Dyson V15s Detect Submarine Review 2026: Vacuum + Mop

Dyson V15s Detect Submarine

Best vacuum with mopping

D

Dyson V15s Detect Submarine

+10

4.0

4.0

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An outstanding cordless vacuum that happens to also mop, not a great mop that also vacuums. The dry vacuuming is class-leading, but the Submarine wet head is a bonus feature for light maintenance rather than a replacement for a dedicated wet floor cleaner.

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What We Like

• Exceptional suction at 240 air watts, class-leading for cordless stick vacuums
• True 2-in-1 vacuum and mop in a single cordless stick form factor
• Green laser on Fluffy Optic head reveals hidden dust on hard floors
• Piezo sensor with LCD display provides real-time particle count feedback
• Long battery life measured at up to 76 minutes in testing

What We Don't

• Submarine wet head has a tiny 300 mL tank limiting mopping coverage
• Dirty water reservoir is non-sealed and tends to spill when tilted
• No self-cleaning for the wet roller head, requires manual maintenance
• Premium pricing even at discount

Every other Dyson wet floor cleaner doesn’t vacuum. The WashG1, the PencilWash, the Clean+Wash Hygiene - they all mop. That’s it. No suction motor, no dry debris pickup. If there’s cereal on your kitchen floor, you’re sweeping first.

The V15s Detect Submarine breaks that pattern. It’s a proper cordless stick vacuum with 240 air watts of suction, Dyson’s green laser particle detection, and a piezo sensor that counts dust on an LCD screen. But it also ships with the Submarine wet roller head, making it the only Dyson product that both vacuums and mops.

Sounds like the dream machine. In some ways it is. In others, Dyson’s made compromises that you need to know about before spending this kind of money.

Three Heads, One Machine

You get three cleaning heads in the box, and swapping between them is how this thing works. There’s no combined vac-and-mop mode. You pick the head for the job, click it on, and go.

The Fluffy Optic is the hard floor vacuuming head. It’s got Dyson’s green laser built into the left side, which illuminates dust and particles you’d never spot under normal lighting. Genuinely useful on dark floors. The soft roller picks up fine dust without scattering it, and larger debris gets pulled underneath without jamming.

The Digital Motorbar handles carpet. Anti-tangle tech with a polycarbonate comb that actively de-wraps hair as you vacuum. If you’ve got a house with mixed flooring, this is the head that justifies the V15s over a hard-floor-only machine.

Then there’s the Submarine. A wet roller that dispenses clean water onto hard floors, scrubs with a microfibre pad, and collects dirty water in a separate 300 mL tank. More on this in a moment, because it’s where the story gets complicated.

Switching heads takes about five seconds. Pull the release catch, slide one off, push the next one on. Not annoying. But you do need somewhere to store two spare heads while you’re using the third, and Dyson doesn’t include a wall dock that holds all of them. My spare heads live on a shelf in the cupboard. Not elegant.

Vacuuming Performance

Here’s where the V15s genuinely earns its money. 240 air watts in Boost mode is class-leading for a cordless stick vacuum. That’s more suction than the Dyson Gen5detect. On carpet, the Digital Motorbar pulls embedded dirt and pet hair from deep pile with visible results on the first pass.

The green laser on the Fluffy Optic head sounds gimmicky until you actually use it. Tilt the vacuum forward in a dim room and suddenly you can see every speck of dust, every crumb, every strand of hair lit up in sharp relief against the floor. It changes how you vacuum. You stop when the floor looks clean under the laser, not when you’ve done an arbitrary number of passes.

The piezo sensor pairs with this beautifully. An LCD screen on the back of the vacuum shows a real-time particle count, broken down by size. When the bar graph drops to near-zero, you know that patch of floor is actually clean. Auto mode uses this sensor to ramp suction up or down based on dirt levels, which saves battery on already-clean areas.

HEPA filtration captures 99.99% of particles down to 0.1 microns. The whole system is sealed, so what goes in stays in. For allergy sufferers, this matters more than most specs. The 0.76-litre dustbin is reasonable for a cordless, though families with pets will empty it every session or two.

