AN ELECTRIC fan that looks like it is anything but – just a narrow, bladeless hoop mounted on a base – made its debut worldwide this week as the latest addition to the Dyson product line.

Best known for inventing the bagless vacuum cleaner, Dyson has based the fan on the same technology as its Airblade hand-dryers. To create a smooth flow of air, the space-agey Air Multiplier fan forces a stream of air out through a circular aperture the width of a fingernail.

The company says that engineers working on the Airblade noticed that when air was forced through a narrow slit, it also drew in and accelerated the surrounding air, a phenomenon known as entrainment.

Dyson then spent four years developing a fan based on the concept, which company founder James Dyson says is safer, cleaner and produces a smoother flow of air than conventional fans.

The fan creates a cooling breeze by drawing air into a spinning impeller in the base that sucks in up to 27 litres of air a second, amplifies it and then expels 405 litres a second.

“I’ve always been disappointed by fans. Their spinning blades chop up the airflow, causing annoying buffeting,” Dyson said in a statement.

“They’re hard to clean and children always want to poke their fingers through the grille. So we’ve developed a new type of fan that doesn’t use blades.”

Developing the fan involved working out engineering details such as the 16 degree angle for the aperture, which is optimal for creating a smooth airflow, according to Martine du Toit, marketing manager for Dyson Ireland.

She said the bladeless design was safer for children and animals and also a more stable design. “A standard fan is very top-heavy, because the motor is at the top of the fan,” she added. “Here, it is at the bottom and creates a solid base.”

It also could be tilted and rotated easily, she said.

Rather than having a handful of speeds, the fan uses a dimmer-style switch. As with other Dyson products, engineering and design come at a premium price – a pre-VAT price in the UK of £199 (€218), with a euro price yet to be determined.

“You’re buying the technology,” said Du Toit. “It revolutionises fans.”

Irish fans – pun intended – will have to wait to get their hands on the hoop. The Air Multiplier will be launched today initially into Australia (where it is summer), with limited availability in the UK, Japan and the US.

It will be widely available worldwide, including Ireland, from April 2010.