Beautiful design and utility are, in many ways, paramount when it comes to home electronics. That’s why I was really impressed by the the new AM05 space heater/cooler from Dyson. It’s a completely quiet, blade-less system that comes in a black and nickel color scheme that looks like it fell off of Boba Fett’s Slave 1.
The AM05 is the successor to the AM04 and is 33% more powerful. It has a stock simple remote control, a nice front temperature readout, and a tilting head. In short, it’s a Dyson product – a little expensive ($399 for a fan is wild), a little weird, and a lot high tech.
I tested the device a bit over the past few days and it works a treat. Setting the heater in my cold attic filled the room up with hot air immediately and it looks and feels far safer than similar heaters. This is a fan I’d trust, say, in the kids’ room.
Why is this on TechCrunch? There are a few companies with both design and technology chops. Sonos comes to mind as does Apple. Bang & Olufsen are also in that category. But I think what’s most important about a company like Dyson is that they took commodity hardware and made it alluring. Who hasn’t gone to Target and looked at some off-brand vacuum and stacked it up against the surprisingly expensive yet strangely beautiful Dyson. I like when Dyson makes new stuff because it proves that there are people out there still thinking about the future of things that suck and blow.