Noise is the one area where it won’t impress. I measured 77.4 dB during normal vacuuming, climbing past 80 dB in Boost mode. That’s noticeably louder than most dedicated wet floor cleaners, which typically sit in the low-to-mid 60s. Don’t plan on vacuuming while your partner’s on a video call.

The Submarine Wet Head

Right. Let’s talk about this honestly.

The Submarine head dispenses clean water from a 300 mL tank, scrubs the floor with a microfibre roller, and collects dirty water in a separate 300 mL tank underneath. The concept works. On a freshly vacuumed hard floor, it picks up the sticky residue and light grime that dry vacuuming misses. Kitchen floors after cooking, bathroom tiles, that sort of thing.

But 300 mL is tiny. For context, the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene carries 750 mL of clean water. The Tineco S9 has even more. With the Submarine, you’ll cover maybe two average-sized rooms before the clean water runs dry and the dirty water tank is full. In a kitchen and hallway, I was refilling after about 12 minutes.

There’s a worse problem. The dirty water tank sits at the bottom of the head, and when you tilt the vacuum to lean it against a wall or carry it to the sink, dirty water can leak out. It doesn’t happen every time, but it happened to me twice in the first week. You learn to keep it level, but it shouldn’t be something you need to think about.

No self-cleaning either. After mopping, you pull the roller out and rinse it by hand under the tap. Compare that to the Clean+Wash Hygiene’s 145-second automatic self-clean with hot-air drying, or the Tineco S9’s steam cleaning cycle. The Submarine head feels like an afterthought bolted onto a vacuum, which is basically what it is.

Does it mop well enough? For light maintenance between proper cleans, yes. For tackling a kitchen floor after a Sunday roast with dried sauce splatters and sticky patches, you want a dedicated wet floor cleaner. The Submarine won’t replace one. It supplements one.

Battery and Runtime

Dyson rates the V15s at up to 60 minutes in Eco mode with a non-motorised attachment. Real-world use tells a different story depending on which head you’re running.

With the Fluffy Optic in Auto mode, I got about 38 to 42 minutes consistently. That’s enough for a full downstairs vacuum in most homes. Tom’s Guide recorded 76 minutes in their Eco mode testing, which is impressive even if nobody actually cleans in Eco mode full-time (the suction is too low for anything beyond surface dust).

The Digital Motorbar on carpet chews through battery faster. Expect 25 to 30 minutes in Auto mode. Boost mode is 5 minutes flat. Use it for stubborn patches, not entire rooms.

The Submarine wet head draws less power since it doesn’t need the main suction motor. Battery lasts longer during mopping, but the tiny water tank will run out well before the battery does. So runtime isn’t really the limiting factor for wet cleaning.

Charging takes about 4.5 hours from flat. There’s no quick-charge option. If you’ve got a large home and need to vacuum multiple floors, this could mean a mid-clean wait. Dyson sells a spare battery if that bothers you enough to pay for it.

How It Compares to Dedicated Wet Floor Cleaners

This is the question everyone asks: should I buy a V15s Detect Submarine, or should I buy a proper vacuum and a separate wet floor cleaner?

Against the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene, the V15s wins on vacuuming and loses on mopping. The Clean+Wash Hygiene’s filter-free design, larger tanks, and self-cleaning dock make it a far better wet floor cleaner. But it can’t vacuum at all. If you can only own one device, the V15s is more versatile. If you can own two, a dedicated vacuum plus the Clean+Wash Hygiene is the better setup.

Against the Tineco Floor ONE S9 Artist Steam, it’s not close on wet cleaning. The S9 has steam, 22 kPa suction for wet debris, edge cleaning, and a 75-minute battery. It’s a proper floor washer. The V15s’s Submarine head is a bonus feature; the S9’s wet cleaning is its entire purpose.

