Technologies

Dyson Zone Review: The Weirdest Headphones We’ve Ever Tested

With their air-purifying face visor, the Dyson Zone headphones are certainly unusual. We put them to the test.

The Dyson Zone headphones have great sound, excellent noise canceling and its visor can filter out pollution to help you breathe easy. But at almost $1,000 they’re a tough sell, especially for anyone who doesn’t live or work in a place where airborne pollution is an issue, like a major city. A lot of headphone users simply won’t benefit from the air filtration system at the core of the Zone.

Having spent some time with my review model, I’m impressed with the audio quality and noise canceling, but their significant weight, bizarre appearance and limited appeal makes them tricky to recommend, at least to most people. Those of you with deep pockets and who walk or cycle through New York’s busy streets may well see the value in these unusual headphones. Everyone else will be better served by more traditional noise-canceling headphones.

Dyson’s Zone headphones go on sale globally towards the end of April and will cost $949 (£749, which is about AU$1,395 converted).

dyson-zone-review-cnet-2 — They’re not exactly subtle.

Andrew Lanxon/CNET

Dyson first showed off the Zone headphones last year and frankly we weren’t sure what to think. They’re huge over-ear headphones with metal grilles and a quirky removable face visor that sends purified air to your mouth and nose using micro compressors and filters inside the earcups. It’s certainly a first of its kind, and Dyson thinks it’s on to something.

Dyson Zone

See at Dyson

Get Price Alerts

You’re receiving price alerts for Dyson Zone

Like

Great sound quality
Excellent active noise cancellation
Generous battery life for music
Air filtration could help reduce breathing problems in big cities

Don’t Like

High price
Extremely heavy
Built-in filtration has limited appeal beyond wealthy urbanites

The Zone is designed for urban use, for those of you walking or cycling through the world’s megacities where breathing ground-level air pollution is a serious problem. Then there’s the pollutants in underground subway systems, which can be worse than at street level. Dyson says its filter system captures 99% of airborne particle pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and airborne dust, which are especially problematic in cities.

Now, I can’t give a verdict on how well that actually works because funily enough I don’t have my own particle laboratory to test it scientifically. But I did go and see Dyson’s labs in the UK, where it’s spent over six years testing and refining the Zone using medical-grade mechanical lungs on mannequins in rooms full of pollutants to measure how many bad gases actually get inside those lungs. They also test how well it works on different-shaped heads and how effective the system is in different wind conditions.

Wearing the visor feels a bit weird, but it’s not uncomfortable. It snaps on magnetically to the headphone cups and sits a little in front of your face to blow a stream of cooling air around your mouth and nostrils. It feels nice.

The airflow is powered by the smallest motors Dyson has ever made — one motor in each earcup — but having them so close to your ears is a bit like having two hair dryers strapped to your head. The canceling helps reduce that noise, but you can still hear it, especially if you’re listening to gentle music or podcasts. I listen to a lot of metal from bands like Periphery and that certainly drowned out the motors when I cranked the volume up.

dyson-zone-review-cnet-11 — The air filters sit beneath the metal grilles. They’re easy to replace and each set should last a year.

Andrew Lanxon/CNET

The bigger issue for me, though, is that I personally just feel a bit silly wearing the visor out and about. I feel conspicuous, and it certainly attracted plenty of odd looks while I tested it. That said, I live in Edinburgh, a relatively clean city that isn’t the target for the Zone, so there’s little need to wear them here. I may feel differently on the streets of Paris or Beijing.

dyson-zone-review-cnet-13 — I like the overall look.

Andrew Lanxon/CNET

But it’s new and anything new often looks a bit odd at first. Face masks weren’t common on Western streets until the pandemic hit and now they’re perfectly normal to see out and about, so maybe this type of technology is something we’ll eventually get used to seeing. And Dyson does have a good track record of its unusual products going mainstream, with its bladeless fans and hand dryers being commonplace now, and its Air Wrap hair styler dominating TikTok beauty feeds the world over.

