Our Verdict: If you’re looking for a bagged cordless vacuum, then the Halo Capsule is the best on the market. It’s not perfect – mainly due to the below-average manoeuvrability and lack of a pet tool. But it generates excellent cleaning performance, has a big dust capacity, and is hygienic to empty. We also think it provides great value for money, despite the lack of advanced features.
Halo Capsule
Pros:
- Bagged cordless vacuum cleaner with a big dust capacity
- Simple design that’s easy to use
- Great for both carpets and hard floors
- Powerful suction for a cordless
- Cheaper than premium cordless vacuums
Cons:
- No advanced features
- The lack of a pet tool is disappointing for pet owners
- Not as easy to steer as many other cordless vacuums
- Poor suction when in the lowest power mode
- No HEPA filter
Trying to decide whether to buy the Halo Capsule cordless vacuum cleaner? Read our in-depth review of this innovative cleaner to find out whether it’s right for your home.
The Halo Capsule is one of the few bagged cordless vacuums on the market. It’s a practical and no-frills cleaner, with a 60-minute maximum battery life, large dust capacity, and carbon fibre shell.
We think the Halo Capsule is an excellent choice if you want a bagged cordless vacuum. It lacks the advanced features of more expensive models, but it’s great for cleaning both carpets and hard floors, plus the bagged design makes it less messy to empty. We don’t think it’s the most manoeuvrable vacuum on the market though – and we wish it had a HEPA filter.
How does the Halo Capsule compare to other cordless vacuums though? Does the bagged design really offer easier cleaning and emptying? And can this new vacuum stand up to established big brands like Dyson, Miele, and Shark? Keep reading our Halo Capsule review to find out.
Overview of the Halo Capsule’s Features
- Bagged cordless design
- Large 1.6 litre dust capacity for less frequent emptying
- Up to 60 minutes run time on the lowest power setting
- Carbon fibre construction
- Converts to a handheld for easier cleaning of hard-to-reach areas
- Other attachments include a crevice tool and dusting brush
- 2-year warranty from the manufacturer
Appearance, Features and Design
The Halo Capsule is a cordless stick vacuum cleaner with a stylish appearance. Like most stick vacs, it has a removable wand so it can be converted into a handheld cleaner. It’s also a simple vacuum that’s designed to be functional, with a large dust capacity and bagged design.
One thing we like about having a vacuum bag is that it allows for a 1.6 litre capacity, which is huge for a cordless vacuum – even though the bags don’t always fill all the way. In comparison, the bagless Dyson V11 provides less than half this capacity, at 0.76 litres.
The weight is kept down to 2.6kg due to the ultra-light carbon fibre shell, which puts the Capsule at a similar weight to the Dyson V8 and lighter than the Dyson V11. A downside is that the floorhead is narrower than we’d like, but this does make it slightly lighter. The company has also scrapped advanced extras to keep the weight and cost as low as possible, so you won’t find any LCD screens, adaptive suction, or lights on the brushbar.
Instead, all you get are a couple of indicators displaying the battery level and the selected power setting, along with a button for turning the rotating brushbar on and off. A minor annoyance is that the battery and power mode indicators are next to each other, so it’s easy to mix them up.
There are also a few extra attachments, which we’ll cover in the “Tools” section.
Manoeuvrability and Ease of Use
We found the Halo Capsule generally easy to use, although we have a few complaints about its manoeuvrability.
It’s simple to flick between the three power modes on the Halo Capsule, and, thankfully, you don’t need to hold down the power button when using the cleaner.
The handle position being at the rear makes it easy to push the cleaner around any floor surface, but it would have been nice to see the handle extended further round the body. As it is, the weight distribution makes it feel top-heavy and unbalanced. We think this is disappointing after the effort of using carbon fibre to keep the Capsule a lightweight vac.
When converted into a handheld vacuum, the weight and handle position make it tricky to manoeuvre. This is particularly noticeable when using above head height for catching cobwebs. You’ll need to use both hands to bear the weight and keep it steady.
It’s still light enough to easily be carried between rooms, which is useful because it’s not the easiest to swivel around corners. We think the floorhead lacks the mobility you get with a Dyson, so it’s harder to pivot or clean around furniture legs.
Filtration
The Halo Capsule has a simple yet effective filtration system. The dust pouches with a silicone seal are designed to catch and trap the dirt particles, with a single washable filter in place behind the pouch.
The bagged design is undeniably neater than bagless vacuums when emptying, so this is good for allergy sufferers. Yet the simple filter isn’t as effective as a HEPA filter, which traps 99.7% of dust particles. We’d always recommend a vacuum with a HEPA filter if you suffer from allergies.
