The Samsung Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner is the most souped-up non-tech, tech product I’ve ever used. I am unsure what to class it as – is it a home appliance or a gadget? All I know is that this thing is very good, albeit over the top.
As someone who loves a gadget, I really don’t mind how smart this thing is, but I know some of you might just want a vacuum cleaner that vacuum cleans well, one you don’t need an engineering degree to operate. While it’s pretty user-friendly, if you just want a vacuum cleaner you can pick up and use and then throw into the closet, the Samsung Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner probably isn’t for you. Unless you’re open to having your mind changed.
Samsung Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner
Samsung announced the Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner last week. Well, the Australian availability, that is. The super smart vacuum/mop will set you back $1,599. It’s….it’s a lot of money for a vacuum cleaner, but the Dyson Gen5outsize Complete stick vac, the company’s most powerful one, will set you back $1,699 – and that thing doesn’t even mop (it also doesn’t self-empty, which I’ll get to soon).
When I saw the price, I scoffed, but that was before I started using it. I understand these things cost money, and it is 2023, the year of the exorbitant everything, but there’s also a lot this thing can do.
Some features Samsung highlights about the Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner include a ‘multi-layered filtration system’. Touted as ‘hygienic cleaning’, the vac has a 5-step Multi-layered Filtration system that Samsung says helps trap up to 99.999 per cent of fine dust and allergens. It also highlights that the machine’s digital inverter motor has been improved, giving it suction of up to 210W. It promises multi-surface cleaning, and a dust-free vac experience.
Starting with …I don’t know where to start
Upon opening the box, everything was packed neatly away like Samsung got the Tetris world champion to assist.
With everything laid on the floor, including the docking station and accessory cradle that both somehow fit in the box, I just sort of looked at the mess I had made and felt very overwhelmed. I attached the Active Dual Brush to the telescope pipe, then to the actual vacuum head/body part thing and started vacuuming because the user manual didn’t tell me I couldn’t.
Black threads from bath towels atop a mountain of black cat hair gone in one-two swipes and very minimal pressure.
The Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner comes with a number of vacuum heads: Pet tool (for pet hair one can easily assume), combination tool (which I’ve only ever really used when cleaning a car), extension crevice tool (good for side-of-lounge crumbs), something Samsung calls an Active Dual Brush, and the Slim LED brush.
Over my time with the Bespoke vac, the Active Dual Brush was used the most. Usually, I use the pet hair attachment, not just because of two cats, but also my super long hair that just seems to get stuck everywhere, but the ‘standard’ head was more than sufficient. It was also much bigger than the pet tool, and therefore gets the job done quicker. But, the usual hair tangled around the head persists, even at this price point.
The Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner is still no match for my rug, but I must be overestimating the suckability (not a word) of a vacuum cleaner, even one that has 280W of suction power. I had to go over the rug a few times, but we got there.
I was impressed with the ease in cleaning – the vac really does suck. It’s very powerful. Which in turn saves cleaning time because I’m going over spots once or twice, not two to three times. It all adds up. But there’s of course a tech element to this – the Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner has ‘AI’ in its name, and we all know what that means…
The vac is smarter than me
While it still needs to be guided by a human, the Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner will detect the brush you’ve whacked on it, the air pressure coming in, and then the surface the vac is on gets analysed too. All of that results in the Samsung AI Stick Vacuum automatically applying an algorithm to then provide “the optimal suction power and brushroll speed”. I tried to trick it by shifting from mass-produced, super cheap Sydney apartment fake floorboards to carpet to bathroom tiles. It knew. It always knew. It would constantly say “Optimised for your environment”. The app also told me I was using AI mode (more on that in a sec). Do you need this? I’m not sure, but it sure did gamify the whole cleaning thing
We haven’t even talked about the app. Samsung has an app called SmartThings – one that’s used to sort-of house and control all of your Samsung devices. Connected to the vac via Wi-Fi, in the app, I can see the battery level, what cleaning mode is being used, set the default suction power, suss out my energy usage, I can command the vac be emptied… yep…
The darn thing is self-emptying
It’s called the All-in-One Clean Station and it’s used to clean the Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner, as well as charge it. To empty the bin, you slot the vac in, then press empty on the app or it will auto-empty when the base station feels the sensors meet. The app will tell you how long it’s been since it was emptied.
Samsung says the station “harnesses Air Pulse technology to automatically empty the dustbin for quick cleaning” adding, “When the dustbin is being emptied, the All-in-One Clean Station’s Air Spin Edge technology swirls the Spinning Cyclone, removing remaining debris such as hair that may get stuck in the dustbin’s grille.” Here’s how that looks:
It sounds like a jet engine is taking off, but it’s not for long.
To empty the bin into the bin, you take the bag out from behind it.
The instructions that come with the Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner really are lacking – I’ve basically learned all of this from taking things off and fiddling around. Probably my biggest criticism, actually, the under-explaining of it all and being completely unsure if I was about to ruin something that costs $1,500 in record time.
But wait, there’s more. It can mop, too.
It mops, you say?
Not in the way you picture mopping (ie with a bucket and a mop that looks like a Komondors’ head stuck to a stick) but in a way akin to getting on your hands and knees with an antiseptic wipe and moving it around in circles real fast.
I touched on it just before but Samsung killed me with the lack of instructions for the Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner. In the user guide there was a lot of assumed knowledge that I simply did not have as a first-time user of a Samsung vac-mop-spaceship combo. This was abundantly clear when my partner and I spent 25 minutes trying to work out how to use the mop attachment. Anyway. We got there, and I started mopping.
The floor was clean, the disposable mop heads embarrassingly filthy, but my arms were quite sore from holding it for so long. But it was a different type of holding to what it is when you’re vacuuming – with the Spray Spinning Sweeper (real name), the Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner wants to move all over the shop and requires a bit of pressure/oomph to get it to stay in line. Nothing overly a bother, but worth noting nonetheless.
The Samsung Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner, final thoughts
The Samsung Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner isn’t light, weighing in at 2.98kg, nor is it quiet (which I actually didn’t mind, because it meant the cats weren’t running in front of me as I was trying to vacuum). It also isn’t cheap. But boy, does it do a lot and a lot it does well.
Having a docking station that takes into consideration renters, as well as it being the place to empty the vac, is a welcome feature. The 100 minutes of battery life is also fantastic – more than enough to vacuum my two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment and then mop it. Charging takes a while, but not ages. Docked at 20 per cent, when I looked 3 hours later, it was at 100 per cent. As long as you keep it docked when you’re not using it, you should get the majority of what you need done, done.
There’s so much this thing can do and it can do all of it well. I’ve always used Dysons and this is really on par – upped by the fact there’s a mop attachment and a way to dock it that is considerate of renters. If you’re looking for a stick vacuum that works, one that also mops, doesn’t make you rush to the bin to empty it, one that can be docked without putting holes in a wall, and one that has an app, it’s hard to look past the Samsung Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner – even if its name is a handful.
Where to buy the Samsung Bespoke Jet AI Stick Vacuum Cleaner
Via the Samsung Australia website for $1,599.