The Dyson Airblade: not all that original

After we brought you news of Dyson's "revolutionary" new Airblade hand-drying system yesterday, the comments that followed were pretty equally divided into two camps: about half of you were worried that the high-speed pressurized air would rip the skin and fingernails right off your hands, while the other half pointed out that similar devices have been available overseas for many years. Well sure enough, we just "caught wind" of another such dryer from Mitsubishi -- called the Jet Towel -- and not only does it offer similar guarantees of speedy drying and improved hygiene, it's actually shaped almost exactly like the Dyson model. Now there's nothing wrong with releasing a competing product onto the market -- hey, that's what capitalism is all about -- but we've got to take issue with Dyson's press release that states "The hand dryer: dirty, ineffective and expensive to run...so we reinvented it." Um, no you didn't -- you just took an existing dryer, added an iodine resin filter, and snazzed up the design quite a bit. Oh, and for the commenters concerned that those 400MPH air "blades" will ruin your expensive manicures, you'll be happy to learn that the Jet Towel is a much pokier machine: its blower can barely manage to break 200MPH.

[brian @ Oct 5th 2006 7:40PM]

this is true. japan had these for a couple of years and they are amazing! not only do you dry your hands in about 5 seconds (completely), no water puddle underneath the machine forms.

you definitely do not need 400 mph... that's completely unnecessary because ~200mph, or the jet dry, works perfectly fine.

[J S @ Oct 5th 2006 7:41PM]

Air drying versus clean towel. When you're air dried, no matter how fast the breeze .. i think there will be residue .. because evaporation is the dominant process .. the dirt gets left behind. But maybe if you use a clean towel there's reduced residue because you wipe away dirt that is mixed with the water (if breeze was strong enough alone you wouldn't bother getting your hands wet in solvent would you?). Of course, if your towel is dirty then all bets are off. Oh yeah, I havent done research or studies on this .. so I'm just speculating.. anyone know the truth?

[alan @ Oct 5th 2006 8:06PM]

If you are using most soaps especially with a surfactant, part of the soap attaches to the dirt and the other part bonds to the water so if you use air pressure or any other means to remove the water you end up removing all of the dirt, soap and water. In these units there must be some kind of suction collection system of a kind or perhaps the dirt and soap end up in the air and on the surfaces. With towels you get to see the excess dirt but most of it hopefully went down the sink.

[Stephen Yuan @ Oct 6th 2006 6:51PM]

My friend who watched a documentary about Germs said it's not only unessassary to use anti-bateria soups, but it's actually counter productive. The "polar bond" effect in water molecues is the main reason you get a clean hand after washing. And anyone who's still in biology class prlly still remember(I hope so) that soups diffuses lipids, and that's why it's effective against "grease". As for the paper towel argument, I think it actually makes ur hand dirtier. Micro fibers from the towel can be left on your hand. Too bad.....Hand dyer just totally beats paper towels. These type of dryers still can't "dry" your hand as effective as paper towels, I can still some tiny amont of water on my hand. But after 5 secs leaving the dryer, the sensation's gone, and my hand's totally dry due to evaporation.

[K @ Oct 5th 2006 7:42PM]

Isn't 'Airblade' a bad name for this.
Oooo...its gonna cut my hands off, if I put my hands in that blade thing

[Duodenum @ Oct 5th 2006 7:57PM]

So, what you're saying is, it's entirely impossible that nobody at Dyson had ever seen or heard of one of these Japanese hand driers, because everyone everywhere in every country in the world is aware of hand drier technology in Japan. Couldn't POSSIBLY be a coincidence. Never.

[Euan @ Oct 5th 2006 7:58PM]

They both are only cleaner if they don't intake the air in from the restroom environment. That is my fundamental problem with current hand driers, they use the air from inside the toilet itself. God knows what it is sucking in and firing at your hands.