We think the lack of a HEPA filter is a missed opportunity for the Halo Capsule. A cordless vacuum with both a HEPA filter and a bagged design would instantly become one of our top recommendations for people with allergies.
Emptying and Cleaning
As we’ve already mentioned, the Halo Capsule uses removable dust pouches. While most cordless models are bagless vacuum cleaners, we think the Capsule’s bags make it much easier to empty the vacuum without letting dust escape.
The dust bag indicator turns red to let you know when the pouch is full, and then it’s simple to unclip the latch and pop the bag out of the canister.
There’s zero mess and no need to get your hands dirty. We also like that the pouches are made from compostable paper but are still sturdy enough to contain all the mess. The flaw in the system is that you’ll need to remove the main wand to empty the cleaner, which is a bit of a pain (this is something we didn’t like on the Dyson V10 too).
You’ll also want to give the canister a quick clean to get rid of the dust that escaped the pouch. As for cleaning the filter, there aren’t any messy cyclones to deal with, so it’s a straightforward job to pick out the filter and give it a rinse when needed.
Battery Life
The 32V battery on the Halo Capsule offers an impressive 60-minute maximum run time when used on the lowest setting. This is a longer battery life than the Dyson V8 and is comparable to the pricier Miele Triflex.
If you want to up the power to the highest setting, however, then the run time drops to a little under 10 minutes. You’ll need to use this mode sparingly!
The medium setting is likely to be your bread-and-butter mode for everyday cleaning, and you’ll get around 25 minutes of battery life. It’s a decent enough time to cover some good ground, but as the batteries aren’t removable, you’ll have to wait for the cleaner to recharge before you go again.
Halo claims the vacuum has a three-hour charge time, but we’ve found it can take up to an extra hour to be fully charged. You also need to plug the cable directly into the cleaner, which is less convenient than being able to pop a single battery on charge. Especially if you don’t use the wall mount and need to find somewhere to prop it up for a few hours.
Tools and Accessories
Depending on the bundle you choose, the Halo Capsule has a range of tools and accessories. The main tool is the motorised power brush floorhead, but the vac also comes with non-motorised attachments.
Floorhead
At first glance, the motorised floorhead seems pretty basic. It has a rotating brush, but there aren’t any headlights on the front, it’s not the widest floorhead we’ve seen, and the opening is on the narrow side, so it won’t take much to block it.
Having said that, when you turn the power on, we think it’s an effective floorhead with good suction power right to the edges. You can also choose if you want the brushes rotating or not in all three power settings, which is useful for avoiding scratches on delicate floors or sending debris flying across hard floors.
Our main issue with the floorhead is how tricky it is to remove the brushbar. You need to remove six screws before you can wrestle it out, and Halo doesn’t recommend removing it at all. Instead, it’s suggested to cut tangled hair and fibres with scissors, which is a less effective system than you’ll find elsewhere.
The only hint at a fancy extra is the light indicator on the front of the floorhead. If it’s green, you know everything is running OK. But if there’s a blockage, the light will turn red, or the cleaner will switch itself off altogether.
Other Tools and Accessories
In the box, you get a crevice tool, dusting brush, upholstery tool, wall mount, and 26 dust pouches, which is roughly enough to last a year.
The tools are all pretty standard, but the bristles on the dusting brush are a little on the stiff side. It’s fine for window sills and shelves, but we’d suggest avoiding it when cleaning delicate surfaces.
All the tools can be attached to the main wand or to the body in handheld mode. There’s an attachment to clip them onto the wand for storage and the wall mount has space for another two attachments.
A bonus is that there’s an “anti-slip” pad on the back of the cleaner, which is useful if you want to prop it up rather than using the wall mount.
The biggest drawback is that there’s no motorised mini tool. This makes the vacuum less effective for cleaning upholstery, cars, and stairs.
Suction Power and Cleaning Performance
There are three suction settings with the Halo Capsule – eco, performance, and boost. The cleaner defaults to performance mode, and we think this provides the best balance of cleaning performance and battery life. The brushes don’t turn on automatically, though, so you’ll have to turn these on when you want them.
As is standard for a cordless, the eco mode is fine for some light dust on hard floors, but the vacuum struggles with anything more difficult in this mode. You’ll need to increase the suction power for carpets, which reduces battery life.
Performance mode handles dust and debris with ease, even getting right into those tight corners. Boost mode has the sort of power that lifts the carpet up, and it rivals the performance of much more expensive cordless vacuum cleaners. But it will drain the battery, so it’s best to save it for stubborn dirt.
We’re impressed with the consistent power of this vacuum and how the suction stays strong, even when the bag is getting full. It’s also fairly quiet, even with the brushes spinning.
