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Media Platforms Design Team

For the design lover who can't stand the dry air in her apartment, some good news: Dyson, the company known for its fancy futuristic vacuums, is making a humidifier. It's called, simply, the Dyson humidifier.

If the device looks familiar, that's because the humidifier is an outgrowth of Dyson's Air Multiplier line of bladeless fans. This machine uses the same technology to spread air throughout a room or apartment, but with the addition of blasts of ultraviolet (UV) light. Water in the three-liter reservoir is exposed to UV twice before it enters the air, and Dyson claims this process will kill 99.9 percent of microbes, eliminating the problem of your humidifier actually making you sicker during the long winter months. And because the humidifier is built with Air Multiplier technology, it will work as an ordinary fan during the sweaty summer months when more humidity is the last thing you need.

Frustratingly, while Dyson has announced the humidifier just as much of the United States is feeling a crispness in the autumn air, you can't buy the device to help you survive this winter—don't expect the Dyson humidifier to go on sale stateside until fall 2015. Perhaps it's no surprise, though, as Dyson never seems to be in a hurry. The company reportedly put more than $60 million into the humidifier and built more than 600 prototypes during development.

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Andrew Moseman
Site Director

Andrew's from Nebraska. His work has also appeared in Discover, The Awl, Scientific American, Mental Floss, Playboy, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn with two cats and a snake.