Dyson’s Fan of the Future Has No Blades

As a fan of Dyson’s hand dryers (they actually work!), I’m confident that a new blade-free fan from the traditionally vacuum-oriented company is nothing short of awesome. And Wired has confirmed as much in a recent hands-on with the Dyson Air Multiplier. The blade-less fan is essentially a reverse vacuum, sucking up air from the bottom of its base station and pushing it through the big blue ring on top. The pressure difference forces even more air towards the user, coming from both the sides and the rear of the ring (hence the fan’s name). The multiplier provides 15 times more pressure and forces out 118 gallons of air per minute, according to Dyson.

And no, Dyson’s Air Multiplier doesn’t sound like a vacuum. Wired says there’s “virtually no operating noise aside from the light hum of the engine and whoosh of the blowing gas.” At $330, this blade-less fan will probably cost you more than an air conditioner, but it’ll hopefully consume less energy and work just as well. And as James Dyson told Reuters, “we are delivering something better, so it’s bound to cost more.” Dyson hinted that more crazy products are on the way, involving electric motors batteries, but wouldn’t elaborate. [via Wired]