Dyson Pure Cool TP04 review: it's a fan… but also an air purifier

Are you looking for a fan? Then, as this Dyson Pure Cool TP04 review will demonstrate, this is among the best and most achingly stylish and best fans you can get. Are you also shopping for an air purifier? The Dyson Pure Cool TP04 is one of those, too! Now, we've saved you time and, since you only need one device instead of two, perhaps some money as well. Although since it's made by premium British brand Dyson, maybe not all that much money.

My wife and I have had an ongoing argument over air purifiers for years. She thinks they are a must have and wants it running all the time. I don't really mind using one but I can't stand the constant noise. The result is that we tend to go back and forth. She plugs it in and it runs for a while until I get tired of it then it's unplugged for a while. 

Over the last year or so a number of factors have come together that pushed us towards the always running camp. I live in Portland Oregon and last fall the city was suddenly surrounded on all sides by raging wildfires. There was a serious discussion if a major American city might need to consider evacuation. In the end that wasn't quite necessary but it was still a rough couple of weeks. The view through the windows was an apocalyptic scene and air quality was so bad even indoor workouts came to a stop. 

Next up we were deep into winter and the house remained pretty much sealed against the cold and rain. A friend had her house tested for mold and instead found that there was a high particulate matter. Why was the particulate matter high? Well, it turns out humans aren't meant to live in a sealed house for extended periods of time. Without ventilation houses get stale, dirty, air. 

Having long since given up the fight for peace from what I consider noise pollution we run our air purifier all the time. Not only that but we upgraded our years old unit to something more modern with a HEPA filter. It's still a source of constant irritation though. There's always a racket and do we really need it all the time?

As it turns out, Dyson has a solution for marital bliss. The Pure Cool TP04 checks the right boxes for both my wife and I. Let's take a look at how this magic feat happens.

• Also consider: Dyson Pure Hot + Cool Formaldehyde. This one pulls triple duty!
• Or the Dyson Cool AM07 Tower Fan. It keeps things simple
• Are Dyson fans worth the money? As you can probably tell, we say 'yes!'

Dyson Pure Cool TP04: what is it?

There is some confusion out there about what the Dyson Pure Cool TP04 actually is. It is not a heater or an air conditioner of any kind. Despite the name Pure Cool it does not cool the air unless you count air movement as cooling. Main feature number one, in no particular order, is that of a fan. 

As a fan it stays true to the Dyson style of bladeless fan design. According to Dyson "Air Multiplier™ technology delivers over 77 gallons per second of smooth, yet powerful airflow." Every fan I've ever seen lists a CFM airflow spec so if you want to compare then you'll need a bit of conversion to get roughly 618 CFM. That's impressive. For a little frame of reference, the fan I use when cycling indoors delivers 389 CFM and it's powerful. Also, I don't have the best kitchen ventilation but the Dyson easily overpowers it.  Believe what you want about the bladeless design, in the end this is a powerful fan and it's easy to clean the dust off it.  

The other main feature of the Dyson Pure Cool TP04 is air purification. There are a lot of claims about air purifiers and Dyson isn't shy about wading into the pool. They claim that third party tests don't reflect real world results. Then they designed their own test and aced it. I gotta say, that sounds a little suss. They might be right though. I have no real way to check the claims of Dyson or the claims of others. 

What I can say about the air purification is that it's a HEPA filter paired with an activated carbon filter. The filters surround the entire base of the fan and they are substantial. Air comes in through the filter system and pushes out through the fan. The activated Carbon filter remove gases and odors. It's the carbon filter that keeps the house smelling good. Then the Glass HEPA filter captures 99.97% of microscopic allergens and pollutants as small as 0.3 microns. This is the piece that handles particulates. However you feel about the testing dispute, the house smells better and the air feels cleaner.

Dyson Pure Cool TP04: how does it fit into your smart home?

