Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra Review

The unique ball on the Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra is kind of cool to look at, but we had a hard time pushing and turning this vacuum, not seeing an improvement compared to conventional designs.

Carpet Performance

The first thing we noticed about this machine is how its powerful suction really seals the floors. While we like the confidence this evokes for sucking up sand and dirt, the tight seal with the cleaner head pushed around some of the rice and Cheerios rather than rolling over the top of it. And it's hard to push!

If you face any large debris with this vacuum, we recommend opening up the two red head gates on the front of the cleaner head. When we did this, we sacrificed a bit of suction — which there is plenty of anyway — but the open gates do allow a bit more of the bigger material to slide under where it can be sucked up. You can see a small handful of Cheerios that still couldn't make it into the canister at the end of one of our trials above.

Before Testing After Testing

The deep fibers of high pile carpet make it harder for vacuums to get at all of the debris, plus they let larger, relatively lightweight material (like Cheerios or leaves) float on top of the fibers, above many cleaner head openings. This machine collected just 48% of our test material on high pile carpet, a slightly below-average performance.

As the cleaner head sucked deeply into the carpet again, we watched the front of the machine push Cheerios and rice around.

Before Testing After Testing

We like how well it collects the heavier sand, but we think if it had taller openings in its head gates, it would be more versatile for more people.

If you have deeply embedded dirt you want to get out of your carpet, this is a great machine for that purpose. Unfortunately, we found pushing surprisingly hard, giving it a sticky feeling rather than a smooth roll. If you must chase down lightweight debris like leaves or potato chips with extra passes, you might experience an arm and shoulder workout like we did.

Hardwood Performance

We observe similar cleaning characteristics on hard surfaces, where the sand and rice are collected better than the Cheerios, which tend to plow. It's not that it won't suck up Cheerios, it just takes more passes at the Cheerios to get them to slip under the cleaner head. If there's a cereal mess at home, we'd likely just forget the main head and use a hand attachment instead.

For cleaning around tight areas and baseboards, this model sucked up 100% of the coffee grounds on our head-on pass, and very nearly got all of the coffee grounds up on the parallel pass. we were very pleased with this performance, particularly because it means that you can use this vacuum to suck up all the little crumbs that get pushed under the toe kick areas under kitchen counters without needing to use a crevice tool.

Before Testing After Testing

Pet Hair

As the Animal in this vacuum's name suggests, it's designed for pet hair and was one of our top performers, making it a great choice for homes with multiple dogs and cats. On low-pile carpet, it sucked up a whopping 78% of the fur, and on high-pile carpet, it did even better, collecting 82%!

Before Testing After Testing

While we find this vacuum hard to push on carpet, if you have a shaggy rug in your home with dogs who lay around and roll, scratching their backs and shedding like crazy, we can't argue with these results. Depending on which carpet types you have in your home, these results might help you choose the best vacuum for pet hair for you.

Unlike most, the cleaner head and brush roller on the Dyson Ball Animal 3 actually seem to work well in preventing tangling. The brush roller showed tangled, long hair extensions when we first stopped the pet hair tests. However, on this model, if it ran for an additional minute, it would automatically clear all or nearly all of the wrapped hair — so cool!

Filtration

This vacuum has a good filtration system that helps maintain a healthy environment for household members sensitive to allergens or pet dander.

Incidentally, the Ball Animal 3 does not use a a true HEPA filter, but our many vacuum tests have confirmed that even non-HEPA filters can be very effective at containing small particles and reducing indoor particulate matter. Simply put, HEPA filters are very good, but you don't necessarily need a HEPA filter to get excellent filtration.

Ease of Use

The ball size is larger than that of the previous generation Ball Animal 2, which reduces its ability to slide under furniture. This version was hard for us to twist and turn more than a few times, particularly on carpet where the intense suction reduced maneuverability. Even small turns felt like a workout on our forearms.

The relatively low-profile of the cleaner head doesn't easily transition onto rugs or mats. It catches, forcing us to twist the vacuum at odd angles to get the cleaner head to lift up at an angle to get it over a lip.

This model excelled in other uses, like cleaning the roller. The roomy 1.7-liter dustbin capacity is also 60% larger than that of the previous generation, making it more suitable for cleaning larger rooms and areas without requiring frequent bin emptying. Due to the awesome suction power, this model was able to suck up 97% of the spilled coffee grounds. Our only quibble is that the hose has a lot of pull as it tries to retract into its shortest length.

Should You Buy the Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra?

Many other vacuums provide much greater value and performance at more affordable prices. However, it handled our pet hair test better than any other on high-pile carpet while doing well on low-pile carpet. Plus, it excelled by detangling long hair automatically. If you have carpet with deeply embedded dirt or sand, this model can likely suck it up, but the strong suction makes it harder to push, giving our forearms workouts we weren't looking for.

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