“Project 571” was a closely guarded industrial secret for six years. In a confusing movement of diversification in portable connected objects, the British manufacturer Dyson presented this Wednesday the Zone, an audio headset with active noise reduction (ANC) equipped with a miniaturized air purifier. Dual goals: tackling noise pollution while improving the quality of the air inhaled by the user.
These on-ear headphones have 8 microphones that pick up outside noise and produce an inverse audio signal that cancels out the hubbub. A great classic for the insulating headphones found in the barons of the market: Bose, Sony or Sennheiser.
But, beyond its in-house design, the Zone should above all stand out with a distinctive buzz linked to its most innovative function. In concrete terms, the two motors housed in each earphone are activated like compressors and suck in the outside air that a system of filters will purify. The on-board technology is obviously inspired by the patents of the brand known for its fans, hair dryers and other vacuum cleaners. The two streams of purified air are then projected towards the nose and the mouth protected by a visor which remains at a good distance from the face. Its use goes, according to Dyson, beyond the current Covid 19 pandemic because the Zone has filters for ultra-fine particles such as allergens and all particles suspended in the air of large polluted cities.
Between active noise reduction and air purification, it is a question here of plunging the wearer of the helmet into a bubble.
Dyson engineers exhausted 500 prototypes and hundreds of materials before finding the right formula. “The hardest part was integrating the speakers into a helmet with motors that take up space in the ear cups,” they explain. In the first versions, the helmet included a kind of snorkel and required a backpack to carry the engine of the air purifier.
The final product promises 40 hours of battery life for audio and six hours when headphones and breathing filters work in concert. The device is obviously reminiscent of science fiction movies where extreme air pollution means constantly wearing a portable filtration device. In the near future, the Dyson Zone will be marketed at an unknown price in 2023 in the shops of the company founded by James Dyson.