Dyson Find+Follow Purifier Cool Review: Precise, Not Powerful

With the Find+Follow Purifier Cool, Dyson adds a system that detects and tracks the occupants of a room to its familiar fan-and-purifier formula. The airflow, noise and power consumption figures below come from the recorded laboratory test, which also put that rather unusual tracking function through a practical assessment.

The Dyson Find+Follow Purifier Cool sits slightly outside the usual definition of a fan. It does not simply move air: it also includes a purifier and, above all, a detection system able to spot the people present in a room and steer the airflow towards them automatically.

The Find+Follow function relies on a vision system placed at the centre of the ring. Its initial detection field covers 100 degrees, but the machine can sweep across 220 degrees to look for occupants before following them across a range of up to 350 degrees. With several people in the room, it adapts its oscillation to share the flow between them.

The fan offers ten power levels along with motorised horizontal oscillation. It also has an Auto mode and can send air forwards to ventilate, or backwards when you want the purification without the draught. Purification pairs a HEPA+K-Carbon filter with a permanent catalytic filter. The machine measures several air quality parameters and shows them on its screen as well as in the MyDyson app. The assessment here judges it above all as a fan; the test protocol used does not evaluate the performance of its purification system.

As is often the case with Dyson, the care taken over the design is hard to miss. The combination of white ring, metal base and copper-coloured grille gives the Find+Follow enough presence that there is no need to hide it away.

Construction inspires confidence too. The machine tips the scales at 5.48 kg, though, and is not really designed to be carried from room to room. The shape of the ring at least makes it reasonably easy to pick up.

The controls on the machine itself are reduced to the bare minimum: a single power button sits above the screen. Changing speed, oscillation or modes means turning to the remote control or the app.

The colour screen on the base makes up for some of that austerity. It shows the fan speed as well as air quality information, and a dedicated button on the remote scrolls through the particle, gas, temperature and humidity readings. The display is small but legible enough from close by.

The remote itself is well designed. Compact, it gathers together power, the ten fan levels, Auto mode, oscillation, airflow direction and Find+Follow, and it clips magnetically to the top of the ring with the keys facing downwards.

What is missing is any vertical adjustment. The airflow is projected at a fixed height and only rotating the base changes its direction. That matters more than it might, because the flow is unusually concentrated.

In the recorded test the detection system proved particularly responsive. Once a person had been detected, the fan adjusted its rotation quickly as they moved and kept the airflow pointed at them with reasonable precision. Movement across an arc of more than 180 degrees around the machine did not really catch it out.

The tracking matters all the more because the Dyson's airflow is directional. Rather than constantly sweeping a large empty area, the fan can concentrate its output on the spot where the user actually is.

Pairing with MyDyson is guided step by step and presents no particular difficulty. The phone detects the machine nearby, then the app walks through the Wi-Fi connection.

During the test the app regularly reported that the Dyson was offline while it was in fact still connected to the network. Closing and relaunching MyDyson was generally enough to put things right.

Once past that stage, the app repeats the main remote functions: power, speed, Auto mode, airflow direction, oscillation and Find+Follow. The tracking function even gets its own screen, which shows the covered area around the fan graphically.

MyDyson is most interesting for the purifier information. It displays overall air quality and particle concentrations as well as temperature and humidity, can report outdoor air quality, and allows the filter status to be checked. Scheduling is fairly advanced: recurring time slots can be set for individual days of the week, with a choice of the settings the machine should adopt. The timer runs to 24 h and can be adjusted in 5 min steps.

The absence of visible blades makes upkeep far simpler than on a traditional fan. There is no grille to unscrew and no propeller to extract; a damp cloth cleans the surfaces, and it is enough to check that the air inlets and outlets stay clear.

Replacing the filter is very straightforward as well. The two perforated panels on the base unclip to give direct access to the HEPA+K-Carbon filter. That filter is a consumable to factor into ownership, since it needs replacing roughly once a year.

The elongated design of the Find+Follow might suggest a wide column of air. The measurements show rather the opposite: its output is unusually concentrated.

Finding the axis of maximum air speed took some searching slightly above the apparent centre of the ring. At 1 m, the recorded figures were 0.8 m/s at intermediate power and 2.1 m/s at full power. The airflow is clearly perceptible, but the raw strength stays modest.

At 2 m, the readings were still 0.5 m/s at intermediate power and 1.2 m/s at maximum. The Dyson therefore keeps a noticeable breeze going a few metres away, without producing the powerful gust that some bladed models can deliver.

Its useful range, meaning the distance at which 0.3 m/s can still be measured, reaches 3.80 m. That is enough for a bedroom or a living room of reasonable dimensions, but it confirms that the Find+Follow plays the targeting card rather than the brute power one.

Measurements around the axis are even more telling. At 1 m and full power, only 0.2 m/s was recorded 30 cm above the centre of the flow, while the airflow became too weak to measure 30 cm below it or to the sides.

The Find+Follow keeps its noise level under control as long as it is not asked for everything it has. At intermediate power the recorded figure was 42 dB at 1 m. The airflow is audible in a quiet room but does not really become a problem for working or watching television.

At full power the sound level meter reached 53 dB. The fan is then clearly heard, and that setting suits periods when cooling matters more than quiet.

At its lowest setting the Dyson Find+Follow Purifier Cool drew 3 Wh over an hour of operation. On a simulation based on 8 h of daily use over four months, that works out at roughly 2.88 kWh.

At full power the measured figure was 27 Wh in an hour, or 25.92 kWh over the same theoretical period. Consumption therefore stays very reasonable for prolonged use and remains, as with fans in general, on a completely different scale from an air conditioner.

If the design drew you here, there are few equivalents. The most original shape belongs to Shark, whose TurboBlade adopts a wind-turbine look. More conventional but with strong build quality, sustained fan power and a transformable design, the Dreo TurboPoly 765S is also worth a look.