Can Dyson Zone save us from bad air quality (including wildfire smoke)?

Jul 28, 2023

Can Dyson Zone save us from bad air quality (including wildfire smoke)?

MALAK SALEH: Remember this thing? When the Dyson Zone first launched last year, most people ridiculed it for its appearance or its price. But now after seeing what the wildfires has done, some people might seriously consider buying it, no matter how stupid it looks.

Air pollution is a global problem, and it's been exacerbated by wildfires all around the world. But the orange skies in the big city and the fervent media coverage of the incident have made people more concerned with air quality more than ever. Here in New York, we've seen a wave of air-quality alerts from the health department that the air outside is unsafe to breathe.

CHUCK SCHUMER: This smoke and fog over New York and the rest of the Northeast is a warning from nature.

MALAK SALEH: The term AQI has been on people's radars, but what is AQI?

TERRY GORDON: On a given day when you're looking at the AQI, the program is taking one of the six criteria pollutants that EPA regulates. Whichever one is really the worst that day, providing the most risk, it takes that criteria pollutant, and it pops the concentration into the AQI equation.

MALAK SALEH: Think of AQI as a yardstick that runs from 0 to 500. The higher the AQI value, the greater the level of air pollution and the greater the health risk.

VICKY GIBSON-ROBINSON: This filter has been engineered to work in the dirtiest day in the dirtiest town, even if you're, like, in a smoke blizzard. It's always going to deliver air that's cleaner than if you weren't wearing it at all.

MALAK SALEH: I'm here at a science lab at NYU School of Medicine in New York City. Today, we're going to be putting the Dyson Zone's air-filtration features to the test. First, we'll be using a real-time continuous air-particulate monitor and counter to measure the amount of air pollutants, dust, and dirt left in the air after a filtration cycle. What we really care about measuring is PM, which stands for Particulate Matter. Dyson claims the device can remove PM10s, which are particles with diameters of 10 micrometers, and smaller particulates like PM2.5s, which are inhalable particles with diameters with 2.5 micrometers and smaller.

Dyson's visor uses an electrostatic filter and activated charcoal in its layers to remove particulates. The wearable features a contact-free magnetic visor that is supposed to flow purified air into the wearer's nose and mouth. The filter has three flow rates-- rest, which is level one; light, which is level two; and moderate, which is level three. All of our testing will be done on level three to match Dyson's criteria for testing.

We're conducting testing in three settings-- first, in the lab, on the city street, then on the subway platform.

TERRY GORDON: So, ladies and gentlemen, it's reading 69 micrograms per cubic meter. So the HEPA filter is located in the earmuffs. Dropped it down to 1 microgram and 0. It's 99% to 100% efficient in filtering particles from the air.

This P-Trak is going to measure the number concentration of particles. It's reading now about 6,100 particles per cubic centimeter, and we're going to see how the Dyson does with this. It's already below 1,000, below 200. So it went from 6,100. It's down to 50 particles per CC, even scrubbing out the small, ultrafine particles. That would be equivalent to some clean rooms in the chip-making manufacturing industry.

ANTONIO SAPORITO: So right now we have the same device that we're using in the lab to detect PM2.5. 2.5 microns, the smallest, gets all the way deep in your lungs. And right now, we have the wildfire smoke blowing in from the west from the Canadian wildfires. So normally New York City air is about 12 micrograms per cubic meter, and this is up to 113. So it's really high today. So go ahead.

You see it's immediately going down. 83, 73, 60, and it's all the way down to zero. So it's filtering out all the particles 2.5 and smaller.

So now we're going to test the number of particles that are in the air-- big particles, small particles, ultrafine, everything in between. All the way down to 180, 200. It's doing incredibly well. The way it works is it's creating positive pressure right against your face, and once the air is blowing against your face, it is pushing out all the particles from the outside air and excluding them from your breathing zone.

DAVID LUGLIO: Right now, we're reading 260 micrograms per cubic meter, which is what we typically see in the subways. Some subways are actually worse than this, some subways a little bit better, but this is nothing atypical. So the concentrations are going down, and right now it's about to hit zero.

MALAK SALEH: So we just saw the particle counter pick up 20,000 particles per cubic centimeter, and it dropped to under 1,000 once we hit it on the flow rate number three.

Other than filtering out particle matters, Dyson also claims the headphone's activated-carbon filters can remove odors and gases like NO2 and VOCs. We couldn't really test out this function since these were just not easily detectable in the city streets or on the subway. We were, however, able to test VOC levels with a little trick that the NYU student at the lab showed us.

Can you explain what VOCs are and why they might matter?

ANTONIO SAPORITO: So VOCs stand for Volatile Organic Compounds, and they're usually really smelly. So think paint thinners, paints, alcohol, all these other things. In high concentrations, they can be really noxious, and they can, in fact, knock you out. Some VOCs have been shown to be carcinogenic, so cancer causing, and cause all different sorts of illnesses. So that's why it's really important to filter them out.

So the background VOCs in the environment are really hard to detect. What we're going to do is we're going to grab an alcohol wipe and spread it out, get the concentrations up in the air. It was already at 1. It's going up to 8, 11, 13. So we have a lot of VOCs. And then we're going to waft the wipe through the headphones. So as you can see, it's staying below 1. It's filtering it out really well.

TERRY GORDON: It's Dyson, and Dyson knows particles and filtrations. That's what they're famous for. The device-- actually, I'm really impressed that they would incorporate and minimize the volume of putting the HEPA filters in the earmuffs, and it's really a nice design. Ambient particles are the main contributor to the adverse health effects of air pollution. So wearing a mask of this type will remove particles, is essential at protecting your lungs and your heart. It would be worth wearing during the wildfire smoke episodes.

MALAK SALEH: So the Dyson Zone works. I can confidently put on the mask and know it's going to filter out my surrounding air, but it has its limitations. First is the battery. The Zone will just shut off after an hour and a half of air filtration on the highest level. Sure, you probably won't be using it nonstop for an hour and a half outside, but if you're also listening to music, expect the shorter runtime.

You'll also need to make sure that you plug this thing in when you're not using it because it doesn't hold on to the charge even after you've taken it off. Our deputy editor Cherlynn noted that there were many times where she would just pick up the Zone and it would be out of juice. This isn't super practical in the real world when, say, there's another wildfire.

Ultimately, the Zone is designed to be headphones first, air filter second. Most people already have headphones and don't want to spend a ton of money for a feature that they mostly don't need. If you know you want an air filter, you might consider an alternative on the market that does the job for a fraction of the price.

And we just learned that things like wearable air purifiers exist. You can buy something like this from Amazon for under 50 bucks. That actually feels really good. It feels just like the Dyson zone where the air is, like, flushing into my face.

So how long does this last? 500 hours? I would say it's pretty easy to wear. Stick it to your shirt. Maybe it doesn't have headphones connected to it, but it's not $900.

The price makes the Dyson Zone unattainable for the average consumer. Dyson is an established brand, and people might buy the Zone purely due to brand loyalty and trust, but the company might have aimed a little too high here. We can only hope that future generations will have improved battery, functionality, and access.

After all the AQI warnings we've been exposed to lately, there might be other companies working on similar products that could combat our exposure to pollutants. Competitors like LG are already making wearable air purifiers that don't require bulky headphones.

For detailed evaluations on how the Zone performs as headphones and more, make sure to check out engadget.com. And for more coverage of biotech news related to health and fitness, subscribe to our YouTube channel.