REVIEW – I hate fan noise. When I built a PC, I went through great pains to pick quiet fans and components. When the bathroom fan got noisy, I replaced the motor. If I got a fancy fan to keep me cool, I wouldn’t keep it if I found the noise distracting. It’s time to put the Dyson BP-01 Pure Cool Me purifying fan to the test.
What is it?
The Dyson BP-01 is a “personal” cooling fan with HEPA filtering. It uses directed air flow instead of visible fan blades to push air.
What’s in the box?
You get the fan, filter, power supply and remote. There’s minimal documentation. In fact, a QR code greets you inside the box lid to visit the product page.
Design and features
One of the first things you see when you open the box is the remote. It’s infrared and uses button-style batteries (included). The remote is slightly curved, so it matches the curvature of the fan’s cylindrical body. An icon of the remote is on the fan to indicate where you can stow the remote with magnets when not in use. The magnet is pretty weak, and just barely holds it on there. A good bump will dislodge the remote.
I can’t help but think the fan looks a lot like EVE from the Pixar film “WALL-E”. On the side of the round “head” are circular buttons (red arrow). Press them to detach the head to access the insides.
The gears control the oscillating head (70 degree arc) and you can also see the green lipped replaceable filter.
Filters are rated as effective at capturing 99.97% of particles as small as 0.3 microns.
Setup
There’s not much to set up except plug in and go. The master power switch is on the back. I’ve never had to use it since I like using the remote.
The front LCD display tells you what speed you’ve chosen. The lowest speed is 1, and the highest is 10. 
The sleep timer turns the fan on and counts down the time until automatic shut off. The website says you can choose between 15 minutes and 9 hours, but my unit lets you pick 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours and 8 hours.
An image of an oscillating fan pops up if you press the <> button on the remote. The fan silently swings left and right. The LCD screen defaults back after a few moments.
The “i” button on the remote gives you an animated image of the filter status. Dyson carries replacements ($69.99) and suggests changing them out every 12 months.
By far the most curious design aspect of the BP-01 is the “bladeless” design. Yes, there are blades in the body, but nothing visible. Instead, up-down adjustments are controlled by sliding the convex “dome” up and down (see red circle) which manipulates the air flow from the vents (red arrows).
To visualize this, I stuck on a piece of ribbon (left). When the dome is pushed down, air is directed roughly straight out to the left. When pushed all the way up, the air is directed perpendicular to the face of the dome. The angle is adjustable. Photos taken at full speed (10)
Performance
As a “personal cooling fan”, I placed the BP-01 next to my desk, about an arm’s length away. Pretty close! At fan speed 1, I can barely hear a thing. Perfect! On the other hand, I can barely feel any air, either. It’s a very gentle presence of moving air at this distance and speed.
At speed 2, things change dramatically. Not only is the movement of air much more noticeable, but so is the noise. I found the noise from the BP-01 to be fairly broad. It sounded more like air whooshing and not very mechanical at all. I’ve seldom had the need to crank it above 2.
Another nice touch is the LCD. It’s in color, and will dim to the level of ambient conditions. This is great if you have this beside and you don’t want something casting a light into your eyes.
What I like
- Incredibly futuristic looking
- Filters the air (HEPA)
- Remote controlled
- Quiet, pleasant sounding
What I’d change
- Wow this is expensive
Final thoughts
If you want the sleekest personal fan combined with HEPA filtering, this is it. Just be prepared to pay for it.
Price: $349.99
Where to buy: Dyson and Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Dyson.
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Andy –
Thanks for the review. Can you describe the experience at settings 3-10 in terms of noise and air movement? Also, would this device be useful for a room – say 15′ x 15′ – or is it really intended as a personal device to move air in the immediate vicinity of a single person?
Cheers.
The Dyson product page says “This machine is designed to deliver air to you, rather than to the whole room.” I would tend to agree. The wind it pushes feels fairly focused (though it does oscillate) and range drops off at the less powerful speeds. I’d say it’s definitely a more immediate vicinity of a single person kind of fan.
The fan speed at 3 is already too annoying for me at arm’s length. It just gets more raucous as it goes up, but the range does increase. However, I’m really intolerant of noise.
We have fans in the house that are much larger that move air more effectively for a whole room at slower speeds, but they are ginormous and don’t filter the air.
Thanks for the additional comments. Probably not a good fit for my set-up as if would have to be some distance from my desk. I’m not particularly noise sensitive, but quieter is always better.
We bought the AM01 10″ table fan today. It worked for six hours before quitting. When it quit the blue power light started blinking. We switched it off, unplugged it and waited ten seconds before plugging it back in and switching it back on. The power light was a steady blue for about two seconds and then it started to blink. The fan would not turn on. We will be returning it to the retailer for a refund. We were surprised and disappointed after spending a small fortune on this fan to have it fail on the first day. Our three year old twenty dollar offshore fan goes back on the table until we find a suitable replacement. It is doubtful that we will risk spending that amount of money on this type of fan again.