[Mike @ Oct 5th 2006 9:10PM]

Euan-

From specs I read about this on Gizmag, the Dyson has a filter on the intake to avoid the exact situation you described...

[lejupp @ Oct 6th 2006 9:46AM]

No matter what kind of dirt, I rather have it on my hands than in my lungs. So do you stop breathing in the restroom?

[AlphaGeek @ Oct 5th 2006 8:00PM]

I encountered one of these 'jet-dry' systems at the Mount Rushmore KOA this summer. It wasn't any of the brands cited in the post. What it WAS was seriously damn loud. Damage-your-hearing-loud. Small-children-fleeing-in-terror loud, not that I blamed them -- the high-frequency noise was probably 10x more painful for their ears than mine.

Until they find a way to make these things as quiet as, say, a paper towel dispenser or at worst one of the low-volume/heated blow-dryers, I say NO THANKS.

[Stephen Yuan @ Oct 6th 2006 6:53PM]

lol, that cracks me up! The got a jet engine in it!

[John Connuck @ Oct 5th 2006 8:01PM]

Yeah, they have these in japan, the truth is they all pretty much look alike. They work really well also. Much better than the standard hand dryers that we have in the US.

[Stephen Liu @ Oct 5th 2006 8:08PM]

I've actually used those Mitsubishi air dryers in Taiwan. Those really do dry off very well. As long as you don't just whip your hands out of the dryer, at least.

[Oddmanout @ Oct 5th 2006 8:15PM]

I can hear the board room meeting of a few years ago over at Dyson now...

"Well, now that we PWN the vacuum cleaner
market, what should we do next?"

' Hey! I was in Japan 2 weeks ago, and as I was watching my hands dry in about 5 seconds in this really nifty, totally different hand drying
appliance, and out of nowhere I had a FABULOUS idea...'


Seriously...did all you Engadget peeps NOT know about the hand driers in Japan when posting the original Dyson article? Have some of you actually NOT been to Japan yet ?

This is not a criticism, but a simple admonisment -> VISIT JAPAN!

At least 1/2 the Gadgets you guys report on, and probably 2/3 of the hot chick picks you guys post come from Japan. It is a proffessional responsibility for you guys to journey to this Mecca of electronics (Quick! before South Korea takes the title...though Seoul's a pretty snazzy place too. THEY have these hand dryers AND mouth wash dispensers in their restrooms...).

Seriously, it's a beautiful country stuffed to the gills with interesting gadgets and equally interesting people. And after entertaining us (and tantalising us with gadgets we can't get except by grey market import) for so many years, you guys deserve a vacation...albeit a WORKING vacation (tax write off)...

Heck...the 'Engadget 1985' post alone merits a reward of such proportions...

Many Thanks Engadget!

[Juned Shaikh @ Oct 5th 2006 8:27PM]

I prefer World Dryer Air max

[Trejkaz @ Oct 5th 2006 8:27PM]

Having just been to Japan (actually I'm still there, today is check out day) I'll agree that almost all driers are of this type, however it's also true that the vast majority of restrooms don't even have a drier. :-)

[Nick @ Oct 7th 2006 7:28PM]

Yea it's true, they've already moved on to ultra quick drying purifying ionic breeze water from the tap which doesn't require a dryer or hand towel. Dyson is definitely a blatant rip-off though. I wonder if mitsubishi has any patents on the thing.

[michael @ Oct 5th 2006 9:00PM]

this, by the way, is what happens when you report press releases as new.

[michael @ Oct 5th 2006 9:01PM]

well, as *news* anyway.

[TZK @ Oct 5th 2006 9:26PM]

RE-INVENTED, engadget, not INVENTED it. You guys so "uum" an aweful lot. I prefer the 400MPH model :)

[diulei @ Oct 5th 2006 9:29PM]

Hm, I recall seeing these in Japan a while back too. They were very common as well.

On another note - has anyone ever come across the sink + dryer combos? The dryer is integrated into the sink; I ran across a few in Japan.

