With all the talk about the new Bosch VAC120 Dust Extractor and the Milkwaukee M12 Compact Hand Vacuum coming out this year, I was getting excited to try one – especially the Bosch because I already own the batteries and charger.
It turns out there was already another pretty good offering I was missing, the Ryobi 18V ONE+ hand vac. I also just happened to have a Lithuim ONE+ battery and charger sitting around. Picking up the vac for $25 seemed like a good deal – too good to pass up.
The Ryobi 18V ONE+ hand vac is very reminiscent of the more classic Dustbuster design, only a little heavier and engineered with a replaceable battery. I’ve owned a few Dustbusters over the years and have been pretty happy with them while their batteries lasted, but inevitably after a year or two their non-replaceable batteries just doesn’t deliver the juice anymore.
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(We’ve seen similar sentiments in a recent post about cordless Dustbusters’ awesomeness, with readers describing how their older Dustbusters’ batteries also eventually lost their charge capacity.)
The ONE+ hand vac has a two stage filter. The first stage is a wire screen to keep the biggest debris in the dust bowl, which is Ryobi’s term for the yellow plastic container that forms the nozzle and holds the debris, and out of the second replaceable paper accordion filter.
The vacuum comes with a crevice tool that stores on the bottom of the dust bowl. The crevice tool also has a slide-out brush.
Operation
Using the Ryobi vacuum isn’t rocket science. Click a fully charged Ryobi 18V ONE+ battery into the vacuum and thumb the switch on. In this case I used my tried and true Ryobi P105 ONE+ high capacity Lithium-Ion battery. The battery has seen light use for a few years in my weed whacker and is still in good condition.
Ryobi lists the vacuum as weighing 2 lbs without the battery, but it’s more like 2 lbs 2 oz With the P105 battery it weighed a total of 3 lbs 10 oz.
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The vacuum’s handle has a rubber overmold that actually feels pretty good in your hand. The on/off switch is easily accessible without changing your grip on the vacuum, but sliding the switch on and off is a little stiff.
This little vacuum makes a lot of noise, so I measured the how loud it was with two different apps on my phone. I recorded 75-81 dB, depending on which app I used. For comparison, my benchtop table saw registered about 75 -80 dB, and my 12″ miter saw about 80-90 dB, in the same apps.
Once you start using the vacuum, eventually you’ll run out of room in the dust bowl. To empty the hand vac, first you need to separate the dust bowl from the body of the vacuum by pressing the release button on top next to the dust bowl.
Then, you need to remove the filter assembly from the dust bowl, preferably over a rubbish bin, and dump out the debris. Just grab one of the larger tabs on the top or bottom and pull it out of the dust bowl. While you’re doing this you might as well clean off the wire screen.
The replaceable paper filter can be accessed by squeezing the two tabs on the side of the filter and pulling it out of the filter assembly. I read one user review where they said they lost the filter when they emptied the dust bowl. I find this had to believe unless one of the tabs was broken. This filter isn’t going to accidentally fall out.
Battery Runtime Tests
For all of the tests I used a freshly charged Ryobi P105 ONE+ high capacity Lithium-Ion battery.
- I walked around my shop and later the rest of my house, vacuuming up any dirt or dust I could find. I used a stop watch to mark the amount of time the vacuum ran. I ended up having to stop the stopwatch a few times to empty the bin or change rooms, but the ONE+ hand vac shut off completely dead after around 19 minutes use. I was a little concerned that the vac had died, but after I charged the battery the vac roared back to life.
- Next, I wanted to see what happened in a worst-case scenario. A vacuum under no load is going to draw the most current from the battery, so I just left the vac on the bench to run for 5 minutes at a time and then leaving it rest for 5 minutes. I repeated this sequence until the battery died. Under these circumstances the battery lasted for 17 minutes.
- In the last two tests, neither the battery or vacuum itself got appreciably warm, so to get one more data point I just turned on the vacuum and let it sit on my workbench until it died. This time it lasted for 16 minutes.
During the entirety of the test, the vacuum maintained about the same level of suction and (correspondingly) the same level of noise for the first 80% or so of run time. After that, you could hear the motor start to run down and then suddenly stop when the battery was fully depleted.
Surfaces and Types of Debris
I used the vacuum almost daily for a few weeks try to catch the balls of dog hair and dirt that accumulated in the kitchen and hallway where we keep our German Shepard puppy. I found the vacuum did an adequate job picking up the hair on hard surfaces and it had enough suction to pull in the hair from several inches away from the intake. I didn’t have to recharge it at all over a two week period.
