airblade.jpgHand dryers are nasty, environmentally unsound and surprisingly unhygienic machines. Dyson’s Airblade is the antithesis of this.

I really like it when someone takes a product which has evolved little for decades, turns it on its head and comes up with something substantially better in almost every way.

Airblade uses significantly less power than a conventional dryer, dries hands quicker and is considerably more hygienic. Oh, and it’s British too.


So, why are conventional dryers so bad?

  1. They use a lot of power, typically 2000W or more. They also use very little of that energy to actually dry hands and most of it to heat the room, which if air conditioned, wastes even more energy cooling the room down. This is not very green.
  2. Hygiene is questionable: airborne bacteria gets sucked into the machine – where it can multiply in a nice warm environment – and is then blasted back out on to the user’s hands.

The only negative I can see with the Airblade – and this could be a big problem – is that it needs to be used in a different way to a conventional dryer: you place your open hands in the slot and raise them slowly up through a sheet of air which acts like a squeegee.

For obvious reasons, I have not hung around to watch how people use a Dyson Airbade, but I would guess that despite the clear and simple instructions on the front, quite a few people will get confused and attempt to wave their hands around in the slot.

I have no connection with Dyson, but I hope people see the light and Airblade takes off.