The soap, water, and dryer are all automatic, with the soap and water faucet in the traditional places, but the dryer is part of the sink in the area right in front of where you would stand.

So you wash your hands, and then bring them closer to you to dry. That was quite a cool sink.

[Beaver6813 @ Jun 27th 2007 1:33PM]

Don't they have those in mcdonalds...

[Stuart Fleming @ Oct 5th 2006 9:57PM]

I used Jet Towel in a Mitsibushi factory in Scotland and it is one of the best hand dryers i have ever used...

[Spiza @ Oct 5th 2006 10:11PM]

I don't know if it was the same, but I used a hand dryer in Campton, KY at a gas station at the intersection of 15 and 191 that made my screen ripple from the air blast.

[Greg @ Oct 6th 2006 12:08AM]

"I used a hand dryer...that made my screen ripple from the air blast."

Using your laptop in the restroom again, eh?

[mudlouse @ Oct 5th 2006 10:41PM]

They probably have at least one type of these in every developed country. There's definetly some in Hong Kong and even in Britain.

They're not supposed to dry your hands by evaporation, the curtain of air act to push the water towards the tips of your fingers and off your hand.

[Zach @ Oct 5th 2006 10:54PM]

I've actually seen these types of hand driers in the United States. For the life of me I can't recall where, but I do remember after reading this, completely remembering back to a handdrier that actually worked here .


Mouthwash depensers really aren't all that uncommon to find?

[Jeff @ Oct 5th 2006 11:01PM]

Yeah, when I was in korea, I saw one and used one.......in fact I thought it was so cool I took a picture of it

[cc @ Oct 6th 2006 1:19AM]

For the benefit of the person who suggested that Dyson coincidentally came up with this device and didn't rip off a Japanese dryer, I saw a Japanese educational show about a year or so ago where they interviewed James Dyson in Japan... he was talking about the lack of originality and design sense of the Japanese companies that ripped off his vacuum cleaner design, which makes this even funnier.

I cannot fathom that he didn't encounter one of these dryers while over there... they are literally the only way to dry your hands in the bathroom short of carrying a handkerchief or wiping on your pants, as roughly 99.9% of Japanese washrooms don't have paper towels.

[Jeff D @ Oct 6th 2006 2:51AM]

As others have said, these are all over Japan, as there is rarely paper towels provided.

[Berkana @ Oct 6th 2006 3:13AM]

NEC (I think) also has a pretty cool hand drying machine that is pretty quiet, very effective, good looking, and has a cool glowing bar that changes color to indicate how warm the air is as it warms up, dries your hands, and cools down.

Dyson is behind the curve on this one.

[Inferno @ Oct 6th 2006 4:33AM]

have you been to the UK, ours are attrotious, dont care if someone else invented it as long as all the clubs and pubs are getting them sometime soon.

[treetrunk @ Oct 6th 2006 5:04AM]

How can you possibly take issue with this, but none of Apple's even more over-the-top claims? A typical Apple product announcement consists of them claiming to have "revolutionised" just about everything, "reinvented" everything else, and generally making the entire world a better place for everyone.

Were you to apply the same logic to the apparently "completely remastered" iPod Nano you'd have said "um, no you didn't- you just took an existing product, upped the capacity a little and snazzed up the design a bit".

I realise this blog has a bit of an Apple fetish, but this is just plain double-standards.

[Ferris @ Oct 6th 2006 8:11AM]

For the people worried about sanitation, either one is a terrible device. It looks as though the area where the hands are inserted is rather small, making it easy to accidentally touch one of the potentially dirty surfaces.

I'll take paper towel over one of these things ANY day.

[brandon @ Oct 6th 2006 8:50AM]

i have one of these at work and it rocks, so does the heated toliet seat and butt washer. ( i live in japan) but it doesn't come with a set of ear plugs. I can hear this all the way down the hall. (almost the other side of my floor.) I can't imagine having one twice as strong. It would make you deaf.

