean at the end. For anyone who has a lot of hard floors, particularly with large open areas, these types of cleaners probably make more sense.
Then, there are those who own a Submarine head. If that’s you, there’s no real advantage to getting the PencilWash, as you get a very similar cleaning experience here, with a very similar floor head.
But the PencilWash does have its benefits, and there are those it will appeal to. If you’ve just got regular mess on your floor (footprints, general dust build-up and so on), then the PencilWash cleans brilliantly. And, it can tackle tougher stains if you give it some time.
Primarily, the PencilWash comes into its own in smaller homes; for those who can’t manage a bulky, heavy hard floor cleaner; and for anyone that’s struggled to get a regular floor cleaner into all the nooks and gaps in their home. If you value flexibility and ease of use above raw cleaning performance, then the PencilWash is great.
How we test
We test every hard floor cleaner we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
- Used as our main hard floor cleaner for the review period
- Tested with real-world dirt in real-world situations for fair comparisons with other steam cleaners
FAQs
No, you have to wash the roller manually.
Test Data
Full Specs
| Dyson PencilWash Review | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Dyson |
| Size (Dimensions) | 198 x 267 x 1155 MM |
| Weight | 2.2 KG |
| Release Date | 2026 |
| First Reviewed Date | 10/03/2026 |
| Model Number | Dyson PencilWash |
| Provided heads | Floor head |
| Bin capacity | 0.34 litres |
| Modes | Standard, Max |
| Filters | None |
| Run time | 1 hrs min |
| Floor cleaner type | Hard floor cleaner |
| Detergent capacity | 0.3 litres |
Verdict
No bigger than a mop, the Dyson PencilWash is a full hard floor cleaner, with a self-dosing roller and the ability to collect liquid and solid messes. It’s incredibly light and easy to use in confined spaces, reaching areas that other hard floor cleaners can’t touch. It’s also ideal for anyone who’s struggled to use a bulky hard floor cleaner and for smaller homes. It’s a touch slow to clean the toughest stains, and the lack of a self-cleaning mode does make the PencilWash fiddly to deal with after use. This cleaner is also very similar to Dyson’s Submarine heads for its vacuum cleaners; if you have a Submarine head already, there’s no real reason to buy the PencilWash. While a larger hard floor cleaner may suit most homes better, if you value ease of use and flexibility above raw cleaning performance, then this is the cleaner for you.
-
Light and small -
No filter -
Cleans standard messes well
-
No self-cleaning mode -
Slow on tough stains
Key Features
-
Collects solids and liquids
The filter-free design picks up mess with the roller and deposits it in the dirty tank -
Super light
Weighs just 2.2kg
Introduction
With the PencilVac, Dyson redefined how small a vacuum cleaner could be; now it’s taking on hard floor cleaners with the Dyson PencilWash. Similar to its vacuum sibling, the PencilWash is just 38mm thick through the pole, making it super light and easy to push around.
But, while the body might be lighter, the mopping head is very similar to the one on the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine (and other Submarine heads for the other vacuum cleaners), so you don’t get the same cleaning performance as with Dyson’s larger floor cleaners. It all comes down to what your priority is: size and manoeuvrability or raw performance.
Design and Features
- Brilliantly simple to use
- Separate clean and dirty tanks
- No self-cleaning mode
Most hard floor cleaners, including the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene, tend to be quite big and bulky. The smaller, more mop-like models, such as the Philips OneUp 5000 Series Electric Mop, don’t have all the same features, such as the ability to collect solids.
Step forward the Dyson PencilWash, which has the form factor of a regular mop but all the dirt-collection and cleaning functions of a hard-floor cleaner.
As with the PencilVac, the core part of the PencilWash is in the wand, which is just 38mm across. There’s almost nothing to it, and the slim battery clips into the end. All together, the PencilWash weighs just 2.2kg.
Charging is a little different with this floor cleaner (and, indeed, with the PencilVac). Here, the charging dock takes the wand only, leaving it jutting up into the air, with a blue light flashing to show you that it’s charging.
