I’m a fan of Dyson’s products. I own two of their vacuum cleaners (a floor model and a stick), and two of their fans. I reviewed the first one back in 2015, the Air Multiplier. That fan worked fine for a while, then just after the guarantee ran out, started making a humming noise, even at the lowest setting. I called Dyson and they replaced it.
Last year I bought the Pure Cool Link Air Purifier (Amazon.com, Amazon UK), which is similar to the basic fan but includes air purification via a HEPA filter and an activated carbon filter. I’ve been using it in my home office since last spring, but it’s really been useful in the past month. Pollen levels have been stratospheric here in the UK, most likely because of warm weather in February that caused trees and plants to bloom early. Since I have pollen allergies, the air has been terrible for me, but using this fan in my office has made my life a lot better.
You control the device using a remote control, or an app for iOS or Android. The app shows you the air quality in your location, and lets you see the current air quality in the room where it is located.
If you tap the little graph near the bottom, you can see the history of your air quality, by day and by week.
In the above, you can see several peaks of poor air quality. These correspond to periods where I aired out opened the windows in my office on a day when I was doing a lot of dusting and vacuuming. The quality improves fairly quickly with the windows closed and the fan at the highest speed. (My office is about 150 sq. ft.)
In most cases, I leave it on the Auto setting, and the fan slowly pulls air through the device to check its quality, then turns on when it deems necessary. I don’t hear the fan when it’s in this mode, but there is an audible sound, even at the lowest setting, which isn’t the case with the basic Air Purifier fan. At speed number 2, it blows enough air to cool me from about ten feet away. and makes a bit of noise, but it is quiet enough to not bother me. When there’s a lot of pollen – because I’ve opened windows, or opened the door to my office, and the rest of the house has poor air quality – I sometimes run it at the 4th speed. Again, the sound is noticeable, but as it’s simple white noise – there’s no hum of the fan – it’s easy to ignore; and music masks it quite well.
This device is effective as both a fan and an air purifier, so if you do have allergies, it can be very helpful. It’s worth noting that you need to replace the filters after about two years; the app will warn you when it’s time, and you can check in the settings if you want to see how much filtering ability they have left. This is shown as a percentage; mine currently shows 42% after just over a year; a month ago, I seem to recall it being around 50%, so the current pollen season has put a strain on it. This said, I only use it from spring to fall, so if you do use it in an environment with, say, smoke, they might not last as long.
Note that there are two models. I have the floor-standing model, and there is also a desktop version. The bases look to be the same size, so the only difference is probably in the amount of air that they send out; the amount of cooling you’ll feel. But if you put the desktop model near enough to you, then it will probably feel the same. I’d say the choice is whether you want to have a fan on the floor – it’s about 40 in. or 100 cm. tall – or want to put it on a desk, shelf, or credenza.
This, like other Dyson products, is a bit pricey, but it’s well worth the cost if you want to have clean air in a room where you work or sleep.