Known for its home appliances like vacuum cleaners and air purifiers, Dyson is launching its first piece of wearable tech in the form of wireless headphones that have an air filtration system built in.
The company says its Dyson Zone product is aimed at millions of city dwellers worldwide who are exposed to high levels of airborne pollutants and excessive noise.
Each cup of the over-ear Bluetooth headphones contains a compressor which draws air through electrostatically-charged filters, trapping particulates.
The visor has size-adjustable arms and is attached to the headphones via magnets that can be unclipped or unhinged so that it drops down to the wearer’s chin pausing the fans to allow them to speak to others. Dyson also has an additional mask attachment that sits between the visor and face, including a FFP2 filter, developed in response to the masking requirements of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile active noise cancellation technology, similar to that found in Bose, Sony and other headphones popular with commuters, uses microphones to monitor the sound of the outside world and the spinning compressors either side of the wearer’s head to remove it via anti-sound waves played into the ear cups. The headphones can be used without purification by detaching the visor too.
Arguably, it also makes you look quite a lot like Bane, the Batman villain played by Tom Hardy in the 2012 film 'The Dark Knight Rises'.
Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that in 2019, 99 per cent of people around the world were living in places where air pollution exceeded the recommended limits.
Air pollution in both urban and rural areas is thought to have contributed to 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide in 2016 alone, the WHO said.