The Dyson Blade™

I was in the Victoria & Albert the other day and when I went to dry my hands after visiting the toilet I noticed a new (to me) wall-mounted air dryer, called the Dyson Blade.

A rush of cold air emerging from a thin slit slammed into my hands, which were placed within a groove shaped to fit the hands. It dries hands in ten seconds, much less than the normal time of the ones that lumber into action and slowly get warm. It is the speed of the air that does it, evidently, squeezed through a slot no wider than an eyelash. A fellow blogger has a picture of it on their site. Certainly cool in every way. James Dyson started as an industrial designer, and it shows.

Of course, when I got home I tracked down the patent specification, Drying Apparatus. It was only published in February 2007 so it's quite new. It is being marketed in the USA as the Dyson AirBlade™.

Damp hands are much more liable to contamination than dry hands, and the Dyson web site claims that it uses 80% less energy than other hand driers.

Comments

[anon]

i used one and thought it was rubbish

[Nigel Brown]

I have used the one at the mall Bristol, it was very effective.