Let's say you're a company that has perfected air flow technology, cornered the high-end vacuum cleaner market, and are now looking for new product categories to conquer. Well you could leverage your copious knowledge to invent the world's most powerful air hockey table, or perhaps an air compressor with a super-snazzy industrial design, but UK-based
Dyson has instead opted to tackle a problem that has plagued public restroom patrons for years -- crappy, inefficient hand dryers. Apparently the main problem with traditional hot air dryers is that they rely on evaporation to get the wet stuff off -- a process that can take up to 35 seconds and actually result in dirtier hands as people rub theirs together to speed things up (pushing bacteria deeper into skin layers and fingernails as they do so). Well Dyson is attempting to make this task both quicker and more hygienic with its new Airblade system, a revolutionary dryer that blasts a 400MPH stream of clean, unheated air through a 0.3-millimeter gap and processes the excess water with a disinfecting iodine resin filter. The end result is cleaner hands in a shorter period of time, with waste water being disbursed into the air as a fine mist instead of forming a gross little puddle on the floor. Keep reading for a profile view, and see why the Dyson engineers wisely designed the Airblade so that curious children can't stick their heads in and have their eyes blown into the back of their sockets...
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted Oct 3rd 2006 11:28AM
Hmmmmm... Wonder what the sound of a loose-fitting wedding band makes when it ricochets off the container wall (or bathroom wall) after it hits a 400 MPH airstream?
Has anyone decided to stop and think of who has touched the paper towel dispenser after just "rinsing" their hands. They never say where that 400 mph air is. It may be right after it comes out of the motor and not when it is dispersed through the fan-shaped output. And for anyone who thouroughly read any of this, since when is air a fluid?!?!?!?! Am i going nuts??? I guess i need to pay more attention when I walk into chem tomorrow...
Tried these machines in London in Jan 08. Liverpool St railway station I think. Where ever, the machines were subject to extremely high volume usage in a very challenging environment. Anyone who has visited a central London railway station restroom will know where I am coming from.
BEST HAND DRYER I have ever used. None of the potential problems alluded to in earlier posts were noticed. Probably because the engineers/technicians who developed this machine had done their homework. As they should.
IMHO, these machines provide the quickest and most hygienic hand drying method to date.
Cheers.
I used one of these in a hotel last year. I have to agree. It's the best hand dryer I've ever used too.
I use to mention these dryers as a good example for the blessings of technological progress. NICE.
the msp airport has these and they are fantastic. they actually suck the water off of your hands (not blowing on them) and they are open on the sides if you wanted to look at your hands. it is not a hole that you stick your hands into. here is the url for the brochure if you want a closer look: http://www.dysonairblade.com/downloads/US_Airblade_Sales_Brochure.pdf
Sometimes (after I eaten a pie or something) I wash my face as well as my hands - how do you get your head in?
What do you do? Bury your head in the pie dish? When I eat pie I use cutlery and place mouth sized portions into my mouth. I've never needed to wash my face afterwards.
I've actually tried one of these (it was in an airport I think...) after reading about this in popular science, I was like "hey, cool... but would it work?"
Surprisingly enough, it preforms just like the specs say... 10 seconds. dip the hands in, dip 'em out and you're done. Meh scheme in my opinion though... But, it was so cool I wanted to wash my hands again just to try it!
OK... I admit it. It's a complete copy of Mitsubishi's Jet Towel design, but at least I changed a few things like the color.
they have these at the libraries at the University of Wisconsin
! I want one of these things at home! - I mean just imagine all the 'wow, wtf is that' comments you'd get from your friends :)
This is very cool, however I used something that worked just like this in Japan when I was there for business a few years back. They were in several places I went. I told people about it when I got back because I was so impressed with the faster speed for drying.
Ah, but was it a 400MPH airblast?
Did you *measure* it??
After washing your hands, stick them in a hole where MANY OTHER PEOPLE HAVE STUCK THEIR HANDS and HYGENICALLY dry them.
Am I the only person who sees something wrong with this concept?
