Increasingly, “smart” devices seem to be adding voguish technologies like voice assistants, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality. Fewer companies, however, would consider the benefit of adding barometers, a now over 350-year-old piece of technology, to a product that cost millions to research and develop.
Fewer companies still would consider attaching this ancient technology to a vacuum cleaner. Nevertheless, this is exactly what Dyson has done with its latest cleaning product and, what’s more, they say the addition is going to be “game-changing”.
Barometers probably bring to mind images of antique wall ornaments with ornately painted faces offering whimsical meteorological advice like: “bring a brolly”. But, as Dyson has discovered, barometric sensors offer more modern applications than just ensuring you dress for the weather.
Simply put, barometers measure air pressure. This is essentially the force exerted by the weight of air and gases in the atmosphere. At a lower altitude, there is more air pushing down so the pressure is greater, whereas at 35,000ft less air above you equals less pressure, which is also why it’s harder to breathe the higher one gets. Barometers measure this phenomenon using the liquid in a vacuum-sealed tube. As pressure increases or decreases, the liquid rises or falls.
In 1640 the Italian physicist, Evangelista Torricelli, developed the first working barometer prototype. His invention attempted to solve a problem irking the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He’d employed local pump makers to draw water up to his new fountain but, try as they might, they couldn’t suck it higher than 10 meters. Torricelli believed something with a counteracting weight was pushing down and limiting water suction leaving the fountain dry.
He devised a meter-long tube, sealed at one end which stood vertically in a basin of mercury, which he knew was 14 times heavier than the Tuscan engineer’s water. When the mercury level fell by the same amount the pump makers observed, Torricelli realised that the counterpoise must be the weight of air acting on the tube’s vacuum.
“We live submerged at the bottom of an ocean of elementary air, which is known by incontestable experiments to have weight,” he wrote describing his hefty discovery.
His work was refined by other scientists, including the French mathematician, Blaise Pascal, who undertook a hazardous 4,803ft trek carrying a metre-tall tube of mercury up an extinct volcano in Auvergne to investigate Torricelli’s invention at altitude.
Soon after, barometers became common domestic devices thanks to their ability to predict approaching weather fronts and protect drying laundry from imminent thunderstorms.
But, the rise of personal computing has replaced barometers with devices that digitally monitor air pressure — including Dyson’s latest vacuum cleaners.
The unusual decision to include this came about after, as Dyson happily admit, their devices “weren’t performing well enough at extreme altitudes.” As Matt Childe, global head of motor development at Dyson explains, “when we started to sell more globally in 2006 we found people used our motors in unexpected places and machines were reacting differently region by region.”
Expanding into geographically diverse places, from the top of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to the Caspian cities of Russia 92ft below sea level, suddenly made altitude a genuine concern.”
Matt continues: “motor impellers push a certain amount of air at a time and if it’s very thin you need more revolutions to create the same effect. In the previous motor, the only source of intelligence we got from the motor was how fast it was spinning. If it wasn’t working properly, we couldn’t tell whether it was blocked or whether people were using it at the top of a mountain.” This led to a total overhaul of the motor in their cord-free vacuums.
In order to overcome their machine’s altitude sickness, engineers turned to the humble barometer. “Now when you pull the trigger, before the motor even starts, it takes a reading of your altitude,” explains Matt.
“Because you get high-pressure days and low-pressure days, weather affects ambient air pressure which we measure too. As a result, we’re able to determine roughly where you are and then adjust the motor to fit the machine performance to the demands.
“Suddenly, this one additional piece of information means we’re able to tell what altitude you’re at and how to adjust your machine for peak performance. But, we’re also able to tell if you’ve blocked your machine with a sock, a piece of Lego or whether you really need to wash your filter. It all just helps to maintain your machine at absolutely peak performance levels.”
The degree to which engineers went during testing stages was almost as extreme as the altitudes to which they were catering. While home testing the barometer in the latest vacuum cleaner, they found that the altitude sensor they’d added was so accurate that it was actually differentiating between whether testers were using it to clean the floor, a tabletop or the ceiling.
By maintaining these high standards of testing, Dyson engineers can now ensure that every new V10 vacuum cleaner will work as well in homes around the world as it does in rural Britain where the machine was designed.
Regardless of where you live (and vacuum), one thing’s certain; finding a new application for this old technology promises to elevate spring cleaning to new heights.
Words: Henry Tobias Jones, Editor
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