Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic air purifier Review: Nothing should be spared in the fight against indoor air pollution

Oh no, it’s mighty expensive! I’m absolutely sure that’s how you would have started as soon as you saw the price tag of the new Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic air purifier. To be fair, I would have done the same for something with a price tag of Rs 61,900, but that’s before you know the party piece of this purifier. Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic is not only multiple devices in one i.e. an air purifier plus a room heater plus an air cooler in one, but it is also designed to destroy a pollutant that is quite common in our homes. And yet pretty ignored. No, not just PM10. Not just PM2.5. Not just gases and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Not just viruses. Not just bacteria. Not just allergens. The Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic is designed to destroy formaldehyde at the molecular level and has so-called Cryptomic technology which uses a unique catalytic coating with the same structure as the Cryptomelane mineral.

The Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic joins existing Dyson air purifiers in India, which now include the Dyson Pure Humidify+Cool (approximately Rs 55,900), Dyson Pure Hot+Cool (approximately Rs 55,900), the Dyson Pure Cool Advanced Technology (approximately Rs 55,900), Rs 45,900 for tower and Rs 39,900 for desk), Dyson Pure Cool Link Tower (approximately Rs 29,900) and the Dyson Pure Cool Me (approximately Rs 25,900). Right now, Dyson’s air purifiers are the only option if you want a room heater built into an air purifier, and one of the rare quality options if you want a humidifier integrated into an air purifier.

Why should you be concerned about formaldehyde?

Specific to the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic, the area of ​​focus besides what the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool does is formaldehyde. Easy to ignore, formaldehyde is 500 times smaller than a PM0.1 particle and most air purifiers don’t even attempt to filter out this air pollutant. If you think there is no problem with formaldehyde in your home, you are wrong. Many everyday household items are a source of formaldehyde, such as carpets, paints and varnishes, wood products, disinfectants and cleaners, scented candles, permanent presses, cigarettes and even deodorants. Yes, your home wouldn’t have any of these products if you weren’t using them

What the Cryptomic technology does with the unique catalytic coating and the Cryptomelane mineral is that they add what Dyson calls billions of atomic-sized tunnels to a mesh structure designed to trap and destroy formaldehyde by degrading it. break down into small amounts of water and CO2 . And then there are the redesigned filters that help capture air pollutants, including formaldehyde.

What’s special about the filters in the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic?

The Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic uses H-13 Glass HEPA and activated carbon filters that are vacuum sealed. The HEPA filter is made of nine meters of condensed and sealed borosilicate microfiber filters that can trap particles down to 0.1 microns. The activated carbon filter is coated with Tris, also called Trishydroxymethylaminomethane (that’s a mouthful, if there ever was one), for better absorption and removal of vapours, odors and gases in the room. Compared to the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool air purifier that came before it, the HEPA filter in the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic looks pretty much the same, but there’s a big difference, even visually, in the way the carbon filters are designed and packaged. The Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic gets two pairs of these, one in the front and one in the back, allowing for an almost 360 degree air intake.

Design is more of the same which is great

In terms of design, the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic is very similar to the Dyson Pure Hot + Cool. Except for the striking visual element which is the gold colored grille. You have complete flexibility to keep this on a low table or directly on the floor. That said, the design retains Dyson’s features, complete with the annular loop that can rotate around 350 degrees in oscillation mode (you can also choose between 45 degrees, 90 degrees and 180 degrees depending on the placement in your room) , the circular display for real-time statistics, a diffused air circulation mode and the 360-degree air intake vents.

The really neat option of switching between the direction of the airflow to the front or the diffuse mode makes a lot of sense, especially in winter, with the heating on or off. You may not always like a draft of air on your face, especially in this season, and the diffuse mode is ideal. Come summer, when the blast of air is more than welcome, the fan mode can be used.

The heating element adds a lot of value

To make the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic act as a room heater, ceramic plates are placed vertically in both annular air multiplication loops. Depending on the temperature you have set to keep the room at and in relation to the ambient temperature at that moment, these plates heat up. The air coming out of the purifier passes along these plates and heats up before entering the room. The Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic monitors the room temperature and heating of these plates to stop heating and save energy once the desired room temperature is reached. And kick back when you have to.

For me this works really well. According to data confirmed by external air quality monitors, the heater does not remove humidity from the air in the room. Unlike many room heaters, which dry out the air and lead to sore throat or nose and skin problems. Even further away from the raw data, the feeling of waking up in a heated room without the typical standard heating problems of an itchy throat or dry skin makes this worth every penny you spend.

Strong tests mean this is a very powerful air purifier

As an air purifier, the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic follows the same rulebook as its predecessors. Also because the physical size, ingredients and filter combinations remain the same. Even when the outside air quality was very poor and hovered above an AQI value of 350, the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic kept the nursery at a very healthy 19 grams/cubic meter (g/m3). And the humidity in the room, with a separate humidifier, stayed above 50% and there was no dip while the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic also ran in heating mode.

There’s a big difference in how Dyson develops and tests air purifiers compared to rivals. While most air purifiers are rated after what is called CADR (Clean Air Delivery Rate) testing, Dyson uses another test called POLAR. There are nice differences. The CADR test is performed in a room of approximately 11.8 m2 (127 sq. ft), where the purifier is placed in the center of the room, with an additional fan to circulate the air throughout the room and only one sensor to measure air quality. This is definitely not representative of the layout of most of our living rooms, which may not always have a ceiling fan to circulate the air (for example in winter) and certainly not have room for an air purifier in the center of the room. Dyson’s POLAR test does things differently. A POLAR test lab is based on a larger space of 27 m2 (290 sq ft), with no added fan. The air purifier is placed in the corner of the room, which mimics how it is used in our homes and pollution is injected into the room from the other corner. The test uses eight sensors in the corners of the room and one in the center, which detect particles from indoor air pollution 300 times narrower than a human hair. This is to test the performance of the purifier in the farthest corners of the room, not just in the immediate vicinity of the purifier.

There is no better Smart Air Purifier app

All functionality of the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic can be controlled by the Dyson Link app (free for Android and iOS). You get current indoor air statistics, outdoor air statistics for your city and historical data on the air quality in your room. You can also control everything from the fan speed to the operating mode. The purifier connects to your home Wi-Fi network on the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz band and can also pair with your Amazon Alexa assistant for voice commands to control the purifier’s functionality.

The last word: you get a lot in return for the heap of money you spend

Yes, you pay a significant amount for the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic air purifier. But it tackles two major problems in your home. One is the constant production of formaldehyde as a pollutant by static objects and products for everyday use. Secondly, the heating aspect for the cold winter days and nights. The reality is that most air purifiers are not equipped to deal with formaldehyde like the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Cryptomic, purely because of the Cryptomic technology and the renewed filters.