Review: Dyson Cool (AM06)

With the AM06 Cool whirring away, the air is cold, and that’s good, since that is precisely what a fan should be doing: blowing cold air your way.

But just like last time, the amount of air it blows your way isn’t a huge amount, and you could probably get faster and heavier fans if you looked, especially for the amount of money Dyson is asking for.

For us, it’s cool enough, and the air is blown out fast enough, but that’s within a metre of the fan.

Sit or lie further off, and that air trail backs off and softens up, still feeling like a fan, but not as forceful one, and that’s on level 10, the highest level of them all. Bring it back to the mid-way point at level 5 and unless you’re sitting within arm’s reach of the air exit points, you’ll feel the fan as if it were a light breeze, nothing more.

And if you bring it back below level 5 — because there’s always 4, 3, 2, and 1, as well — there’s even less air. In fact, we don’t even know why the setting of one exists, as it’s barely a breath when you’re within arm’s reach of the AM06; it’s not a fan, it’s a home appliance learning how to breathe on its own.

So air force isn’t one of the Dyson AM06’s strong points, but it’s a cool fan, providing some of the coolest air we’ve felt from a fan, and is a change from the regular recycled and slightly cooled warmth that we’re used to seeing from the fans sitting around the house.

There’s also a timer included, something we hoped for last time, and are delighted to see Dyson finally included. This timer is still relatively basic, but should serve a useful purpose if you plan on leaving the fan on while you’re sleeping, with timers for every quarter-point of the first hour, and then every hour past that for up to nine hours.

Yes, you can leave your fan going for eight or nine hours while you’re sleeping and expect it to turn itself off when you decide to get up, which should prove especially useful if you’re certain you’ll get eight hours of sleep when it’s far too hot outside to be staying awake.

Helping with this is the remote, a new thing for the Dyson cooling-only Air Multiplier fans, which in typical Dyson style is very easy to use.

There are technically four buttons here, with power, oscillation, speed up and down, and timer up and down. It’s not rocket science, that’s for sure, and a small dual-digit LED on the front of the fan helps you see not just what speed you’re on, but how much time has been set for the unit’s self-timer mode.

Easy. No problems there.

And Dyson has even provided a small magnet in the remote, allowing the tiny hand-held gadget to rest neatly at the top of the arch that is the fan, held in place by a magnet in each section.

But that forcefulness is still a problem, and it’s a problem that carries an expensive tag, because at $399, Dyson’s option for keeping yourself cool is not cheap. Not by a long shot.

One other problem is the lack of controls.

Sure, you get a remote, but nothing else, with no controls on the front of the unit, so you won’t want to lose that remote otherwise, well, you won’t be fanning yourself any time soon.

Conclusion

If you don’t have an air conditioner or you do and you need a fan for a smaller space, Dyson’s AM06 offers a stylish fan with a technology that is not only safer, but technically cooler than the regular bladed fan you take out of the closet the moment the heat starts up.

It’s still not a terribly cheap option, but Dyson rarely is, and you do get a quiet cold brush of air this time, so at least you don’t have to sleep with the vacuum running on it the distance, which is definitely a positive if you loved the original but had problems getting to bed with it on in the background.

The Dyson AM06 Cool (left most) is the smallest of the Dyson Air Multiplier bunch, and sits next to the AM07 Cool (second), AM08 Cool (third), and AM05 (fourth and last) Hot+Cool. The Hot+Cool is the only fan in this list that can provide hot air and cold air.

 

Overall
8
Features
7
Value for money
5
Performance
8
Ease of Use
9
Design
8
Positives
Much quieter than previous generations; Very light; Remote now included, and it sits magnetised on the top of the fan; Timer built in (yay!); Still safer for children than a conventional blade fan;
Negatives
No controls on the front; Still not particularly forceful; Still expensive;
7.5