The Ryobi Devour really goes to town collecting dust without sending much—if any—airborne.
The Ryobi Devour really goes to town collecting dust without sending much—if any—airborne.

Every so often, one of the DIY brands goes rogue and makes something jobsite worthy, and I think the Ryobi Devour is one of those anomalies. (Full disclosure, I made a video about this—which I actually forgot about until I started writing this article—for the Home Depot last year).

Despite the fact that if you pull a pushbroom backwards instead of push it, it sends less dust airborne—it still sends dust airborne!

The Devour? It doesn’t. It contains the dust at the sweeper heads.

The sealed bin is pretty sealed. Dumping it out is not the typical dust source dumping out other containers is.
The sealed bin is pretty sealed. Dumping it out is not the typical dust source dumping out other containers is.
It has headlights.
It has headlights.

Its two 18-volt-powered, adjustable, bristly wheels gather debris into an easy-to-remove—and sealed—container. It sucks up debris-type stuff like drywall chunks and small wood scraps and it’s pretty darn thorough on fine powder like drywall dust and the spilled bag of thinset I tortured it on.

I guess it’s slow. But so is sweeping a room and wiping down surfaces over and over—or sending fine dust up Mrs. Jones' basement stairs into her kitchen while you finish her basement. So is dragging a shop vacuum around.

18-volt battery and kick on switch.
18-volt battery and kick on switch.

The tool collapses into a vertical configuration for easily hanging on a wall. If I had to do lots of sweeping jobs—especially indoor, like finishing basements or tile prep in a big kitchen or just cleaning up big rooms after drywall or paint—I’d give this approach a second look.

Tool ships bare. With battery and charger, it’s $292.

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