[Phily @ Oct 6th 2006 9:27AM]

http://www.parish-supply.com/xlerator_dryer.htm

[John Stracke @ Oct 6th 2006 9:48AM]

Yes! I love the Xlerator. The Museum of Science (Boston) installed a few a year or two ago, and they're great--the only air dryers I've seen that can actually get my hands dry. I've seen a few more since then, too.

Unfortunately, the noise terrifies my kids (4 years old), who are almost always along when I go to the MoS. We've had to give up using the restrooms that have the Xlerator.

[Phily @ Oct 6th 2006 9:29AM]

Meant to add, I used one like that in Manchester 2 years ago.
Nothing new, its kinda mad the way it makes your skin ripple :)

[Veronica @ Oct 6th 2006 11:06AM]

We've got this in our public toilets here in Singapore for years too...

[boy1der @ Oct 6th 2006 11:29AM]

I live in Seattle, and one of our local sushi resturants has the jet towel. I have used it, and I think that people's concerns for the 400 mph winds are somewhat legitimate. It doesn't really hurt (at 200 mph), but it wasn't the most plesant experience. I do like it much better than the american hand dryers, but if the wind speed was doubled to 400 mph, I can definately see how that could be uncomfortable. The 200 mph of the jet dry is perfectly fine and doesn't need to be messed with. And to call this a "reinvention" is a poor excuse to play off many American's ignorance of Japanese culture/technology as these are very common in Japan.

[uhoo @ Oct 6th 2006 2:26PM]

The Dyson is so obviously a rip-off of the Mitsubishi .. It even has the same orange LED lighting!!

[wahoooo @ Oct 7th 2006 8:32AM]

Yeah, the editors really need to visit Japan.

But all the rosy comments about Japanese technical superiority (inclduing those of the editors) are simply inaccurate. They just keep their own new products to themselves for a few months to make themselves feel advanced. If they decide not to send a product to the US at all, it's probably because said product is all flash and no substance.

For instance: DoCoMo releases ten new cellphones every month, all with virtually the same feature set. But can you buy a single Windows Mobile phone from them? Unless you're a large corporation, no.

Duodenum's comment about dyson not knowing about the Japanese products is frankly silly.

[LardTarget @ Oct 7th 2006 9:26AM]

Having worked at Dyson I'd take their claims of 400mph with a pinch of salt, they often over egg their stats.

The thinking is (and I got this from a marketing bod) if they make a dodgey claim about something and get caught out all they can be made to do is stop making the calim, but the calim will be in the public mind by then

they used to claim their vacs moved air at 900mph! Turns out it was 90! Easy mistake!

I can belive that they missed the other competitor products. They tend to be pretty bad at looking at outside the organisation, they are convinced that they are so cool and clever that no one else could possibly come up with their idea. If anyone outside says it's a bad idea it's because they are to blinkered and not innovative enough.

I don't mean this about the actual people there, they were some of the nicest people I've worked with,, but the company culture is very much "We're Dyson, we're right everyone else is wrong"

[Morty Salt @ Oct 8th 2006 4:59PM]

I actually much prefer the look of the mitsubishi model. I've talke to a few jewelers who have had to reset stones because of this sucker...er blower. Though the prongs were a bit loose anyhow.

[Mr_boogie @ Oct 11th 2006 5:29AM]

Just saw one of these Mitsubishi ones in Shinjuku Station Department Store, Tokyo. Very nice indead, as it quickly dries the air of your hands (but you still feel that there is a small humidity (confortable one) in your hands, that makes you feel good about it).

[dave @ May 19th 2008 8:18PM]

the dyson airblade is so cooooool! i first read about it ages ago. but i was really surprised to see not one but two in the boys toilets at uni today! omg these things are really fast at drying hands and i was in awe just looking at my hands for ages after using one seeing how dry they are. was just wondering how much they are to buy? been searchign around but no figures..