Too right. That's the first thing I thought of--especially as it requires some degree of aim and coordination. And, as most people don't even bother with soap, you wind up smearing the heel of your hand all over someone-else' crotch-critters while the air-jet blows dripping gross-water onto your hand. And what if you're wearing loose jewelry or have leprosy? -How do you get your stuff back?
Not only does it dry off your hands, but the pressure is so strong that it actually mollecularly separates the molecules of your hand (the second image proves it)... looks like a communist conspiracy to me. ;-)
Seriously though, looks cool. And to telepheedian's fear... you don't have to touch anything, all that will be touching your hands is 400 MPH blasted air.
It's awesome industrial design. And for your info, you don't actually TOUCH anything. It's loads more hygienic than paper towels or current hand dryers.
The first picture makes it look like it has eyes...
1. looks like it won't dry wrists. when i wash my hands i wash them well upto the wrists.
2. it looks easy to accidentally touch the edges of the opening (unhygenic).
3. people won't want to stick their hands in holes where they don't know what's going to happen. most people like to see their hands.
4. sounds like if they put these in public bathrooms, people are going to have a ball with messing the devices up by sticking other random goo into the hole. i mean, you know it's going to happen in high schools. although arguably this would be a cool addition to a home, most people probably just use their towel after washing hands well, which is a lot less wasteful than anything else.
5. i think napkins are less wasteful than electric hand dryers. it takes me on average about 5-10 button pushes (say around 5 full minutes) to get my hands completely dry with the typical electric hand dryer. this a ridiculous amount of electricity.
Well as chawker said this things has been in asia for years... I live in taiwan and you have this in about every toilet of every bar, so... What's the point?
Hh, the picture looks like the hands are being disintegrated :-)
Haha --> agreed! I think that not just the water, but the hands too are "disbursed into the air as a fine mist" imagine how much crap is going to end up being tossed into the trough at the bottom too...good idea guys
maybe you missed the part about the disinfecting iodine resin on the inside. The only thing that gets me a little weird is the whole 400mph thing. For those who don't know, or who may have skipped over that section in the science books like telepheedian did, thats really fast, painfully fast. I know how much high pressure washers hurt and they are only pumping water between 150 adn 250mph. Although, not having to look for paper towels or wait around for the current heat dryers to even start up and get hot would be nice. I, for one, welcome our restroom tornado overlords.
Great idea. I don't care who invented this first just as long as it gets rolled out quickly.
The biggest problem with current tech driers is that people leave before their hands are properly dry. Research in the UK has shown that germ transmission is higher through damp "clean" hands rather than dry dirty ones. I shudder every time I pull open the washroom door and find that it is wet.
I'm all for solving the door handle problem. That's why I like the airport rest rooms that don't have front doors.
"she's gone from suck to blow!"
c'mon, someone must remember Spaceballs!
I'm pretty sure the sides of the dryer are open... so it's not like you're sticking your hands into some scary abyss... Still 400mph is terrifically fast, and seems like it might be too much for the more fragile skin of the elderly...
Wow, what new technology!!
We had them in Singapore years back already in a shopping centre named "Plaza Singapura".
400mph?!!!
That thing might rip your hand apart!
lol.
I personally was shocked at 400 mph too. I just didn't put it in my first comment. I remember that there was an episode of the TV show MythBusters that proved that you could shoot a piano string right through a pine tree (and a board and even a bit of concrete wall) at about that speed. Considering that the fastest publically available car (Koniggsegg CCR) goes about 250 mph, I would not want to stick my hands in there.
Neat design, probably won't find me using it.
Actually its the Buggati Vyeron :)
I don't trust the 400MPH blast of air. When I worked at a plastic extrusion factory, we had high-pressure air blowers we used to clean dust off the machines and stuff, and one guy was using one to blow the dust off his arm and ended up blowing an air bubble into his skin and had to be rushed to the ER. 400MPH is WAY faster than those air nozzles we used at that job. Sounds like a receipe for disaster to me.
Cool, maybe now people will start washing their hands.
mmmmmm dyson computer cases.. now that would be nicE!
