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Dyson Launches New 'Supersonic' Hair Dryer To Revolutionize Hair Care (nbcnews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Dyson has a launched a hair dryer with a design language similar to that of its bladeless fans. The $399 hair dryer is four years in the making, involving 103 engineers, over 1,000 miles of test hair, and a $71 million investment -- the Dyson Supersonic is being touted as "the hairdryer rethought" by its inventor Sir James Dyson. "We realized that hair dryers can cause extreme heat damage to hair," said Dyson in a press release. "So I challenged Dyson engineers to really understand the science of hair and develop our version of a hair dryer, which we think solves these problems." The hair dryer can be reserved online and will be sold exclusively at Sephora for $399 this fall.
is essentially the Apple of mid-sized household appliances?
I just saved you 400 dollars.
When testing hair dryers why do you use miles of hair vs pounds of hair?
If I HAD hair, I'd wait for the Dirt Devil knockoff.
Please do not put your dick into the Dyson Supersonic.
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
Well, I suppose blowing all your hair off of your head does simplify styling...
For Australians, by the time we factor in the exchange rate and the "Australia Tax" multiplier, one of those fancy blowers could end up costing us anything up to a grand.
I've been using a hair dryer for years and somehow never received extreme damage to my hair.
This "supersonic clean" product smells like those "ion clean" and "nano clean" BS product descriptions so popular in the beauty marketing industry. Except this one costs 10 times as much as an honest hair dryer.
I don't like buffeting produced by 13 blades spinning at 100k rpm. It doesn't feel a warm summer breeze. You call this is an advance?
It's a marketing breakthrough!
And how do you need 103 engineers for a hair dryer? I've done medium large projects for satellites with a dozen or so people and lots of computers and machines with blinky lights.
Problem solved.
Hopefully, they had enough conditioner at hand to fix all of the split ends.
It's so brazen I almost think it's not. They usually try to hide them a _little_ bit... I mean, I don't even... I mean... come on.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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A friggin' $400 hair dryer? Wow, just wow.
I've heard sonic booms from things moving at supersonic speed. I don't think I want that in my bathroom
... if you use Monster (TM) power cables.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Dyson needs to make an air knife (pair) that quickly shaves off 85% of the water left by those fancy butt washing toilet seats. I think he could do it with less than half the resources he put into this project.
... it blows.
Its all crap. Don't by anything they make. Only lasts a year and when it breaks there are not replaceable parts. Still using my 1986 rainbow vacuum I bought for $250 from ebay.
You keep making this crap, and we're waiting on a Sphere. Talk to the other guy.
I've tried to stick to the principle of not buying the cheapest option as it a) never lasts b) does a piss poor job
There's also the c) can be dangerous
Hair dryers are a good example of dangerous. I know of a couple of homes that have burned to the ground due to a cheap hair dryer.
I recently bought another blender for making soups, curry sauces etc. The previous one I had melted and smoked in front of me. It was cheap.
While searching online for a replacement I discovered an alarming large number food blenders smoking or bursting into flames in product reviews.
So I found one which cost 10x what I paid for my previous one and it's superb. It works so much better, it's quiet, it looks beautiful and I'm sure it'll last for years.
Why is it when someone actually goes to extreme lengths to try and design the best possible product instead of trying to make the cheapest product possible with no effort to make it any good, reliable or safe everyone puts them down?
I don't get it?
I wouldn't buy Dyson's, or anyone else's, hairdryer but I admire him for being a self made man who got there because of his innovation and design.
I'm willing to pay extra for a well designed product that has had a bit of thought and passion put into it.
Isn't that called a towel?
You know what is the worst? When you are in a public bathroom and have to use a Dyson Airblade Hand Dryer, because your hands inevitably end up touching the yellow part where everyone else's hands have inevitably ended up touching, yuck, and besides the thing never seems to dry your hands fully.
You know what is the best? The XLERATOR which is like putting your hands around the back end of a jet engine, totally dry in under 10 seconds.
Its just a Suck Cut with the blades removed.
Dyson builds yet another product that 98% of the world will never buy.
Miles and pounds are not metric. Just in case you didn't know that.
On another note, this slashvertisement isn't for the usual evil irresponsible megacorp for once, so that's a nice change of pace.
Dyson's designs are only revolutionary from the manufacturer's point of view. I own one of his designs from the core vacuum product line; from a user standpoint it's VERY ineffective and irritating to use. Never again, for me. From the manufacturer's POV, however, the modular construction is both cheaper to produce and also cheaper to maintain and service.
Dyson's revolutionary designs benefit Dyson. Period. Don't be fooled by the marketing hype that turns design flaws from the user perspective into false benefits. That ability to portray a sow's ear as a silk purse is Dyson's real revolutionary accomplishment.
