Vacuum cleaners are not very cool. In the grand scheme of household appliances, they're right down there with the toilet brush.
Maybe it's because they're a reminder that unseeable dust lurks in our carpets, that bits of our skin are constantly flaking off, our hair is incessantly detatching from our heads and we're inching closer and closer to death.
Or maybe it's because vacuuming is a lot of effort and we'd really rather just watch TV and live in our own filth.
Either way, Gtech, a British company based in Worcester, reckoned it was time to stop letting Dyson have all the vacuus fun and has rethought the upright vacuum with the AirRam.
Ramble jamble
The lightweight cleaner is so-called because it rams all the dust and grime from your carpets into a small compartment just behind the head – so there's no massive pipe to suck it through. (It's nothing to do with the pneumatic gizmo used to hurl circus performers through the air, nor a basket-ball-playing golden retriever.)
Gtech founder and MD Nick Grey explains, "AirRam technology collects and compresses the dirt dust and fluff into tidy, dust-free bales stored only 5cms from where it is collected… The dust-free bales are then simply dropped into the bin with no messy dust cloud."
Yes, this major technological breakthrough consists only of moving the dust chamber closer to the suction area, but it does seem a pretty common sense move.
Perhaps of more interest is the fact that the AirRam works cordlessly – the Lithium-ION battery promises 40 minutes of consistent power on four hours of charge. Gtech reckons you can clean two houses with that but it has obviously underestimated our capacity for procrastination.
The reason it can do so much on so little power is that the AirRam uses only 100W of electricity to provide the same kind of performance as a Dyson DC40 (which uses 11 times more power).
On the downside, there's no nozzle for cleaning in nooks and crannies, and the device doesn't break down into any smaller parts for cleaning.
Stat fiends can plug the vacuum into their computers via USB and check out the questionably-titled software, AirBrain. This provides maintenance videos, money-saving calculators that works out how much money you're saving compared to using your old hoover, and a calorie counter that shows what each cleaning session burns.
If all this vacuum talk has got you busting for some suction action, you can pick up the Gtech AirRam from John Lewis or direct from Gtech for £229 now.
