Suction power's become an important bullet point when it comes to selling vacuums. But what really matters to consumers is how easy they are to empty. The annoying bags of yesteryear have been replaced with easy to use trapdoor canisters, which now see further improvement with Electrolux's new UltraCaptic cleaners that …

Imagine adding to this kitchen bit-by-bit as your cooking skills increase. Or as your home-office needs change, considering it looks like this Electrolux concept converges the kitchen and office to suit small flat-holders.

Swedish appliance giant Electrolux is commissioning a series of restaurants to temporarily sit on top of famous buildings and mountains in Europe. Yes, the idea is insane and no, we have no idea how they got permission to do this.

Willing to pay over $1,000 for an oven hood that doesn't stand out like a sore thumb? Electrolux's EFA50700 has been designed to look just like a lampshade (albeit, a shade for a motherfriggin' large light bulb), and still manages to extract air across three different levels.

Four months after boasting of vacuums made from recycled sea junk, Electrolux now has five colorful cleaners to show off. They're made from 70 per cent recycled plastics, with each cleaner's design representing the ocean the rubbish came from.

Every year Electrolux's Design Lab competition throws up some amazing inventions, but sadly most never make it further than the designer's CAD program. This year's winner is a nifty portable magnetic induction heater for heating up pots, pans and mugs.

Electrolux may be known for its outlandish concepts, but when their CEO promises to look into reclaiming the plastic waste from the ocean and turning it into vacuum cleaners, I can't help but believe him.

You've got to love design concepts. This one, for example, takes a perfectly functional product—the Roomba—and makes it completely useless by putting it in the form of a robotic dog. Sigh.

Vacuuming is functional, and sometimes it's bloody expensive, but rarely would I use the term "fashionable" to describe this weekly chore. And yet, this Toshiba/Electrolux collaboration, inexplicably called the Escargot, exists.

We're big fans of Electrolux's concepts, which include vacuum shoes, a flatshare fridge and waterless washing machines. Thanks to Electrolux's brilliant robot cleaner I haven't vacuumed properly for a year now, but could be cajoled into using this iPod-packing model.