All of us living in the big bad cities will agree that air purifiers have become a necessity rather than a luxury. But all air purifiers are not born equal. Sure, at their most basic, most offer physical air filtration – they force air to go through filters that are designed to catch the tiniest invisible floating particles in it. As our awareness about PM or particulate matter has grown and as the pollution problem itself has grown, machines at the other end of the spectrum use filters that have progressively become advanced. They tackle more than just the obvious dust and mites around. This new model of air purifier from Dyson goes beyond to convert formaldehyde gas present in a shocking number of objects indoors and converts it into minuscule amounts of water and carbon dioxide, leaving the air safer and cleaner. They call this Cryptomic — hence the long-winded name of the machine.
First off, you get a familiar design, if you’ve ever seen a Dyson air purifier. This is because of the company's patented air multiplier technology. There's a 360-degree filter, sitting inside a cylindrical base, a small OLED display, a silent oscillating fan with no blades and a curved remote that magnetically clips on to the top of the device. All these features are available in a ₹30,000 purifier from Dyson as well but the Cryptomic tech is unique to this model and it’s independent of the HEPA filter.
Except for a single power button, all functions are on the neat little infrared remote. But this is also a very connected purifier — which is why we’re reviewing it since we don’t look at the ocean of ‘regular’ air purifiers with nothing but filters and the odd indicator. The screen itself gives you a whole lot of information from the temperature and humidity to the level of VOC or Volatile Organic Compounds but you can download the Dyson Link app on your phone for a closer and detailed look. You need to get the air purifier on Wifi and pair it with the device you’re using for
control, such as your phone. Now, you have detailed information at a glance and can even voice-control with Amazon's Alexa.
There are a host of other features too, like the ability to capture particles as small as PM 0.1 which includes airborne viruses and bacteria. It can also ‘project’ air over a large distance with its air multiplier tech, and it really works. This is the famous bladeless fan that Dyson made and it certainly gives you some cool air the direction of which you can control . It also has a pretty effective heater aspect to it and you can use it to warm up a closed room very quickly. The upper portion of the purifier can tilt up and down for a bit of direction tuning. The machine has a night mode, sleep timer, real-time info on the OLED screen and precise temperature control for the heating. The heating function works using heating coils and is quite a lot stronger than the average hot air blower.
Invisible and noxious
As far as effectiveness goes, we found that with the air outside at hazardous levels, it takes about 30 minutes to clean a 300 sq foot room as long as the windows and doors stay closed. When tested with external sensors, the air purifier seems to work fine, although it’s difficult to measure all it purports to do without specialised equipment. Recently, it’s been recognised that the pollution indoors is most often worse than what is outdoors, and that’s what this model of Dyson’s air purifier wants to address. It claims to neutralise formaldehyde elements that come from everything from furniture to nail polish to paint to scented candles, deodorants and even air fresheners. There is such a reservoir of chemicals used in the making of objects around us that we breathe in vast quantities of it and don’t even realise it’s a serious source of pollution apart from the air coming in from outside and from cooking. This is what the Cryptomic aspect of this device involves as it breaks down and converts formaldehyde using its specialised panel — a new aspect of this air purifier and the reason the machine costs much more.
Now there's no getting around the fact that Dyson products are expensive. You can easily buy six WiFi connected air purifiers for the same price as this machine. So, despite it doing a necessary job, this is one air purifier you’ll have to look at as a luxury product, with service quality and personnel to match. The design is something you might want to show off too rather than hide in a corner. If you're in the market for more than just utility, then you can consider a Dyson.
Price: ₹61,900
Pros : Patented bladeless fan, apart from air purifier is also a fan and heater, extensive connected features, works to tackle small particles and formaldehydes which are difficult to capture
Cons: Very expensive