Carpets
The Halo Capsule provides excellent performance and dirt pick up on most carpets – but only when using the two higher power modes.
For regular short pile carpets, the Capsule picks up most mess in a single sweep. It struggles a bit more with thick carpets, and the floorhead sometimes doesn’t grip as well as we would like.
Even so, we think the Halo provides decent carpet performance considering the low price of this cordless.
Hard Floors
By turning off the brush bar on the Halo Capsule, the cleaner picks up all sorts of mess from hard floors. But if you turn it off too soon after cleaning, you may find a few pieces drop out.
Even with our concerns about the narrow opening on the floorhead, the vac is effective at actually picking dirt up, rather than just bunching it all under the front of the brushbar. The powerful boost mode is also handy for getting up bits that fall between the floorboards.
Stairs
You can remove the main wand and convert the Halo Capsule into a handheld vac for cleaning the stairs. This makes it a versatile vacuum – although the handheld feature is standard for cordless stick vacs.
The width of the floorhead is about the same as the depth of a standard step, so this makes it useful for vacuuming stairs. And, because the floorhead picks up right to the edge, you may even get away without having to go around again with the crevice tool.
We think the lack of a mini motorised tool can make cleaning stairs more awkward than with alternative cordless vacuums though.
Pet Hair
The combination of suction power and brush bar provided by the Halo Capsule is good enough for pulling out embedded pet hair. The handheld mode is also useful for cleaning hair from those hard-to-reach areas.
There isn’t a pet tool, however, which is disappointing. More recent packages do include an upholstery tool that might make the task a bit easier, but this isn’t motorised.
If you have pets, we’d recommend opting for a cleaner with a specific pet attachment, especially for areas like cars and stairs.
Price and Value for Money
The price is a big perk of the Halo Capsule, as it sits at the lower end of the cordless vacuum scale. It’s more in line with cheaper Shark or Gtech models than premium vacuums like the Miele Triflex, or Dyson V11, yet it can rival most vacs when it comes to suction power.
The dust pouches will add to the lifetime cost, but you get plenty included with the vacuum, and they don’t need replacing often. When the time does come to buy more, they’re not an expensive outlay.
On the other hand, premium vacuums come with lots of extra features, such as digital displays, multiple floorheads, and adaptive suction. The Halo Capsule doesn’t even include a pet tool, so there’s more to the decision than just raw cleaning performance.
Even so, if you want a simple cleaner that focuses on performance rather than fancy gadgets, we think the Halo Capsule offers great value for money.
Specification Table
| Ninja Column 1 | Ninja Column 2 |
|---|---|
| Price Range | £££ |
| Maximum Run-Time | 60 minutes |
| Weight | 2.6kg |
| Capacity | 1.6 litres |
| Type | Bagged |
| Motorised Pet Tool | No |
| Hose | No |
| Filter | Washable |
Comparison With Other Vacuums
Halo Capsule Vs Dyson V8
These cordless vacuum cleaners both offer great cleaning performance for a similar price, but with one obvious difference: the Halo is bagged, while the Dyson V8 is bagless. So, how do they compare?
The bagged element of the Capsule is a rarity in the cordless world, and we love the extra dust capacity and ease of emptying. Even with the hygienic dust ejector system on the Dyson, you still need to get your hands dirty now and again. The filters are also easier to care for with a bagged model and require less frequent cleaning.
In terms of handling, they’re a similar weight, but the Dyson is better at swivelling and handling corners. The Halo edges it with battery life though, offering up to 60 minutes against the 40 minutes of the V8.
You may get the premium feel with a Dyson, but the Halo Capsule can rival cleaning performance without the eye-watering price tag. On the other hand, there are more available tools for the Dyson, including a motorised pet tool.
To find out more, read our full review of the Dyson V8 Absolute.
Verdict
We think the Halo Capsule is an excellent vacuum and certainly the best bagged cordless on the market right now. However, we can’t help but feel it needs a second version to iron out some of the issues. Removable, swappable batteries would extend the run time and make the Capsule far more user-friendly. A pet tool would also be a useful addition, along with a more manoeuvrable design and a HEPA filter for allergies.
Having said that, we can’t knock the suction power on the Halo Capsule. It’s an effective cleaner for a reasonable price, and we love the bagged element. The 1.6 litre capacity means you can go longer between emptying, and it’s a lot less messy than a canister-style system.
If you’re looking for a simple cleaner that will get the job done without any fancy extras, the Halo Capsule is one to consider. But if you’re looking for enhanced features, like adaptive suction and LCD screens, or you have a home full of long pile carpets, it’s worth looking at other options.