The worst thing about buying a fan is that it’s only useful to you in the summer. Sure, it delivers an icy breeze when you need it, but come autumn, you’re left lugging it into storage and forgetting about it until next year.
But the Dyson hot+cool formaldehyde does it all. It’s a fan, a heater and an air purifier in one machine, so you’ll actually use it all year round. Like every Dyson fan, it’s got the same minimalist tower design, with no ugly spinning blades, and that signature hole-in-the-middle look.
Despite all the tech crammed inside, it’s actually more compact than the cheaper models on this list, and looked tidy in pretty much any room I put it in. You can tilt the head, adjust oscillation (up to 350 degrees) and the LCD panel on the front gives live air quality updates, including VOCs, PM2.5, PM10 and more. It boasts a HEPA and carbon filter, and even tracks formaldehyde and breaks it down with a catalytic filter that never needs replacing, so musty smells and allergens were easily removed.
It’s fast, too. In testing, I noticed the fan cooled my room in just a few minutes, and the heater was equally quick to warm the space. There are ten speed settings and a night mode that drops the volume and dims the display. It’s quiet even at higher levels, supplying a relaxing, cool, smooth stream of air.
There’s also an auto mode, which monitors the air quality and temperature and adjusts the fan speed or switches between heating and cooling to maintain a comfortable temperature. If the air gets stuffy, it’ll quietly ramp up, but it doesn’t actually power itself on if the fan is on standby and the room warms up, which is a missed opportunity at this price point.
Surprisingly, the app’s actually worth using. It lets you check filter status, monitor air quality and tweak the airflow direction. The only thing I don’t like is that you have to point the remote at the machine to control it. I’ve used older Dyson fans before and I’ve always been able to control it without having to have the remote directly in the base’s line of sight. But like every other Dyson fan and purifier, the remote is magnetic and attaches neatly to the top of the unit, so at least it won’t go missing.
