Vacuums, Hair Dryers… Toothbrushes? I Asked Jake Dyson How The Brand Decides What Gets To Be A Dyson Product

It had been a while since Dyson had genuinely surprised us with a product launch, but then the brand unveiled its first toothbrush. Dyson is already a familiar name in personal care, thanks to its now well established hair-styling gadgets, so a move into oral care wasn't entirely left-field. Still, when the CameraJet made its debut, it was still quite the swerve – taking Dyson from the dressing table to the bathroom sink.

When I caught up with Jake Dyson — son of founder, James, and Dyson's chief engineer — at the brand's Unveiled event, I wanted to know what prompted such a move. And, more broadly, how a brand might end up with such a twisty, turny product roadmap.

(For clarity, throughout this article I'll be using "Dyson" to mean the brand, and "Jake" to mean the person.)

So, if a toothbrush can become a Dyson gadget, is there anything that couldn't be? "No, it doesn't," Jake declares. "It has to be radically different."

He expands: "The first product has to be radically different, and have performance claims, and a difference against a competitor by a magnitude; otherwise, we wouldn't consider it."

In short, the brand isn't interested in having a go at anything; it wants to make a splash in markets that have grown stagnant. The launch of the first Dyson Supersonic hair dryer in 2016 is a great example — it blew new life into a market that had barely seen change in decades.

And the CameraJet is far from your average toothbrush. It's kitted out with a camera that will stream a live view of the inside of your mouth back to you, and is trained to recognize gaps in your teeth and shoot water/mouthwash at them, to take care of flossing. Whether or not it enjoys the success of the Supersonic remains to be seen, but it certainly checks that "radically different" box.

Striving for perfection

The potential to shake things up is essential, but before a new-category product is launched, other criteria must be met. "It's got to work properly," asserts Jake. "I mean, we probably could have launched [the CameraJet] two years ago, but it wouldn't have hit every gap perfectly, and that's not acceptable."

It's unfortunate then that shortly after our conversation, reports of CameraJet faults began rolling in from early adopters. Dyson has blamed this on an isolated production issue that's now under control, so I'll give the company the benefit of the doubt in this instance.

Barring any further hiccups, you should expect more unusual oral care products to also be hitting the market before too long; Jake's third golden rule is that you never launch with just one product. "If we're going to go into a new area, then we'll do that knowing we've got more products behind it," he tells me.

When pushed if he means further iterations, he clarifies the brand aims for "expansion in that category, quite quickly", and confirms it will start with a roadmap of multiple products.

Doubling up

Breaking new markets is an expensive business, but Jake is savvy about not wasting effort. "I think you try not to do things twice that take an awful long time and a lot of investment," he says. "You try to use it again in another product."

He talks about innovations that the brand wants to "platform". A great example is the shrunk-down mechanics and battery system that Dyson developed for its Airwrap, and which also appears in its Supersonic r hair dryer. A version of it is used in the brand's new hot brush, and it also features in the PencilVac and now the PencilMop.

As for exactly how the innovations make their way across team lines, it isn't a defined process. "It happens naturally. You cross-pollinate, you join the dots. 'If we put that with that, we could do this.'," says Jake. "And as a company, we're getting much better at predicting that before we do it."

He explains that this cross-pollination will also sometimes highlight the gaps that Dyson needs to fill. "It makes us realize there are other technologies we need to develop ourselves — which we are, behind the scenes — to enable us to go into those new areas and do something better than anyone else."

What "radically different" products might be on the horizon at Dyson? I'll be watching with interest.

Dyson product tour

Here's a quick rundown of some of Dyson's newest releases — hit the View Details button to read more about each one.