Dyson Chief Engineer Defends Premium Pricing as CameraJet Performance Questions Emerge

TechRadar noted that Dyson has a history of high prices: its hair dryer launched at $399 (£299 / AU$549) in 2016, and its current flagship stick vacuum costs $979.99 (£749.99 / AU$1,349). The report said the products often differ from cheaper competitors. The hair dryer's design revived a stagnant market, the flagship vacuum can sense the size and number of particles it is sucking up and adjust suction, and the toothbrush has an in-built camera that can detect gaps between teeth and shoot mouthwash into them.

Jake Dyson said: "If you want the best, you have to pay. If you want the best engineering, you have to pay. If you want all the features." He added: "We're not interested in doing the cheapest. At all. We want to introduce new technology and do new things. That's what we're interested in. We're also not afraid to have the most expensive. Because, unfortunately, doing things like this, you can't do cheaply."

He said he was frustrated by the recurring focus on price. "We get quite a lot in America where it's just attacks on price every single time we launch a product," he said, according to TechRadar. "They've completely missed the fact that… look at what it's doing for you. Look at the advance in oral care. And, you know, we can't make things cheaply because they have high-tech technology in them. And they perform as well as they do."

Following the roundtable, reports from early customers said the CameraJet was not performing well, and in many cases was refusing to perform at all. Dyson insisted the problem was an isolated issue involving a handful of specific product batches, not a design fault, TechRadar reported.

Jake Dyson also addressed copycat products that tend to follow successful Dyson launches. "We obviously patent areas of the product, if we can patent them, to prevent that. But we do that in every product, and they always find a way," he said. "And they find a way, but the product isn't as good. They say that it is, but it isn't." Dyson guards against third-party accessories: chips in the brush heads let the CameraJet detect a non-Dyson head, vacuums can identify a fake battery, and hair stylers can tell if a budget attachment pack is attached. A pack of two Dyson toothbrush heads costs $29.99 / £25 / AU$49.

The company's products also share a recognizable aesthetic, including colors with personal references, Jake Dyson said. "This blue [on the toothbrush] is inspired by Yves Klein, who's an artist that my father really likes. He wasn't allowed to use the same blue, but we created our own. And the first vacuum cleaners have purple in them, because of the lavender from the south of France, which is something he loved as well." He added: "So it's about, you know, references, but [also] about art, bringing that creativity into the product, and also recognizing it as a Dyson product."