Looking for a new pair of headphones? Worried about outdoor air pollution? You may be interested in Dyson's latest innovation: headphones that purify the air directly in front of your face.
Announced on Wednesday, the Dyson Zone headphones have an attached face visor that dispenses purified air in front of your mouth and nose. Dyson says the Zone will be available this fall, but there's no word yet on pricing.
Dyson has been selling indoor air purifiers since 2015, but this marks the company's first venture into both audio and wearable technology. And unlike other noise-cancelling headphones, these aim to tackle not just environmental noise, but also outdoor air pollution.
Within each of the Zone's earcups is a tiny compressor motor and a dual-layer air filter. The first layer, a negatively charged electrostatic filter, promises to capture 99% of inhalable particles down to 0.1 microns in size, particularly brake dust emitted from cars, as well as pollen and bacteria. The second layer, made of potassium-enriched carbon, absorbs dangerous city gases, such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). A duct on each earcup allows clean air to flow into the visor, which sits around the lower half of your face without touching it.
The compressor in each earcup—the smallest motor Dyson has ever manufactured—serves as "the heart of the machine," pulling outside air through the particle/carbon filter to the visor, creating a "breathing zone of clean air" for the wearer, Dyson's engineering manager Vicky Gibson-Robinson tells PCMag.
Don't Call It a Face Mask
In development for the past six years, the Zone headphones/air purifier were preceded by more than 500 prototypes, Dyson says. To test filtration efficacy, the company developed a mannequin head and torso outfitted with a mechanical lung and air quality sensors.
Following the controversy over Razer's misleading Zephyr wearable air purifier marketing, Dyson was careful to caution that the Zone isn't a medical device, and isn't intended to prevent the spread of COVID-19. However, Gibson-Robinson says Dyson has tested the filter against viruses and bacteria the same size as COVID-19, and found it successfully captured them.
Since the Zone's face visor doesn't actually touch your skin, you can still potentially breathe in some polluted cross wind while wearing it. In light of the pandemic, Dyson created a face covering you can optionally wear under the Zone's face visor, offering a sealed solution in places where masks are mandated, such as airplanes. The face covering attachment will come with the Zone.
The visor offers three air purification levels: low, medium, and high, as well as an auto mode that automatically adjusts the fan speed based on movement data captured by a built-in accelerometer. If it senses you're walking, for instance, it will keep the fan speed on low. If you're climbing a flight of stairs, the fan speed will increase. Depending on use and where you live, the Zone's filter should last about a year before needing to be replaced.
Its tiny filters fall short of the high-efficiency particulate absorbing (HEPA) standard, which requires the removal of at least 99.97% of particles as small as 0.3 microns. Gibson-Robinson says a traditional HEPA filter small enough to fit in an earcup would impede airflow, so the company came up with a different solution. The resulting electrostatic filter pulls air in, and allows it to easily flow through, she says.
"Everything had to be miniaturized and optimized," according to Gibson-Robinson.
The air purifier motor should be "pretty quiet," even with the fan set to high and no music playing, she adds. "When you put a motor that spins really fast next to an ear, you have to think about acoustics."
Like Dyson's smart air purifiers, the Zone will send pollution data to a companion app, so you can monitor air quality and noise levels in real time.
There's Noise Cancellation, Too
Let's not forget that this is also a pair of headphones, offering high-fidelity audio and three active noise cancellation (ANC) modes: Isolation, Conversation, and Transparency.
Isolation mode offers the highest level of ANC for when you want to zone out (no pun intended). When you dip the face visor below your chin, the headphones automatically switch to Conversation mode, which turns off the air purifier. Transparency mode amplifies outside sounds such as emergency sirens and audio announcements so you can be more aware of your surroundings. The headphones have a microphone for phone calls, and you can remove the visor when you don't want or need to use air purification.
Dyson expects to announce full product specs and additional details in the "coming months." The company says that actual launch timing will vary by region.
We'll be keeping track of the Zone, so make sure to check back for more details.