Okay, we are officially in heatwave territory. This week, some parts of the UK are set to reach a scorching 30 degrees celsius. For some, this is welcome news, equating with time spent in the park and lazing on a sun-lounger.
I am not one of those people. Remember the heatwave of 2018? At the time I was averaging five cold showers and two heat-induced panic attacks a day, and voluntarily working 11-hour shifts as my air-conditioned office was the only refuge from the perpetual furnace that was central London. (‘Feels like 45°C’, the BBC Weather app would inform me, as if 38°C wasn’t quite terrifying enough.)
At home I tried a couple of cheaper fans to help me sleep but they weren’t particularly effective. By the time I was desperate enough to consider throwing several hundreds of pounds at the problem, Dyson fans were out of stock.
Next year, I thought. Next year I’ll get in there early. And, I did. But was it worth it? Read on to find out.
Let me tell you about the Dyson fan
Given that I’m as sensitive to the cold as I am to heat (just call me Goldilocks), I decide to try out the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool (£549.99), which can be used as a fan in summer and a heater in winter, all while cleaning the air in the process.
As I’m a neurotic clean freak who lives on a main road, suffers from hay fever and has a horror of dust (it’s skin flakes, guys), the air-purifying aspect appeals to me. The machine promises to absorb gases, odours and 99.95% of particle pollution, including allergens, bacteria, pollen and mould spores, into its filters, and pump out a steady stream of lovely, clean, pollution, allergen and dust-free air.
Pros
- Air-purifying
- User-friendly design
- You can direct the airflow
- Night mode
- Magnetised remote control
- You can turn it on remotely
Cons
- Filters need replacing
- It's not cheap
- It's not AC
- It's substantial in size
It’s an effective, intelligently designed, powerful machine
Ok, but is setting up a Dyson fan a faff?
No.
True to Dyson’s reputation for clever, user-friendly design, the fan is super simple to set up. Pull it out of the box, snap the filters in place, plug it in and you’re good to go.
It has all the elegance of design and nifty functionality you’d expect from a model at this price point: fan speeds ranging from near-silent 1 to a very powerful 10, heating control up to 37°C, a sleep timer, night mode, voice control, scheduling capabilities, 350° oscillation and a tiltable base that allows you to direct the airflow exactly where you want it.
Is a Dyson fan easy to use?
In auto mode, sensors monitor the air quality, intelligently adjusting the settings according to the quality of the air in the room. Want the purifying benefits sans the breeze? Diffused mode changes the direction of the airflow so it comes out the back of the machine instead of the front.
A magnetised remote control handily sticks to the top of the fan so you don’t lose it, but you can also control it using your phone via the Dyson Link app. I like this very much, and enjoy freaking out my partner by turning it on full blast remotely while I’m out for a run and he’s still in bed. The app’s interface is sleek and intuitive, and allows you to track indoor and outdoor pollution, temperature and humidity levels.
But fancy pants tech aside, can this beast actually give me a decent night’s sleep?
The app tells me the temperature in my bedroom is 27°C and the humidity level is 65%. To put that into perspective, the Sleep Council advises that the ideal bedroom temperature is 16-18°C. Great.
On nights like these, I’m a sweaty, angry mess and a nightmare to share a bed with, kicking off the sheets and turning my pillow over 20 times an hour in endless pursuit of the cool side, my partner and I clinging to opposite sides of the bed to avoid any skin contact. So I’m intrigued to see if the Dyson will make me feel more comfortable.
Bear in mind, it’s not AC, so it doesn’t have the power to actually lower the temperature of the room, instead delivering a steady stream of air that has a cooling effect on the skin – a godsend on these still, stuffy, humid summer nights.
On night mode, the fan’s display dims and it uses the quietest settings, reducing the airflow speed to a maximum of 4. You can override this, but when one night I try it on speed 5, it’s loud enough to disturb my sleep a few times throughout the night and I actually feel a little chilly. Speed 4 is perfect, and I wake up in the morning feeling rested after a great night’s sleep uninterrupted by sweaty tossing (minds out of the gutter, please).
Usually I can’t even stand a sheet touching my body during a heatwave, but with the breeze from the Dyson, I feel comfortable with my sheet pulled up to my chin and occasionally even find myself reaching for the duvet.
I’m impressed. And it comes in useful in other ways, too. Doing a home HIIT workout? Crank that bad boy up to 10. Guests coming over in an hour and you’ve still got washing hanging everywhere? Whack it on heat mode. Partner eaten too many lentils? Activate that purifier.
But… is the Dyson Cool worth the money?
Ultimately, this is a decision only you can make based on your own budget and priorities. Perhaps you’re one of the aforementioned psychopaths who, bafflingly, finds stewing in your own juices a welcome sensation. Or if you don’t live in an area of high pollution, have pets or suffer from allergies, maybe the purifying factor isn’t a priority for you and one of Dyson’s non-purifying models would be a better (and significantly more affordable) option.
Let’s be real: £549.99 is a lot of money – and if you go for one of the purifiers, you’ll also have to replace the filters every so often at a cost of £65 a pop.
But there’s no denying it’s an effective, intelligently designed, powerful machine. Plus, if you’re going to spend stupid money on a decent fan, you might want to consider whether you want one that gets a few weeks’ use a year then gathers dust and takes up valuable cupboard space for 11 months, or one with multiple functions that’s useful all year round.
Sold.
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