I dunno. Here in the NY area we've had the XLERATOR hand dryers ( http://www.exceldryer.com/Products/xlerator.asp ) for a little while now - those things are wicked powerful and dry your hands in no time. I am also not too hot on the idea of sticking my hands inside the Dyson and, despite what people say about only the air touching your hands, I can see everyone resting their palms or grabbing on to the left hand piece of the dryer, which can't be terribly sanitary (though perhaps more sanitary than working out on exercise equipment at a fitness club or using a plain-old porta-john, I guess). YMMV.
good, I'm glad someone mentioned the xcellerators.. they do an excellent job of drying hands very quickly, not relying on evaporation like the craptastic hand dryers by that Chicago Hand Dryers company.
Are they really only in NY? really the only place I've seen them is at RIT so I know I haven't seen them outside of NY anywhere.
The XLERATOR works great. They should replace all other dryers. However, for me personally, I like to open the door with a paper towel when I exit, because 9 times out of 10, people walk right past the sink and exit the restroom while I am washing my hands.
They have them at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. They are pretty powerful, as one of my friends commented "thanks for punching my hands dry".
These things are pretty old, I've used them in Taiwan as long ago as 2000.
Hmmm, I was actually hoping for some more article to read as this is very facinating. Recently I have been seeing some high pressure air dryers that really do speed up the drying process.
Two observations however: as the speed of the air is increased and the size of the outlet is decreased, the noise volume will become an issue. As it is now, the slow evaporative dryers aren't too quiet at all, and those high speed dryers I mentioned were atrociously loud.
Second: life-cycle. How long will they last without repair in a hostile environment like a public restroom?
Still, I'd like to learn more, specifically price.
I have a dyson vaccum cleaner, its friggin leetsauce. I almost wanna buy one of those for my own bathroom.
can Dyson make an automatic door so that after I wash and dry my hands, the last thing I touch leaving the bathroom isn't that skanky door handle?
LOL...that made me laugh so hard!
You're all missing the point about the 400mph blast of air. It's being pushed through a slot only 0.3mm wide. Therefore the force it'll exert on the surface of your skin will be very small. But the speed will ensure that any water will be pushed off or vapourised from the skin.
I'm alergic to iodine. I guess I'll continue not washing my hands.
Frankly, inside my pants is the cleanest part of me during the day anyway. If anything, you should wash your hands before you touch yourself.
Got OCD? 5-10 button pushes to get your hands dry? I use my freakin' pants.
So I'm the first person that thinks a product you blindly stick your hands into probably shouldn't have the word "blade" in the name?
Put me down as another person who likes the concept, but only for the home.
Turn that pic upside down and it looks like someone delivering a baby...
Ive used an XLERATOR handdry. Those things are just crazy. In small toilets you can feel the pressure change in the room slightly. My hands end up looking like Jeremy Clarkson in a Ariel Atom as well.
'Still, I'd like to learn more, specifically price.'
http://www.dysonairblade.co.uk
549 (UK Pounds) plus tax, available November
First thing I thought of when I read this was the technology (which the military has apparently tested/used) to give shots without needles. A high-speed stream of liquid vaccine literally injects itself under the skin!
So now we've got to worry about bathroom germs getting directly injected into our hands? Oh yeah, I'm gonna stick my hands in THAT!
1. Yes, they have something similar in Japan. I've used them over there too. But they only have a little more force than current air dryers, not 400 mph. Even the link provided doesn't mention anything at such speeds.
2. For the person that knew somebody who blew an air bubble in their skin from an air nozzle: That's why those old air nozzles are illegal now. Shop air is usually only 80 psi, but could do a lot of damage with the old nozzles. The new nozzles now have relief holes cut around the main nozzle, so when something blocks the main port, the air exhausts out the relief ports. Now you could put the new nozzle right up to the skin and it is safe. But there are still some of the old ones out there, so be careful.
But back to the point - the reason he got an air bubble was because he took a very focused, directed pressure of air. The new Dyson is "fanning" out this air, which is must safer.
Basically, this is just the current type being used in Japan, mixed together with the Xzletor, which should work awesome.
