There have been rumours on the internet and, like many that circulate the net (and just as many that aren’t) this time, the rumours are true, Dyson is launching the Air Multiplier. The company has claimed to have revolutionised the way an existing product works and are also looking to shift the way people use it, by taking the blades out of a desk fan.
Unlike existing fans in the market, the Dyson Air Multiplier “˜fan’ has no exposed blades moving through the air. Instead, it uses patented technology to multiply air 15 times, circulating 450 litres of cool, smooth and uninterrupted air every second.
Air is accelerated through an annular aperture, creating a jet of air which passes over an airfoil ramp that channels its direction. Dyson SEA managing director Ross Cameron said the company’s engineers ran hundreds of simulations to measure and map airflow. It resukted in a radically different method of circulating the air.
“Traditional fans only chop at the air and it can get irritating,” said Cameron. “This is something people didn’t realise, that their fan chops the air until we brought it to their attention, just like we brought it to their attention that their old vacuum cleaner lost suction.”
The inspiration for the Air Multiplier came from the Dyson Airblade hand dryer launched in March 2008.
“We noticed that the high speed air coming out of our Dyson Airblade hand dryer also pulled more air along with it so we realised that it multiplied the air coming through it,” said Cameron. “So we wondered what other opportunities we could use this phenomenon for.”
When Dyson introduced the Air Multiplier to Australian retailers, Cameron said the responses indicated that this is a fan for all seasons.
“One of the executives of a leading retailer in Australia, said that firstly it’s going to be very safe and secondly, that you can use it to circulate air moving through the room whether you are heating or cooling,” said Cameron.
“It is an all year around product. Two major retailers said they see this as being an all year round product, and yes, sales may slow a bit in winter and pick up a little more in summer, but they said they see this as an all-year around product.”