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Comment by noonespecial | Hacker News Reader

Dyson does it again. Its a plain old coanda air mover like we've had in the paint shop for 20 years. Dress it up, go on and on about super-duper patented technology and resell a freakin' fan for $300. He's definitely brilliant (for some value thereof).

Edit: Here's one. They look like this:

http://www.thermofluids.co.uk/mover.php

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Surely his next step on this path is the Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coandă_effect

Old technology. You can buy a range of such things from industrial suppliers like McMaster. http://www.mcmaster.com/#air-amplifiers/=41ls8s. They tend to be loud and inefficient, but useful in dirty environments where fan blades would get damaged.

Is there a consumer fan application of this already as well?

edit: hmm, it has a fan as noonespecial says. So I guess that is almost a non-question

I wonder if you can get a CPU cooler out of this? An extremely sexy, very high priced one, of course.

It doesn't have to be high priced - it's just a loop with a slot in it for air to blow through.

Yes, but with the right design and marketing, you could probably make bit of money from the idea. Seems to be Dyson's plan.

There's nothing at all fancy about an air mover like this. You can make one on a lathe in about 20 minutes with a few bits of roundstock scrap. You do still need an air source to use it. In this dyson thing, there's just a hidden blower in the base. In a computer, it would allow you to use a much larger, separate source to cool your cpu, which could be useful. It would rock even more to use a vortex cooler...

Edit: Doh! Cited above while I was typing! Great minds and all that yap...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube

wow if it actually has a blower in it then it's pretty much pure gimmick! Thanks for outing this!

edit: I should qualify my skepticism by saying that the vacuum cleaners are amazing and if I had carpets I'd own one.

Well, the blower is hidden in the base. At least that means you don't have to see the dusty fan blades. (Add a filter, so that you can sell consumables.)

I believe the idea is that the airflow created is far more than the blower itself provides. In other words, while it may not be original, it's not just a gimmick.

What's amazing about them? Consumer Reports never rates them that highly.

Actually Dyson usually rates far higher in consumer tests than bagged vacuums, and it usually rates slightly higher than most bag-less vacuums.

Vacuum ratings are generally low to begin with, yet still get purchased. All portable vacuum cleaners fall flat on their face in terms of convenience compared with central vac, however not many people are stupid enough to pay thousands of dollars for a slight improvement in convenience.

Having had both central vac and a Dyson luggable, I vastly prefer the Dyson. Carrying around the 30 feet of tubing for the central vac was hardly convenient at all.

Try one. First vacuum the carpet with your current vacuum, etc. Then proceed to run the Dyson over the carpet and watch it fill up with all sorts of disgusting detritus that the other vacuum missed.

How is it "outing" if the promotional materials explain how the device works?

The big Stargate-esque ring is sexy in a particular way that screams, "sell tons to the gotta-be-first crowd!"

During F1 races in hot climates you can see people blowing air into the car and the driver's helmet with a vortex tube on the end of a shop air line.

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