Hair Dryers
Dyson Supersonic: What the Published Specs Say
The category's price anchor, read entirely off Dyson's own spec sheet — including the number that undercuts its own marketing.
Updated September 2026 · Sawyer V.
Dyson publishes 1,600 W, four heat settings with a cold shot, three speeds, 1.8 lb, an 8.6 ft cable, 120 V and a two-year limited warranty, with three attachments. It costs about $19 a year to run. It is the best-documented heat control in the category and the heaviest dryer we list.
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The number Dyson does not lead with
1,600 W. That is 275 W less than a drugstore Revlon SmoothStay, and it is on Dyson’s own product page. The most expensive conventional dryer in mainstream retail draws meaningfully less power than the cheapest one.
That is not a gotcha. It is the entire engineering argument, stated plainly: Dyson is not selling you heat, it is selling you air movement and heat regulation. Whether the airflow justifies the price is a question nobody can answer from spec sheets, because no manufacturer publishes airflow in comparable units. What we can say is that anyone buying this dryer expecting more power than a cheap one is buying against the published figures.
What is genuinely well documented
Four heat settings including a cold shot, and three speed settings. That is twelve usable combinations plus a dedicated cool option, and it is the clearest heat-control specification of any dryer in our registry. Dyson also states the dryer measures air temperature over forty times a second and regulates heat accordingly — their claim, not our finding, and a claim about restraint rather than power.
The attachment set is three: a styling concentrator, a diffuser, and a wide-tooth comb that Dyson describes as engineered for curly and textured hair with robust teeth to lengthen hair as it dries. Two of the three are textured-hair attachments.
What it costs to run
At 1,600 W and fifteen minutes a day, five days a week — 65 hours a year — this dryer draws 104 kWh annually. At the June 2026 US average residential rate of 18.34 cents per kWh that is $19.07 a year.
Which is about three dollars a year less than the cheapest dryer on this site. Over the five-year service life we use in our arithmetic that is a fifteen-dollar saving, against a purchase price difference of several hundred. Nobody is buying this dryer for its running cost, and now the number is on the page rather than in an implication.
Price per use, at 5 uses a week over 5 years
| What you pay | Cost per use | Cost per year |
|---|---|---|
| $30 | $0.02 | $6.00 |
| $60 | $0.05 | $12.00 |
| $100 | $0.08 | $20.00 |
| $150 | $0.12 | $30.00 |
| $200 | $0.15 | $40.00 |
| $300 | $0.23 | $60.00 |
| $400 | $0.31 | $80.00 |
| $500 | $0.38 | $100.00 |
5 uses a week for 5 years is 1300 uses. Both figures are stated assumptions, not measurements — halve the life and every cost per use doubles. We publish the ladder rather than a worked example for one specific product because a price we typed into a sentence would be wrong within a week.
Who this is for
- Fine hair that has been over-dried before. Four heat steps and a cold shot on the lowest published wattage of any conventional dryer here is the right combination. This is why it wins the fine-hair page.
- Curly and textured hair. A diffuser and a wide-tooth comb in the box, and three speeds so you can genuinely turn the airflow down.
- Anyone who dries daily. High usage is what makes the price-per-use arithmetic work, and it is the only condition under which a flagship price becomes reasonable.
Who should skip it
- Thick, dense hair where session length is the complaint. Lowest published wattage and heaviest published weight is the wrong end of both scales for a long dry — see the thick-hair page, where we name it as the skip.
- Anyone who travels with their dryer. 120 V only. A plug adapter will not save it, and this is why.
- Occasional users. Twice a month for two years puts the cost per use in dollars rather than cents.
What we cannot tell you
We have not used this dryer. We do not know how loud it is — Dyson publishes no decibel figure, which is notable given how often noise comes up. We do not know how it feels in the hand beyond the published 1.8 lb, and we do not know how quickly it dries hair relative to anything else, because the specification that would answer that is not published by anyone.
Everything above is off Dyson’s own product page or computed from it with the working shown. If you want the direct comparison against the cheaper alternative, that is Dyson versus Shark.
The tools on this page
Prices come from the live price layer. Where none is available the button says so rather than showing a number we cannot stand behind.
Dyson Supersonic hair dryer
1,600 W is less power than a drugstore dryer draws, and Dyson publishes that openly — the pitch is airflow and heat control, not wattage.
Shark SpeedStyle Pro hair dryer
The highest published wattage of the premium dryers here and the most attachments in the box, at a fraction of Dyson's asking price.
Questions people actually ask
Is the Dyson Supersonic worth it?
It has the best-documented heat control in the category and the lowest published wattage of any conventional dryer we list. Whether that is worth flagship money depends on how often you dry your hair — at five uses a week over five years, every $100 of price is about four cents a use.
How many watts is the Dyson Supersonic?
Dyson publishes 1,600 W, which is less than a drugstore dryer draws. The engineering argument is airflow and heat regulation rather than raw power.
Is the Dyson Supersonic dual voltage?
No. Dyson publishes 120 V for the US model. A plug adapter alone will not make it work on European mains.
How much does the Dyson Supersonic cost to run?
About $19.07 a year at 15 minutes a day, five days a week, using the June 2026 US average residential rate of 18.34 cents per kWh. That is roughly three dollars a year less than the cheapest dryer we list.