By Claire Reilly

After removing bags from domestic vacuum cleaners 20 years ago, Dyson has achieved another milestone in design by removing the last consumable from the vacuum: the filter.

Six years in the making, the new Dyson Cinetic DC54 vacuum is set to hit stores from 1 September in four variants: the DC54 Animal Pro (RRP $1,099), DC54 Animal (RRP $999), DC54 Allergy (RRP $899) and DC54 Multi floor (RRP $799).

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By removing the filter, Dyson has taken away one of the major hurdles that prevents people from maintaining their vacuum properly, as Dyson director of engineering Alex Knox explained.

“We know people don’t wash their filters,” he said. “Just as bags clog with dust and lose suction, if the cyclones are inefficient the filter is relied on to trap dirt and dust. With no maintenance, the filter slowly blocks and the machine loses suction and vacuuming becomes more and more frustrating as your machine’s performance drops.”

To solve the problem, Dyson removed the filter from the vacuum body, but the problem of separation of dirt and dust still remained.

“We knew that making smaller cyclones increased centrifugal forces and separation efficiency, but the smaller apertures began blocking. By using a flexible tip that oscillated, dust was moved through the cyclone and no longer trapped.”

Taking its name from the movement of these cyclone tips, the Cinetic went through more than 50 prototypes before engineers found the right material for the tips to move dust through the bin without blockages. The result is a product that has long been a dream for Dyson founder, Sir James Dyson.

“Since I invented the first bagless vacuum cleaner I have wanted to create a machine with no filter to maintain,” Sir James Dyson said. “To do it, Dyson engineers have spent six years developing our most advanced cyclone technology yet.

“Getting rid of bags solved the frustration of my vacuum losing suction. But washing filters — or worse — buying them, is still a nuisance. Dyson Cinetic cyclones are so efficient at separating microscopic particles that everything gets thrust into the bin, and you can forget about fussy filters.”

The new Dyson Cinetic DC54.

And our friends over at Dyson have prepared this video to help explain how it all works: