From Vacuum Cleaners To Toothbrushes: How Did Dyson Build A Global Tech Empire?

Say the word “Dyson” to most people today and a vacuum probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind, not with the Supersonic, the Airwrap and those bladeless fans all competing for attention. Yet, the company’s entire story began with something far less glamorous: a man frustrated that his vacuum cleaner kept losing suction as its bag filled up.

From there, Dyson has moved into hairdryers, other hair tools, fans, air purifiers, headphones and now toothbrushes. It’s such a weird variety of products that it makes you wonder how a company built around cleaning carpets has now ended up trying to reinvent the toothbrush.

It Started With A Vacuum

James Dyson’s frustration with traditional vacuum cleaners came down to a basic problem. As dust filled the bag, it could clog and the vacuum would lose suction. Instead of using a bag to collect the dust, Dyson started experimenting with cyclonic separation, which is a system that uses spinning air to separate dust from the air and collect it in a container.

According to Dyson, it took four years and 5,127 prototypes before the first cyclonic vacuum was ready for production. The DC01 eventually launched in the UK in 1993, after big manufacturers had rejected the technology.

Dyson’s original selling point wasn’t just that it had made a better vacuum. Rather, it had questioned something people had completely gotten used to and decided that a product most households took for granted could work differently.

Dyson Found More Ways To Move Air

Dyson had already built up a lot of experience with motors and the movement of air, which gave the company something it could take beyond vacuum cleaners.

The company launched the Airblade hand dryer in 2006, followed by its Air Multiplier fan technology in 2009. The products looked completely different from a vacuum, but the interest and motive was still the same, with Dyson finding new ways to move and control air. This was when Dyson started to look less like a company focused on one type of product and more like a company using its expertise across a bunch of different ones.

The Hairdryer Changed Dyson’s Image

The Dyson Supersonic came in 2016, and this was probably when people started wondering why a company that was known for vacuum cleaners was suddenly telling people how to dry their hair.

The Supersonic used the company’s digital motor and airflow technology to approach hair drying differently, while Dyson says its development involved understanding the effects of heat and airflow on hair.

Then came the Airwrap in 2018, which took those ideas even further by using controlled airflow and the Coanda effect, where moving air follows a nearby surface and pulls hair around the styling barrels. All of a sudden, Dyson wasn’t just selling another hairdryer; it was using its airflow technology to give people a different way of styling hair, rather than just competing with the hairdryers and straighteners that were already on the market.

Dyson Got Really Ambitious

The product range continued to grow, which led to cordless vacuums, air purifiers, hair straighteners, lighting and robotics as well as the Dyson Zone in 2022. Dyson says that the Zone combined noise-cancelling headphones with an air-purification system designed to deliver filtered air around the wearer’s nose and mouth.

The Zone was a big change from the products that had made Dyson famous, moving the company into a completely different type of device. At the same time, it showed how Dyson could take technology from two areas it had already developed and use them together in something entirely new.

Now, Dyson Wants To Reinvent Your Toothbrush

Dyson’s latest move is into oral care with the CameraJet, which is a toothbrush with a built-in camera designed to identify gaps between teeth as you brush. In its 1 September launch announcement, Dyson says the 100 000-pixel macro camera captures 28 images a second, while machine learning identifies gaps and triggers a targeted jet of mouthrinse.

Oral-B, Philips and other brands already sell connected toothbrushes with features such as app tracking, brushing feedback and sensors. CameraJet takes a different approach, with Dyson using a camera to see where the mouthrinse needs to be directed instead of just tracking how someone brushes their teeth.

Dyson has spent years developing technology around airflow and fluid dynamics, and that work has now found its way into the CameraJet. The same focus on controlling air and liquid that is used across its other products is being used here to direct the mouthrinse exactly where Dyson wants it to go.

Where Does Dyson Go Next?

Looking back at Dyson’s product history, the jump from vacuums to hair tools and then oral care doesn’t seem quite as random as it first does. The company has basically kept taking its engineering into places outside the category where it started.

Whether CameraJet becomes as familiar as the Supersonic or ends up being one of Dyson’s more unusual experiments, it definitely says a lot about where the company is now. Dyson doesn’t really seem interested in staying in its lane, and at this rate, it’s probably better not to expect it to.