Like most people, when I see a dirty kitchen floor, I grab the mop and bucket from the cupboard. Mine are the cheapest I could find, and I use a bit of dish soap because I haven’t figured out where to buy dedicated floor cleaner. But living in a flat with lino, tiles, and wood floors means I have a lot of hard surfaces to clean. While keeping them clean can be a chore, mopping reveals just how much dirt our vacuum cleaner misses. So, when Dyson offered to let me try their new WashG1, I wondered if it would make me appreciate mopping as a fine art requiring high-tech gadgets, or if I was just a lazy millennial who needed to clean more often. The truth, I think, lies somewhere in between.
The WashG1 is a heavy, vacuum cleaner-like device, but it doesn’t suck up debris. Instead, you fill one tank with a liter of water from the tap, leaving the other empty. Remove the G1 from the charging unit, turn it on, and two microfibre rollers spring into action, distributing a fine film of water as you roll the device across your floors. There are three sensitivity levels, with the highest providing the most vigorous rolling and water flow. You can use the G1 for spills, food messes, and other household mishaps, but I mainly used it to keep my hardwood floors and the kitchen clean of dirt, shoe prints, and the residue of meal prep. You don’t need to apply pressure to make it work, and as the dirty water flows into the empty tank, there’s a satisfying feeling that it’s doing its job. The water color is a bit horrifying, but it’s clean, without any debris.
After mopping, which is explained in the Dyson app, you need to clean out the removable debris tray. This is where hair, dirt, and grime collect – if you think you have clean floors, the contents of this tray might prove you wrong. Fine mesh grates keep the dirty water separate from the debris. The G1 can clean itself, but you still need to manually empty the dirty water tank and refill the clean one for it to go through the cycle. For a cleaning machine that costs £599.99, there’s a lot of unplugging, refilling, and emptying. We’re used to a lazy, automated way of life, even with Dyson’s vacuum cleaners, but here, the setup rituals are unavoidable. This means the WashG1 is excellent at cleaning floors, doing a better job than my old mop, but it’s still a bit of a hassle. No amount of technology can change that.
Floors dried quickly, even on the highest water setting, as the microfibre rollers didn’t leave puddles. My floors dried in about ten minutes each time. A full tank lasts about that long, and a fully charged G1 can run for about 35 minutes. Overall, I’m happy with how clean my floors are – I thought they were clean before, but I was wrong. But I’m not sure I’d recommend everyone spend £599.99 just to upgrade their mop. The WashG1 cleans better than a traditional mop, mainly because it collects and separates the dirt, while mopping usually just moves it around. This means I don’t necessarily have to vacuum before mopping, but it won’t be for everyone. It’s worth noting that this is an expensive electric mop that cleans surface-level grime and spills, but won’t tackle grout or embedded stains. It’s not for deep cleaning new hardwood floors, but a luxury mop that makes tidying up easier. Whether that’s worth £599.99 is up to you.
