VACUUM-MAKER Dyson hopes its new electric heater will help restore interest in what has been a much-maligned product category.
The Dyson Hot, which is based on the same technology used in the company’s cooling fans, took nearly three years to create and promises to be more efficient and safe than alternatives.
“We have our predecessors of the Air Multiplier technologies so we wanted to expand our range and looked at other air-moving areas,” says Tom Crawford, engineer and head of production development in environmental control at Dyson. “We looked at the heater classification and realised we had a great opportunity to do a lot in that category.”
The Dyson Hot is due to go on sale next month for €350 and is certainly one of the more expensive electric heaters available. However, Crawford is confident it will be attractive to home and office users.
The head of production development claims the way air is circulated by the device means it can change the temperature of a room quickly once heat is introduced.
The Air Multiplier, also used in the company’s range of cooling fans, works by drawing in and pushing out air without the use of blades. Crawford says the end result is an evenly heated area in a shorter space of time, making it more efficient in its use of electricity too.
The Dyson Hot also promises to overcome many of the other problems traditionally associated with heater products.
“Electric heaters on the market have got a fair amount of problems with them,” he says. “Typically, they have very poor heat projections so the heat rises straight up and you can’t feel it on the other side of the room.
“They also have very limited controls. They can burn dust so you get a very pungent smell and they can get very hot, particularly when they have metal grilles.”
He says the issue of overheating was one of the main challenges faced when designing the product.
“An awful lot of engineering effort has gone into every single aspect of the geometry and one of the big challenges was keeping the surface temperature as low as we could.
Despite the product’s striking design, Crawford adds, the starting point for them as engineers is never how the end product will look.
“We don’t ever start out with design as a priority, our priority is always performance and everything is built around that.”
The Dyson Hot can also be used as a regular cooling fan. However Crawford does not think the device will cannibalise sales of the company’s existing devices.
When asked what other applications he saw for the Air Multiplier technology, which originated from the development of the company’s hand-driers, Crawford remains tight-lipped.
