Yes, I think that vacuum cleaners were designed to be used inside. You would need a commercial grade one if you wanted to use it outside. My daughter uses a vacuum cleaner in her car, but it is not the stick vacuum that we use inside the house. There are different types of vacuum cleaners for different uses, but I am sure that when they were originally designed, they would have been invented to make house work easier. Nowadays, you can get them for a variety of uses.