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Dyson launches next-gen V11 Torque cordless vac, new task light and personal air purifier

Meet three new Dyson products hitting the market in the coming weeks. They aren't cheap but they sure are cool.

David Carnoy Executive Editor / Reviews
Executive Editor David Carnoy has been a leading member of CNET's Reviews team since 2000. He covers the gamut of gadgets and is a notable reviewer of mobile accessories and portable audio products, including headphones and speakers. He's also an e-reader and e-publishing expert as well as the author of the novels Knife Music, The Big Exit and Lucidity. All the titles are available as Kindle, iBooks, Nook e-books and audiobooks.
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David Carnoy
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From left to right: Lightcycle, Pure Cool Me and the V11 Torque Drive.

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Dyson has a trio of new products that it's rolling out in the US. Two of them -- the new V11 Torque cordless vacuum ($700) and Pure Cool Me ($350) personal air purifier -- will be available today, while the company's new task light, the Lightcycle (starts at $600), is up from preorder but won't ship till April. With the products only available in the US, Dyson has yet to announce UK or Australian pricing. 

I got some hands-on time with the products at a launch event in New York and came away with the same impression I usually have of Dyson products: This is cool stuff, but I wish it weren't so expensive. Of course, if you wait a while you may be able to get it on sale. Here's a quick look at each new product.

Watch this: Hands-on with Dyson's new cordless vacuum, task light and personal air purifier

Lightcycle lamp

Let's start with the Lightcycle task light, which costs $600 for the desk version and $900 for the floor version. It's actually an upgraded version of Dyson's CSYS task lights that's not only brighter but more intelligent.

Like those earlier models, this new light has the same industrial look that makes you think of a construction crane or a piece of medical equipment. However, instead of being a static light, the Lightcycle can continually adjust its color temperature and brightness to create "the right light for the right time of day," according to Dyson, synchronizing circadian rhythms to the external environment.

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The copper cooling tube Inside the Lightcycle.

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Dyson says it uses a unique time-, date- and location-driven algorithm to calculate the color temperature and brightness of daylight, anywhere in the world. And if you don't want to use the synchronization mode, there are also touch-sensitive buttons on the lamp and an app that let you manually adjust the light's intensity or switch to preset scenes like "study" and "relax" or have the light turn on or off at certain times of the day. 

It's rated at 1,000 lux (up from 648 lux in previous models), which won't mean anything too most people, but for its small size it puts out a pretty big pool of uniform light. In fact, the LEDs get so hot that Dyson had to create a special vacuum-sealed copper tube cooling system to dissipate the heat. And while these lamps cost a bundle, Dyson says that cooling system -- or cycle, as it calls it -- allows the lamp to operate for 60 years without any degradation in quality. Previous Dyson lamps were rated at 37 years. 

Both lights have USB-C ports for charging devices. That's a nice extra, but then again, a $600 task lamp should be able to charge your phone.

Dyson Lightcycle shines brighter

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Pure Cool Me air purifier

Next up is the Pure Cool Me, Dyson's first personal air-purifying cooling fan, which retails for $350. It's smaller than Dyson's full-room air purifiers and is really designed to sit on a desk or bedside table. Inspired by the aerodynamic properties in the Harrier Jump Jet, Dyson says its engineers discovered that when two jets of air meet on a convex surface, they converge to create a high-pressure core. From that concept they developed a way to project a stream of focused air across a dome. Change the angle of the dome on top of the machine, and you can precisely control the direction of the airflow.

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The Pure Cool Me's filter traps particles even as fine as hairspray.

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Even at the highest setting, I didn't think the air blew that hard. It's more like a gentle breeze that blows in a fairly tight circle. It's like having a flashlight being pointed in your face at fairly close range, but instead of light you get wind. It isn't silent, but it is relatively quiet, which should appeal to light sleepers (the LED on the front automatically dims at night). A sleep timer can be set to make the machine turn off after preset intervals ranging from 30 minutes to 9 hours.

Like Dyson's other fans and air purifiers, this one has an oscillation mode (70 degrees) and the HEPA filter captures 99.97% of particles as small as 0.3 microns. In case you were wondering, 0.3 microns is 300 times narrower than a human hair. That filter has to be replaced about once a year.

Dyson Pure Cool Me blows into stores

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V11 Torque Drive cordless vacuum

Last but not least, we have the new V11 Torque Drive, Dyson's new top-of-the-line cordless vacuum. Not only does it have an upgraded digital motor that creates more suction (20 percent more than Dyson's already powerful Cyclone V10) but there are three onboard microprocessors as well as a smart brush bar that can detect what type of surface you're vacuuming and automatically adjust the suction to help save battery life.

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The V11 Torque Drive.

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Using the new onboard screen, you can toggle between the three power modes, which include eco, auto and a special boost mode quick hits of maximum for those hard to clean areas. The screen also displays exactly how much remaining run time you have left, which is a nice feature. You can get up 60 minutes of runtime, although boost mode will drain your battery in 6 minutes. Use it too much and you'll get a warning that you may be harming the health of the battery, so use it sparingly.

As for pricing, the higher-end Torque version of the V11 costs $700, while the step-down V11 Animal ($600) leaves off a few features but is otherwise the same.

Dyson V11 Torque Drive up close

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