What a useless piece of overrated and expensive junk this is. Once upon a time, you could enter a restroom and use paper towels or one of those hot air blower things to dry your hands. Not any more though, it seems restrooms the world over are falling over themselves to install the Dyson Airblade and for the life of me, I really can’t see why.
Let’s start with the basic premise of what it does; Dyson claims it’s the worlds fastest hand dryer and completes the job inside 10 seconds.
Bullshit! I use these contraptions every day and have yet to manage completely drying my hands inside 30 seconds let alone 10. The idea that the Airblade “scrapes” the water off your hand is complete rubbish for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the gap for your hands is too narrow and you often end up touching the rubber edges that are freshly damp from the previous user. Gross! This means that you are just wiping your hands against a wet rubber blade.
Secondly, you have to move your hands up and down like a demented idiot trying a particularly cringe worthy Dad dance. This is neither ergonomic, comfortable nor usable. The angle at which the Airblade is installed means you inevitably put stress on your wrists, elbows and shoulders. Might not sound much but when you have to do the same thing over and over again, it becomes a pain in the ass.
Then there’s the simple fact that it doesn’t actually work. By trying to scrape the water off instead of drying your hands, you just end up stomping off and wiping your hands on your pants. In fact, restrooms would do far better by hanging a pair of pants on the wall than using an Airblade.
As for hygiene, take a look at the bottom of an Airblade to see the collected pool of tepid, fetid bacteria ridden water that has accumulated from the day’s use. Quite where this water is supposed to drain to is anyone’s guess since I’ve never actually seen an Airblade that was dry at the bottom.
Did I mention splash back? This is one of the biggest design flaws of the Airblade. Whilst moving your hands up and down, be prepared for water to be blown onto your nice clean blue shirt, your face, your watch, your cuffs, in fact, everywhere which is quite amazing considering so much ends up at the bottom of the well.
Finally, there’s the carbon footprint argument. Well quite frankly I never bought into the whole climate change scam so this is about as relevant as a lap dancer’s real name. Besides, all the Airblades I’ve ever had the misfortune to use heat up the air which kinda negates the point that they’re supposed to be more eco friendly in the first place.
The alternative, which is a conventional hot air dryer with sensors instead of buttons, is a far more agreeable proposition; stick your hands under the vent, rub vigorously for less than half a minute and you’re done.
Grumpy Bear Blog 
Spot on.
Really know what I like to grumble about? People who can’t use apostrophes correctly.
They write things aberrations like “Airblade’s” or “restroom’s”, yet know to just add an S to get plural for words like “towels” , “hands” or “pants”.
* rushes off to check grammar *
This came up in a google search for “dyson airblade over rated” – but I’m sorry to tell you that your post is badly researched and written compared to other posts dealing with the same topic.
I don’t particularly enjoy your grumbling tone, and I’m not sure if this blog will get a lot of traction. I don’t think many people would enjoy reading this, or your other posts (I checked them out). Negativity is not easy to read – as I’m sure you already realise while reading what I have to say.
Research has been done on the airblade to show that it is not the most hygienic hand dryer, as they claim. You have not made reference to this research. All you’ve done is speculate and grumble. You are not adding to the conversation about airblades; you are simply putting forward bad arguments that are way too easy for people to dismiss.
So you say the airblade “scrapes” the water off your hands? Yeah, I can agree with you there. That’s kinda what it does. How do you expect it to scrape the water off (so that it can gather in that disgusting manner) if you’re moving your hands up and down constantly? The instructions tell you to put your hands in, and move them up slowly over the course of 10 seconds. Thus, the water is “scraped” off your hands by the airblade downwards. You’re using it incorrectly, so of course you need to spend longer. The real issue here is that there is an “incorrect” way of using the airblade – most people do not know how to use it properly. A hand dryer with instructions is already a failure, in my book. But you’ve focussed on the wrong thing, and made the wrong argument as a result. It would be too easy for an airblade defender to pull the rug out from under you, and tell you “you’re doing it wrong” – but at least now I’ve given you a lucid, well thought out argument with which to respond.
