Tech review: Neat Dyson design helps you keep household air clean

How clean is the air in your house? You might be surprised by the answer. Between dust and pollen and other airborne pollutants and chemicals we can’t see, there is plenty going on that could turn what seems to be clean indoor air into something less pristine.

Of course it doesn’t mean that your home is unhealthy. But given the focus in recent years on air quality, it is no harm to know exactly what you are dealing with.

Enter the new generation of air purifiers, which not only clean the air in your home but also tell you what they’ve detected and show the trends over time, all delivered through an app on your smartphone.

Dyson has a range of air purifiers that combine bladeless fans and heaters into one machine, including the Dyson Purifier Hot and Cool Formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a naturally occurring gas present in the environment around us, and like many things, the danger is in the dose.

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The Hot and Cool Formaldehyde has the typical Dyson tower design, with a tilting base that allows you to angle the stream of air just where you need it, and the ability to oscillate to disperse the air throughout the room. It has a Hepa H13 filter that will capture dust and allergens, filtering particles as small as 0.1 microns, which is thinner than a human hair. Dyson says it will also capture the H1N1 virus, and as the name suggests, it destroys formaldehyde. It does that through a catalytic filter that continuously traps and breaks down formaldehyde molecules into water and CO2. A carbon filter will deal with odours, such as those generated by cooking or air fresheners.

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There is very little set up involved with this machine. A couple of minutes to get the filters installed, plug it in and you are guided through the process. It comes with a remote control that can be attached to the top of the purifier with magnets, so in theory it should stay put (in practice, it was easily knocked off and went missing on more than one occasion).

You can see what the air purifier is removing from the room by checking the small display on the front of the device, or by linking it to the Dyson app. The latter will not only allow you to monitor the trends in your home’s air quality over time, but also give you the ability to control the device remotely, setting the temperature and air strength.

It’s a handy feature to have, unless you want to spend your time watching the display in real time on the machine itself. And no one has the time or concentration for that.

The auto mode allows you to set the temperature to the desired level and leave the machine to do its thing. In that case, it will pick up the pace of air purifying when it detects pollutants, filtering out the unwanted dust and allergens until the air is clear. Then it will go back to monitoring the air.

On the “cool” side of things, it’s worth noting that the Dyson machines will not cool down the air in the room, but are designed to circulate ambient air around the room. So it cools you, rather than brings down the temperature in the room. That means less energy consumption though, which is a good thing with the current level of electricity prices.

Good

The Purifier Hot and Cool does a lot. If you like knowing exactly what is going on in your home, this device will be perfect for you. The tracking of air quality data is useful, and you can see how things are progressing – or not – over time.

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You don’t need to use the app for real-time data though, with the display on the front of the device giving a live look at how things are going. Leave it on auto and it will clean the air as it detects pollutants , ramping up the power as needed.

Because the Dyson is bladeless, it is safe to have around pets and children, and it isn’t noisy enough to keep you awake at night.

Bad

Like many of these products, the Dyson Hot and Cool purifier is pricey. This isn’t a budget option, and it will leave a sizeable dent in your pocket. However, if you don’t need all the features, you can opt for a less expensive version of Dyson’s purifiers.

Everything else

It has a night mode if you like to leave the device running around the clock, and a diffuser mode to push air out of the back. The lifespan of the filters can be monitored on the app, but the catalytic filter for formaldehyde never needs replacing. The device can also be linked with voice assistants such as Alexa to allow you to command your Dyson to purifier the air at your whim.

The verdict

Pricey but delivers what it promises.