Microyal's 4-in-1 Health Fan Heater

While cruising through the Sands expo area we lost our way and found ourselves wandering around the wacky wilderness of the foreign manufacturer section. While most booths contained the schwagiest of schwaggy knockoffs, other companies' products, or a thousand and one connectors, wires, and circuit boards, we spotted a neat little device at the Microyal Industrial table. As you're well aware, we are all about healthifying our gadgets by adding nanocoatings or ionizers or spit-stress tests, so the 4-in-1 Health Fan Heater really caught our eye. Resembling a small bird cage, the HFH features a speed-adjustable fan that distributes heat, negative ions, and "far-infrared rays" which we're sure will keep us from ever getting sick or dying. Price and availability are kind of pointless here, no?

[Rihanna @ Aug 7th 2006 5:41AM]

I give it a 8 out of 10.

[darren @ Mar 25th 2007 4:51PM]

I agree that Neg-ion emitters appear to have health benefits. I own one myself. However, before you decide to sleep with one switched on in your bedroom you gotta read the article after the jump

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/159773_ratzone07.html

[Lee @ Jan 8th 2006 5:55PM]

Looks like a vertical tanning machine! But does it heat?

[Webum @ Jan 8th 2006 5:57PM]

Nice blurry picture.

[Berkana @ Jan 8th 2006 8:04PM]

The whole "negative ions" pseudoscience nonsense needs to stop. These stupid "negative ion" health machines do no such thing. I read the description for a salt crystal lamp that supposedly fills the air with "negative ions", and as far as I can tell, these folks don't even know what an ion is.



It is a fundamental property of matter that you can't have sustained long range charge separation without something keeping the charges apart, like the insulator of a capacitor. If that fan really ionized the air, I'd be worried; ionizing radiation (like UV rays and gamma rays) are not good for your health. And in the process of filling the air with negative ions, it would also fill the air with positive ions, which would then recombine with the negative ions, and negate the whole effect.



I hate it when hucksters think they can tack "health" and some scientific terms nobody (including themselves) understands, and make an extra buck because some sucker thinks his product is somehow better for his health. Unfortunately, the ignorance of the general populace lets it happen.

[jan @ Jan 8th 2006 10:44PM]

I agree about the tacking "health" at the end of jibberish techno stuff.



The problem is 95% of these negative ion emitters have the reciever right beside it, which only gives an effective distance of a few inches.



An extreme example of this process can be "seen" during a big thunderstorm. You can "smell" the thunderstorm coming from a few miles away. That fresh air scent is the negative ion.



The idea of the negative ion emitter is that it go throught the room and collect dust and desposit it on the reciever.



Getting back the extreme example. Think of the rain as the negative ions, as the rain passes through the air it collects the dust and the reciever, the earth, collect the dust. After the storm the air smells fresh, more negative ions than positive.



I helped design a negative ion emitter/reciever with the reciever on the other side of the room, the reciever is passive. (no power)



If you want to be influenced by positive ions, work in a poorly designed TV studio, if you're sensitive you go home with massive headaches every night.

[sara @ Jan 8th 2006 11:25PM]

If looks very nice. The picture is kind of blurry.

[jiggs @ Jan 9th 2006 12:07AM]

Three words for you guys: Optical Image Stabilization

[nanio @ Jan 9th 2006 12:30AM]

Berkana, step away from the postive ion fluxonitron and have some detoxemulsificant tea.

[Berkana @ Jan 9th 2006 1:28AM]

Should I do that with or without ear-candles sticking out of my head?

[cc @ Jan 9th 2006 4:03AM]

The negative ion thing is still huge in Japan... as for infrared, it's supposed to make you feel warm right through, if you believe the advertising.



The real story here is that a country as advanced as Japan still hasn't figured out central heating... :)

[Osiris @ Jan 9th 2006 5:23AM]

Even if this negative ion feature doesnt actually do anything for your health, it might have a placebo effect on those that believe it does work.



Surely infra red IS heat. So in a way they are misleading us further in saying it distributes heat and infra red rays..

[blore40 @ Jan 9th 2006 9:31AM]

Can it pop corn?

[Guse @ Jan 9th 2006 9:41AM]

a negative ion generator has other uses besides health concerns...like odor control.



cue Prince: aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh, odor control!!!



and as far as the earwax candles go, don't knock it until you've tried it!

[Zeus @ Jan 9th 2006 2:05PM]

#7 -> Or they could have just used a fill flash, lol. I sincerely hope that wasn't taken with the 20D that they were using for keynotes... If that's the case the photographer should be clubbed with their tripod. ;)

[Iris @ Jan 23rd 2006 1:54PM]

This is what I have read from a study of U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

"Negative Ions have the benefits that ionizing a room led to 52% less dust in the air, and 95% less bacteria in the air."

"These results indicate that negative air ionization can have a significant impact on the airborne microbial load in a poultry house and at least a portion of this effect is through direct killing of the organisms."

[Michelle @ Jan 24th 2006 3:07AM]

Thanks for all the comments. Just to clarify some points, our Microyal 4-in-1 Air Purifier has unndergone SGS test report and proven for its functions (which include emmission of far-infarred ray, negative ion generater, heater, & fan). It has the negative ion generating device built-in the unit which can release negative ions (obviously) that reduces the level of bacteria/germs/dusts in the air; and YES, negative ions are good for human kind.

"Under the action of a high voltage corona discharge, an atom of oxygen in the air gains an electron and becomes negatively charged, the new resulting entity is known as negative ion. In clean, natural air surrounding such as near a waterfall in the forest, or after a lightning storm, most of us feel invigorated and refreshed. This can be attributed to the abundance of negative ions in the surrounding air that we inhaled."

What Iris have read about the negative ions are correct as well, so this is not some "pseudoscience" that we invented on our own.

Also, for those who went to the CES show and are wondering about the air purifier/fan/heater...

1. NO, I don't think you would want to put your lovely pet bird in this "cage". Otherwise you might get contact from those Animal Rights people.

2. NO, it's not a bug zapper either. Althought I wouldn't mind if you would want to use it for that purpose. :)

3. NO, unfortunately we haven't had the chance to install the "popcorn popping" function into this unit yet, so I don't think you can use it to pop popcorn.

[Michelle @ Jan 24th 2006 3:20AM]

Thanks for all the comments. Just to clarify some points, our Microyal 4-in-1 Air Purifier has unndergone SGS test report and proven for its functions (which include emmission of far-infarred ray, negative ion generater, heater, & fan). It has the negative ion generating device built-in the unit which can release negative ions (obviously) that reduces the level of bacteria/germs/dusts in the air; and YES, negative ions are good for human kind.

"Under the action of a high voltage corona discharge, an atom of oxygen in the air gains an electron and becomes negatively charged, the new resulting entity is known as negative ion. In clean, natural air surrounding such as near a waterfall in the forest, or after a lightning storm, most of us feel invigorated and refreshed. This can be attributed to the abundance of negative ions in the surrounding air that we inhaled."

What Iris have read about the negative ions are correct as well, so this is not some "pseudoscience" that we invented on our own.

Also, for those who went to the CES show and are wondering about the air purifier/fan/heater...

1. NO, I don't think you would want to put your lovely pet bird in this "cage". Otherwise you might get contact from those Animal Rights people.

2. NO, it's not a bug zapper either. Althought I wouldn't mind if you would want to use it for that purpose. :)

3. NO, unfortunately we haven't had the chance to install the "popcorn popping" function into this unit yet, so I don't think you can use it to pop popcorn.