Dyson Zone Air Filtering headphones on sale in January for $949

Announced earlier in the year, Dyson’s hybrid of noise-canceling headphones and a wearable air filtration system – called the Dyson Zone – will finally go on sale in January 2023 in China, with availability in the US and in the UK in March. The price? A fee of $949. It’s a big buck, but these aren’t your everyday headphones. I have tried them and they are not bad at all.

Dyson says it’s trying to tackle two issues with the Zone headphones: air pollution and noise pollution. The headphones themselves are box-style over-ear, with active noise cancellation which aims to address the second problem, and during my hands-on time with the Zone I was impressed. Room noise and (simulated) traffic noise have been kept to a minimum, and I look forward to taking them to the city streets soon for a real-world test.

But then these headphones demand noise-canceling technology, because placed just behind the speakers are Dyson’s new micro-compressors that power the air filtration system. To use the filtration system, you’ll need to attach the face mask, which magnetically snaps onto the headphones and sits right in front of your mouth and nose, providing a steady stream of clean, filtered air. The noise cancellation algorithms have been specially tuned to help reduce the amount of noise generated by essentially having two electric fans spinning at high speed next to your ears.

The zone is aimed at city dwellers, who will frequently be exposed to poor air quality in busy city centers and on public transport. Dyson claims its filters can capture 99% of particulate pollution, specifically the gases and particles most associated with pollution in city centers.

In my short time with the Zone, I found the headphones comfortable. And although at first I felt a little weird wearing the visor system, the feeling of weirdness quickly dissipated. I can certainly imagine many people choosing to wear a system like this in the most densely populated cities around the world. Audio quality is excellent too, but I’ll leave my full verdict on the Zone for the full review when I get my hands on the gadget properly in the coming weeks.