Dyson Pure Hot+Cool review

As you probably know by now, Dyson doesn’t just make vacuum cleaners but also a range of other sleek devices for the home. Its latest is a fan, heater and air purifier in one. Here’s our Pure Hot+Cool review.

It’s perhaps hard to choose a fan or a heater with so many bland, generic designs out there. They’re all the same anyway, aren’t they? Turns out they’re not and the Dyson is like the Bugatti of the fan heater world.

Price

It’s perhaps no surprise that the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool isn’t the cheapest of smart home devices on the market. In fact, you might balk at its £549/$649 price tag but there’s a lot going on here, so it could well be worth the investment.

You can buy it directly from Dyson in the UK or retailers like AO and John Lewis. In the US, you can also go to Dyson or Amazon.

This is Dyson’s most expensive fan/heater and we’ll explain all in this review. Check out the best fan and best heaters.

Design & Build

If you’ve seen Dyson’s other fans or heaters then the Pure Hot+Cool follows that form. It’s a sleek and distinctive style that’s quite futuristic in true Dyson fashion – it wouldn’t look out of place in the film Passengers.

It’s tall, yet compact and has that now iconic loop design where the centre is completely hollow. It’s no magic trick: you can stick your hand right through it.

The lower part looks similar to other models, like the Pure Cool Tower, with a silver cylinder (other colours are available in the US) punched through with small holes. Inside this section sits the filters. We found them a little bit tricky to install at first – it seemed like there wasn’t enough space – but we got there in the end.

Once the filters are in and you’ve found a suitable power outlet you can get going.

One feature the Pure Hot+Cool brings versus its predecessor (the Hot+Cool Link) in terms of design is that a small LCD screen sits on the front. This is really useful, giving you a nice way of interacting with the device. It’s also on the Pure Cool Tower. 

Using the remote control, which attaches to the top with a magnet like other models, you can flick through a variety of different displays on the screen. It can tell you basic things like the current and target temperature, various details about the air quality and more.

Because this is all in real-time, the only thing to bear in mind here is that some screens take a while to load information while the air is tested so can show a spinning arrow for a while.

What we’d really like is some more buttons on the fan itself, so you can make basic adjustments without needing the remote or app. Even just temperature and fan speed would be helpful.

Features & Performance

The function of the Pure Hot+Cool is somewhat given away in the name. This is three devices in one, offering an air purifier, cooling fan and heater. There will be no chucking this into the loft for half the year.

If you’re used to a basic fan or heater with perhaps three different settings, the Pure Hot+Cool is a bit like jumping from driving a car to flying a plane. There are 10 fan speeds and you can set the temperature between 0 and 37 Celsius (we imagine the US model comes in Fahrenheit but the site doesn’t say).

There’s plenty more adjustment too, with a tilt function (surprising for large device) and up to 350 degrees of oscillation. If you just want it to purify the air without blasting you, there’s a diffuse mode which essentially means air is kicked out the back instead.

As you might hope at this price, performance is excellent with a smooth, near- jet stream of air doing the job. We found the Pure Hot+Cool managed to heat a cold room (a medium-sized lounge) to the high teens (Celsius) in around 20-30 minutes.

Cooling is almost as impressive and while it might not blow you as strongly as some fans, that can easily be a bit much. The Dyson cools more gently, and the amount of control with fan speed combined with oscillation is unrivalled. 

The device is very quiet in everything it does, even at a high fan speed so if you’re often annoyed by a loud fan then this will be blissful. You won’t need to turn the TV volume to max in order to hear it over the fan.

There’s even a night mode which ensures the quietest settings and also switches off the screen, making it perfect if you’re looking for something to help you sleep at night.

What you can’t see, or sense, is the filters doing their job but the screen or app (see below) will tell you all the hard work it’s doing. Our test environment wasn’t particularly challenging but if you live in a city centre, then you’ll notice what the device is doing to your air quality.

Dyson says that it captures 99.95% of ultra-fine particles such as allergens and pollutants. We can’t verify that but it sounds good and one of the displays will let you know how they are doing in terms of lifespan.

Like the Pure Hot+Cool Link, you can hook your phone or tablet up to the device. This added smart element is great, giving you another way to control the device. Of course, it’s more faff than the remote control for quick changes but you can do things like set the heater going so a room is nice and warm when you get home.

Verdict

This is, of course, a very expensive fan heater but it’s also a cooling fan and air purifier as well, so it’s a year-round product – justifying the cost somewhat.

The main addition compared to the Hot+Cool Link is the small LCD screen on the front so you can save a little bit if this is a luxury you can do without.

Screen or not, the Pure Hot+Cool is not a jack of all trades, master of none. It’s excellent at everything. If you can afford one, you won’t be disappointed.