The filters are easy to access beneath the metal grilles of the earcups and Dyson says each set should last around a year before you need to replace them. The Dyson app tells you when they need replacing, while also giving information about the air quality in your area.

dyson-zone-review-cnet-5 — The Dyson app shows air quality in your area.

Andrew Lanxon/CNET

Pull the face mask off and they just become a standard pair of headphones — albeit big ones. Thanks to those motors, they weigh in at nearly 600 grams (21 ounces), making them extremely heavy. Significantly heavier than Apple’s AirPods Max, which we criticized for being too heavy — and they’re only 390 grams (13.6 ounces). Even so, the earcups are deeply cushioned, which helps make them comfy to wear for a couple of hours at a time. The headband fits securely, making them feel lighter than they are. I never felt they were at risk of slipping off while walking.

I’d be interested in a version where not just the filters and visor are removable, but the whole filtration unit can be disconnected when not needed. It’d make the headphones more comfortable for general use — say, while sitting at your desk for eight hours, or watching a movie at home — when you don’t need to worry about breathing outdoor pollution. It might also allow for models to be sold without the filtration for less money, while still letting you buy the filter system as an optional extra should you decide you need it. I’ll certainly be interested to see what a second-generation Zone looks like.

The active noise canceling is excellent though, with road noise kept to a minimum and the general background hum in cafes and bars removed almost entirely.

They offer a great, balanced tone too, with 40mm drivers providing excellent bass that gives a meaty but controlled kick on EDM tracks that doesn’t overwhelm the rest of the tones. As a result, higher frequencies from acoustic guitars, cymbals or strings sound crystal-clear. Tesseract’s track Hexes was reproduced with rich, warm bass, powerful hits on the kick drum and bright, defined cymbals and vocals.

dyson-zone-review-cnet-15 — Those are some big headphones.

Andrew Lanxon/CNET

Meanwhile, the shimmering high notes of the acoustic guitars and close-miked vocals in Enter Shikari’s acoustic version of Dreamer’s Hotel sounded superb.

Battery life for audio is a generous 50 hours, although that’ll drop to between 90 minutes and four hours with the air filtration on. But that should be enough for your commute into the office, where you can whack them on a charger for your journey home. Dyson says they can withstand being worn in the rain, but there’s no official water resistance rating here. So keep them tucked away during torrential downpours and try not to take them swimming.

There’s no question, then, that the Dyson Zone performs well as a set of headphones, but the fact remains that $949 is a hell of a lot of money and a huge chunk of that cost is for the air filtration system. So you’ll really need to consider how important that is to you in your everyday life. If you commute daily through the heart of polluted megacities walking alongside traffic or experiencing the stale air of a subway for hours every day, it could be a good investment in your long-term health. If you just want a pair of headphones, you can save yourself a bundle and look elsewhere.

Technologies

Pope Francis’ Funeral: How to Stream Live or Watch the Replay

Here’s how to stream the pope’s funeral very early Saturday, and what you can expect to see during the service.

After a week of global mourning for Pope Francis, who died on Monday at age 88, the pope’s funeral will be celebrated on Saturday . Francis’ funeral will be held Saturday at 10 a.m. local time at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City (which is very, very early if you’re tuning in from the US or Canada), and he will be laid to rest at the Papal Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome.

The Vatican will be livestreaming the papal funeral and procession, though not the burial, on its YouTube channel as it happens. The funeral will also be televised live on CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox, as well as on streaming services like Disney Plus, Hulu, Peacock and Paramount Plus. Due to the time difference, it seems likely that many interested North American viewers will catch it when it’s replayed later on Saturday. Numerous networks will rebroadcast the service later that day.

If you choose to stay up, or get up early, here’s when the live broadcast of the pope’s funeral will air in your time zone in the continental US on April 26:

ET: 4 a.m.
CT: 3 a.m.
MT: 2 a.m.
PT: 1 a.m.

The papacy of Pope Francis was notable for the progressive reforms he brought to the Roman Catholic Church. He appointed more than half of the current College of Cardinals and attempted to foster more positive attitudes toward members of the LGBT community and migrants worldwide.