The floor head is stored separately. For some, this may be a bit of a faff, having to split the cleaner up, but it can also work quite well for some people, myself included.
I keep my vacuum cleaner and hard floor cleaner in an understairs cupboard, but find it a squeeze to lift a regular model in and out of its charging base. I found it much easier to store the PencilWash, splitting it into two.
If you look closely, the PencilWash’s floor head is very similar to the company’s Submarine floor heads, which are available for a wide range of its cordless stick vacuum cleaners. Like the Submarine, the PencilWash’s floor head has everything built in, including the clean and used water tanks, and the stick provides power only.
Submarine floor head
PencilWash floor head
Strangely, while the PencilVac could talk to the MyDyson app, the PencilWash can not, so the wand is literally just a stick to push the cleaner around and somewhere to house the power button and battery.
I could still scan the cleaner into the MyDyson app, but this just gives shortcuts to instructional and maintenance videos, which are still useful.
There’s a 0.3-litre clean water tank, which can be mixed with non-foaming detergent (Dyson’s or otherwise).
There’s no suction on this floor cleaner. Instead, water is squeegeed off the roller and deposited into the floor head’s 0.34-litre tank, with solids accumulating on the top tray; that’s an improvement over the V15s’ Submarine head, where everything went into the tank.
It’s a smart design and no suction means no filters, so you shouldn’t get a build-up of odours, and there’s less to physically clean.
Using the PencilWash is easy. There’s a single power button to turn the cleaner on, and it defaults to its standard mode. Tap the Max button, and the water flow is increased for five seconds, before returning to the normal mode.
Both the manual and instructional video in the MyDyson app say that pressing and holding the Max engages the boost mode for 60 seconds, but I couldn’t get this to work. After checking with Dyson, it turns out that you have to press and hold the Max button for continuous use. Given how light the PencilWash is, that’s not too tricky to do.
Most hard floor cleaners need to have their handles pulled back to engage the motor, which makes using them in confined spaces hard; the GTech Orca, for example, turns off as soon as the handle is lifted a little, which makes it hard to use in confined spaces.
It’s different from the PencilWash, which can work at any angle, so it’s very easy to use anywhere, and I could hold it upright to clean around the sides of the toilet and next to the sink.
At 267x198mm, the floor head is small enough to fit into a lot of gaps and, as there aren’t any bulky tanks or bins to get in the way and just the wand to deal with, the PencilWash easily slots into areas that other cleaners can’t reach.
For example, in my bathroom, there’s a wall-mounted radiator next to the toilet. With a regular hard floor cleaner, I can’t approach it from the right angle to clean underneath the radiator without either hitting the water tank or lifting the handle so high as to turn the cleaner off; with the PencilWash, I can.
Just like the PencilVac, the PencilWash is a joy to use. It’s self-propelled, gently pulling itself along, while its lightweight body and flexible joints make it easy to move in any direction, nimbly moving around furniture. It’s brilliantly simple to use, particularly compared to the bulky, cumbersome floor cleaners that I’m used to.
What the PencilWash misses out on is an automatic cleaning mode. The manual says that the tray and dirty tank should be emptied and then washed; the roller removed and cleaned with soap under a tap; the clean tank removed and emptied; the outside wiped with a damp cloth; and then everything left to dry for 24 hours.
I found that the new tray did work, collecting solids on top that I could tap into a bin. The tray could then be rinsed, leaving just liquids in the dirty tank.
To try and make life easier, the floor head can clip into a plastic tray, which makes it possible to carry without spilling anything, but you do need to be a bit more careful than when emptying a floor cleaner with a sealed dirty tank.
Even so, while manually cleaning the unit isn’t too bad, it’s not as simple as dealing with the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene, which has a self-cleaning mode and then hot-air drying to look after the roller.
