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- Obscenely powerful suction
- Light and manoeuvrable
- Clean and easy to empty
- Lacks surface autodetection
- Some bundles are expensive
Halo is a reasonably new kid on the block for vacuum cleaners, but don’t let that angelic name fool you – it’s a brand that was created by a former designer from Dyson and Shark, melding together two cordless vacuum heavyweights for an all-new take on the market.
The Capsule XR is its flagship model, and it aims to revive some of the helpful features we initially lost by moving to cordless stick vacuumss, such as deep, hygienic disposal methods and a very powerful, sealed suction system, in a stylish and purposeful chassis.
It comes with a generous dust capacity, a veritable treasure trove of attachments, HEPA-14 filtration and more besides to make it one of the most feature-rich cordless vacuums you’ll find outside of the big players.
The best way to describe the Capsule XR out of the box is that it seems like a bit of a young head on old shoulders – a fresh brand in the vacuum space, but one that’s backed by years of experience creating some of the best vacuum cleaners we’ve seen.
To see how strong this Halo vac really is, though, I’ve been putting it through its paces for the last couple of weeks.
What you need to know
The Capsule XR is Halo’s flagship model. It sits above 2024’s Halo Capsule X in the range, and comes with numerous upgrades, including more powerful suction, increased airflow and a better HEPA-14 filter to capture even finer particles than your standard HEPA filter can.
It can hold two litres of dust and detritus in each of its compostable bags, which are also made from FSC-certified sources to minimise their environmental impact. With most modern cordless vacuums now going down the bagless root, it might seem odd to go back to bags, but you can fit an awful lot more in a bag, and it makes emptying and maintenance nice and simple.
At 2.8kg, this Halo vac is also rather light, and with its boosted suction over the previous model, quite brisk for everything from everyday cleaning and dusting to our more rigorous, standardised testing. You also get up to 70 minutes of runtime on a charge, although with the Boost mode enabled, it drops down by quite some margin.
Price and competition
The pricing situation for the Capsule XR is where things get a little sticky. The ‘retail’ price for the main unit is £500, and this can rise to between £672 and £757, depending on the bundle you choose.
With this price in mind, it becomes as expensive as the likes of our favourite cordless vacuum, the Dyson V15 Detect Absolute, which trades bags and pure power for some more advanced helping hands, such as laser-guided cleaning and a proper readout display on top.
However, the Capsule XR becomes a more appealing choice considering that it frequently goes on sale. For instance, the vacuum as I write this is 50% off at £300 on the Halo website and it’s £319 on Amazon, which changes the value proposition completely, pitching it up against older Dysons, such as the recently revamped and renamed Dyson V8 Cyclone at £349 and the Henry Quick.
Don’t discount other bargain choices, either. The Shark IZ300UKT is great, especially for hard floors, and the Vax Blade 4 and Vax Blade 3 starting at just £169, are excellent choices, too.
Design and controls
The Capsule XR is quite purposeful in its looks, eschewing any flashes of colour you get from the likes of Dyson or Shark for an entirely black chassis. There is a carbon fibre look on the main portion of the unit, but that’s about it for any form of flair.
It weighs 2.7kg, which makes it on the lighter side, and means it isn’t too difficult to push around. It’s pretty easy to assemble it all, too. I particularly like the fact that it comes with a dust bag already installed, so it’s a case of clicking the battery into the back of the unit, then clicking the sturdy metal extension pole into place, and attaching the main floorhead or hard floor roller to the bottom of the pole.
The controls are kept simple on the top side of the Capsule XR, with a main button to turn it on (with three separate levels of suction indicated by a series of blue LEDs) and a smaller, rectangular button that’s used for engaging the brush bar. You don’t get any form of display here, any particularly advanced controls or floor/surface detection here; the Halo Capsule XR turns its nose up at such luxuries.
Accessories
As for the accessories, the Capsule XR comes with quite the collection, with two main floorheads – one for carpets and one for hard floors – provided along with a range of smaller tools. There’s a crevice tool for cleaning into edges and corners, a combi brush, upholstery combi tool and a mini power brush, which is handy for vacuuming car carpets and stairs.
Halo also provides a longer “stretch” hose for harder-to-reach areas, and a wall dock that you’ll need for keeping the vacuum in one place. It will stand up on its own, although I have had instances of it keeling over if it’s not put up exactly right.
The Shark vacuums that fold over in the middle have nailed this particular aspect of cordless vacuum design because they put all the weight low down and are far more stable as a result.
Depending on the bundle you go for, Halo also provides up to two batteries and ten dust bags with the Capsule XR – if you need more, you can purchase them from the brand’s website.
How we test vacuum cleaners
We conduct the same tests for all our vacuum cleaners, running a range of tests to see how well the machine copes in a range of different cleaning scenarios on different flooring types.
