Dyson has long offered a range of fans and air purifiers to suit a number of different needs. Now it is moving into the personal air purifier market with a small, tabletop device.

The Dyson Pure Cool Me is designed for personal comfort rather than purifying the entire room.

It features a very different design to the company's previous fans and air purifiers, more resembling some of the small desktop robots of late.

That design, plus a proprietary technology Dyson calls Core Flow, promises to clean up to 40 litres per second of your personal air space. It isn’t designed to cope with cleaning the air of a whole room.

To make it smaller and cheaper, Dyson moved away from the company's circular, see-through aesthetic to something that looks more like a ball on top of a drum.

That, claims Dyson, allows it to quickly change the direction of the jet of air, giving an experience more akin to something coming from far above you on an aeroplane. It’s a more focused experience than the waft of air you normally get from the company’s fans.

As usual, the unit comes with a remote control, a rotating head to displace the air, and a sleep timer up to eight hours. However, it doesn't come with any app connectivity, a byproduct of trying to keep the costs down.

Examples showcased by Dyson during its launch event included bedside table use, to offer you comfort while you sleep. Alternatively, it fits nicely on a desk while you work.

The Pure Cool Me will cost $349.99 and £299 in the UK when it goes on sale this week.