I also used the hand vac when I was coping the corners of the base I was installing in our family room. It handled picking up both the bigger saw dust from the coping saw and the finer dust from filing. Of course this was on a hard floor.
Every time I tried vacuuming dog hair, saw dust, shavings, or dirt from our low pile carpets, I found the vacuum to be practically useless. Sure it could pick up some gravel on the top of the carpet, but the other materials just clung to the carpet. The brush on the crevice tool wasn’t helpful either. I would slide the brush out, but it wouldn’t stay put.
I also found that the wire screen filter would get clogged to the point of losing most suction well before the dust bin was full.
Conclusion
To get the run time of the Ryobi hand vac for the various available Ryobi batteries, I rounded down the run time from my battery tests to 15 minutes. You can usually expect to see longer runtime in many cases, especially with a fresh battery. Since I used a P105 battery with a rating of 48Wh, this translates into 0.31min/Wh. Knowing this I built the following table of approximate expected run times.
| Image | Model | Capacity | Expected Runtime |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
P100 | 27Wh | ~8.4 min |
 |
P102 | 24Wh | ~7.5 min |
 |
P105 | 48Wh | ~15 min |
 |
P107 | 28Wh | ~8.8 min |
 |
P108 | 72Wh | ~22.5 min |
This really isn’t a tool that you want to use to vacuum any kind of square footage. While the hand vac lasted between 16 and 19 minutes in my tests, I can’t see anybody EVER running a vacuum like this for that long and keeping their sanity. So the even 7.5 minute run time the P102 battery would provide would be plenty for most of my use.
Some of the downsides are:
Emptying the vacuum is more of a pain than it should be, because you have to remove the dust bowl/hopper and then remove the filter assembly out of the hopper before you can empty it.
The ONE+ hand vac works well on hard surfaces, but not so well on carpet and upholstery. Then again to work well on these surfaces you either need shop vac-like suction or a beater brush of some sort.
The crevice tool is annoying. It’s hard to remove, and then you have to turn it 180 degrees to stick it into the vacuum opening. The crevice tool has an attached brush that you slide forward to use, but the brush doesn’t stay in place. It would be nice if the vacuum opening was a standard size so you could use the vacuum with standard Shop-Vac and wet/dry vac attachments.
Here’s the good news:
If you are already invested in the Ryobi 18V ONE+ system, the ONE+ hand vac will only run you $25 for a bare tool at Home Depot online or at the store.
Replacement filters cost about $4 and are only available online at the Home Depot. Several people in online reviews have complained that they had a hard time getting a replacement filter, but I ordered one to ship to Home Depot and picked it up several days later with no problem.
Buy Now (ONE+ Hand Vac via Home Depot)
Buy Now (Filter via Home Depot)
A new version of the Ryobi ONE+ vac came out in 2015. According to Ryobi, it’s basically the same vac but with an updated look:
The new green version is very similar to the previous blue one. Just updated the color and overmold to match the new brand language.
Buy Now(New version via Home Depot)
KL
Wow! I was thinking this was on overly thorough review. Then I saw the author was not Stu but an engineer. Good on you though author, if you’ve got the time!!
Stuart
Glad you liked Ben’s review, I agree that he did a great job!
But I’m not sure if I should be half-offended about that “not Stu but an engineer” part. I’m maybe 85% research scientist, 15% engineer. Maybe 75/25 or 90/10, I’m not sure. Still, there’s definitely a little bit of engineering in me.
Ted
Are the filters the same as the previous version?
Benjamen
This is the version that is currently sold at Home Depot in the US, not the new version that has been introduced in some other countries. I do not believe there is a version prior to this one, but I could be wrong.
dave
Ryobi did what they often do, made vacs numbered P710, then P711, P712, this P713, and now there is a P714.
Ted
I was able to find the answer. No they are not compatible with the older model 1+ hand vacuum. The older model filter is A32VC03 and the newer model filter is A32VC04.
Benjamen
Look at that, there was an earlier version! Check out the picture on the filter box. The battery used to be on the back. And wow it was named the “Tuff Sucker”.
http://www.amazon.com/Ryobi-Vacuum-Replacement-Filters-A32VC03/dp/B000FLCNN6
Eeyore
I once heard a great story straight from the mouth of one of the industrial designers who worked on the original Dustbuster. It turns out that early versions had a motor that was very quiet. When they got to the focus group, people thought it was a wimpy toy no matter how much stuff they were able to vacuum up with it. So, the designers put a noisier (but not more powerful) motor in it and the focus groups were suddenly impressed at how powerful this little vacuum was. So, you know, this is why vacuums are always noisy.
