Kevin Boone
They don’t make ’em like that any more: Dyson Pure Cool-Me personal air purifier
Note:
I have to admit to a certain trepidation here. If you can afford even to contemplate paying nearly £300 for a fan, you’re in a highly fortunate, privileged position. I received mine as a gift, and it’s one of the best presents I ever had; I wouldn’t have spent that amount of money on myself. I’m not altogether happy, singing the praises of a device that nobody truly needs, and that probably only 0.001% of the world’s population would consider a reasonable expense. A shortage of personal air purifiers is most definitely a first-world problem. So, while I think it’s lamentable that Dyson stopped making the Cool-Me – and that nobody else has stepped in to fill the hole in the market more affordably – I’m not surprised to find that Dyson didn’t sell enough of them to keep them in production.
Dyson’s Cool-Me is, or was, a personal fan and air purifier; it’s “Personal” in that it’s really designed to be used by one person at a time. Mine sits on my desk and, without making any noise I can hear over my computer fans, makes my life just a little better. The Cool-Me produces a gentle flow of cooling air at head-and-shoulders level, largely stripped of the pollen and particulates that make the spring months so trying.
Like its other fans, all of which are eye-wateringly expensive, Dyson describes the Cool-Me as ‘bladeless’, although that isn’t really the case – rather, the air-moving elements are concealed in the centre of the unit. They draw air through the network of holes in the case, through the particulate filter, and out of the vent at the top. At the lowest setting, the fan is effectively inaudible, but it still does a good job of cooling when you’re sitting right next to it. Close up, the air jet is quite intense, considering the fan is almost silent. At the highest setting the Cool-Me is quite noisy, but still quieter than a conventional fan. The ‘bladeless’ design means that there are no accessible moving parts, so it’s safe around children.
This is what a serious desk fan looks like
On the lowest setting, the Cool-Me’s power consumption is only a few Watts, rising to about 30 Watts at full speed. The low power means that it doesn’t add a lot of heat to the environment, when it’s supposed to be keeping you cool. Because it’s an air cleaner, not just a fan, it makes sense to leave it running for extended periods of time, not just when you’re sitting in front of it. So it’s good that it’s relatively cheap to run: it works out at about 2p for eight hours’ use at the lowest speed. Replacement filters will be a lot more expensive; more on that thorny subject later.
The Cool-Me has an ‘oscillating’ mode, where the fan head rotates side-to-side automatically. Conceivably, you could leave it running like this whilst you’re out of the room, so it sprays cleaned air around the environment. Whether this works, I can’t say, and I’ve rarely used this feature. Mostly I just sit the unit a few feet away, so it blows directly towards my chair. Until the ambient temperature reaches about 30 Celsius, I find it as effective as my full-size air conditioner, and a heck of a lot cheaper to run. At higher temperatures the Cool-Me still cools me, but only at much higher fan speeds. As with any fan, a blast of air at head height can dry your eyes uncomfortably, even though it might still make you feel cooler.
In short, the Cool-Me is a highly effective machine for providing a modest cooling effect with little noise and low energy consumption, while reducing the misery of hay fever and allergies.
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