Video: Dyson’s impressive Supersonic hair dryer
Enter Dyson, whose engineers set out to rethink the hair dryer and achieved that in the form of the brilliant Dyson Supersonic.
The Dyson Supersonic hair dryer uses a fast but focused airflow, is engineered for balance in the hand, is quiet and intelligently controls the temperature to help protect hair from extreme heat damage.
“Hair dryers can be heavy, inefficient and make a racket,” says Dyson Founder and Chief Engineer, Sir James Dyson.
“By looking at them further we realised that they can also cause extreme heat damage to hair.
“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,” he says.
Dyson invested £50 million in the development of the Dyson Supersonic hair dryer including creating a state of the art laboratory dedicated to investigating the science of hair.
Dyson engineers studied hair from root to tip, understanding how it reacts to stresses, how to keep it healthy and how to style it.
Over four years they tested the product on different hair types and built test rigs, which mechanically simulate hair-drying techniques – which can differ around the world. To date over 1010 miles of real human hair have been used in testing.
The Dyson Supersonic hair dryer is powered by the patented Dyson digital motor V9, created in- house by a team of over 15 motor engineers specifically for this machine. It is Dyson’s smallest, lightest, most advanced digital motor.
The Dyson digital motor is engineered to be powerful yet compact, it is small enough to be positioned in the handle rather than the head; because of this the machine is engineered for balance. Most conventional hair dryers have the motor in the head of the machine.
Some conventional hair dryers can reach extreme temperatures, especially when held close to your head. This can cause extreme heat damage to your hair.
The Dyson Supersonic hair dryer has intelligent heat control, helping to ensure hair isn’t exposed to excessive temperatures.
A glass bead thermistor measures the temperature 20 times a second and transmits this data to the microprocessor, which intelligently controls the patented double-stacked heating element.
The Dyson Supersonic hair dryer uses Dyson’s patented Air Multiplier technology. The volume of the air drawn into the motor is amplified by three due to this technology, producing a high pressure, high velocity jet of air.
Traditional hair dryers can sometimes have a weak airflow, meaning they are slow. Others can have strong airflow, but it is not necessarily controlled. The Dyson Supersonic hair dryer creates a focused jet of air, angled at 20° for controlled, precise drying and styling. This allows you to dry and style at the same time.
A team of Dyson aero-acoustic engineers sought to understand how the acoustics of this machine could be optimised. By using an axial flow impeller inside the motor they have simplified the pathway of the air reducing turbulence and swirling.
By giving the motor impeller 13 blades instead of the usual 11, Dyson engineers pushed one tone within the motor to a sound frequency beyond the audible range for humans.
Also, because the motor is small and compact Dyson engineers have been able to embed it in the handle, surrounded by acoustic silencers to further reduce sound. The Dyson Supersonic hair dryer is engineered to be quiet, without compromising on speed.