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Dyson's latest AirBlade dries your freshly washed hands straight from the Tap
While it was never the most original take on powerful commercial hand driers, the Dyson AirBlade has nevertheless been an admirable piece of public restroom kit. Now seven years since its official debut, the company's refreshed the super-charged water dissipator to be 5.5-pounds lighter, dubbing it the AirBlade mk2. Taking things a step further, a new V-shaped model can output the same 420mph blower speed in a package that's roughly sixty-percent smaller. Dyson didn't stop there, though, as its Tap model brings the tech straight to the faucet. The stainless steel enclosure houses the same 1,400-watt DC brushless motor as the previous models, dispersing HEPA-filtered "sheets" of air through a single laser-cut slit in each of two wings that extend from the Tap's sides. The silenced, carbon fiber-enclosed motor is positioned away from the sink whether it's on a wall or a counter, leaving only the streamlined faucet in view. More interesting yet, we're told it reaches 92,000RPM in about 0.7 seconds! Of course, the system is totally automated, with infrared sensors for the water and dryer portions. Sure, over-engineered does come to mind, but we can't say we wouldn't be giddy to get our mitts under one at some point. As it stands, hand-washing connoisseurs can begin placing orders for the Tap come February 5th, and the others in May. For now, you can get your hands dirty (clean?) by clicking past the break for the obligatory detailed press release and video demo.
Panasonic's Quick Power Dry hand dryer promises 2-3 second escapes from public toilets
Unless you're a member of the US Senate or a British pop star, most people aren't looking to linger about the dank confines of public toilets. Enter Panasonic and its new Quick Power Dry hand dryer that promises dry hands in just 2-3 seconds with the help of its 280MPH blower. That's an "industry fastest" dry-time according to Panasonic and a crushing blow (har!) to Dyson's Airblade that dries hands in 12 seconds despite 400MPH blasts of air. The wall-mountable Panny FJ-T13V1-W dryer is available now for ¥214,200 -- that's $2,280 in US monies which means you can forget about seeing 'em installed in the New York subway. [Via Impress]
Latest sign of the apocalypse: ad-spewing hand dryers
Ah, so now we know why other hand dryer manufacturers have not yet moved over to the high-speed Airblade / JetTowel model: they've been biding their time until we're totally accustomed to those interminable drying sessions, all the while planning to subject us to advertisements while we stand there helplessly with our hands dripping. Well played.[Via The Raw Feed]
Hands-on with Dyson's hurricane of a hand dryer, the Airblade
Although James Dyson may not actually have been the first person to "reinvent" the unhygienic ol' hand dryer, his company's Airblade does seem to be the most powerful option out there for getting the wet stuff off (save for FIU's Wall of Wind), so folks are naturally concerned that its 400mph blast of air will cut through their tender skin like a laser. Well fear not, frequenters of public restrooms, because Popular Science has gone head hand-to-head with one of the new blowers, risking life and limb to make sure that your next trip to the bathroom won't be even more dangerous than usual. Oddly enough, the PopSci guinea pig tester didn't actually use the machine to dry his mitts, but rather chose a few more visually-expressive experiments to evaluate the Airblade's power (and safety). In the linked video, you can check out what happens to a human hand under the effects of the Dyson (spoiler: it dimples the skin, but doesn't leave the bloody welts that some were expecting), along with its ability to blast away tiny Post-It notes and completely pwn a sheet of newspaper. Just remember, we're not responsible for what happens when you get caught by a business owner making a mess of his / her restroom during your attempts at replicating these experiments, so proceed with caution.[Thanks, Drakonen]
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.