This story is totally unworthy. These things have been in Japan for a few years. They look and operate identically. Nice graphics but totally a knockoff.
No one has ever heard of cutting metal or glass with high-pressure streams of water?
Air's a lot less dense, but it's still a fluid(all gasses are just diffuse fluids, at least in Physics class they were), and at that small of an opening and that high of a speed, I can see this being a non-bladed wrist slitter before I see it as a hand dryer. Even just a bit of water dripping off someone's wrists and getting into the air opening, is going to sting the crap out of the next person's wrists, if not actually draw blood.
I've seen steam, coming out pinhole cracks in pipes at somewhere around these speeds(I think), that'll easily cut canvas. That's how they test to find where they leak is. They put a piece of canvas on a stick and when it falls in half, well... they found the leak. Canvas is a heck of a lot tougher than human skin.
am i the only person on engadget who just wipes his hands on his pants, then uses a paper towel to open the bathroom door like any normal person?
Just to reiterate:
Firehose at full stream - knock you over and knock the wind out of you.
Firehose at full fan - refreshing, cooling spray.
Same concept.
(And do any of you really think they don't do product testing? Do you really think they would just crank up the air and throw a product on the market? Wow!)
I don't think they wouldn't do product testing, but I can see a typo being made on the whole 400 mph figure.
In my experience with high pressure air, it's not so nice. Plus, any amount of liquid getting in that thing and it's going to hurt like crap.
400mph is not too fast for a 0.3mm thick stream of air. Yes, something with as much density as water will probably rip your skin off at 400mph. Air, not so much.
We could always just use paper towels. I prefer those, anyway.
The primary issue is the design itself. Anything that resembles a recepticle is going to be abused in a public restroom environment. This dryer will get trash, liquid and who knows what else thrown into it.....rendering it useless.
Neat idea, but totally impractical for a public restroom environment.
Cool as it looks, and as well as it may work, I'm not sticking my hand into anything with "blade" in the name. What were they thinking?
400mph airflow isn't so scary. A human sneeze can exceed 100mph.
I think this is really just for up market bars that are less likely to have customers that are going to beat the shit out of it.
i was in japan a few months ago and restrooms already have a design like this
the machine is very loud but very efficient
you stick your hands in without touching anything and the sensor goes off blowing air down and circulating within to dry from all different directions
it was a pretty nifty idea
Has it occurred to all ye of "Howard Hughes Syndrome", You've already washed all the bacteria off of your hands and if you've done a proper job of it, used paper towels on the taps and doorknobs, no electric hand dryer at any speed is going to blow anything of any communicable significance back at you.
And this will be great until some stupid kid decides to pour a bunch of flour down inside as a joke and someone gets pelted with it when they go to dry their hands.
But 400mph? Why don't they just engineer a way to send a tornado through the bathroom?
Also, they say that it will disburse the "waste water" into the air as a fine mist. Am I the only one who is disturbed by this? I don't want to breathe air filled with other peoples' dirty waste hand mist. Disgusting, disinfecting iodine resin filter or not.
Personally, I can't stand hand dryers anyway. Give me paper towels anyday. Much more hygenic. Besides, with a dryer, when it comes time to leave the bathroom, you can't exactly keep your hands from making contact with an infected door handle that's been touched by a thousand other guys who didn't bother to wash their filthy hands after taking a dump or having a bit of urine splashed or misted on them while taking a piss.
No thanks.
Here's Hitachi's version:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hitachi-ies.co.jp%2Fproducts%2Ffan%2Fhanddry%2Ftokucho.htm&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&safe=off&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
This one apparently gives 90m/s blow which is about 200MPH.
Like some people are saying, I don't particularly see the revolutional benefit in the Dyson's model, though I'd like to feel the difference of 400MPH stuff.
I would like to put golf balls and little army men into this fine device...
Ya, it would suck to have to stick your clean, washed hands into a dryer where people had previously put their clean, washed hands...???
I must be missing something here...
Um, couldn't this be a bit dangerous? Fast air is able to shoot through your skin, and if it gets in your blood veins, much damage could occur...
