Look Like Bane, Spend Like Batman With $949 Headphones • The Register

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If you’ve ever thought “I wish my expensive Bluetooth headphones were twice the price and included a detachable mask that shot fresh air in my face,” then Dyson has the product for you.

The Dyson Zone headphones come with a removable “visor” that uses a pair of compressors and electrostatic filters to “force fresh air over the wearer’s nose and mouth.” Don’t think this is actually a protective device, though, as the mask does not touch the wearer’s face, which means there is no seal protecting you from contaminated crossbreezes.

Instead, Dyson sees its headphones and its air filtration system as something designed to “meet the twin challenges of city noise and air pollution”—if you’ve got $949 to spare, that is.

British company Biz, which moved its headquarters to Singapore a few years ago, is primarily known for its vacuum cleaners, bladeless fans and other air-moving items. It made its first foray into audio products with the Zone, which gets its filtration power from a pair of 9,750-rpm compressors in the ear cups paired with negatively charged electrostatic filters.

Without knowing how loud the dual compressors in the ear cups are, it’s hard to say how much work a noise-canceling system would do in the area just to reduce the noise generated by the headphones themselves.

The only possible clue comes in the form of Dyson’s word on how many microphones the Zone has: eleven, eight of which are used to capture and reduce up to 38dB of environmental noise. Dyson nominates one microphone for use on phone calls, leaving two missing — perhaps only used to dampen compressor noise.

Dyson claims its in-zone filters last 12 months and can capture 99 percent of particles as small as 0.1 micron2, as well as nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and ozone. Dyson Zones will have an associated smartphone app to control airflow speed, equalizer features, and noise cancellation, as well as showing you local air quality.

Oh, and they produce sound, too

It took Dyson six years and 500 prototypes to come to the final design area. The ad revealed the prototypes included “a snorkel-like air squeaker paired with a backpack to hold the engine and internal workings.”

Much of that time seems to have been spent trying by Dyson teams around the world to integrate the visor and solve a “problem made by Dyson” – namely noise that required an “advanced noise-canceling system”.

In terms of headphones, the range appears to be at least comparable to devices like Apple’s AirPods Max – a pair of over-ear headphones with a similar design. Like the AirPods Max, not many area audio specs are delivered, apart from promises that it can reproduce frequencies from 6Hz to 12kHz and promises of “absolute clarity” across the audio ranges.

As for battery life, the Zone appears to be getting up to 50 hours of listening time. With the air purifier running that drops to just four hours—maybe less if the air purifier is run on a higher setting.

Then there is the issue of weight. The Dyson, with its visor attached, weighs 670 grams, or about a pound and a half. On the other hand, the AirPods Max weigh only 384 grams, or just under one pound. Even with the visor removed, the Area still weighs in at around 595g — which is huge to carry around on your head.

If you’re still eager to get a mouthful of clean air from your audio rig—as much as you’d expect from a forced air visor that doesn’t hang on your face—you’ll have to put in a little leg work to get a pair as soon as they’re available next year.

The Dyson Zone will go on sale in China in January 2023, while customers in the US, UK, Hong Kong and Singapore will have to wait until March. Even at this point, Dyson isn’t making it easy: At least for US customers, the region will only be available at launch for pre-order by appointment, with stores and the internet getting stock “soon after.” ®

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