Dyson Airblade
By Joseph Starr on Monday, August 25th, 2008
Dyson Airblade, hand dryer. Manufactured by Dyson.
One of the funnier instances of graffiti I’ve ever seen is, surprisingly, not on a bathroom stall door, wall, or floor but, rather, adjacent to the sink and next to the hand dryer in the Men’s Public Restroom of The Last Steep restaurant in Crested Butte, Colorado: “Instructions For Use: 1. Push button to operate hand dryer machine; 2. Rub hands gently under warm air of hand dryer; 3. Wipe hands on pants.”
The brief missive speaks to anyone who, rapt with wonder at the innumerable emblems of technological advancement — the Microprocessor, for instance, or the Nanotube, or the hands-free parking feature of the Lexus LS 600h L — is nevertheless doomed to wonder in existential angst, “why can’t anyone come up with a decent hand dryer!” Well… your moment has come, o semi-incredulous user of public amenities. Allow me to present the Dyson Airblade, the world’s first and only touch-free hand dryer that actually works. Why/how does the Airblade work so well? Let’s let Dyson’s P.R. people take it from here: “Traveling at over 400 miles per hour, pressurized air is released through an aperture the width of an eyelash. The sheet of air effectively wipes unwanted moisture from hands to leave them dry in just 12 seconds. Your customers spend less time waiting for their hand dryer to work and you spend less money paying for it.” The idea for this marvel of moisture removal took seed when a Dyson engineer was investigating the properties of airflow. He discovered that “when he put his wet hands in front of a gust of unheated air, the water was removed in just a few seconds.”
Thus, the key to Dyson’s functionality is this paradigm shift in towel-free hand-drying. The Airblade features two nifty hand-sized apertures. When you insert said appendages, the device blows room-temperature air through the aforementioned tiny slit. As you gradually remove them (12 seconds is the recommended duration), the sheet of air whisks away the water, just as you might use compressed air to extract the cookie crumbs from your keyboard. The distinction is crucial, since the conventional hand dryer with its clumsy gust of hot air not only dries out your skin but also blows bacteria-laden air throughout the immediate vicinity. And the Dyson boasts an anti-microbial coating and a Hepa filter, so the expelled air is clean and the dryer surface is germ-free. Throw sustainability into the mix—Dyson’s digital motor has no heating element, so it uses only 1400 Watts of power (compared to 2400 for conventional dryers), and the Airblade’s Infra-red sensory technology facilitates instant shut-off, so there’s no superfluous air blowing into empty space—and we can all say “Hallelujah! They’ve finally created a better, cheaper iPhone,” and—ahem—a hand dryer that fills the bill.
Popularity: 17% [?]
More from this author
Aspen Sofa 
Extremis Arthur Table 12 Comments Add your own
congratulations to rus for a comment i’d categorize as both pretentious and silly (difficult to do). if you spent a moment to consider how much energy is wasted on current hand dryers you’d appreciate this improved design which precludes public squandering of energy via the examples you outline above. not to mention, this is more aesthetically impressive than any similar product available.
And congratulations to Paul for his convincing and amusing rebuke of Rus (equally difficult to do), though I will miss the option of the “forced air ski glove temperature enhancement” offered courtesy of those clunky chrome nozzles with their classic wide-mouth apertures.
or u could just walk around with wet hands and tshirt - ppl pay money to see that kinda thing.
Fellas, please don’t get me wrong, I think this is a great design. It uses less energy, looks great, and effectively dries your hands. However, I think it still falls short of satisfying user needs in public bathrooms. An all-purpose drying device that does hands, wet spots on shirts, pant legs, hair—that is beautiful and is efficient with energy—has yet to be invented.
This post is timely, as I was just considering how useless those old hand-dryers really are (having recently done the pants-wipe). However, this thing seems just about as silly to me. 12 seconds? Those are 12 precious seconds I’ve just lost to some public bathroom. And I don’t believe it really works. There are a lot of ways to save energy, conserve resources, and maintain hygiene, but replacing paper-towels with newfangled drying machines just doesn’t seem like the best approach.
I think I’ve actually used this at the Inner Harbor public restrooms in Baltimore, and it was truly impressive! I mean, how often do you leave a public restroom impressed… I almost had to wash my hands again just to try it again! It’s great! (And I’ve never actually used a hand dryer for shirts or hair so I’d be ok with these becoming mainstream… plus, a restroom with only paper towels can’t dry your hair either, so this would still be a better alternative there.)
But then what do you use to open the door or turn off the faucet if there aren’t paper towels? The faucet and doors are supposed to be the most germ-ridden areas of bathrooms….. so I’m still a fan of paper towels until they make automatic doors in bathrooms and all sinks and soap dispensers are automatic.
interesting & appealing form. the function looks quite impressive. i like the aerodynamic form.
will see a new change in the consumer application!
Dyson have indeed created a fantastic dryer. But did you know that it is a copy of the mitsubishi jet towel. In fact the mitsubishi jet towel has spurned a host of similar dryers, classed as ‘new generation’ hand dryers. There is a site by a company called o3 solutions that lists all the new generation dryers and gives them a green rating depending on how energy efficient they are. The Dyson doesnt come out on top, but is pretty close.
[…] newest and most exciting innovation to hit public restrooms since the toilet itself. Fellow 3ringer Joseph Starr already covered the Dyson Airblade last month, and our readers had a lot of comments and questions. There were additionally more comments and […]
[…] am thankful for the Dyson Airblade. What best of list would be complete without a trip to the restroom? One aspect of design I truly […]
One thing I like about the old hand-dryers is that they can be used to dry a soaked shirt, pant leg, or even your hair. This design, although more effective at drying hands, makes any other use nearly impossible.