“No, this is not an elaborate April fool”. This is how WIRED first reported on the Dyson Zone at the end of March 2022. The Zone was a wild reimagining of an established product type—a big, bulky pair of headphones with an integrated air-purification mechanism that presented rather unfortunately like a high-tech gimp mask. A solution to a problem no consumer seemed willing to acknowledge existed in the first place.
Worse was to follow. December 2022: “Dyson’s hellish-looking air-purifying headset will cost $950.” And in May 2023, our review made liberal use of words like “embarrassing”, “troubling” and “derision,” and suggested the reviewer felt like “a Fisher Price Batman villain” while wearing them. “You can finally buy this bizarre, head-mounted contraption—but for pity’s sake, don’t”.
Zone marked the first time Dyson’s chief engineer (and son of James) Jake Dyson had been project lead for a product since he folded Jake Dyson Products into the Dyson portfolio. At the time, he was bullish about the Zone’s chances: “After six years in development, we’re excited to deliver pure air and pure audio, anywhere.” Since then, Dyson has gone eerily quiet on promoting the Zone, and now your chances of acquiring a pair are close to nil.
In the United States, everyone from SportPursuit to Best Buy is out of stock, and retailers show no sign of doing anything about the situation. At the time of writing, Walmart's website reckons there is one pair left throughout the entirety of the retail giant. In the UK, meanwhile, retailer John Lewis is unequivocal: “We will not receive more stock of this item”.
In fact, it seems the only place where you can still buy the Dyson Zone is at Dyson.com—and even here, the product is far from front and center. Should you find yourself able to navigate to the relevant page, you’ll have to scroll down a long way to get to an image of the headphones with their air-purification muzzle attached. Indeed, “black sheep” seems a reasonable enough way to describe the Zone’s position in the Dyson product family.
In an exclusive interview, WIRED sat down with Jake Dyson, who was disarmingly open about the fate of the Zone. So it seemed only right to discuss the Zone's fallout, look at Dyson's altogether more successful (and de facto replacement model) OnTrac headphones, and, considering that Jake’s first swing for the company has turned out to be such a high-profile miss, find out Dyson’s future plans in the audio world.