Are Dyson Heaters safe? (A Critical Review)

Are Dyson heaters safe? Dyson heaters are among the best-looking heaters. Their design is widely recognizable. This does not only apply to Dyson space heaters, but also to Dyson vacuum cleaners and other products.

But how safe are Dyson heaters? Do they have any unique safety features that other space heaters do not provide? And how does Dyson compare to other heater brands safety-wise?

In this article, we’re going to explore the answers to these questions. As an electrical engineer, I am staying critical of any advertising claims made by Dyson. My goal is to provide you with a simple, yet realistic understanding of the real safety of Dyson space heaters.

Quick answer: Dyson heaters are safe. Due to their design, Dyson heaters provide unique safety features, such as embedded heating elements and fans which greatly reduce the risk of cutting or burning yourself. However, Dyson heaters are not perfect. They are relatively easy to tip over due to their light weight. Yet, they provide the same heating capabilities as bigger heaters and output the same 1500W of power.

Now, let’s have a deeper look at the specific safety features Dyson heaters offer.

Please note: In this article, I am considering mainly the Dyson AM09 Hot and Cool (click here to view it on amazon). Some technical details may vary among models. But I think this heater is a good representation of Dyson heaters in general.

Safety advantages of Dyson heaters

At the first glance, you can already see that Dyson space heaters are built differently than other heaters. They have a unique (and probably patented) design and are very popular at the moment.

The design of Dyson heaters, however, is not entirely due to good looks. It also provides a few built-in safety features.

The bladeless fan makes Dyson heaters safe

Dyson heaters advertise their “air-multiplier technology”. In the end, the air multiplicator is just a fan built into the case of the Dyson heater. The stream of air is projected upwards and then pushed out of the “air multiplier ring”. Dyson calls this a bladeless fan, but realistically, it is a regular fan in a fancy encasing.

Safety-wise this is a big advantage. Especially when you have kids or pets. The encapsulated “bladeless” fan makes it impossible to cut yourself. In contrast, other space heaters have built-in fans which are relatively accessible. They are protected by a metal grid or not at all. There, a kid could poke his fingers into the fan, or damage the fan with a stick.

Safe surface temperatures

According to popsci.com Dyson heaters stay at safe temperatures and their surfaces stay cool due to clever usage of insulation

“An insulating polymer sheath separates its two 10-inch-high ceramic heating elements from the device’s outer walls. And the outer walls themselves are lined in foil to reflect heat back inward.”

popsci.com

The insulation does not only reduce the surface temperature of the Dyson space heater. It also increases the temperature of the output air stream. This improves your control over the space heater and effectively also over the heat distribution within your room.

Without the insulation, some heat would penetrate through the heater’s surface and cause the heater to be hot to touch. Just like an oil-filled radiator which relies on distributing its heat via a hot surface instead of convection (eg. a stream of warm air).

The well-insulated case of a Dyson Hot and Cool space heater ensures that pets and kids won’t burn themselves.

Safety features that Dyson has in common with other brands

Until now, we have talked about the Dyson-specific safety features that the Dyson Hot and Cool heater comes with. However, all Dyson heaters come with an additional set of common safety functions that are very common among space heaters.

I am listing these features in this section, as Dyson might advertise them as something special. But as a matter of fact, these features are very common and not unique to Dyson.

Tip-over protection

Dyson heaters have built-in tip-over protection. The tip-over protection is a switch that is triggered when the heater tips over, which automatically and instantly shuts off the heater.

In the past, lots of accidents happened because of tipped-over heaters which continued heating. When tipped over a non-protected heater overheats quickly and might cause inflammable objects to catch fire.

Luckily, since most heaters, you can buy nowadays have built-in tip-over protection you don’t need to worry about this scenario anymore.

Once tipped over, a Dyson heater stops heating instantly. However, some of the residual heat might still be a threat. But that is only a tiny risk. Also possible would be that a Dyson heater tips over and falls a larger distance. On a hard impact, the heater’s case could break open and expose the very hot heating elements. This is very unlikely to happen. I just want to mention cases where tip-over protection is not capable to prevent damage.

Aside from the tip-over protection that automatically switches the heater off when it tips over, there is another useful safety feature.

Overheat protection

Not only do heaters become a safety threat when they tip over, but also when they get too hot. This is called overheating. To prevent overheating, Dyson heaters (and most other heater brands) have built-in overheat protection.

Overheat protection is a sensor that constantly checks the temperature. If it gets too hot, a switch is triggered that automatically switches the heater off. With built-in overheat protection, the risk of too high surface temperatures of the heater is dramatically decreased.