We test with plain flour and Cheerios to see how the machine copes with the smallest and largest particles. We have a cleaning test for pet hair, too, so you can see if how good it is at lifting fine hairs from carpet and upholstery.
Finally, we also run suction and battery tests in the lowest and highest power modes to give you an idea of how performance varies across a range of different settings.
Cleaning performance
In terms of suction power, the Halo Capsule XR is one of the most potent vacuums we’ve tested. Using the vacuum pressure gauge revealed a remarkable 55kPA on the vacuum’s most powerful Boost setting. When paired with the motorised main head for carpets, it was almost too powerful to push along my carpet.
For reference, the middle setting recorded a result of 43kPA, which is much more usable day-to-day, and even the low setting’s 22kPA result is still good in conjunction with the motorised roller for day-to-day cleaning.
This beefy suction translated well into cleaning performance. In my tests, it picked up 84% of the 26 grams of Cheerios on a carpet tile in one pass at maximum power. It would have likely picked up the full 100% if it weren’t for the roller spraying them out as I tried to go over them. A second pass picked up the remaining stragglers with ease.
The Capsule XR also managed to clean up 98% of the 50g of flour in one pass, and managed all but the smallest pieces of dog hair, working out to 96% of the requisite 5g we use with every vacuum cleaner.
As for hard floor testing, results were much the same – that is to say, excellent. It picked up 100% of the dog hair with the standard, carpet-oriented head and motorised roller engaged, and it also managed all of the flour in one clean pass.
The Cheerios on hard floor proved the biggest challenge for the Capsule XR, with it only picking up through 46% via the main roller on the Debris setting. Switching to the dedicated hard floor head yielded a much better result in a single pass, with 88% of Cheerios deposited into the vacuum’s bag.
With the most powerful setting of the Capsule XR almost seeming too powerful for general cleaning, I elected to use the middle setting in conjunction with the motorised carpet head for the majority of my time cleaning. It’s quite remarkable how much dust and debris it picked up with a single pass on my downstairs carpet.
It’s a shame it doesn’t automatically adjust to the surface you’re cleaning, and that it doesn’t have a dust-detecting laser like premium Dysons, but the headlights on the main carpet roller are bright and surprisingly revealing.
Likewise, the array of attachments the Halo provides makes this a vacuum that’s suitable for more than just basic cleaning workloads. The mini power brush is ideal for cleaning stairs in, while the addition of a stretch hose makes it easier to get to hard-to-reach areas if you don’t want to take the main unit with you everywhere, especially when combined with the smaller tools you can put on the end.
A small shame with the Capsule XR is that there isn’t any method of changing the floor heads with your feet, so you can uncouple one in an instant and get another attached. If you’re in a pinch, it can be a little unwieldy to clip one off and affix the other.
This is one of those cordless vacuums you really can use in place of an older corded model – which is essentially what I’ve done with the Capsule XR – for every job from basic cleaning to more challenging situations.
Battery life, filters, cleaning and emptying
Halo rates the Capsule XR to last for up to 70 minutes on a charge, although I found it exceeded that in its lowest power mode. Leaving it running from full to empty revealed a run time of 84mins 25secs, working out to nearly 15 minutes longer than Halo’s own numbers, which is excellent.
Bumping up to the much more potent maximum mode reveals a significant drop off, though. I managed just shy of nine minutes in the same battery test before needing to charge the battery once more. Unless you spring for the bundle with two batteries, you’ll also be waiting a while for the batteries to charge quite a while; a full charge takes around two-and-a-half hours.
To empty the Capsule XR’s bag, you will need to remove the accessories you’re using, such as the main head and extension hose. Once this is done, there’s a button to press that flips open and reveals the bag. Simply hold the bag over the bin, and gravity will do the work, dropping out the bag with little fuss or mess.
Halo also recommends cleaning the bag’s filter periodically, depending on how heavy your use of the vacuum is. To do so, rinse it under a tap and allow it to dry before putting it back, installing another bag, and you’re ready to go.
Halo Capsule XR review: Verdict
The Halo Capsule XR is a beefy cordless vacuum cleaner that surprised me with its power and potency. It aced our cleaning tests in most instances and works just as well for cleaning carpets as it does for hard floors. Plus, with a vast array of attachments and excellent battery life, it’s ideal for more difficult and heavy workloads as well as for general cleaning.
With a sub-3kg weight, it’s also quite light and easy to push around if you’re happy to forgo the obscene Boost power mode for most tasks. Being bagged also makes maintenance fuss-free, and the presence of HEPA-14 filtration is a very pleasant bonus.
What this option lacks against the likes of the Dyson V15 Detect Absolute is the lack of any more advanced, automatic sensing or the clever laser heads that take it above the traditional standard of a cordless vacuum.
Granted, it is quite expensive if you purchase it in a bundle, but if you can shop around, I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find a cordless vacuum as powerful and capable as this with so few compromises.