You’ve dismissed carbon footprints as being irrelevant (using a misogynistic turn of phrase that I don’t respect) due to your belief that global warming is a scam. While I had mostly agreed with you up to this point (even though your grammar is atrocious and your tone grating) you’ve shot yourself in the foot by showing yourself to believe global warming is a scam despite shocking, glaring evidence to the contrary. But despite the irrelevance, you “review” how eco-friendly the airblade is, by saying that airblades “heat up the air” so they couldn’t possibly be eco friendly. Yeah, I guess you’re right – there’s no possible way air can be heated up without a huge energy cost. (?!?)
If you want this blog to be more than a waste of your time (and mine, for reading and taking the time to comment), elevate your criticism above “grumpiness”. Do some research, read other posts on the topic (including posts defending the airblade), stop being misogynistic, and learn some basic rules of grammar. And for heaven’s sake, if you don’t agree with global warming, or anything else that has been proven, don’t say it! It renders all your other arguments useless.
Thank you for taking the time to post a comment. I would kindly point you in the direction of my blog title and mission statement: “subjective grumbles about anything and everything”. If you want a well researched and impartial read, go elsewhere.
However, let me address your points one by one because it appears you didn’t even bother reading the post.
“I don’t particularly enjoy your grumbling tone, and I’m not sure if this blog will get a lot of traction. I don’t think many people would enjoy reading this, or your other posts (I checked them out). Negativity is not easy to read – as I’m sure you already realise while reading what I have to say.”
>> You’re absolutely welcome to jog on. Nobody is asking you to enjoy anything you don’t want. As for traction, the blog is not written to build up a large readership otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered with the 4 odd years it’s been live. Yours is the first voice of dissent and negativity towards the blog that I’ve received since it started so you’re in the minority of 1 as far as feedback is concerned. For what it’s worth, I get a few thousand hits a week and that’s fine by me. If it was a few hundred, that would still be fine. If there was a readership that could be counted on one hand, again, not a problem. And on the contrary, negativity is very easy to read and I enjoyed your post. It’s always good to have a critical comment.
“Research has been done on the airblade to show that it is not the most hygienic hand dryer, as they claim. You have not made reference to this research. All you’ve done is speculate and grumble. You are not adding to the conversation about airblades; you are simply putting forward bad arguments that are way too easy for people to dismiss.”
>> You must be in a different country to the UK then because even the Dyson marketing describes it “the fastest, most hygienic hand dryer” (see http://media.dyson.com/downloads/UK/airblade/pdf/brochure.pdf). And yes, I speculate and grumble, the clue is in the blog name. I have nothing to add to a conversation about an Airblade other than my own experience so if you were expecting a well reasoned argument, the type to be found in a prize winning debating contest, you’ve come to the wrong blog.
“So you say the airblade “scrapes” the water off your hands? Yeah, I can agree with you there. That’s kinda what it does. How do you expect it to scrape the water off (so that it can gather in that disgusting manner) if you’re moving your hands up and down constantly?”
>> Did you actually read the blog? Quote: “The idea that the Airblade “scrapes” the water off your hand is complete rubbish for a number of reasons.” I never said the Airblade scrapes water off, if it did, it might actually work. The only way it scrapes water off is if you end up touching the rubber wipers and that’s you doing the scraping not the Airblade.
“The instructions tell you to put your hands in, and move them up slowly over the course of 10 seconds. Thus, the water is “scraped” off your hands by the airblade downwards. You’re using it incorrectly, so of course you need to spend longer. The real issue here is that there is an “incorrect” way of using the airblade – most people do not know how to use it properly. A hand dryer with instructions is already a failure, in my book.”
>> Completely agree, a hand dryer that needs instructions is not a hand dryer. And I’ve never ever seen any instructions about moving them slowly over the course of 10 seconds.
“But you’ve focussed on the wrong thing, and made the wrong argument as a result. It would be too easy for an airblade defender to pull the rug out from under you, and tell you “you’re doing it wrong” – but at least now I’ve given you a lucid, well thought out argument with which to respond.”
>> Actually, I don’t have a response for that. I couldn’t care less if an Airblade defender pulled the rug, I have to use these contraptions everyday and they simply don’t work whether you spend 10 seconds or 30 seconds.
“You’ve dismissed carbon footprints as being irrelevant (using a misogynistic turn of phrase that I don’t respect) due to your belief that global warming is a scam. While I had mostly agreed with you up to this point (even though your grammar is atrocious and your tone grating) you’ve shot yourself in the foot by showing yourself to believe global warming is a scam despite shocking, glaring evidence to the contrary.”
