Dyson’s Biggest Hits and Most Spectacular Flops

The vacuum cleaner launched James Dyson’s legacy.

Before founding his company — as he grew frustrated with constantly clogging, bag-dependent vacuums — Dyson spent years refining cyclonic technology designed to separate dust from air without relying on a bag. A Japanese company first put its G-Force vacuum into production in the 1980s, and Dyson brought his own bagless DC01 vacuum to market in the UK in 1993.

The clear-bin machine was meant to avoid the loss of suction that came with old-school vacuum bags filled with dust. It helped turn a largely ignored cleaning appliance into a conspicuously high-tech piece of consumer gear.

Dyson’s vacuums are still popular, 33 years later.

Dyson rethought the humble desk fan. Instead of spinning blades, dust-gathering grills, and a cord forever tangled in the back, the company designed a modern-looking stack with a hole in the middle.

Launched in 2009, the Air Multiplier fans hid a motor and impeller in the base, effectively propelling air through a ring-shaped top.

The same aerodynamic and motor technology now powers Dyson’s hand dryers, found in public restrooms.

It’s hard to build a profitable electric car (and even legacy carmakers are struggling with the task).

Dyson learned this the hard way. In 2014, the vacuum-maker, hoping to lean into its well-established supply of batteries, wanted to build its own EV SUV with around 600 miles of range on a charge.

In 2019, after spending about $750 million on five years of research and development, Dyson scrapped the much-hyped project, saying it could not find a way to make the car commercially viable.

The cars never made it into consumers’ hands.

“It was a difficult decision to stop,” the inventor wrote in a blog post. “We learned a lot and Dyson has benefited from a huge influx of engineering talent from the automotive industry.”

Dyson was dreaming about robot vacuums long before most people trusted a robot not to chew on a living room charging cable.

In 2003, the company built the DC06 — a prototype with removable batteries and 90 sensors — but decided it was too complicated and expensive to sell.

The company finally launched its camera-equipped 360 Eye robot vacuum in 2015. It still sells robot vacuums today, but the category has not become Dyson’s next bagless-vacuum-style breakthrough.

Dyson spent years building the Zone, a pair of $949 noise-canceling headphones with a detachable visor that blows purified air toward the user’s nose and mouth.

The problem, Jake Dyson, the founder’s son and chief engineer, later said, was that customers did not quite know what it was: headphones or an air purifier?

“I’ll be completely honest, quite often we work in an obsessive nature,” he told Wired in 2025. “Sometimes before actually evaluating what the market response might be. And the market didn’t exist. So you’ve got to take those risks.”

Dyson’s washing machine — the ContraRotator, launched in 2000 — had two drums spinning in opposite directions to mimic hand-washing, all while tackling bigger loads faster.

It was certainly distinctive compared to the rest of the washing machine market. The market didn’t respond to its roughly $1,000 starting price, and it ended production in 2004.

But it still found a way to live on.

“I use them,” James Dyson said during a 2025 sitdown with the “David Senra” podcast. “It’s great, and people have now copied a lot of the ideas, like the big door.”

Dyson brought its vacuum-cleaner obsession with motors and airflow to hair care in 2016 with the Supersonic hair dryer. Two years later, the Airwrap arrived, using airflow to curl, smooth, and dry hair without extreme heat.

The tools were expensive from the start, but they turned into beauty-world status symbols. They remain popular, especially among influencers filming “get ready with me” videos.