Peformance
- Works brilliantly on lighter stains
- Takes a bit longer to clean stuck-on mess
With no suction, the Dyson PencilWash is very quiet in operation. Beyond the sound of a gentle whir, there’s no real sound to it. This is the kind of device you can use at any time of the day without worrying about disturbing people.
I then tried the PencilWash out with my standard stains. I began with the dried-on coffee stain. This was easy for the floor cleaner to remove, with just a couple of swipes needed to pick up the stain, and only slightly slower dirt removal than with the Clean+Wash Hygiene.
I found it was very similar for my red wine stain, with the PencilWash easily removing that mess.
Next, I tackled the mud stain, which had a ground-in stain alongside loose particles. I found that the PencilWash managed to collect the loose particles quickly, but it did take quite a few passes to really get the mud stain off the floor, although it did manage it in the end.
My toughest test is the dried-on ketchup test, which leaves a sticky residue behind. This took quite a long time to remove, with a good ten swipes needed to start reducing the mess. I then found it helpful to leave the stain with the detergent seeping into it.
After coming back, I had to leave the PencilWash on the mess for another minute or two, with a bit of gentle back and forth to remove the stain properly. In the end, the cleaner did remove this stain, but it was slow going.
The Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene, which is a bit more powerful and has a bit more weight, removed this kind of stain slightly faster.
However, for most day-to-day messes, the PencilWash is as quick to remove messes as rival machines; it’s only if you have very dirty messes that you want to clean that you might need something a bit more powerful.
As the PencilWash’s roller doesn’t reach all the way to the sides of the floor head, it can’t clean all the way to the edge of rooms, although you can get close by pushing the roller towards a wall. If you want better edge cleaning, the Bissell CrossWave OmniForce Edge is a better choice.
Battery life is rated for 30 minutes, which seems about right in my tests. That’s for either water mode, as the motor power remains consistent. On the standard mode, Dyson says that you can clean up to 100m; I found that my kitchen took the best part of a tank, so I needed to refill to cater for the rest of downstairs.
Should you buy it?
You want a light and manoeuvrable hard floor cleaner
Brilliantly designed, very light and nimble, this hard floor cleaner can quickly clean hard floors and get into areas others can’t reach.
You want more cleaning power
If you want a more powerful cleaner for very tough stains or just want to clean a larger area on a single tank, then look elsewhere.
Final Thoughts
Look in my guide to the best hard floor cleaners, and you’ll find plenty of options that can clean larger areas, deal with the toughest stains faster, and self-clean at the end. For anyone who has a lot of hard floors, particularly with large open areas, these types of cleaners probably make more sense.
Then, there are those who own a Submarine head. If that’s you, there’s no real advantage to getting the PencilWash, as you get a very similar cleaning experience here, with a very similar floor head.
But the PencilWash does have its benefits, and there are those it will appeal to. If you’ve just got regular mess on your floor (footprints, general dust build-up and so on), then the PencilWash cleans brilliantly. And, it can tackle tougher stains if you give it some time.
Primarily, the PencilWash comes into its own in smaller homes; for those who can’t manage a bulky, heavy hard floor cleaner; and for anyone that’s struggled to get a regular floor cleaner into all the nooks and gaps in their home. If you value flexibility and ease of use above raw cleaning performance, then the PencilWash is great.
How we test
We test every hard floor cleaner we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
- Used as our main hard floor cleaner for the review period
- Tested with real-world dirt in real-world situations for fair comparisons with other steam cleaners
FAQs
No, you have to wash the roller manually.
Test Data
Full Specs
| Dyson PencilWash Review | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Dyson |
| Size (Dimensions) | 198 x 267 x 1155 MM |
| Weight | 2.2 KG |
| Release Date | 2026 |
| First Reviewed Date | 10/03/2026 |
| Model Number | Dyson PencilWash |
| Provided heads | Floor head |
| Bin capacity | 0.34 litres |
| Modes | Standard, Max |
| Filters | None |
| Run time | 1 hrs min |
| Floor cleaner type | Hard floor cleaner |
| Detergent capacity | 0.3 litres |
