Is the jury still out on the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Purifier?
As an outcome of WFH (Working from home), we decided to get an air purifier, due to the time spent at home, and the desires to improve air flow within it.
So we’ve reclaimed our study, which had been a ‘Room of requirement’ for years, after furnishing our second bedroom as a study before we are finding out that wifi signals didn’t reach it. Ah! But after investing in the Google Nest Wifi router, and no immediate end to WFH, we tossed out what we could and reclaimed the study as a study. But what we found after settling ourselves in, was that the study has real bad air circulation, so much so that I was getting headaches only 2 hours into my working day. So we decided to get an air purifier to improve the airflow in our home.
Not knowing much about air purifiers and not wanting to spend huge amounts of time researching, we ended up going with a brand we know and trust- Dyson.
Dyson produces a range of air purifiers, from the large which sees to an entire room, to the small which only services your individual needs. But there is a product for each unique need, and a corresponding cost to your choice. Although we ended up going with the most expensive option, but we think it’s the most value for money option.
Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Purifier fan
The Hot+Cool is $899, but our thoughts were, even if the air purifier functionality is a gimmick and we don’t have an air quality issue, at least we end up with a Dyson heater? As there’s a cool only air purifier which is around the $700 mark, while the cheapest purifier fan was still around the $500 range, and it only sits on your desk and only purifies for one. So for these reasons, I’d say the Hot+Cool is the most value for money.
We’ve owned it for 6 weeks now, and I have to admit that I’m not sure if it’s a good buy or not?
Does it cool?
Hard to say really, as immediately after we bought the thing, we went through a month of cooler weather in late Oct and early Nov. However when we had the super-hot 40-degree day? Although we had set the temperature at 22 degrees, however the fan wasn’t working hard to cool down the room! Leaving the apartment still quite warm, although it was at least 10 degrees cooler than outside. But hard to say if that was due to the fan, or the natural differences between indoors and outdoors?
Does it heat?
Now, we cannot answer this question either, as we haven’t used the heat functionality at all.
Does it purify the air?
Again, hard to say. At first, I believed that the air in our apartment was purer. Sitting directly in front of the fan, I thought that the air coming out was purer (but was it only my own imagination?). And I thought in the first 2-3 days, I was less mucus-y. But like these things, after a week I wasn’t sure if there was an actual change, or has it always been like this? As it’s harder to put a finger on the differences, as we’ve adapted to the new norm.
But what we have liked about the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Purifier fan has been:
The app and metrics- with the fan, it comes with a companion app. With the app you can remotely control the fan (even when you’re not at home), you can schedule when it comes on or off, and you can view all sorts of live and historic metrics. Like the external temperature, humidity, and air quality. Compared to your internal air temperature, humidity and air quality. To know what is your actual internal temperature, that feature alone is a double tick from me, as short of having an old school thermometer in your home, how else can you tell what is the ambient temperature inside your own home?
Power saving and set and forget- the app allows you to schedule when you’d like the Dyson to be on. I’ve got it scheduled for 7am-9am, 12noon-2pm, and again for 5.30pm-8pm. And once it’s set, it continues on its merry way until the end of time and a day, until you tell it otherwise. So since I spent 10 minutes setting it up on the first day, I haven’t had to bother with it ever since.
Quiet and responsive- when the air in your home is at a good level, the fan is super quiet. Like almost silent! Sometimes the only way you can tell it’s on and operating, is to place your hands in front of it and feel for a breeze. It’s really that silent. And once it detects a drop in air quality, it works hard to bring things back into alignment. On the first day, as soon as we started cooking, and the smells wafted into the living room, the fan started to go crazy, trying to purify the air. And most times after it wakes up from its slumber, it goes crazy again for a couple of minutes, until the air quality is good again, before settling down to a quieter and more chilled fan mode. So this response alone, kind of proves to me that it does really work.
And some elements which I have to point out due to its negatives are:
It’s not as portable as you like- weighing in at 4-5kgs, and I’ve been told that you’re not meant to hold it by the top. So it’s not as portable as you like it to be. Once you have it set-up in a good spot, you’re unlikely to move it from room to room.
Climate control isn’t really climate control- although you can set its temperature, when on auto it doesn’t work to achieve your set temperature like what you’d expect from a car’s climate control system. As an example. The fan only goes crazy when it detects a change in air quality, not due to a change in ambient temperature. So the setting of your exact desired temp, is just as good as selecting between 1-3, on an old school fan if you want the fan force to be higher or lower. The temperature control is no indication of how hot or cool it can make your room.
Ongoing maintenance and costs- and lastly, there’s an ongoing maintenance cost to owning a Dyson air purifier. To achieve air purification, the Dyson uses a filter. And this filter needs to be replaced each year (as we were informed by the salesman)- the app also tells you how much more life you have on the filter. The filter needs to be replaced, not cleaned or washed, as the particles aren’t trapped on the surface of the filter, but inside the filter between two mesh layers and in-between there’s squishy stuff like sand. We’ve been told that the filters cost $150 to replace, so expect a yearly $150 cost to maintain your Dyson air purifier. Which I have to admit is pretty pricy. That’s like more than Netflix for a year, even more than Office 365 for a year!
But coming back to the core reason in why we purchased the Dyson? And did it meet our initial needs?
I think it has, I think air circulation has improve in our home, although the fan is in the living room. There seems to be more air movement around our apartment, so that I haven’t been experiencing those headaches from being in our study anymore. So that alone is a win!
I think, and it is only a thought. But I think the air quality is better now. If I’m going off my own senses alone.
And the fact that I can monitor my internal home temperature, humidity and air quality? That has been a nice gimmick to have.
But would I recommend it to someone else? Probably not, unless if you have plenty of spare cash to splash around at the moment. But so that you can make your own informed decision, click HERE to check out the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool purifier fan.
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