A misogynistic turn of phrase you don’t respect? Fine, don’t read it then. As for atrocious grammar and grating tone, you might want to check your own grammar first but do feel free to point out any errors in the first instance. For the latter, please do feel free to jog on if the grating tone upsets your delicate tendencies. You say you agree with me on global warming but then go on to state that this is despite shocking, glaring evidence to the contrary. So which one is it then? Do you or do you not believe global warming exists because it looks like even you don’t know?
“But despite the irrelevance, you “review” how eco-friendly the airblade is, by saying that airblades “heat up the air” so they couldn’t possibly be eco friendly. Yeah, I guess you’re right – there’s no possible way air can be heated up without a huge energy cost. (?!?)”
>> Sigh, another statement without reading the post. Quote: “all the Airblade’s I’ve ever had the misfortune to use heat up the air which kinda negates the point that they’re supposed to be more eco friendly in the first place.” I haven’t at all reviewed how eco-friendly an Airblade is because it’s not.
“If you want this blog to be more than a waste of your time (and mine, for reading and taking the time to comment), elevate your criticism above “grumpiness”.”
>> It’s certainly not a waste of my time and if you feel you’ve wasted your time reading it, that’s your problem. Nobody asked you read the whole post and then go and read other posts. Again, the clue is in the title, this is a subjective blog about being grumpy and grumpiness in general. You don’t like it? Fine (come on, you must know the words by now), jog on!
“Do some research, read other posts on the topic (including posts defending the airblade), stop being misogynistic, and learn some basic rules of grammar.”
>> I’ll leave the reasoned arguments and research to the people in white coats who are paid to do this kind of thing. As for stop being misogynistic and learning basic rules of grammar, I’m not in the slightest bit a misogynist, I absolutely love women! Basic rules of grammar? Word is certainly not complaining.
“And for heaven’s sake, if you don’t agree with global warming, or anything else that has been proven, don’t say it! It renders all your other arguments useless.”
Actually, it hasn’t been proven unless you count the paid research which has been specifically engineered in much the same way that the dodgy dossier of chemical weapons was used as a pretext for the UK to invade Iraq. And are you seriously suggesting that nobody should say anything without proven research because that’s as stupid as a prize winning village idiot. There’s an analogy for you that’s not the slightest bit misogynistic!
Haha I love the fact that hand dryer debates get so ‘heated’
Lots of people say they dont like the idea of touching surfaces that other people have, particularly in the loo and for all those hygiene freaks out there you need to check this out http://www.americandryer.co.uk. This hand dryer actually sterilises the hands and the surrounding areas as they dry!
It has got quite defensive, I think there may be a Dyson representative at work in here! I think the dryers are great and there is always splashbacks available and a product called a Driplate available for the issue of water on the floor! http://www.driplate.com
Great article cant agree more. Finally I found someone who I can agree with. Everybody is so damn scared to criticise these idiotic Dyson products, probably Dyson managed to brainwash them by a huge media show and overstating their stupid designs. I dont think Dyson is a good engineer, he spend millions to research just stupid concepts that make no sense to most people with common-sense and lacks practicality. On that bladedryer it says it is the most hygienic dryer.. really? It collects all filthy water in the trough. You cant bloody move your hands freely, touches the frame, with germs with previous users, I can go on …. but the bottom line is this blade dryer is one of the most stupidest design of the century. It would have been a better design if they use the same two air flows, towards ground, like in other hand dryers, so hand can be freely move, rub together while drying.
Great post. I couldn’t agree more. Why this product is apparently so popular is a mystery to me as well. Its novelty perhaps? Maybe the fact that at first glance it seems modern?
As you said, the gap to lower one’s hands down into is far too narrow, and it’s virtually impossible not to touch the rubber edges that the previous user touched. I probably wash my hands more thoroughly than the average restroom user, so for me to stick my hands down into an ‘abyss of the unknown’ and to re-contaminate them with the bacteria that the last user may have left behind is a completely repulsive thought.
[…] take my word for it: the Airblade design has been widely criticized in details, chastised in very similar terms by other writers, and even described as “shit” by usability pundit Nick Donnelly. There […]