In our Dyson Pure Cool Review, we look at one of Dyson's standard “purifying fans” - and as such at one of Dyson’s air purifiers. Dyson is well known for its bagless vacuum cleaners, hand dryers, and room fans. Some years ago, Dyson has added a number of purifying fans, one of which is called the “Dyson Pure Cool Desk Purifier” and the “Dyson Pure Cool Tower Purifier”.
Pros:
- Looks nice
- High (fan) airflow
Cons:
- X Purifying fan (small filtration capacity)
- X Small filters
- X Creates a significant draft and noise
- X Only fraction of airflow is actually cleaned
Introduction:
Dyson was founded in 1993 and the company has traditionally put a big emphasis on the design and engineering of their products. This Dyson Pure Cool review focuses on one of the company’s air purifying fans. The product comes as a desk and tower version. The Dyson Pure Cool is effectively two products in one, as it is a standard Dyson fan (such as the ‘Dyson Cool AM07 Tower Fan’), with an added filter to purify the air.
During the writing of the Dyson Pure Cool review, the unit is available to buy from John Lewis, Curry’s, Amazon and directly from the Dyson website. The price is £449 for the tower version and £349 for the desk version. The Dyson Pure Cool features 10 different speed settings and an auto mode to adjust the speed of the airflow. In addition, the Dyson Pure Cool Tower Purifier has a night mode, which supposedly reacts to pollution levels the unit detects. On the night mode, the unit only uses the lowest speed settings whilst also dimming the units LED display. The Dyson Pure Cool oscillates so that the air is circulated in the room quickly and to achieve the best cooling effect.
The Dyson Pure Cool has 3 major components that have to be put together to assemble it. First the filter slots into the silver plastic mesh grid. That plastic grid - with the filter in it - then slides over the fan of the unit. You then place the “loop amplifier” or “air multiplier” (as Dyson calls it) on top of the motor and it should click into place.
The timer function of the unit allows you to set the Dyson Pure Cool Tower Purifier to come on and off at a given time, and can be set-up from the Dyson Link app. The link app enables you also to adjust the speed settings of the unit, monitor the perceived ‘air quality’, and gives you information regarding the remaining life of the filter. The Dyson Pure Cool also incorporates a sleep timer which can be set in 15-minute intervals, ranging from 15 minutes to 9 hours at which point the unit will turn off. The unit offers a small layer of activated carbon to supposedly help control odours, gas, and chemical contamination.
The Dyson Pure Cool tower weighs 3.7 kg and the desk version weighs 3 kg. According to the Dyson manual for the Dyson Pure Cool Purifier, the filter in the unit should be changed every 12 months based on 12 hours a day usage. The replacement filter for the unit is sold for £65 on the Dyson website, but can also be found on other websites for as low as £12 (eBay and spares2you.co.uk).
Marketing of the Dyson Pure Cool
The Dyson Pure Cool was originally marketed as a fan, and at times labelled a “purifying fan”. Dyson advertised the product as “purification all year round” and “purifying fan when you need it”.
Dyson claims that the new Dyson Pure Cool air purifier is capable of “removing 99.97% of allergens and pollutants as small as 0.3 microns” and specifies the airflow as 109 g/s on its US website. On the UK site, however, Dyson writes that the Dyson Pure Cool is able to “remove 99.95% of allergens and pollutants as small as 0.1 microns” and as having an airflow of 414 l/s.
Dyson Pure Cool Review- First impressions
The Dyson Pure Cool is a good looking unit which takes most of its traits from the range of Dyson fans, especially the Dyson Cool AM07 Tower Fan.
Upon taking the Dyson Pure Cool out of the box, it did feel surprisingly lightweight and also a little bit fragile.
The Pure cool is made entirely out of plastic and even the parts which look like metal, are actually plastic. As such, the Dyson Pure Cool is not a unit you would want to accidentally knock over (just like most other air purifiers too, I guess), but the Dyson Pure Cool seems as if it could actually break, and due to its slim and tall design, it would only take a slight push to possibly tip it over.
Dyson Pure Cool Review- a Closer look
With the fan function being an integral part of this purifying fan, the fan function cannot be turned off. That, however, means that you will always have a fan running in your bedroom when you want to purify the air. Most air purifier manufacturers try very hard to avoid that their air purifiers create a draft, as it will give the feeling of cooling the room it is being used in, which in most cases is not desired.
So, to incorporate a fan is great for countries where you use a fan all year around anyhow. If however, you live somewhere where the climate is not that warm, having a fan integrated with the air purifier may not be a great idea for everyone – after all, it is hard enough to keep a home in the UK warm during winter. If your Dyson Pure Cool is cooling you down while you are trying to heat your room, you will end up paying more in electricity.
With the mean temperature during summer in the UK being less than 16 degrees and only 2 days in 2015 that were over 30 degrees[1], the Dyson Pure Cool air purifier might be better suited for Miami Florida, than the UK.
Dyson Pure Cool Review - Wireless
The Dyson Pure Cool can be controlled via the Dyson Link app. The app allows you to schedule times for the Dyson Pure Cool to come on and off which does not seem to be possible with the remote control of the Dyson Pure Cool. The app also allows you to set an air quality target that you want the Pure Cool to reach. Now, this sounds impressive, the question is, however, how good the pollution detector in the Dyson Pure Cool actually is in detecting pollution levels accurately in the first place.