Stuart
Did not know that, but it (sadly) makes perfect sense. These days, products don’t have to be good or well designed, they just have to be sellable.
Benjamen
Loudness correlates with power, just look at all the people who have to audibly demonstrate how powerful their vehicle is by modifying the exhaust.
I’m a little skeptical about the details of the story, you’re not hearing motor noise your hearing the impeller interact with the air. I don’t think a simple type of impeller used in these vacuums can get much quieter, you’d have to isolate the motor and impeller from the body or switch to a squirrel cage or another design to make it quieter.
Benjamen
I stand corrected. The motor is making all of the noise. I took the vacuum apart and measured 75dB with the motor running outside of the case and 75dB with the motor in side the case. It isn’t coming from the impeller but the motor itself.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+BenjamenJohnson/albums/6123259578384767489
Steven
I think Ryobi misses the boat on these by not making them cradle in a recharging station. You could leave it in the kitchen, ready to go. Then, you might get the wife to buy into the whole one+ battery system. I could see a line of domestic use tools like a floor sweep, bathtub scrubber, emergency radio/light.
Jason. W
This thing is great in a pinch. I use it regularly on the job site.
Drilled some holes?
Made a cut or two?
Don’t want to drag the shop vac in?
Well blamo. This thing does the job!
One time my truck didn’t have a shop vac on it so I had to use this to vacuum up a pretty good sizes room. I ate through all my batteries lol
Bill K
The Ryobi vacuum does look good especially at $25! I’m really disappointed the 12v Bosch vacuum is so expensive at $69….. and that’s a bare tool.
Nathan York
I’ve had this one and the earlier version. The earlier version was useless and while this one definitely has more suction, the filters clog to easily leaving me to pass it on as well. I just stick to the dewalt vacs now.
glenn
Agreed, I had the first version as well. The filter was hopeless, basically just a cloth gauze. to get any reasonable use out of it you had to blow the filter out every few minutes.
I now have the one in the link below. I believe its the same as the above, just a different colour. It is miles better than the previous version but as already stated,i t does have its faults. However, used with these limitation in mind ,its still a pretty useful tool.
http://ryobi.com.au/18v-one-hand-vac-chv182g
miss franciene
Seems like a good buy but the batteries always run out of juice for me at least. I have the new hand held milwaukee with top of the line batteries. And it works ok for now anyway!
Jason
I have the Ryobi One+ wet/dry canister vacuum. It is so handy to have a cordless vacuum like that. The other thing I found out is that it is a desirable tool to have as Ryobi has discontinued it. TTI still makes the Craftsman C3 version but killed the Ryobi. I would love to know the reasoning I bet a lot of it had to do with performance and run time before 4.0ah batteries came out. I can’t imagine running a vacuum like that with nicads. The other thing I noticed was Home Depot yellow tagged the Ryobi nicad battery packs. I wonder if HD is going to stop carrying nicad packs in the store or going to stop selling them altogether
ktash
I recently got two of the top of the line Ryobi $100 18-V lithium batteries for $25/each. They came in a buy one get one free pkg orig. $100 and marked half off and were on a closeout shelf. That’s why I still have ryobi tools, because I can get the batteries for a reasonable price. I do have one of those older vacs which was given to me with a bunch of other nicad tools. I’ve never used it, since I just pick up my dustbuster instead.
I always breeze by the closeout shelf when I’m in HD. Not many good deals, but sometimes you hit a winner.
adam
if you waited a few more days, they dropped to $25 for both. Though they may not have lasted until then. I ended up with 4 batteries for $46 after coupon. Then scored a hybrid fan for $18 while searching for more, which is my first Ryobi tool, if one calls that a tool.
JML
Forget the battery-powered ones. The small AC-powered Eureka Easy Clean® Hand Vac 71B is great.
Image:
http://www.eureka.com/Root/Images/Eureka/Lightweights/lwProduct_Detail/71B_1_498x666.png.xsd
Vic
I have the old model and this current model. This gives more suction. Another question is anybody know why ryobi stop making 18v one+ canister vacuum? Or will they release a new version ?
Austin
the newest version (green & black) is hitting Home Depot stores now… pretty good vac from the demos we did with it.
Benjamen
Do you have a link to the reviews? I’d like to see them.
Vic
Did you mean a new version of canister vacuum?
