The Dyson Supersonic hair dryer [video]
dyson.com
dyson.com
The market research Dyson did for something like this is probably absolutely insane. The Hacker News crowd isn't exactly the target market.
One thing to note, as you point out. The R&D on these new products while they seem relatively simple, they are very hard to get right. That costs a lot of money and certain companies like Dyson are willing to put in the resources. Take for example, their vacuums. So many are appalled at the price of a Dyson and act as if Dyson is robbing people. At the same time every major competitor has come out with designs similar to the Dyson 'cinetic' tech. No one seems to have a problem buying obvious knockoffs. It's safe to say Dyson singlehandedly made bag vacuums almost a thing of the past. Did bagless tech exist before Dyson? Yes, it just wasn't very good. Does Dyson deserve to recoup some of that R&D money? Sure. These products are expensive. So another company will knock it off and it won't be quite as nice, at 1/3 the price. Meanwhile people with unlimited budgets love this stuff!
Reasons are that regular hair dryers are just not very good. They are not pleasant to use.
And there are millions of women, primarily, who spend probably $2500 or more a year on cosmetics/makeup/hair. So a $400 one time expense for something that will last for years, doesn't seem that bad.
Items at the higher end of the market, thought to be luxury, are extremely popular among this demographic. It is useful for showing off a bit and as a talking point.
I certainly don't need a £150 mechanical keyboard over a cheaper one, but it is slightly more functional for me and is interesting for my mates.
That being said, I wonder how many more products Dyson can come up with that are basically just moving air around?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/13/dyson-airblades-s...
Just seems odd.
FTR, as cool as the airblades are, I have meat hooks for hands and have about .5 cm of clearance on either side when I use one, so I almost always bump into it. I'll use paper towels if I can.
Either way, the Hygiene Hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis) seems very reasonable to me, and while I haven't studied it in depth, ancedotally it seems to ring true.
Dyson's business model is making products with amazing suction or airflow. Whether it be vacuums, hair dryers, air purifiers, fans, etc. Their robotic vacuum hasn't even launched in the US yet. https://www.dyson360eye.com/
The reason you haven't seen cheap knockoffs is probably because they have patented their tech and a cheap knockoff isn't possible.
There may be a downside to these very fast hot air dryers: "Using a Dyson hand dryer is like setting off a viral bomb in a bathroom" [1].
There was some HN discussion of that article [2].
[1] http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/dyson-dryers-hurl-60x...
But if you have $400 burning a hole in your pocket...
The point that we're still touching other stuff without feeling squeamish is a good one. My main complaint about the Airblade is simply that they don't work very well at all.
(OTOH if you earn $20/hour and rarely wash your hair, this product isn't economic)
review: http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/shortcuts/2016/apr/27/dys...
But don't some people who use hairdryers need their hair to be somewhat wet though, so they can style it?
And yet I switched, because despite the significant performance deficit, it was a better experience — both for the OS but also a metal chassis that was a pleasure to both to touch and look at — an experience that dominated a minimum of half my waking hours of every single day.
All of which is to say that anyone who is wondering why consumers would spend $500 on a hair dryer are completely missing the forest. If the device lives up to Dyson’s hype, every hair stylist in America will happily pony up for it, no hesitation. Just for the noise alone, $500 to make all day every day better is a bargain.
also see: the hand dryers, which are a huge hit and have close to zero consumer penetration
I don't care how quiet they say it is, if their QA can approve their hand driers for sale, I don't trust their sense of hearing!
EDIT: And vacuum cleaners. I have one (it was a gift), and it hurts to use.
IF this manages to accomplish a similar feat without the bulk, it's easily worth the price for those who do a lot of hair drying.
Who is the target audience for a $399 hair dryer? Surely not "professional" salons, which have their own preferred "professional" brands with a lot of market traction. So are they targeting home users? Seems like a lot to bite off for a non-status symbol (nobody will ever see your Dyson hair dryer, so it's not a "show off" piece).
I have the vacuums because they're the single most effective things against cat hair I've ever used--and I tried the competitor's versions because I also thought Dyson was overpriced. After spending $200ish a couple times in a row on crappy vacuums that got clogged I realized that I actually saved time and money with the Dyson I'd had before that, and bought another. Its air path was much less prone to clogging, though I've run into other problems like the brush bar jumping its gearing. Took about ten years for that though.
The space heater and tower fan are hugely overpriced, I won't argue this, in the sense that holy crap, I paid that for a heater and a fan? However, there just weren't competitors I could find that handled 24/7 operation on the oscillator as smoothly and quietly as the Dyson models have. Everything else developed whining noises, stutters, or the air noise itself was too high for usage in my living room by the home theater.
It's true that the Dysons get loud too if you crank them up super-high, and also true that the noise volume tracks airflow, period, and therefore being quieter means they push less than the competition (at least where the competition also buries the turbine motor in a sound-insulated base). The difference is that there is a configuration that pushes enough, quietly enough, which is what I couldn't find elsewhere.
So my bedrooms, where I don't care about that stuff, those get relatively cheap Bionaire or Vornado fans. But for the main room, Dyson actually ends up being worth the money.
Anyway, there's my anecdotal stories as to why in the world I'd spend $400 a pop for stuff that's normally $100-200.
That said, I'm not buying a $400 hair dryer. Jeez.
I still realize it's priced ridiculously high, but I can't say I'm dissatisfied with the product. I think the women who purchase the hair dryer will feel the same way.
Do you also find it odd that electric shavers for facial hair are also gendered and targeted towards men?