Air Pollution is a year-round problem in India, and definitely in the capital, New Delhi. Though we tend to focus on it more in winter, when fog complicates the picture, pollution is very much present in summer as well.

A few months ago Dyson launched an year-round solution they call the Pure Hot+Cool air purifier. As you would expect with the British design company, the machine is expensive, it would set you back Rs 54,900 to buy the product. But then it would seem enough people do have that much to invest. 

There are a number of high-end air purifiers around, but Dyson has done the smart thing by designing theirs to be a multi-function machine — it can give you cool air in summer, nice hot air in winter, and pure air all through.

Though we don’t normally cover air purifiers, as it’s very difficult to tell if the product is actually effective without specialised testing equipment, the Hot+Cool is of particular interest because it is a full-fledged smart home or IoT product, so we decided to have a look at it. 

The Hot+Cool is a blade-less fan with a set of filters underneath. The award-wining loop design of the fan is by now probably quite familiar as it is quite famous the world over. There are already similar versions of the purifier available minus the heating. The Hot+Cool is not in a tall tower format, but is much shorter and can be placed on the floor or on a low table.

The instantly recognisable design is going to fit in practically anywhere and in fact, be a bit of a status symbol.

Though we tend to worry more about outdoor pollution, it is often even worse indoors: everything from scented candles to perfume fragrances, from formaldehyde in furniture material to cleaning agents add to the toxic mix that we unfortunately have little option but to inhale.

The Dyson Link app

The Dyson machine now has an LCD panel that doesn’t just tell you the overall pollution level in terms of PM2.5 and PM10 but much more. The purifier has lasers to measure and identify fine particles, the amount of VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds), such as benzene and formaldehyde, and NO2 present, and also measures relative humidity and temperature. Its 360 vacuum sealed Glass HEPA and activated carbon filters claim to capture 99.95 per cent of ultra-fine particles such as allergens and pollutants and also tackle gaseous elements present. A glance at the LCD display can tall you what’s the status, but so can the companion app, the Dyson Link app, on your phone. 

When you first set up the machine — something that a Dyson engineer will promptly turn up to do for you — you need to install the Dyson Link app on your phone. Once the device is granted access to your Wi-Fi network, you can control it through the very simple magnetic remote, through the app, and for some things through the Alexa assistant. If connected through the Alexa app, you can use the assistant to turn on, turn off etc, remotely.

In the app, you can see everything from graphs of the air quality status in different aspects to essentials like when to change the filters, scheduling usage time for the device and controlling it.

Users may find the app easier to use than the remote, because the latter will inevitably will sit on top of the purifier and of course, who’s going to get up to go get it? Our phones on the other hand are always at hand. Four people in a family can use the app and each app can talk to many Dyson devices.

The fan

The fan portion of the purifier can oscillate to send out clean air more over a wider area in a room. This can be activated using the remote or the app as well.  The outflow of air can also be made to come from the back of the fans so it doesn’t hit the face directly and yet purify the room. A red button on the remote sends the machine into heater mode — and it certainly does heat up a whole room and very quickly.  Hot air can’t be diverted to flow out of the back, however. The heating can go up to 37 degrees but there are cut-offs for safety. When used on heater mode, the device will consume about 2,000 watts but when on regular, only about 40. 

Filters have to be manually cleaned to lengthen their life.

If there’s a vacuum cleaner around, the filter can be given a quick whoosh to remove dust. The fine-particle carbon filter should be only lightly handled however and possibly not vacuumed. 

Price: Rs 54,900

Pros: More versatile than previous versions, heats well, connected and controllable online and via Alexa, deep data available via the app

Cons: Remarkably expensive

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