When it comes to using the Dyson Pure Cool TP04 the magic sauce is really the smart functions. The first day I unboxed the unit I treated it like a standard fan. I plugged it in and played with the remote a bit. It felt powerful and the ability to have it rotate 350 degrees is a cool function. My son had fun putting his hand through the middle of the tower and I spent a few minutes studying the display. It seemed like a well-built unit but nothing all that special. Then I installed the app. 

The app is what makes the TP04 really special. The main screen displays the outside air quality, temperature, humidity, and PM 2.5. The details come from the cloud after you tell the app where you live. Below that is the info for your inside air. The air quality, humidity, and PM 2.5 are right there but there's more info a click away. Click through and you can see daily and weekly average, as well as an ongoing line graph. This second screen shows AIQ, PM2.5, PM10 VOC, nitrogen dioxide, temperature and humidity. 

Aside from the graphs and measurements there are also controls, scheduling, and support in the app. At the bottom left there's a button that makes the remote unnecessary. Click on it and you will have complete control of all the functions of the fan. The bottom right is where you will find a button that takes care of scheduling. If you want to create a weekly schedule for the unit it's possible right there. In the top left is a hamburger menu where you can find support options. Part of pairing the fan is registering it and creating an account. There are details about that in this section as well as a live chat button.

It's worth mentioning that you can integrate the Dyson Pure Cool TP04 with voice assistants. If you'd rather talk to Alexa, Google, or Siri there is compatibility.

So, is Dyson Pure Cool TP04 any good?

At the very beginning of the article, I talked about how the Dyson TP04 brought marital bliss to my home. The trick to that is in the auto mode. As I said, the push and pull at issue was the constant noise of an air purifier running and no sense of what it was doing. I don't want to live with the noise and my wife wants clean air. Putting the TP04 on auto everything gives us both what we want. 

I have a pretty smart house. It's small but every room has a Google Home, there's a smart light in every room, and I've got a fan and a light on smart switches. Integrating a smart device would generally be high on my list of desired features but I haven't added the Dyson into Google Home. I also quickly placed the remote into its magnetic perch on top of the fan and I rarely open the controls in the app. The way I use the TP-04 is completely hands off. 

I found a place for it in the living room. It looks nice, it's the room we spend the most time in, and there's plenty of area for it to circulate the air. Most of the time the TP04 sits there doing nothing. As the air quality changes it decides how fast it needs to run the fan and for how long. 

In most cases the thing that changes the indoor air quality is cooking. As soon as I start to cook the fan starts to ramp up. Open up the app, or look at the display, and you can see that the AIQ index is changing from a nice happy green "Good" to something less than that. Looking at the historic graphs I can see that PM2.5 particulates seem to spike the highest with PM10 close behind. Other markers that affect the air quality don't budge much. 

If I'm just doing a bit of oven cooking at low temperatures the fan might come on low. At lower speeds it's hard to tell if it's on or off because it's very quiet. Spend some time putting a hard sear on a steak though and the fan will seriously ramp up. There is a lot of power on tap and you hear it but it doesn't stay on forever. If you pay attention to it you can see the air quality improve over time and the fan will reduce the speed. Most of the time within about an hour it's back to silently watching over the family. 

By letting the TP04 ramp up when the air quality is bad and automatically ramp down when it's better both my wife and I are happy. Air quality is good and there is as much silence as there ever is in a small house with a 9-year-old. When air quality is less than good I can deal with the noise. It's less than other units and there is always a clear reason. It feels like the someone at Dyson is watching over my family and right now that's a great feeling. 

Dyson Pure Cool TP04: verdict

Thanks to dual-purpose design that is clever as it is elegant the Pure Cool TP04 is a premium purchase that nonetheless represents good value for money. Although you may find yourself softly cursing when it comes time to buy new filters, as they are also not cheap. It's worth checking our Dyson discount codes to see if you can save on your order. 

However, by combining a really quite stylish tower fan with an effective air purifier that can be more or less to run on its own, the Dyson Pure Cool TP04 is a life-improving premium purchase that you are unlikely to regret making.