Dyson Zone headphones with a built-in air purifier will go on sale in January

The Dyson Zone active noise cancelling headphones with built-in air purification – at one point thought to be an April Fool’s Day joke when they were revealed – will go on sale around the world in January.

Dyson has announced the full specifications of the new product which has been five years in the making.

The Dyson Zone headphones can deliver up to 50 hours of quality audio reproduction and advanced noise cancellation while the filter can remove pollutants as small as 0.1 microns.

The motivation behind the development of this product was the growth in noise pollution and air pollution and the impact that has on the environment in which we live.

More than half the world’s population lives in cities and that’s expected to reach 7 in 10 by 2050 according to Dyson’s own research.

And as urban populations grow, so does the surrounding infrastructure for transport, construction and traffic which all contribute to generating air and noise pollution.

Dyson says 90 per cent of New York City mass transit users are exposed to noise levels that exceed the recommended decibel limit while in the EU, noise pollution affects one in five.

Air pollution is also a world-wide issue with 99 per cent of the world’s population living in areas that exceed the World Health Organisation (WHO) safe levels.

So Dyson decided to come up with a solution.

That solution is Dyson’s own headphones which can handle the dual challenges of noise and air pollution.

On the air purification side, Dyson was able to call on more than 30 years of experiencing in air flow, filtration and motors and a deep understanding of indoor and outdoor air quality to find the solution that will eventually find itself aboard the Dyson Zone.

There are compressors in each ear cup that the draw air through the dual layer filters and aim two streams of purified air towards the user’s nose and mouth.

The onboard potassium-enriched carbon filters specifically target the gases usually associated with city pollution including NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) and SO2 (sulfur dioxide).

On the audio side, Dyson has taken its engineering skills to create a high fidelity and immersive audio experience with low distortion and broad frequency range to provide solid bass and impressive highs and mids.

There is also a microphone on board so customers can make and receive phone calls, make voice recordings and control the entire product with their voice.

The microphone combines with the active noise cancellation microphone to provide dual microphone beamforming to offer greater voice clarity that will reject noise from behind and to the sides of the wearer.

The speaker driver and electronics are made from materials designed to minimise distortion while the driver output has been equalised by intelligent signal processing 48,000 times a second and combined with the noise cancellation to completely neutralise harmonic distortion.

There are 11 microphones aboard the Dyson Zone ANC system with eight monitoring ambient noise 384,000 times a second.

The Dyson Zone can produce frequencies beyond human hearing from 6Hz to 21kHz which ensures you’ll hear every note and every word.

The broad frequency range is possible thanks to the electroacoustic engineering system and base components including the 40mm 16 ohm neodymium speaker which sits at the heart of the audio system.

Dyson Zone can also be used with the MyDyson app so users can adjust airflow speed and noise cancellation mode as well as choosing between three equaliser modes.

Dyson Zone will go on sale in January in China and in the US, UK, Hong Kong SAR and Singapore in March.

And they will be priced at a whopping 749 pounds in the UK and $US949 in the US which means they will be well over $1000 in Australia when they are released.

No word yet on an official launch date for Australia.