Usually, heaters cause fires by setting inflammable objects in a short distance or themselves on fire. Overheat protection helps with both of these cases.

Here, again, I want to mention that overheat protection is not unique to Dyson heaters. So, when Dyson advertises their heater safety and mentions their overheat protection, this is nothing special.

Overheat protection is common practice in the heating industry. Rather, you should be extremely cautious of heaters that do not have built-in overheat protection.

Similar to tip-over protection, overheat protection is very useful when you have kids or animals at home. A kid might build a fortress of pillows and blankets during play. It might have the idea to heat its fortress using a space heater. In this case, overheat protection is an immediate lifesaver!

A space heater covered by blankets is likely to overheat or even catch fire fast. So, space heaters with overheat protection are a must when you are dealing with kids or pets.

Safety problems of Dyson heaters

Dyson heaters are not perfect. Even though they come with lots of safety upsides, there must also be some downsides. This section is dedicated to them. Now, let’s have a look at the safety problems of Dyson heaters.

Dyson heaters are easy to tip over

Due to their tower-like design and their low weight, Dyson heaters are easy to tip over. A Dyson Pure Hot + Cool HP01 weighs only 8.6 pounds. 

Here’s a small table of Dyson heater weights. Personally, I think they should be heavier.

Any low-weight but tall object is easy to tip over. Especially for children and animals the size of a cat or bigger.

From the previous sections, we know that Dyson heaters have built-in tip-over protection that automatically shuts the heating off when the heater tips over. However, the tower-like heater can not only cause damage through heat but also through impact. 

It might hit a fragile object and cause it to break, such as a glass vase, a bottle of red wine, or a framed image. These kinds of mini-disasters are best to avoid when you have kids or pets running around. Therefore you should carefully pick the right place to position the heater. 

Dyson heater remote contains magnets

According to the official Dyson safety instructions, the Dyson Pure Hot + Cool remote control contains magnets. The magnets inside the remote could affect pacemakers, defibrillators, credit cards, or electronic storage media and cause permanent damage.

As an electrical engineer, I now feel the urge to find out whether this is a Dyson-specific problem or if all remote controls contain magnets. In the end, this article judges Dyson about this fact, so let’s stay neutral and find out.

Some research later, I did not find anyone on the web mentioning magnets in remote controls except for the Dyson safety instructions. I’m curious why Dyson remotes have magnets while the safety instructions of other remotes don’t explicitly mention it.

Dyson heater design is not typical of space heaters

Another potential safety issue of Dyson heaters is their design. They don’t look like typical heaters. The Dyson Pure Hot + Cool tower heaters look more like a fancy, well-designed fan. Therefore, some people might mistake the heater for a regular fan and spray air freshener or perfumes into it.

This is very risky when the Dyson heater blows hot air as the hot air could inflame the spray and turn the heater into a full-fledged flamethrower for a second. That is enough to put something in your home on fire which in turn puts everything else on fire.

Are Dyson heaters as safe as other heater brands?

In general, I would estimate that Dyson heaters have a similar or slightly better safety level when compared to other heater brands. The reason is the design of Dyson heaters, which hides the heating elements and the spinning blades of the fan inside the encasing.

This prevents a majority of accidents. All Dyson heaters do is blow hot air, which is just what you want. 

However, if you want to go for the safest type of heater, personally, I would not recommend a Dyson heater. Generally, oil-filled radiators are the safest heaters. They are heavy which makes it hard to tip them over. Also, they are very solid as they have a big metal heating body. Oil-filled radiators usually also have tip-over and overheat protection. They do get hot on the surface, just as all radiators do.

If you want to have a look at my favorite safe oil-filled radiator, check out my review of the Pelonis oil-filled radiator here (click the link to see it). I think safety-wise, this heater is hard to beat. And it is a lot cheaper than the Dyson Pure Hot + Cool heaters.

Conclusion

Yes, Dyson heaters are safe. Due to their special design, dangerous parts such as the electric heating elements or the built-in fan are hidden from view and are inaccessible for children or pets. Additionally, Dyson heaters provide the same common safety features as other heater brands, which are overheating and tip-over protection.

Dyson heaters have some slight downsides. I think that the tower-like structure and the light weight of Dyson heaters make them easy to tip over.

Yet, Dyson heaters are perfectly fine safety-wise. If you want to have a safer product, an oil-filled radiator from Pelonis or DeLonghi might be better for you.

Attributions: title image “Fans by Dyson” by Fastily under CC BY-SA 4.0 license