Most air purifiers are big, solid boxes. Not this one. The Pure Cool Link air purifying fan that came for reviewing is a tall tower. The bottom 25 per cent of this machine is the filter barrel. The rest is a large oval hole — which is what makes it so interestingly different from any other purifier. It comes in an ‘iron blue’ colour and a ‘silver white’ and I’m guessing the white will blend into most homes the most as it stands close to a wall. But the blue is funky enough to appeal to many. There is also a smaller (but not all that cheaper) desk version of this device for those who want more localised air flow. Oh well.

Dyson has this impressive technology they call air multiplier. Whatever this marvel of engineering, it manages to produce a big air flow in many of its products. This is used in the Pure Cool to push out air into that oval hole I mentioned and make it a blade-less fan.

The air just seems to come about seemingly by magic, but it can be controlled across ten speed levels. It’s very quiet when low and prominently noisy when taken up to the higher settings.

A big blast

When on Auto, the air flow will come and go as it pleases, but when on manual, you can adjust it using a remote or the Dyson app on your phone or tablet. The remote is magnetic and a nice idea but the magnet is too weak so it doesn’t take much to make it slide right off and crash to the floor. It’s also so small, it’s liable to get lost if there are careless people about. The fan portion incidentally also swivels to spread the air fairly around it.

When switched to night mode, the fan goes into a quieter speed and the single light on the device dims to barely visible. A gentle air flow can soothe you — or perhaps a baby in a crib — into a peaceful sleep. Except for two things...

The first is that when it’s hot in India, it’s very very hot. You need the ceiling fan, often at top speed. In that case, the Dyson fan won’t be able to keep up. You could use an air conditioner and omit the ceiling fan, but then air conditioners tend to have their own ‘swing’ fan. The other thing is that the purifier can’t work without the fan. All purifiers emit air obviously, but in this one, the air flow is stronger than in others. What happens in winter? That’s when the pollution is at its worst in some cities like Delhi, but that’s when it’s also cold and you don’t want moving air. The purifier will want to work hard, pushing the air flow up, making you run for a blanket.

A cleaner breath of air

Dyson’s claim is that the Pure Cool cleans up 99.95 per cent of the harmful particles around you, some of them as small as PM 0.1 microns. That is as it may be but it’s impossible to test this without equipment that can measure such small particles. How far the device’s glass HEPA and carbon filters do this job isn’t clear. Specialists in air purifier reviews have concluded it cleans to the level of about 90 per cent — which is quite something as well — but are not sure about how long the filter would last. It is meant to be changed once a year and isn’t very expensive to replace, though how it fares in dusty Indian conditions, one can only tell in the long term.

From the app, you can see what category the purifier places the air in your room into — mine started with poor and climbed to fair after using the machine. You know it’s working because you can sense immediate changes if you open the door or dare to burn a toast or use an air freshener — yes, sadly those only introduce more pollution except that it smells better. The purifier is supposed to do some amount of de-odourising, but it’s probably no match for our spice-filled Indian cooking. I didn’t notice any dramatic reduction in odour, unless it was mild and one sealed the room and ran the purifier for quite some time.

Overall, given the cost of the purifier, a more heavy duty air purifier would probably be a better bet for India.

Price: ₹39,900 on Dyson’s website

Pros: Futuristic , easily portable, dual function, connects to an app for control and info

Cons: Fan may be a bit strong for winter, filter seems small, exact clean air readings not there, very expensive for its filter size, made of light materials and can topple over

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