Expensive does NOT always mean better. Though yes, very often you get what you pay for.
Case in point. Dyson vacuum cleaners. Even though they are significantly more expensive than other brands in the US, they are crap. The hard plastics used, especially at the handle for the dirt trap break after a comparatively short amount of time. Admittedly, I am only going by anecdotal evidence here. My sister went through three in two years, though she still likes it when it's working. ;)
I had one for about two weeks and returned it. I thought it was broken because the suction was so poor. Turns out it was normal though. You see, I had just moved to the US from Germany at that time, where I had always owned Miele vacuum. These are, admittedly massively over priced in the US. What I paid 300€ for in Germany costs $900 in the US. That thing would suck up everything even when the bag was full.. no change in suction. We beat the crap out of it and never had any issues. Though, I learned that the motor wattage used in Europe is higher that what is used in the US for some reason. So.. I guess that explains it.
So.. what's my point again? No idea. Something about expensive stuff being better than cheap stuff i guess.
20 years ago, most products could be found in a range of price and quality. Now, markets have segmented into two distint price points:
1. Cheapest possible.
2. Luxury brand (typically for the 1%ers).
I believe that this segmentation is related to 2 factors:
a. Vast increase in imports of consumer products (mostly from China).
b. Increasing wealth disparity.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Most of the comments have an unusual UK syntax and show such a positive and caring outlook about this article which obviously is a PR stint also. Well played Dyson.
The missus has several top of the line food processors, an expensive restaurant style blender that can blend wood into pulp, various mixers of all kinds, etc. None of them get used. I chop everything with a thin, strong, high-carbon steel cleaving knife I made in metalshop. It's thin so it cuts better than fancy serrated edges, allows vegetables to stay in their shape as I make slices (hold the onion together to prevent tears), In the time it takes to drag out the food processor I can have all that parsley finely chopped or vegitables minced. The plain old knife slices, dices and does Julianne fries.
Last night I made some whipped creme out of heavy whipping cream and a bit of sugar, just used a whisk. The wife saw what I was doing and said, "Honey! We have a mixer, here, let me get it" Before she had it plugged in I replied, "Look, it's done. Desert's ready." It's more work, but holy shit, not much more work. The time savings might be worth it if I was serving 10, but for 3-5 people, just give me some basic simple steel tools.
Although, I did amuse the kids one morning. Couldn't find the right mixer attachment for the mixer, so I chucked up a beater in my 24v cordless drill, and made quick work of pancakes and scrambled eggs for half a dozen slumber partied kids' breakfasts -- I even cooked the bacon without my shirt on too (put it in the oven at 375 about 15-20min until it's golden brown, stays straight, no splattering). I laugh every time I see a "bacon press" or some microwave whatsit for catching bacon drippings, just line the baking sheet with foil.
Last month she brought home a Dyson "ball" vacuum cleaner. She couldn't figure out which lever or release button to get the hose to come free. Turns out it's got some kind of internal latch which unhooks once you pull it all the way to the top and the pole telescopes out all the way. I haven't told her. It's like watching the dog try to get the treat out of one of those teaser balls. Useless as hell, but darn cute.
features JJ Fad.
Why is it when someone actually goes to extreme lengths to try and design the best possible product instead of trying to make the cheapest product possible with no effort to make it any good, reliable or safe everyone puts them down?
We don't. No one gets put down for making genuine amazing products with amazing amounts of research that is "the best possible"
Dyson products are "as different as possible". He throws endless engineering at problems he doesn't understand even if they are well known (cyclonic separation), and the other half of the engineering is put into skirting patents he ripped off from other companies (bladeless fan from Toshiba, jet hand drier from Mitsubishi).
Dyson releases products and my first thought is not "whoah this is awesome," my first thought is "who have they ripped off now to sell overpriced plastic junk?"
Give us the shaver that is as easy to drive like Braun, but as silent and easy to clean as Philips. There is the price class of 300-500 EURs Dyson could easily fit in.
Apparently I'm the only bloke here who thinks that this looks really cool, as far as hair dryers go anyway.
re: 1. disposable because sticker price is the only factor for many
re: 2. multi-generational because these people are used to paneled wood walls and antique furniture, and there's no point getting something that'll break
This isn't regurgitated news. They're putting a fucking ad right in there as a not-a-news story.
for bold fat /. readers it's a neck beard dryer
They should have employed those 103 engineers to figure out how to build an impenetrable concrete bubble around Dyson's corporate headquarters in order to save humanity from such egregious feats of idiocy.
I even cooked the bacon without my shirt on too (put it in the oven at 375 about 15-20min until it's golden brown, stays straight, no splattering).