What to expect from the funeral

The funeral will follow many rituals, though not all traditional protocols will be followed. Most popes are buried in St. Peter’s Basilica or its grottoes, but the AP reports Francis chose the St. Mary Major Basilica to reflect his veneration of an icon of the Virgin Mary that is located there, the Salus Populi Romani (Salvation of the People of Rome).

His funeral will be less elaborate than those of other popes per his own wishes. Francis simplified papal funeral rites last year, permitting his burial outside the Vatican, and emphasizing his role as a bishop rather than as pope (the pope is also the Bishop of Rome).

Previous popes were buried in three coffins: one of cypress, one of lead and one of oak. Francis requested to be buried in a single wooden, zinc-lined coffin and not to be placed in an elevated bier as other popes were.

The coffin will be taken from St Peter’s Basilica and placed on a dais in St Peter’s Square, where Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re will lead the service. After the service, the coffin will return to St Peter’s Basilica before it is carried across the River Tiber and to the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major for burial. The ceremony is estimated to end around 2 p.m. local time, or four hours after it begins.

Pope Francis’ funeral Mass will be the first of nine Masses held daily at St. Peter’s until May 4. This is an ancient tradition of the Catholic Church that observes nine days of consecutive mourning. According to Vatican News, a different group of mourners will participate each day, though the Eucharistic celebrations are open to everyone.

Who will attend Pope Francis’ funeral?

Hundreds of people, including world leaders and royals, are expected to attend Pope Francis’ funeral.

US president Donald Trump confirmed on his Truth Social Platform that he and first lady Melania Trump will be at the funeral. This will be Trump’s first foreign trip in his second term. He is expected to have a seat in the third row, though the Vatican has yet to release an official seating chart. It is tradition for the first row of seats to go to Catholic royalty, and the second row to non-Catholic royals.

Prince William, who is attending on behalf of King Charles, will sit in the second row, which is reserved for non-Catholic royals. Former president Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden, devout Catholics, will also attend the funeral.

Conclave: What happens next to choose the new pope

After Pope Francis’ funeral, the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church will vote on his successor in an assembly of cardinals known as a conclave.

There are many matters for the cardinals to settle before the conclave begins, but once it does, it can take days or even weeks to conclude. Two-thirds of the cardinals’ votes are required to elect the next pope. The conclave occurs behind closed doors and the vote tally is never made public.

Read more: Where to Watch Conclave, the Vatican Thriller About Electing a New Pope

Look for the white smoke

The ballots are burned after each round, and chemicals are added to the flames to produce black smoke if there’s no majority. When a new pope has been selected, the chemicals will be added to the flames so they produce white smoke. Crowds gather in St. Peter’s Square to watch for the results.

If you’re fascinated by the process, you can watch a dramatized version of the events in 2024 film Conclave.

In the movie, Ralph Fiennes stars as Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, who spearheads the election of the next pope while investigating rumors about potential candidates. The film is based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris and is completely fictional — though it does represent some of the events of how actual papal conclaves take place. In March, the film won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay.

You can stream Conclave on Amazon Prime Video, or rent it for $6 on Apple TV, Fandango at Home, YouTube or Google Play Movies.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for April 26, #685

Hints and answers for Connections for April 26, #685.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections puzzle features a lot of short words, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. That purple category requires a lot of thinking — probably most people will solve it only by solving the other three and having four words left over. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Rainbow.

Green group hint: San Fernando ____.

Blue group hint: Think Robert.

Purple group hint: Mixed-up hue words.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Tint.

Green group: Valley.

Blue group: Bobs.

Purple group: Color anagrams.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is tint. The four answers are color, hue, shade and tone.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is valley. The four answers are dale, dell, glen and hollow.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Bobs. The four answers are Dole, Hope, Marley and Ross.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is color anagrams. The four answers are Dre (red), Gary (gray), genre (green) and lube (blue).

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 26, #215

Hints and answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 215, for Saturday, April 26.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Connections: Sports Edition is tough today. The purple category theme threw me because of one phrase I didn’t know. And let’s hope you’re familiar with college coach surnames. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Try to achieve.

Green group hint: Move through it.

Blue group hint: Sideline bosses.

Purple group hint: Like a carton.