In December of last year, WallStreetInsanity reported that Dyson filed a patent for a hybrid sink-hand dryer. Dyson announced yesterday that it was planning on releasing three new products, all of which turn out to be hand dryers… very unique hand dryers.

I’ve always been fascinated with Dyson’s extremely keen sense of function, ergonomics, and design. There’s only a handful of companies in the world that really take their time to rethink design and human interaction. Off the cuff, the only two that come to mind are Apple and Dyson.

Two of the products are basically improvements upon the Company’s original Airblade, and third is quite unique. One part faucet and two parts hand dryer, the Airblade Tap was designed to eliminate messy water splashes onto bathroom floors.

According to the company, “Infrared sensors pinpoint hand positions and release water from the tap stem. Once hands are wet and drying is requested, integrated circuitry computes the information and activates the latest Dyson digital motor, creating two high velocity sheets of air on the tap’s branches. Using Airblade technology, the Dyson Airblade Tap hand dryer sends sheets unheated filtered air at 420 mph towards hands, literally scraping them dry. Hands are dry in 14 seconds.“

The Airblade Tap also recycles air through a HEPA filter and silences moving air with six Dyson Helmholtz silencers.

Engineers at Dyson spent close to seven years developing just the motor that operates the Airblade Tap. Air is initially sucked through the HEPA air filter at an approximate rate of 30 liters per second, travels through the motor, into a pressurized hose and then is divided between multiple tubes fitted into the tap.

The Tap is expected to sell for $1500 and with an estimated yearly operating cost of $48, it should pay for itself in a relatively short amount of time. However, there’s concern that since average hand driers retail for between $80 and $125, the Tap’s price point might scare away potential customers. Dyson believes that because his new design is five times more efficient compared to hot-air dryers and fifteen times more efficient than paper towels, that customers will see the benefit and come around.

The Airblade will begin appearing in New York, Miami, and Seattle airports over the next few months. Dyson also has an agreement with Universal Studios in Orlando and Jack in the Box restaurants.

Dyson engineers are confident that these hand dryers are the absolute best on the market, and that people can expect the shortest hand drying experience of their lives. It doesn’t sound very exciting, but perfection is something we don’t see very often as consumers. It’s nice to have a few companies that really take pride in their products and strive to be change makers by challenging old concepts. Now having said that, sometimes we reach for perfection and we don’t quite get it.

It’s noteworthy that the Airblade Tap has received some mixed reviews. It’s been reported that during testing, some users found the device difficult to operate at first. It seems there is a bit of a learning curve involved, much like the one we all went through when motion activated bathroom fixtures became popular. It has also been pointed out that there is not a temperature control option on the new faucets, and the transition from washing to drying is a tad sketchy sometimes.

[Image via Dyson]