Mike Bubrick
Bought a Ryobi One+ vac from Home Depot. 7 months after buying it, it spit parts of the fan blades out the sides of the tool. I hadn’t kept my receipt and Home Depot first, then Ryobi second told me NO RECEIPT – NO WARRANTY. Thought I had learned my lesson and bought ANOTHER Ryobi One+ vac, a model P713 to be specific. This time I not kept the receipt but I also bought the extended warranty for $3.00 and registered it that same day. The P713 burned up (there was a strong burning electrical smell coming out of the tool) AT about 5 MONTHS !!! Home Depot would have exchanged the tool at 3 months. But this was just short of 5 MONTHS!!! So, I contacted the warranty people. They rejected my email, saying the EXTENDED WARRANTY was only good for the period AFTER the Ryobi 2 year warranty. In other words, it failed within the 2 year Ryobi tool warranty. Contacted Ryobi. Now, understand the vac cost $24.99 plus the $3.00 extended warranty. Understand also the vac is SOLD WITHOUT BATTERY OR CHARGER. Ryobi told me to take the vac to the nearest Home Depot THAT HAS A TOOL RENTAL CENTER. It happens that ours does not, nor did the local store know where the nearest Home Depot with a tool rental center was…..certainly not within a 35 mile radius. Ryobi then told me to take or ship the vac to the nearest Ryobi Authorized Service Center AND BE SURE TO INCLUDE THE BATTERY AND THE CHARGER. I protested that the cost to UPS the vac alone to the nearest service center (30 miles away) was $10.00, as estimated by UPS. Surely the cost to UPS the VAC, the BATTERY and the CHARGER would exceed the$24.99 cost of the vac. Ryobi said that was their policy, and if the vac arrived at the service center without a battery and charger, it would not be repaired. Also, they not only refused to issue a UPS pickup ticket for the return, the Ryobi Customer Service rep hung up on me when I protested the refusal. I am so disgusted with Ryobi. No more Ryobi tools for me.
Mike Bubrick
Line 5 should read “This time I not ONLY kept the receipt…..”
Rod Hosilyk
Good review. When I was shopping for a hand vac, I tested this Ryobi against 5 or 6 other hand vacs and this one by far had the most powerful suction of any of the others – Craftsman C3, Dustbuster, Black & Decker, etc. It was the only one that would pick up a 3/4″ steel washer from a hard surface.
Dale Paulsen
The Ryobi 18v P714 vac is a piece of garbage. Got it for a Xmas present (2016), in 2 months the on/off switch quit working. Called Ryobi and they said no returns without a receipt. Ryobi won’t even return a E-mail comment. All I want is a new vac or repaired under the warranty, which is no good either.
dave
I realize it’s an old article but do you have a source for the assumption I’m quoting in the article: “Next, I wanted to see what happened in a worst-case scenario. A vacuum under no load is going to draw the most current from the battery,”
This statement is generally untrue with brushed DC motor based tools. No load would cause the least impeller spinning resistance and lowest current.
Granted in this particular case there is always a certain amount of load since it is always spinning the impeller, but the inquiry remains because if anything a load should cause higher current.
Benjamen
The type of motor is irrelevant: it doesn’t matter if it’s DC or AC, brushed or brushless. What matters is the design of the impeller used in most vacuums.
It isn’t intuitive, but what the vacuum is doing is moving air, the less air it moves, the less work it’s doing. Don’t believe me? I didn’t believe it either when I first heard it.
I experimented with several different vacuums, measuring the current in different situations. The vacuum draws the most current when running freely and the least when totally blocked. Sucking debris is somewhere in between.
This has been discussed in the comments several times, but I unfortunately I can’t find the thread. Maybe somebody else will remember.
Nate
I just modified the newer model of this, the Ryobi p7131 and it is awesome! I modified the canister so a much larger Eureka 67821 filter would fit inside, and wow did it wake this vac up! The Eureka filter has over 10 times the surface area of the tiny stock one, so it needs to be cleaned way less now. Also, the airflow is now much greater with the larger filter and suction has improved 50-75% atleast, maybe more. Its a whole different machine now. The mod did involve cutting the stock canister in half and mating a new larger DIY canister with rivets to the half of thw original canister that attaches to the vac body. Surprisingly, the Eureka filter fits snugly right over the vac air outlet with a thin tube shim. This is the vac Ryobi should have made! I’m going to upload a vid on youtube showing the mod sometime this week under the name Ryobi p7131 Filter Mod.
Jim
Hey Nate…trying to find your youtube vid upload on modifying the Ryobi p7131 to take the Eureka 67821 filter. Please post or send me the link. I did view once several months ago…thought it good and would like to modify mine.
Thanks, Jim
Andrew Gush
Why does the Ryobi blow air (and dust) out of
the side vents sometimes?