Dyson Pure Hot and Cool Cryptomic HP06 Air Purifier review: Good gets better

Air pollution is no joke. Anyone living in a major metropolitan city, especially in Asia, knows about the perils of high AQI levels. Come November, New Delhi, where I reside, turns to pollution central. These hazardous air pollution levels are accompanied by potential health problems like coughing, colds, pain in the chest, asthma, and more. In fact, long-term exposure to air pollution leads to the death of over 1.67 million people in India every year.

In light of that, air purifiers have become the norm. They are no longer considered an optional luxury. Personally, I have one installed in every room of my apartment.

Xiaomi might be responsible for the democratization of clean air, but the Dyson Pure Hot and Cool sits at the opposite end of the spectrum. The Xiaomi Mi Air Purifier 3 is a utilitarian box that serves just one purpose. Dyson’s solution, on the other hand, is to create an air purifier that adds to the visual identity of your living space and serves double duty as a cooling fan and a space heater.

Are the Dyson air purifier’s design, functionality, and most importantly, air purification function enough to justify the sky-high price? We find out in the Android Authority Dyson Pure Hot and Cool Cryptomic HP06 Air Purifier review.

Design: Making a statement

The Dyson Pure Hot and Cool Cryptomic rehashes the design of the HP04 model that we reviewed earlier in the year, and that’s for good reason. Dyson’s latest isn’t a ground-up redesign. It is more of a subtle update with just one new function. In fact, the only real design change you’ll spot is the new dull gold color.

While I’m personally not a big fan of bling, the hue chosen is very subtle. It doesn’t stand out in an off-putting way in my apartment.

Nevertheless, unlike the Mi Air Purifier 3, this is not a purifier that you can tuck away discreetly. The Cryptomic’s design continues to make a statement. The tall bladeless fan commands you to place it front and center, while the perforated mesh filter looks modern enough.

The Air Purifier sits about 30 inches tall and can freely oscillate at up to 350 degrees for wider dissipation of air. However, you can limit this to as little as 45 degrees using the app. Additionally, the tilting base offers an extra degree of freedom to set the airflow exactly where you want it.

The Dyson Pure Hot and Cool Cryptomic is first and foremost an air purifier. It defaults to a steady stream of cool breeze the moment you switch it on.

In fact, it’s a bit surprising just how well it works just as a fan. The Dyson is more than capable of keeping you cool all the way across an average-sized living room at full blast. However, it can get pretty noisy at anything above level 5 in the settings, so you might want to keep it toned down.

The other mode, as the Hot and Cool name suggests, is active heating. While in cooling mode, the Dyson simply recirculates ambient air. The heating mod, on the other hand, involves ceramic plates that are very capable of creating a warm and cozy draft.

With winters approaching here in Delhi, I’ve bumped up the temperature on the Dyson Pure Hot and Cool Cryptomic to keep my living room at a cozy 24 degrees.

I found the heating mechanism to be surprisingly fast and effective — an important feature in Asian markets where central heating is more or less non-existent. Unlike old-school space heaters or oil-filled radiators, the Dyson isn’t just significantly faster at heating up a living space. It also has none of the accompanying odor or stuffy feeling which is a definite win in my books.

Finally, all essential functions can be controlled via the included remote. It has been color-matched to coordinate with the gold base of the filter. Like the HP04, the remote magnetically attaches to the top of the air purifier and is powered by a CR2032 battery which should enable long battery life.

How well does the Dyson Pure Hot and Cool Cryptomic work as an air purifier?

I suppose there’s something to be said about the genius of creating a product that serves three different roles over a single function air purifier, but I digress.

It’s easy to forget that the Dyson Pure Hot and Cool is also an air purifier. In fact, that is its primary function, and as you’d expect from a premium product, it does the job very well. I had the opportunity to test out the air purifier while New Delhi went through a severe phase of air pollution, well above the 1000 AQI mark. That’s hazardous by any measure.

The Dyson, performed with aplomb. It did a brilliant job at maintaining AQI levels below the 40-50 mark during the worst of the pollution. It was able to bring this down to an average of 15 once ambient air pollution levels subsided.

The air purifier sports a pair of filters to do the job. This includes a HEPA glass filter as well as an activated carbon filter which can purify 99.7 percent of air pollutants.

New to the Cryptomic is the ability to cleanse out formaldehyde from the air. The chemical can be an irritant to skin and eyes. It is found in materials like particleboard, plywood as well as paint.

Dyson claims to be using a material called Cryptomelane as a catalytic coating to filter out formaldehyde. Coincidently, that’s where it gets the Cryptomic name from. Unfortunately, I have no means to measure the efficacy of the filtration. I will have to take the company’s word for the combined volatile organic compound readings.

What I can measure, however, is the efficiency and speed of bringing down PM2.5 and PM10 levels. With ambient PM2.5 levels hovering around 210 and PM10 levels at about 114, the air purifier took just about 40 minutes to bring this down to about 30µg per cubic meter. Meanwhile, it took an additional half an hour for the digital readout to show PM2.5 between 10 and 15.

I tested this out multiple times over my review period using both the in-built readout as well as a dedicated air quality monitor. The results remained consistent across multiple runs.

Dyson App Control

Dyson’s air purifier app goes a step beyond the essentials. Not only can it control every function of the Dyson Pure Hot and Cool Cryptomic, but it also adds nice touches like the ability to set the exact angle of the air purifier.

The app will also show granular data on air pollution levels, tracking the exact levels of each kind of contaminant. It essentially replicates the physical remote and adds a few nice touches to enhance the user experience.

The Dyson also integrates very well with the Alexa ecosystem of smart home devices. Almost every function can be controlled using your voice and can be added to routines, making it great for automation.

Dyson claims that Google Assistant integration is also on the way, but I wasn’t able to test it out at the time of publishing.

Is the Dyson Pure Hot and Cool Cryptomic air purifier good value?

Available for Rs. 61,900 in India and $749.99 in the US, the Dyson Pure Hot and Cool Cryptomic is an expensive product. There’s really no two ways about it. In fact, it wouldn’t be unfair to call Dyson the Apple of air purifiers. You are paying a premium for the design and the branding.

However, the company backs up the premium price tag with a product that does exactly what it advertises. The cooling and heating functions are spot on, and so is the air purification.

The additional filtering for formaldehyde? Not so much. While it is a nice feature to have, most households will never have high enough levels for it to be a real concern.

The Dyson Pure Hot and Cool Cryptomic HP06 is a great purifier and even better statement piece. But if you’re in the market for a new high-end air purifier that can double up as a space heater as well, I’d highly recommend that you save a bit of money and get the Dyson Pure Hot and Cool HP04 instead. There’s little to differentiate the two models other than the debatable benefits of formaldehyde filtration. The HP04 offers nearly identical functionality at a slightly more palatable price point.