James Dyson, the pioneering innovator and the man behind tech company Dyson, is affable and charming. He is also passionate about technology and products his company works on. And as he spoke to media in Korea where just days ago his company launched Supersonic Nural, a new-age and smarter hair dryer – he also came across a little miffed at his competitors. Responding to a question, James – sorry Mr James, to keep in this article you separate from your namesake company we are going to use your first name – said that he wished that his competitors would stop copying his technology and products.
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His reason for such an appeal? James, who is clearly and visibly passionate about technology, believes that copycats not only harm his company but also consumers because by taking the easy way out and by not innovating on their own, they are reducing choices in the market.
“The copying is certainly not flattering. Yet it’s the way the world is. And it’s very unfortunate. It’s unfortunate for consumers actually, because they’re not getting choice,” James told a select gathering of tech and lifestyle journalists in Seoul. Hours earlier his company had launched Nural, arguably the world’s smartest and most sophisticated hair dryer with features like heat detect, scalp protection and attachment recall.
“If companies that copied us develop their own technology, then a customer would have a good choice. In the music world, you want different music, you want different art, but copying is accepted in our world for some reason. Unfortunately, companies are unscrupulous enough to unashamedly copy things,” he says.
Although, as James says, competitors copy Dyson. But that is not stopping the company from working on what it knows best – creating appliances that are arguably among the world’s best products in their respective category. Nural, which the company launched in Seoul, looks like one such product.
World’s smartest hair dryer
Dyson says that Supersonic Nural is its most intelligent hair dryer yet. From the specs and features it sure looks like one. It has some interesting features such as Red-Dot (LED), which gives the user a better indication of how the device is working when in use, Scalp Protect and Pause Detect. But the features, as we have seen with Dyson products in the past, are not just for the sake of it. They are trying to solve some pain-points that users face.
One of the big problems Nural is solving is the heat that hair dryers generate and how this heat damages hair and scalp.
“We are worried about heat hair dryers generate and the damage this heat does. So Nural has features that provide a way to users from accidentally overheating their hair and overheating their scalp,” says James. “Of course, we are still looking to dry hair. So this heat management is smart. There is no permanently low temperature and when users move the hair dryer away, the temperature automatically increases but without exceeding 55 degrees. This we do with help of time-of-flight sensor, which senses the distance and avoids overheating.”
Of course, sensors in Nural are more of icing on the cake. The core product, says James, is built around Dyson’s traditional strengths – motors and mechanics. At the company every product starts with a motor. Nural did too.
“Well in the beginning it started with the motor,” says James. The company developed a new motor for Nural that it says is better, smaller and more electrically efficient.
“So that was the starting point, but then we went on to develop other technologies, we developed a new technology for the heater and new technologies for the battery (inside Nural),” says James.
Hands-on inside Dyson office and labs
James Dyson is 76 years old. Yet, he says, he is not done with working on new technologies. He still inspires new ideas and still works on all the latest products and technologies that his company has in its labs. Sure, there are many brilliant scientists within the company. But along with these scientists, James is also on the floor.
“Inspiration and creative ideasâæ yes, yes, that’s what we do. We have people to run the business, but I am still involved all day, every day in the products and new technologies,” he says. “That’s the thing that I am passionate about… about developing technology that solves problems.”
AI inside Dyson products
The world of tech is changing and in the recent years AI, in particular generative AI, has become a buzzword. James is keeping an eye on it because he sees some crucial areas where it could be useful to Dyson. Responding to a question from India Today Tech, James said the current Dyson products are already fairly smart and in the coming years it is possible that some parts of the Dyson product experience – including the interface and app – may use generative AI technologies.
“These products,” says James as he pointed to Dyson air-purifier and vacuum cleaner, “don’t have AI in them yet but they are smart. Nural is smart because it recognises attachments and it senses where your head is. And when it’s being put down, it switches off on its own. And then we have machine learning and artificial intelligence in our products for things like speed control of the motor and sensing different surfaces.”
As far as generative AI is concerned, James believes that more than appliances it would a useful feature of robots. “To answer the question a bit more thoroughly,” says James as he pointed out to a Dyson robot floor-cleaner, “We are developing AI very heavily for our robots.”
AI, believes James, will also be useful in apps that accompany Dyson products. He says that in future Dyson products are likely to come with apps where once a user is connected “everything will be done on apps”
“Apps are really important because more and more we’ll have features that you can’t have buttons for but which you (will be able to) set and control from your app,” he says. And the AI will also, hopefully, help users “personalise their experience through the app.”