Dyson Link App
With the Dyson Link app installed, you can view live air quality reports, browse air quality history, as well as being able to display air quality information from external monitoring sources. This can be handy stuff. As with all apps, however, the question is if it adds real value to you and if you will use it on a regular basis, or if you will end up deleting the app after a couple of weeks.
In terms of privacy, Dyson says that the main reason they collect and use your information while using the Dyson Link app is so that they can provide and improve the service, products, and experiences that you expect from them.
They also say that information collected is used to “monitor the performance and stability of their products” as well as “monitoring your use of connected products and apps”. Dyson will “collect and use your information for profiling and statistical analysis of how their products are used”. [1]
Dyson Pure Cool Review - Filtration
Dyson Pure Cool filter and casing
One of the key features of an air purifier is, of course, its filtration efficiency. Dyson has said that the Pure Cool can remove 99.95% as small as 0.1 microns of allergens from the air. Due to the way the air comes out of the unit, we were not able to verify that number and measured a filtration efficiency that was closer to 90% at 0.3 micron.
The entire filter in the Dyson Pure Cool only weighs 250 grams. That includes its plastic frame and activated carbon filter. The carbon is supposed to “capture odours and potentially harmful toxins like paint fumes”[1], but when it comes to chemicals, gases, and odours, the more carbon you have and the better the quality is, the more effective it will be.
Dyson Pure Cool carbon filter layer
An IQAir HealthPro 250 uses 2500 grams of high quality activated carbon, for example – i.e. ten times more than the weight of the entire filter (including filter frame) of the Dyson Pure Cool. Dyson does not specify how much carbon is in the filter of the Dyson Pure Cool, but it seems fair to assume that it is less than 100 grams - which might not be enough to truly eliminating “toxic fumes and odours”.
In the manual for the Dyson Pure Cool, Dyson specifies that the filter should be changed every 12 months. Due to its small size, we are wondering if the filter will actually last 12 month - but then again it depends how much air will actually pass through the filter...
Airflow
Airflow is, of course, another important feature of an air purifier. Now, here is a bit of a problem. As mentioned, Dyson advertises the Dyson Pure Cool as having an airflow of 414l/s at its highest setting. That translates into 1490 m3/h. That is very impressive and sounds too good to be true for an air purifier - especially one that uses a mechanical mesh filter such as the Dyson does. Our first suspicion was that Dyson must have gotten its numbers mixed up somehow. Maybe they mean 414 m3/h - but even that sounds unrealistic for a small fan that the unit uses.
Airflow rates advertised on the Dyson site
When we contacted Dyson technical support via the phone, they gave us the same airflow rate as on their website. But what Dyson did not point out is, that the airflow of 414l/s only applies to the air that the Dyson Pure Cool moves, but is not the amount of air the Dyson Pure Cool actually filters. That means: only some of the air that comes from of the Dyson Pure Cool has actually been filtered.
It is the 'Air Multiplier™ technology' that lets the unit move a large amount of air, but only a fraction of it will actually have been cleaned. Somehow it feels misleading if Dyson advertises the Dyson Pure Cool saying that it "automatically removes 99.95% of allergens and pollutants" and at the same time says the product has an airflow rate of 414l/s. The proper thing to do would be to qualify these claims and specify exactly what percentage of the 414l/s of air is actually cleaned.
So how much of the air that comes from the Dyson Pure Cool has actually been filtered? Dyson states that the 'Air Multiplier™ technology' creates 16 times more air than is actually moved by the fan [4]. However, if only 6% of the 414l/s is cleaned, then that would mean that the Dyson Pure Cool only creates 24.84 l/s / 89.4 m3/h of clean air on the highest speed setting. That is certainly the lowest level of clean air delivery on the highest speed setting that we have ever measured on an air purifier in this price range.
Dyson Pure Cool Review Summary
The Dyson Pure Cool is priced as a premium "purifying fan". The design is based on their other fans, and it is a nice looking unit that is easy to move around. It is questionable if the filter life is actually 12 months, and what the filtration efficiency will be over time once the filter gets loaded. We also think Dyson should be clearer about the fact that the filtration efficiency they advertise the unit with does not relate to the airflow rate they give at the same time. According to Dyson's own advertisement for their fans, the actual amount of air cleaned seems to be less than 10% of the airflow advertised.
With the Dyson Pure Cool being a “purifying fan”, you might not actually want a cooling device all year around. But for most people, it will be a bit too pricey if just used as a seasonal product (i.e. a fancy fan) that you use for one or two months in the summer. If you are looking for an air purifier, chances are that you want clean air also during winter, when asthma and allergy symptoms are especially common.
There have been a couple of reviews on the Dyson Pure Cool air purifier so far. Some customers have said that the filters do not last for up to 6 months (which is our suspicion too), and the impact that will have on the running cost of filter replacements.
- http://www.dyson.co.uk/fans-and-heaters/purifiers/dyson-pure-cool-link/technology.aspx
- http://www.dyson.co.uk/support/privacypolicy.aspx
- http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/2015/august
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8he8afjQyd8
