Every year, we see tons of amazing home technology being released, from coffee machines that make the perfect drink at the touch of a button to robot vacuums that clean better than humans. But this year, the product that impressed us the most was the hair dryer. To be precise, it’s the Dyson Supersonic Nural, the new winner of the Home Tech of the Year award at the TechRadar Choice Awards 2024.
This is the successor to the original Supersonic, which was launched in 2016 and made a huge splash in the hair care market. One of the main reasons for its popularity was its streamlined shape, which eliminated the bulky barrel and placed most of the weight in the body. It has a handle, which makes it very easy to handle. This was a game changer in a market that was quite stagnant at the time.
Dyson could have iterated on the improvements with the next-gen version, but instead they decided to shake things up again by throwing in a ton of technology. One of the key takeaways from my experience as TechRadar’s Homes editor is that technology for technology’s sake is not a good thing (I personally don’t need app control on my microwave). But that’s not the point here.
These are all improvements to address the problems and annoyances you’ve been putting up with. None of them are essential, but when we tested this dryer for our Dyson Supersonic Nural review, it certainly made our styling routines smoother than ever.
When you pause styling, Nural goes into low power mode (Image credit: Future)
For example, this hair dryer recognizes when you put it down and responds by switching to a low-power mode after about a second. This means that when you’re styling and you want to pause to grab your comb or heat spray, you don’t have to turn it on and off, it’s ready to use right away. This is a feature that no other entry in our best hair dryer ranking can offer.
Sensors, sensors everywhere
The attachments also have sensors, so the Supersonic Nural remembers the settings you want to use for each one, so you don’t have to manually adjust them every time you install another attachment. This is doubly useful because the attachments here are much more than a basic diffuser and concentrator combination. There is a wide range that also takes into account different hair lengths and types. These transform Nural from “just a hair dryer” to a tool that can compete with some of today’s best multi-stylers.
(Image credit: Future)
I love both of them, but I don’t like either of their heading features. That is “scalp protection mode”. These days, people are becoming more and more aware of the damage that regular heat styling can cause to hair in the long term. Dyson has come up with a solution unlike any other on the market. Nural adjusts the warmth or coolness of the airflow based on distance from your head, helping maintain a constant temperature over your scalp.
This means you can get closer to your head for precise styling without damaging your hair. The inside of the barrel also glows from blue to orange as the temperature adjusts (this isn’t strictly necessary, but it’s cool). While testing the Nural, I found it to automatically use Scalp Protect mode and found there was no real compromise in drying time.
(Image credit: Future)
Such an advanced dryer will be overkill for many people, and the very high cost of $499.99 / £399.99 / AU$749 list price will also put others off. But this kind of innovation can only be a good thing for the broader market. . (Actually, I explained why I think Nural’s price is okay in another article, so I won’t go into it too much here.)
It’s hard to make meaningful innovations in the consumer electronics market, and even harder to introduce truly useful improvements, but Dyson has broken that with the Supersonic Nural. This is a product that deserves to win the 2024 Home Tech of the Year award.
