So it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke. Announced on March 30An inauspicious time to make unexpected innovations credible, the Dyson Zone is about to become a reality. While visiting Malmesbury, the British company’s campus located west of London, a stone’s throw from Wales, Tech&Co was able to see for the first time the air-purifying headphones that the company is preparing to put up for sale.
It took Dyson six years to design their product, long before Covid and its aftermath. The idea is then to create a transportable air purifier to deal with pollution and respond to the difficulties of air quality in the London subway -more polluted than the surface-, the streets of New York and wherever the population Urban life makes it potentially difficult for you to breathe. right.
“The idea came from our understanding of air pollution from our line of home purifiers,” James Terry-Collins, product manager, tells Tech&Co. wearable in Dyson, which recognizes that a product was missing to also be able to know the quality of outdoor air.
“So we started to think about how we could address this challenge outside the home while looking at noise pollution and the scale of the problem,” he adds. “More than 100 million people live exposed to levels of noise pollution that are harmful to health.”
Six years to see the light of day
So here’s a two-in-one mobile product that has your health and hearing in mind, and comes in the form of a headset, a bit bulky, but quite classic in shape, with a visor. First good surprise, it adapts to any head shape and wearing it is quite pleasant. It must be said that Dyson tested a dozen prototypes before finding the right balance “for all head shapes and sizes.” The reinforcement around the headband is especially nice and allows the weight of the headset to be supported without weighing it down too much on the head.
As for the general design of the device, we find the Dyson touch with the vents on the sides whose slightly conical shape is reminiscent of the turbine of bagless vacuum cleaners and its cyclonic force. Inside there are electrostatic filters for the smallest polluting particles (99% is captured) and potassium-enriched carbon filters for common urban pollution. Please note that this is not an anti-Covid mask, but a system to improve the air you breathe, which is sent under your nose and mouth.
If the visor is a bit plastic and not very solid with its flexibility to fit perfectly (it has a sliding system to fit close to the face without touching it), in the end it is nothing. It is intelligently designed so that the adjustable airflow circulates through the intended aisle (three speeds and an automatic mode depending on the intensity of your activity). The sensation is quite strange the first time you place this type of “hiding” in front of you and you feel a draft coming through. But we quickly feel that it is “purer”.
high-end headphones
The Dyson Zone is quite a technological feat to miniaturize an air purification system in this way without an extra module to carry around. But it doesn’t forget to also be headphones to listen to your music and that’s probably even more amazing. Dyson is not known for his musical expertise and the company knows it. The engineering team that worked on the audio experience of the ultimately scrapped car project was changed. With the same scientific experience and the care to find a sound that suits the greatest number of people, they have designed a quite surprising, balanced and quite faithful sound identity, with a high-level spatialized sound.
There’s almost no distortion, zero latency, and good passive isolation from the on-headphones. The app equalizer completes the adjustment settings for everyone to find their hearing account. Dyson has even decided to offer a much higher frequency band than the ear can hear (6Hz-21kHz), probably to also compensate for the possible discomfort of the purifier’s compressors being so close to the ear.
But it is above all the active noise reduction (ANC) that impresses. Dyson has equipped its headphones with 11 microphones, eight of which are dedicated to canceling out ambient noise, from the world around you to the integrated motor system. Because the challenge was there: forget about the presence of the air purifier that activates as soon as you add the visor (the rest of the time, air pollution measurements are taken and passed to the Dyson app to also allow for an air quality global). Map). And you don’t hear it when you listen to his music. We must even admit that, ANC activated, we hear absolutely nothing and nobody. Some manufacturers whose business is audio may take offense…
Two other microphones are also used to optimize voice quality for calls, voice control or recording with beamforming technology that creates a focused beam on the voice to hear and be heard better.
A price that could skyrocket
Even at a time when wearing a mask has become commonplace, going out and wearing a device of this type is not the easiest thing to do. The Dyson Zone is a nice idea, but a bit too bulky and aesthetically difficult for many to take on. On the other hand, after our first hours of testing, the audio quality is undoubtedly the point that has surprised us the most. Dyson pulls off quite a feat of noise reduction combined with fairly clear listening, without having to rely on outside help. For the first time, it is extremely encouraging.
Dyson Zone headphones will go on sale in January in China, then in March in the US, UK, Hong Kong and Singapore. Europe must be served from then on. No price has been announced, but, between innovation, technicality and audio quality, we should easily approach 1000 euros. Bloomberg it even advertised nearly $950 for the US market.
Source: BFM TV
