Dyson Pure Cool fan will suck the pollution out of your home and tell you what it's saved you from on a screen

Cleaner air, more stylish rooms, slightly emptier wallets: all yours courtesy of the latest generation of Dyson air purifying fans

Dyson Pure Cool purifying fan (desktop left, floor-standing right)

As well as unveiling a new cordless Dyson vacuum, the Dyson Cyclone V10 cordless vac, Dyson also just unveiled a pair of new air-purifying Dyson Pure Cool fans at a lavish event in New York. 

The floor-standing and tabletop Dyson fans improve on their predecessors by not only sucking pollutants and allergens out of the air, but actually telling you what they're removing, via an all-new LCD display. (Check the best Dyson deals for the lowest prices...)

Purer air, cooler homes (in both senses)

As before, Dyson’s Pure Cool purifying fans feature a '360 degree fully-sealed filter system combining an activated carbon filter to remove gases, and a Glass HEPA filter that captures 99.95% of microscopic allergens and pollutants as small as 0.1 microns.' They improve on their predecessors by adding the aforementioned screen, improved filtration, and being able to rotate up to 350 degrees.

As well as removing impurities from the air (as demonstrated in Dyson's, faintly terrifying images), they also act as a fan in summer.

Dyson's Pure Cool fans are similar to most air purifiers in that they filter stuff out of the air, but differ from most air purifiers in that they don't resemble an industrial air conditioning unit, or beer fridge. The fact that they react to pollution in a smart way, as it happens, rather than just constantly being on is also still relatively unusual.

Disintegrated faeces, be gone

Improving home air quality is a boom sector these days, as people are more conscious about allergies and pollution and/or crazily hung up on health problems that never even crossed the minds of previous generations (delete according to your cynicism level).

Dyson names pollutants including 'urban pollution, particulate matter, pollen, cleaning products, pet dander, scented candles, indoor paints and cooking fumes' as being susceptible to the Pure Cool's purifying powers, as well as everyone's favourite, "disintegrated faeces."

These issues will only become more pressing as modern homes get ever better sealed for insulation purposes. 

We've been using the previous Dyson Pure Cool fan for about 9 months now, and it is undeniably very useful for dealing with cooking fumes that the kitchen extractor fan can't immediately quell, and also for using as a fan. According to the app (which also works with this new generation of fans) the filter still has several thousand hours of life left, so we've no complaints there either.

The science bit

Aesthetics aside, it's the detecting part of the Dyson Pure Cool that's really smart. An array of lasers is used to measure and detect ultrafine particles, while a sensor detects the amount of VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds, such as benzene and formaldehyde, emitted from paint, burning candles and materials in furniture) and NO2 present. A third sensor measures relative humidity and temperature. 

The LCD then lets you know what nasties currently lurk in your air space, while an improved filter with '60% more HEPA media in a taller and deeper filter… and three times more activated carbon' sucks in and filters out particulate matter and gases.

Dyson filters meet the industry standards of EN1822 and H13-A filter class. 

Cleverly, the cooling fan part of the operation can be turned off in winter, without losing the purifying effect. That's thanks to a new diffused airflow mode, which pushes the air through a wider aperture, which also uses less energy and generates less noise. And purification effectiveness is maintained, without the cooling airflow.

The Dyson Link app for iOS and Android lets you track indoor and outdoor pollution, temperature and humidity levels, as well as allowing remote control from anywhere with a signal, and letting you check how many hours of filter life you have left. A more traditional IR remote control is also included.

• Dyson Pure Cool fans (2018) will cost from £399 with pre-orders from March 6 (although this had not quite gone live at time of publishing) and shipping from March 26.

Duncan Bell

Duncan is the former lifestyle editor of T3 and has been writing about tech for almost 15 years. He has covered everything from smartphones to headphones, TV to AC and air fryers to the movies of James Bond and obscure anime. His current brief is everything to do with the home and kitchen, which is good because he is an excellent cook, if he says so himself. He also covers cycling and ebikes – like over-using italics, this is another passion of his. In his long and varied lifestyle-tech career he is one of the few people to have been a fitness editor despite being unfit and a cars editor for not one but two websites, despite being unable to drive. He also has about 400 vacuum cleaners, and is possibly the UK's leading expert on cordless vacuum cleaners, despite being decidedly messy. A cricket fan for over 30 years, he also recently become T3's cricket editor, writing about how to stream obscure T20 tournaments, and turning out some typically no-nonsense opinions on the world's top teams and players.

Before T3, Duncan was a music and film reviewer, worked for a magazine about gambling that employed a surprisingly large number of convicted criminals, and then a magazine called Bizarre that was essentially like a cross between Reddit and DeviantArt, before the invention of the internet. There was also a lengthy period where he essentially wrote all of T3 magazine every month for about 3 years. 

A broadcaster, raconteur and public speaker, Duncan used to be on telly loads, but an unfortunate incident put a stop to that, so he now largely contents himself with telling people, "I used to be on the TV, you know."