By Patrick Avenell

Sir James Dyson has today unveiled the new range of Dyson Airblade hand dryers at a launch in New York City. The new range includes, for the first time, a tap model incorporating water dispensing that could launch the Airblade range into the domestic market.

Powering the three new Airblade models is Dyson’s new digital motor, which reportedly cost around $40 million to research and develop. According to Dyson, 125 engineers worked on the new Airblades over the last three years, spending $60 million to create the finished products.

“Using complex computer modelling Dyson engineers have developed a high performance digital motor,” said Sir James Dyson in a prepared statement. “The Dyson digital motor self-adjusts 6,000 times a second to maintain optimum efficiency to create high velocity sheet of air that dries hands quickly and hygienically.”

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The new Dyson Airblade Tap hand dryer will be the first commercially available Dyson product in Australia to include water as a primary function. Using infrared sensors, the Airblade Tap will dispense water as required. Once cleaning is complete, the Airblade Tap will then dispense “two high velocity sheets of air” to scrape the residual water of the hands.

This model will be available for $1,590 from July 2013. Drawings and technical data are already available for download.

Sir James Dyson using the new Dyson Tap.

Joining the Tap in the range are the new Airblade mk2hand and Airblade V dryers. The mk2hand (Dyson’s style) retains the same appearance as the original Airblades, but its 2.5 kilograms lighter and has “improved acoustics and lower carbon emissions”. This model ranges from $1,390 (PC ABS plastic) to $1,590 (stainless steel).

 

Dyson Airblade V.

 

Dyson Airblade mk2hand.

The Airblade V ($1,290) has a sleek new design for this range and is 60 per cent smaller than the original, according to Dyson.

Both the mk2hand and the V are available from Dyson and its business partners from 6 February 2013.

“Dyson engineers created over 3300 prototypes across the Dyson Airblade range and every component was subjected to hundreds of tests,” said Dyson (company) in a statement.

“Dyson’s unforgiving test team was tasked with finding fault and weakness and paying attention to detail — they simulated washing hands more than one billion times.”

Dyson will be holding an Australian launch for this range in Sydney on Tuesday 19 February 2013.