I too appreciate when my shirts stay straight and have no splatters on them, but I think if you just bought your shirts in golden brown colour to begin with you could bake them for just one minute, and they'd still come out toasty warm.
Yaz
Haven't we learned ANYTHING?
Their blade hand dryer dries your hands, which is more than most of those whoosy blowers. Their vacuum cleaner removed the bag, today I use a Samsung bagless and its good (and thanks to Dyson its bagless). Far better than the bag ones.
I'm sure their hair dryer will be excellent too. Not worth the insane $$$, but good.
If their vacuum cleaner wasn't good, then everyone wouldn't have copied them, and I wouldn't have a nice bagless Samsung to use?
Also who the f*** buys bags for vacuum cleaners these days? Where do you even buy them from?
In defence of Dyson’s dryer: I worked in 2015 for an organisation that had hand dryers from both companies and the Dysons worked far better than the Mitsubishis. The Dyson machine is nearly as good as a paper towel.
Stuff that Natters.
See what I did there?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
What does that even mean?
I just went to the Firehose and modded as 'binspam', (many, many times), a story that has already been accepted, namely the one in which I am currently posting a comment. Fuck Slashvertisements.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
It's a hairdryer. It costs 4x as much as other hairdryers. It dries hair. If Dyson has revolutionized anything it is in the line of bullshit they spin to sell their products.
I suspect you're using it wrong. You stick your hands in at the *sides* and lift them out once. The air forms a blade that forces the water to the tips of your fingers and off. It takes 2-3 seconds and they're bone dry in one pull.
It is *not* an evaporation drying, it does not try to blow hot air onto your hands to dry them. Rather it squeezes the water down.
It's not that you put your hands in, pull them up and down till it blows your hands dry by evaporation. Which is what I suspect your trying to do.
Never tried the Xlerator, but its a hot air blower isn't it? An evaporation dryer? Once you read the pictograms on the Dyson and try it, you realize how quick it is.
They should have given that in meters, so it sounds bigger. So since this smells of 'trying hard to make numbers sound big' , how much hair length does a human have?
If you take 100,000 hairs and 15cm it adds up to 15km or 10 miles. So they tested 100 heads. Or the same head 100 times. I wouldn't rank that under 'more than you'd expect'.
Hair dryers also tend to wreak havoc on and are generally not recommended for curly hair. Some people use diffusers but even these mess up curly hair. I noticed none of the models in the videos had curly locks.
103 engineers in Dyson's company, 103 engineers.
Fire one, pull him out, 102 engineers in Dyson's company.
Move one to marketing dept., 101 engineers in Dyson's company...
And 60 times less hygienic.
the regular amount of bacteria into your hair. This is the whole thing you're paying for.
I agree with your philosophy but Dyson products are 90% marketing, 10% quality/innovative design nowadays (not unlike another 5 letter company known for overpriced products).
I bought a Numatic vacuum cleaner years ago which is built like a tank, has no cracked plastic and still has the suction power of your dream girlfriend. Even after being hurled into a closet after every use, not changing the bag often as recommended, and other forms of abuse.
Does Dyson test their products on animals?
Dyson's true discoveries are to find people predilected to believe silly things and spend lots of money on fads. He claims his vacuum cleaners produce more "suction". The vacuum of any air-moving machine is limited by the natural air pressure, not by a fancy impeller design. It's like making an empty bottle more "empty". My grandma's Kirby from the 1950s produced just as much "suction" as a Dyson, and it had a metal housing that you could hit with a cannonball with no dent.
Now Dyson would have us believe that he has done what no one else in any company has been able to do for 50 years with the hairdryer. What he does with it is akin to putting gold-plating on a dump truck. The non-plated version does the same job for a whole lot less.
What pisses me off about Dyson pricing is that the UK gets ripped off compared to other markets, despite Dyson being a UK company. For example, the recently released V6 Mattress cleaner is about 20% cheaper in the US (before 20% sales tax in the UK). I recently bought a V6 Absolute, and it was about £150 cheaper to get it from Amazon.fr than from anywhere in the UK.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Carver used to make audio products back in the 80s and 90s. Their big thing was called "magnetic field amplifiers". They would churn out "white papers" on their technology and people would buy their stuff. None of it ever lasted long and they went out of business, several times, IRIC.
Carver's big "breakthrough" was, like Dyson, in marketing, not engineering.
Mr. Dyson, it is a hair dryer not a vacuum. A price tags of 400 dollars eliminates a lot of prospective buyers.
Mr. Dyson, to call people willing to leave a comment but not "log in to post" Cowards, is pretty shameful on you, your company and a slap in the face to people taking the time to give you feedback.
Here is a clip of product testing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
So in other words, doing exactly what the patent system intended inventors to do.
