Exactly how and what air purifiers do when cleaning your air is a mystery to a lot of consumers. Most people set a machine down and change the filter every so often to find all sorts of dust inside. Dyson is hoping to help people better understand what an air purifier is sucking up, so the company is introducing a new version of its air purifier that now comes with an LCD screen to tell you what pollutants are inside your home.
The Dyson Pure Cool looks like all the other purifiers the company has sold in the past, with a hollow oval shape that gives it a distinct look. But there’s now a circle-shaped LCD screen on the base that can cycle through various pollutant levels like smoke, pollen, or fumes from vehicles. When the machine senses these particles, a bar graph spikes to indicate presence, and you can watch the machine work to filter these particles out to level the graph back to normal.
It’s a lot of information on a tiny screen
It’s a lot of information on a tiny screen, and it can be difficult to make sense of them at first glance. When you set up the machine, it just starts with that screen. There are letters like PM, NO2, and μG that can easily confuse anyone who has been out of high school science for a while. To better understand what all the numbers and symbols mean, users have to look to the manual as an encyclopedia. A glossary of terms can be found in the accompanying Dyson Link app as well, the company says.
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“We want to educate people more on what’s bad in their homes,” Dyson tells The Verge. While symbols like a flower and a car make it pretty clear what allergens the machine is referring to, the UI still comes across a bit too technical. While it’s true that consumers do want to learn more about how their machines work, inundating them with graphs may not be for everyone.
Dyson says the Pure Cool purifier is now capable of eliminating 99.97 percent of microscopic allergens and pollutants as small as 0.3 microns. Again, interpret that how you will as an average consumer. If you have high allergy sensitivities, and other air purifiers have not worked for you, the Pure Cool might be worth checking out based on your specific needs.
The machine has a two-layer filter (a HEPA filter in the outer layer and a carbon filter inside) that needs to be changed once a year when used for 12 hours a day. Clean air is projected up to 20 feet from the machine, and it now has a vent on the back side of the oval to blow air backward. Dyson says a common request from previous machines is that, in the winter, consumers would like to avoid having cool air blown into their living spaces. You can schedule the Pure Cool on a cleaning schedule, but this requires the use of the Dyson Link app. Otherwise, you’ll need to be around to manually turn the machine on and off, use a limited sleep mode on the machine, or leave it on auto all day for the fan to detect particles and suck them up when needed.
The air purifier is not the only machine Dyson is introducing today. Alongside the Pure Cool, Dyson also unveiled the Dyson Cyclone V10, the latest version of its cordless vacuums. Previous Dyson cordless vacuums have had a rather abysmal battery life, requiring many hours of charge for only about 20 minutes of cleaning. While the V10 does still need three and a half hours of charge, it will now last users up to one hour of continuous power. The company believes this battery life is efficient enough that it will discontinue making uprights and focus on building future vacuums off the V10 motor.
New with the V10’s design is a new location for the bin opening and a battery indicator that notifies users when the machine will soon need to be charged. Dyson has also placed the charging port on the bottom of the handle instead of the back, so those who mount their chargers on the wall can easily dock the machine down instead of scooping it upward to plug it in.
The Pure Cool and Cyclone V10 are both available for purchase today on Dyson.com in the United States. The Pure Cool starts at $449, comes in two sizes, and will be available in international markets over the course of March and April. Filters are $80. The V10 starts at $499 for just the motor that you can connect to V8 attachments if you already own a Dyson cordless vacuum. Additional attachments for ceiling fans, cars, or hard floors are sold separately via Dyson.