Dyson has unveiled its first-ever piece of wearable tech with the Dyson Zone air-purifying, noise-cancelling headphones.
These sci-fi-looking cans could tackle one the biggest issues of city living – providing air-purifying filters to improve the quality of the air you breathe in and noise-cancelling capabilities to drown out the noise pollution you face on your morning commute or outside jog.
While they’re still several months from release, Dyson is already making some big promises about the capabilities of the Dyson Zone headphones. The company claims that the Zone will deliver an audio performance to rival some of the best headphones out there as well as a mask that could outpace the Razer Zephyr in terms of fashion and function.
Here’s everything we know about the Dyson Zone air-purifying headphones so far.
Dyson Zone: price
Dyson hasn’t yet released the pricing of its Dyson Zone air-purifying, noise-cancelling headphones, but we suspect they’ll cost a fair bit more than your standard pair of cans.
Dyson air purifiers typically start at around $400 / £350 / AU$600. However, as the Zone are much more unique and feature-heavy than a regular air purifier, we could see Dyson charging a fair bit more for it.
Considering that you could pick up the best noise-cancelling headphones out there (the Sony WH-1000XM4) for $349.99 / £349 / AU$549 at launch, it wouldn’t surprise us if Dyson’s first headphones come in at around $500 / £450 / $650. We’ll have to wait and see what the company has in store for us, though.
Dyson Zone: release date
While Dyson hasn’t given us a firm release date it has said that the new Dyson Zone headphones will be available online and in-store in “Autumn 2022” (that’s Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere so September through November).
Given the world’s ongoing shipping and manufacturing issues, we suspect Dyson will leave us waiting for a more specific release date for a while.
We’ll be sure to keep you up to date with everything as we hear it, but you can also register your interest at Dyson US or Dyson UK if you want to be sure you’re as up-to-date as possible.
Dyson Zone: audio performance
The Dyson Zone are set to offer a mix of premium features for audiophiles and the health-conscious alike.
While we haven’t been able to test these headphones for ourselves to verify the claims, Dyson is already making bold promises about the audio performance the Zone can deliver. Specifically, it says that the device’s “high performing neodymium electroacoustic system” can deliver audio as the artist intended.
This likely means high-fidelity (or lossless) audio support, and potentially some form of spatial audio support to create a realistic soundstage – again, though, we’ll have to wait and see.
Much like other noise-cancelling cans, the Dyson Zone will have three options: Isolation, Conversation, and Transparency. Isolation, as you can guess from the name, will be the highest level of noise cancellation, for when you want a fully immersive audio experience.
Conversation mode is switched on when you pull down the air-purifying visor; the air purification will switch off and the voices around you will be amplified. Lastly, Transparency mode will let you stay aware of your environment – it’s designed to amplify key sounds like emergency service sirens or informational announcements.
Dyson Zone: air purification
As for air purification, Dyson says that the Zone can capture 99% of particle pollution including dust, pollen, and bacteria, and can filter city gasses like NO2, SO2, and O3. It does this using two motors that sit inside the earcups.
The visor that provides the air purification also comes with in-the-box add-ons to modify it for different scenarios. There’s the regulator visor, a face-covering attachment that forms a seal around your face, and an FFP2-compliant face covering to meet certain filtration standards.
The Zone will offer four air-purifying modes: Low, Medium, High, and Auto. As the headphones are designed with fitness in mind, the Auto mode will automatically switch between the different settings based on the information from the onboard accelerometers. So, if you’re running and breathing heavily, the Zone will toggle to the High setting to filter air more quickly as you inhale and exhale rapidly.
If you want to focus on the music and don’t need the air purification at all, then the visor can be detached.
Dyson Zone: battery life
We don’t yet have any details about battery life, but we suspect it could sit toward the lower end of the scale – especially if you have ANC and air-purifying settings turned up as high as they’ll go.
As such, we’d be surprised if these cans could boast a battery life longer than 10 hours under these conditions. That said, with the visor detached and ANC off you might see a performance that’s more in line with regular wireless headphones like the Sony WH-1000XM4, which offer up to 38 hours of playback.
We’ll just have to see what Dyson announces as we get closer to the release date.
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