If you have children, you know that they can magically bend the laws of physics. More specifically, they can take a small amount of something, say, 2 crackers, and turn it into a pile of crumbs that cover the interior of an average sedan. There’s always the car wash vacuum and using up all your laundry quarters, or there’s Autowit MiniCyclone.
The MiniCyclone is a very compact handheld vacuum. Sizewise, it’s like someone sent your Dustbuster from the 80s through the dryer cycle, and looks-wise it’s like your Dustbuster from the 80s eloped with a HydroFlask. It’s pretty compact for a vacuum, but it sucks. In a good way!
Using the vacuum is dead simple. There’s one button, no settings, and a strip of LED lights to tell you how charged it is. You unscrew the tip to empty it after it’s sucked up the entire cracker aisle’s worth of crumbs from under your child’s booster seat. Autowit includes a number of extensions for different uses, like a long extender for inside cushions, and a brush head for finer spills. I found the MiniCyclone to have excellent suction and it did a great job cleaning up crumbs in my couch and car. My one quibble is that you should get in the habit of emptying the chamber after every use — it’s rather small, and I was concerned it could get clogged easily.
The battery life seems pretty excellent, as it suctioned well and seemed to hold a charge without needing to be topped off throughout the review period. It charges via microUSB, which is an amazing feature and makes sense if you’re keeping it as a car vacuum. It also means you don’t need to keep track of yet another proprietary charger or bring it back inside to dock it in a special place to keep it charged. The compact size also means it can sit in a console, or a side door, or one of those weird little cubbyholes in the trunk of cars that seem useful but are so small you can’t figure out what’s supposed to go there…now you know, it’s a small vacuum cubby.
At $79, MiniCyclone isn’t the cheapest handheld vacuum around. But that’s actually not far off from the pricing on bulkier handheld vacuums, and those aren’t going to store as easily or charge as simply in your car. If you factor in the hassle of trying to find a gas station with a working vacuum AND a hose that extends further than 3 inches, the value becomes a lot clearer! MiniCyclone was funded via IndieGoGo and should start shipping by the end of March.
Source: Manufacturer supplied review sample
What I Liked: Good suction, compact size, many accessories included, charges over USB
What Needs Improvement: Small capacity