Well, people think BMWs and Apple phones are good expenditures. I'm sure these idiots will buy this thing to.
FWIW:
Get a:
1) Android
2) Lexus
3) $20 hair dryer from Wal-Mart
Same thing really. I saw this because I know someone that used to buy BMWs for 20-30 years. He bought a Lexus and said he saved $20K to get the same thing. He'll never get a BMW again.
I like the zoomy things and then the interactive parts and everything. It's clean and simple too... too lazy to look at the code underneath. Actually it's not laziness as much as I like the design so much I don't want to ruin it by seeing potentially nauseating code underneath.
To all the nay sayers who laugh at hair dryers, I say this: Hair dryer is the most under estimated products in the history. Remember when Princess Vespa was stranded in the desert moon of Vega, all she had was a hair dryer and she survived the desert with it.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
A bit too rich for my blood. I'd consider getting one of these if the price were around $150 or so.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Let me repeat my subject line with added explanation: I don't think all you male slashdotters understand who or what this product is for. This product is specifically for women. You know, the other sex? The ones that you don't understand? The ones who buy most hair dryers?
For me, a male, hair is not a big deal. I wash it, comb it and I'm done. As some of you know, women are notoriously finicky with their hair and spend a LOT of time making it look pretty. Washing it, conditioning it (which are separate all the time), teasing it, drying it, straightening or curling it (per her wishes at that specific time), coloring it from time to time, etc. It's kind of a big deal with them.
Which leads me again back to my point. This product is made for women. If it in some way improves the way women "do" their hair, either by significantly decreasing the amount of time it takes a woman to dry their hair, by improving the long term healthiness of the hair (I.E. less split ends because the hair is not being heated so much) or by using non heated air it makes the hair look better (and believe me, women can see this), then Dyson will make a boatload of money off of this product. If it does any of the things I've described, do not get in the pathway of a woman getting one of these new hair dryers. You'll get run over.
And the $399 price tag? If the thing is solidly constructed and easy to use, women will gladly pay it. My wife, who has some curl to her hair and who doesn't like it, bought (as I remember) a $150 hair straighter. She didn't even blink at the cost. After I took a look at it, I understood why. I'm a mechanical engineer and even I had to appreciate its solid construction. It's heavy, has ceramic plates that the hair is pulled through. And it will last her and my lifetimes put together.
In short, you GUYS need to understand that about 50% of the population out there is not you. It's the female market. And many successful businesses out there understand that and gear themselves to this demographic. Amazon's Kindle and the Ford Mustang are but two examples (what? you didn't know that the Ford Mustang is specifically designed towards women? Go and sit in one with your normal male proportions and see how the seat fits you. Then imagine how a smaller female would fit. The seat is designed for females).
So if Dyson has really improved the hair dryer for the female experience, he's going to make a killing.
Gordon
some solid engineering and user-centric thought here. But $400? Nope. There are $20 hair dryers out there with a thousand 5-star reviews. Is this 20x better? Seeing how Dyson hand dryers spread germs at a rate and range that would make evil geniuses and zombies jealous, I'll pass on this.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I assume that like Dyson's "bladeless" fans, it has the fan blades hidden within it? It's amazing to me how many people think those things are magic.
-----
Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
Supersonic it is not - just dishonest.
Full disclosure - I have used shop-air (oil-less and dried) to dry my hair - works fast - tends to tangle - no heat. Still not supersonic.
I dry my hair with the defroster in my car. A bit expensive for hair driver, but it takes me places as a secondary feature, and it's cordless.
Let me repeat my subject line with added explanation: I don't think all you male slashdotters understand who or what this product is for. This product is specifically for women. You know, the other sex? The ones that you don't understand? The ones who buy most hair dryers?
Hi Gordon,
well, lets see, are you saying that Dyson is trying to exploit the fairer sex here by peddling this overpriced toy?
And, do you not think some of with SOs into tech toys will be hearing the dread words 'Darling/Hey you this Dyson thing looks rather nice...oh my birthdays next month...'?
Wow, that was by far the douchiest thing I've read all month. Congrats.
On the website, Dyson regulates the heat of the drier so that it does not exceed a certain temperature that will damage hair. Preventing hair damage is the main goal. If speed of drying isn't that much of an issue, set your current hair dryer on a low heat setting to achieve a similar (not the same) effect.
And one problem is that #2 will often be #1 just with an insane mark up. I buy the cheapest possible and get a piece of junk, at least I got what I paid for.
Who the hell is going to buy it. Even people with a lot of money don't like to be ripped off like that.
Unfortunately I'm sure there are stupid people out there to buy it.
As a Haistylist of 45 years..
WHERE do I buy one??
Sandy Moser
3326 Dunn Ave
Cheyenne,Wy.
82001
Hair Dunn Your Way