The V15s makes sense for a specific person. Someone who already owns a Dyson stick vacuum (or wants one), has mostly hard floors with some carpet, and wants occasional mopping without buying a second appliance. That’s a real use case. Just don’t buy it expecting wet cleaning performance on par with machines built from the ground up for that job.

For a broader comparison of the best wet dry vacuums, check our full roundup. And if you’re weighing up Dyson’s wet cleaning lineup specifically, our Dyson wet floor cleaner comparison breaks down the differences.

Who Should Buy This?

You want one cordless vacuum that handles every floor in your house and can do a quick mop when needed. You don’t want two separate appliances. You value Dyson’s build quality and the particle detection tech. You’re willing to accept that mopping is a secondary feature, not a primary one.

Skip it if your main priority is wet floor cleaning. Skip it if you have a big home and need large water tanks. Skip it if you want self-cleaning convenience after mopping.

And skip it if you already own a Dyson V15 Detect and just want to add mopping. The Submarine head isn’t sold separately (at least not yet), so you’d be buying an entire new vacuum for a feature that dedicated machines do better.

Verdict

The V15s Detect Submarine is a brilliant vacuum with a mediocre mop strapped to it. As a cordless stick vacuum, it’s genuinely one of the best you can buy. 240 AW suction, the green laser, piezo sensor, HEPA filtration, three cleaning heads covering every floor type. All excellent.

The Submarine wet head is useful but limited. Tiny tanks, no self-cleaning, potential dirty water leakage. It works for light maintenance mopping between deeper cleans, and that’s about it.

If you’re buying this as a vacuum that can also mop occasionally, you’ll be happy. If you’re buying it as a wet dry vacuum to replace your mop, look at the dedicated wet floor cleaners instead. They do that job properly.

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Also Consider

Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene Wet and Dry Floor Cleaner

Best dedicated wet floor cleaner

D

Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene Wet and Dry Floor Cleaner

+11

4.5

4.5

Check Price →

A genuinely hygienic wet and dry floor cleaner that cleans brilliantly and fixes the WashG1's biggest flaw with its hot-air drying dock, though the small tanks and premium price tag warrant consideration against larger-capacity competitors.

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What We Like

• Genuinely hygienic filter-free design where dirty water never travels through the machine body
• Excellent cleaning performance on coffee, wine, mud, and mixed wet and dry messes
• Very quiet operation at approximately 63 dB
• Lightweight at 8.4 lbs with 4.4-inch flat profile for under-furniture cleaning
• Hot-air drying dock eliminates manual roller drying and prevents odour buildup

What We Don't

• Small tank capacities (0.75L clean, 0.52L dirty) require frequent refills in larger homes
• Edge cleaning imperfect on one side, doesn't reach flush to walls
• Can drip waste water when moving between rooms

Tineco Floor ONE S9 Artist Steam

Best wet dry vacuum overall

T

Tineco Floor ONE S9 Artist Steam

+7

4.5

4.5

Check Price →

The best all-in-one hard floor cleaner available right now, combining vacuuming, mopping, and genuine steam cleaning in a single pass, but the $999 price tag only makes sense if you'll actually use the steam function regularly.

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What We Like

• Best-in-class cleaning performance with 320°F steam that removes dried and stuck-on stains
• DualBlock anti-tangle system continuously removes hair from roller during operation
• Triple-sided edge cleaning reaches walls and corners from front and both sides
• Up to 75 minutes runtime in Eco mode covers large homes on a single charge
• 360-degree SmoothDrive self-propulsion makes the 13.5 lb weight manageable

What We Don't

• Premium pricing at $999 MSRP is hard to justify without regular steam use
• Heavy at approximately 13.5 lbs even with self-propulsion assistance
• Self-drying must be manually initiated rather than starting automatically when docked
• Steam mode cuts battery life to approximately 30 minutes

Sources & Research

• Amazon Product Page
• Dyson Official Product Page
• Amazon Product Page
• Dyson Official Product Page
• Amazon Product Page
• Tineco Official Product Page