$649 Dyson Fan vs. $15 Walmart Fan: The Hard Truth

when i was about 13 years old the first fan made by dyson was released into the world called the dyson air multiplier a bladeless air pusher that looks crazy futuristic for its time and super cool these things popped up in stores everywhere and every time i saw one i got a little bit excited about owning one someday well today some 12 years later is that day i bought this dyson pure cool smart fan for a whopping 650 canadian dollars or just over 500 us dollars for my american friends and i'm going to be comparing it to this 15 cheapo fan that i bought from walmart that i was using previously now you might think that this is a bit of an unfair fight given that the dyson fan costs about 43 times as much or something like that but when i tested each of these fans using some scientific measuring tools the results were not at all what i was expecting first though let's talk about what exactly you get for your 650 dollars with this dyson fan the dyson purecool is a combination of two different products a tower fan and an air purifier the base of the fan is a cylinder that contains two glass hepa filters and two activated carbon filters that are able to capture things like pollen bacteria ozone and other harmful airborne things that you really don't want floating around your house whenever the filter detects the presence of something in the air it'll notify you on the small lcd panel right now my air quality is good but if i spray some deodorant nearby it's like oh no there's bad stuff in your air it'll filter out the chemicals and the air quality will go back to normal pretty basic air purifier stuff the fan connects to the dyson link app where you can see your air quality over time and use the remote button to control the fan speed oscillation airflow direction and timer of course you can also use the small aluminum remote that comes with the fan if you don't want to keep taking out your phone every time when controlling the fan any button you press will be mirrored on the lcd panel so you know exactly what you're doing if you want to change the direction of airflow for example pressing that button will display a little bit of an animation showing exactly which direction the air is now moving in you can also toggle through a selection of information windows that will display the different air quality types temperature humidity and filter life then there's the fan itself now this is the part that had me a little bit excited as a kid there are no exposed blades here like on a traditional fan and it makes the fan look a lot more modern it's also a lot safer for small children or pets but here's my number one question is this air multiplier design actually better than the traditional fan with exposed blades that we're all used to to answer that question i enlisted the help of two different scientific instruments an anemometer and a sound meter the anemometer measures the wind speed of air passing through a turbine the turbine will spin and the anemometer will count the number of times the blades spin per second and it'll convert that data into wind speed in miles or kilometers per hour the sound meter is basically just a very sensitive microphone that will tell us exactly how loud each of these fans are at the various fan speeds the best fans will naturally have the highest wind speeds from the anemometer and the lowest decibel rating from the sound meter first up the wind speed test i put the anemometer on a tripod and measured the wind speed at maximum power of both fans at three foot and six foot distances the dyson hit wind speeds of 4.9 miles per hour at 3 feet and 3.1 miles per hour at six feet i repeated the test at all power levels one through ten and these are the results i got at both distances now these numbers looked pretty okay to me until i compared it to the walmart fan at maximum power the 15 walmart fan had wind speeds of 6.5 miles per hour at 3 feet and 5.1 at 6 feet which means on average this cheapo fan was between 25 and 40 percent faster than the 650 dyson fan i also repeated this test at half power for both fans and minimum power of both fans the dyson fan has 10 levels of power whereas the cheap fan only has three as you might expect the dyson fan has a wider range of speeds with its lowest setting hitting about 0.2 miles per hour at six feet away the cheap fan's three level system isn't all that effective with its lowest fan speed only about a mile per hour slower than its fastest speed it basically just goes from fast to a little faster to fastest okay so maybe the dyson fan loses the wind speed test but is it quieter that could be another legitimate reason why someone would choose the dyson fan i set up both fans at about three feet away from the sound meter and shockingly enough the dyson fan was significantly louder at almost every power level at full power the dyson was hitting volumes of 56 decibels while the walmart fan was sitting at around 45 or 46 decibels now that might not seem like a huge jump until you realize how the decibel scale works an increase of 10 decibels on the decibel scale means the sound is 10 times louder that means that at full power the dyson fan is 10 times louder than the cheap fan it kind of sounds like a drone taken off actually it turns out that all this air being forced through the tiny vents is not that great if you want to design a quiet fan thankfully once you turn down the power on the dyson it will eventually get quite a bit quieter throughout the range until it defeats the cheap fan even at its lowest power setting so look the dyson fan definitely has the advantage in certain areas it's got a built-in air purifier tons of smart features it can oscillate it up to 350 degrees it's got way more power levels it's safer for the little ones and it looks a heck of a lot cooler than these sheep fans do i mean look at this thing looks like crap but that doesn't change the fact that this 15 walmart fan outperformed the dyson in both wind speed and quietness if you absolutely need both an air purifier and a tower fan i suggest you buy them separately for the best value there are some really good ones on amazon that you can get for a lot cheaper and i'll leave links to those in the description below if you're interested so for me i'm gonna have to put the dyson fan back in the box and return it i've got a relatively small office here and i prefer to have a quieter fan that doesn't disturb me while i'm working the dyson is a cool looking fan but the traditional walmart fan is a better cooling fan if you like this video hit that like button and subscribe to support my channel and as always have a great day

Channel: Mark Spurrell

Views: 9,050,390

Keywords: dyson fan review, dyson fan, dyson tower fan, dyson pure cool, dyson tp04, are dyson fans worth it, are dyson fans worth the money, dyson fan vs regular fan, dyson pure cool link, dyson pure cool fan, air purifier, ac, fan, mark spurrell, dyson fan review 2021

Id: dS0oFmzU06g

Length: 5min 54sec (354 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 18 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/KhelbenB]

Just wanna say that the graph at 3:20 is complete BS. Gives the impression the WM fan is better than the Dyson by a magnitude of 4-5 when it is less than 2.

Truncating that kind of bar chart is always bad.

[u/DarknessRain]

You have to take volume of the blown air into account as well. A super soaker nozzle can blow air faster than any fan but it won't be great for cooling you off.

[u/monoka]

I also do a test proves that $20 Walmart school bag can carry more stuff than $2000 LV bag.

[u/Zilreth]

When will people learn to start their Y axes at fucking zero? It isn't that hard. The bar chart at 3:15 is completely useless, it makes it look like 5.1 is 4x larger than 3.1 goddamn I'm angry

[u/[deleted]]

wind speed of a fan tells us nothing without the volume of air or area. this is pretty basic stuff that you should know if you're reviewing a fan

[u/konjo3]

10 db isnt 10x louder, its twice as loud.

[u/meownz]

I am not really surprised that the Dyson has less air velocity* and is noisier because it is a hybrid air purifier. It needs to pull the air through a carbon filter and a HEPA filter which requires a lot of static pressure. The cheap fan can just get air without much resistance at all.

A better comparison would be the Dyson without the purifier vs. the cheap fan.

[u/WingerRules]

"An increase of 10 decibels on the decibels scale means the sound is 10 times louder"

To the ear/brain roughly every 6-10db is perceived as a doubling in loudness. Measuring perceived loudness itself is complex because the ear/brain scales with it non linearly and it can vary with the audio content, so 6-10db is just a rule of thumb.

[u/TheClayroo]

My $20 Walmart fan must be the premium edition because it has been on every night for years even through the winter. I would never buy that nonsense.