I remember these from when I was in Japan, they were in the Sega Joypolis and the Sunshine City Prince Hotel in Tokyo, I'm sure they're other places too. They might not have iodine filters, but they worked damn well. I wish they had them here, as I'm sure these Dysons will be way too expensive for most American bathrooms.
As many have said before, total rip off. I'm sure the guts are unique, but the basic design and concept has been around in Asia for years.
As for 400mph...it's air people, not water. True compressed air can be pretty dangerous, but since you are supposed to stick you hand in it I'm guessing they have tested it pretty thoroughly beforehand. I mean think about it, the air you push out when you sneeze travels over 100mph.
Notice a few things from the pic. The air will strike your hand at an angle, dereasing the realative force of the impact. And lets not forget to factor in marketing speak. I'd put even money the "400mph" figure is an agregate of the air for the palm of your hand as well as the back, each moving at *200mph* .
Also, even if the air is at some point actually moving at 400mph, where exactly is that in this process ? Inside the compressor ? At the nozzle or after it ? Depending on how much the air is diffused as it is sprayed, it might lose speed pretty quickly.
Just a few thoughts...
What happens if you are wearing a ring that is loose? Or if you have a band-aid on? Or stiches? What if someone leaves something loose in there, like a razor blade, that gets blown around and cuts up your hand?
The xlerator is pretty neat in how much faster it dries my hands, but it's a little bit disturbing to see the flesh on my hands turn into a turbulent sea. So the fact that this thing is even faster makes me wonder what it's gonna make your skin look like when it does it's thing.
Of course it's far faster so maybe you'll just notice your hands shake lol.
the japanese fixed this problem a long time ago.
I have something which dries just as well, MY PANTS. I can only imagine the number of saggy hands popping up with those blasts of wind up to 400 mph, which reminds me......
Better than paper towel. But thing is, I can't dry my shirt with this if I spill something on it. Otherwise, sounds nice.
Siouxie wrote:
"Has it occurred to all ye of "Howard Hughes Syndrome", You've already washed all the bacteria off of your hands and if you've done a proper job of it, used paper towels on the taps and doorknobs, no electric hand dryer at any speed is going to blow anything of any communicable significance back at you."
******************************************
"..........if you've done a proper job of it, used paper towels on the taps and doorknobs....."
Yeah, well, that's just it, isn't it. If we have to hope for every man doing a perfect job of washing his hands and using paper towels on the taps and so on, as you say, to keep this machine from spraying germ-infested waste water into the air, then we're going to be sorely disappointed.
I know they say it has a filter, but it just sounds disgusting. Not to mention, filters don't block it all and they stop working after awhile. And who knows when the employees get around to changing them?
Bathrooms also run out of soap, and many bathrooms that have dryers don't have paper towels at all.
So maybe in a perfect world someone's assurance that everything will be OK, would be OK. But we're talking about public bathrooms here, so let's keep it real.
Paper towels are the cleanest, most versatile, and cheapest way to go.
So, be good, be healthy. Now I've gotta go... there's a Howard Hughes documentary on the Biography Channel.
I've tried this, it works.
Bonus is, your hands does not need moisturiser afterwards as the air is not heated. It does NOT rip off you hands/skin, it feels very gentle. You don't touch anything when using it. It's open on both sides. And, if your wrists are wet, just start by sticking you hands deeper down in the airblade.. doh! Of course it won't rip on rings or jewellery.
Might be that the jet towel is similar in some ways, but the airblade filters the incoming air, and the waste water gets filtered clean from bacteria and turned into a harmless mist. The jet towel does not clean incoming air, or the waste water.
How about trying things for yourself OR use your intelligence just a little before trashing new products? ;o)
These are located in most or all the Restrooms along the Jersey Turnpike and I've used them. They seem to work very well.
I work in a factory and at this factory it is a big no-no to use the compressed air to blow of any part of your body. Evidently a person at one time did this and the air got into a small cut on her arm and blew the skin up off her arm ? I wasnt there when it happened but that is the way it is and thats the story and reasoning for their rule. So there might be a saftey concern with this product .