Dyson Solarcycle Morph Desk Light - Great... but Not a Thousand Dollars Great

If nothing else, Dyson does design. From hair care to air care, Dyson's renowned team of engineers consistently comes up with new, innovative and ingenious solutions to everyday, household problems.

This was true of Sir James Dyson's original, ground-breaking (and cleaning) vacuum design and it's still just as true today.

Even after all this time, every year Dyson finds new ways to make humdrum tasks like vacuuming less of a chore and more of a pleasure.

You'll expect to pay a premium for most Dyson devices but in my experience, they're devices that do the job so well, they'd be cheap at twice the price.

So what have they come up with now?

In Dyson's usual style, the Solarcycle Morph doesn't really look like any other desk lamp. I've heard directly from quite a few Dyson engineers over the years and one thing is always crystal clear; function comes first - form follows.

And if I'm going to be completely honest with you, my first impression of the Solarcycle Morph, once I'd taken it out of the box and attached it to its stand was... janky. I'm sorry but it kind of looks a bit janky - a cross between some sort of mic boom and one of those dentist drills on the end of an extension arm.

I'm sure the Dyson team could care less - it's what it does that's important, not how it looks. Although, it's a desk lamp, right? How clever does it need to be? Don't you just turn it on and off? What more do you want?

How about three more things?

It turns out the Solarcycle Morph isn't janky at all. It's surprisingly solid, stable and well-balanced. This enables you to direct the small but powerful LED light in almost any direction. The heavy base and springloaded, jointed extension arm also means you can position the light right where you need it.

I have a lot of stupid gadgets set up on my desk; microphones, laptop stands, phone chargers - all sorts of guff - yet I had no issue standing the Solarcycle Morph off the the side, then snaking it over everything else to illuminate my main workspace.

Dyson calls this "Task Lighting" - just one of four ways you can use this versatile lamp.

By rotating the light up towards a wall or ceiling, you're then in "Indirect Light" mode - which results in a more diffuse, softer, ambient light.

This is not to be confused with "Ambient Light" mode though. This is what happens when you bend the arm completely in half and return it to its magnetic mounting point on the main stem. In this configuration, the whole stem is illuminated in a soft, orange hue to supply enough mellow light to see but probably not enough to read by.

Finally, you can direct the light in a specific place for "Feature Light" mode. This might be useful to precisely highlight a piece of artwork on the wall, for example.

All of this is very clever but it's really just the beginning. How you control and customise each of these four main configurations is where the Solarcycle Morph really comes into its own.

There are physical controls on the extension arm itself - buttons and sliders - but you can also add the lamp to your inventory of Dyson devices in the MyDyson app. From there things get really crazy - you can program the lamp to turn on and off to a schedule of your choosing. Colour temperature and brightness are obviously completely tweakable but you can also automate things - setting the light to adjust according to the time of day and even your age... the older you get, the brighter the light you need, apparently.

But for me, the greatest stroke of Dyson's genius is including a little motion sensor by the controls at the end of the extension arm. Now I can set the Solarcycle Morph to turn off when I leave my desk and reactivate when I return - no human input required.

There's a lot going on here - even a USB-C port on the base for charging phones or other accessories.

This is all brilliant and I love all of it. I mostly use the Solarcycle Morph in its "Task Lighting" position, although I definitely appreciate how subtle the "Ambient Light" supplied in its return-to-base mode would be if the lamp was set up on a side table or in the bedroom instead.

In fact, using the app to schedule the lamp to turn on in sync with your alarm could result in a pleasant artificial sunrise - even if you have to get up in the middle of the night to go to work like I do.

Come to think of it, there's no reason why you couldn't use this as a video light during online meetings or live streams too. There's really no limit to the position, angle, brightness and well... every other setting you can think of.

Despite all that, who's paying NZ$999.00 for a light? I get that Dyson makes great gadgets. I get they can charge a pretty penny because you're usually getting something nobody else does. But a thousand dollars? For a desk lamp? Even a lamp as unique as this? That's quite a flex. And way out of my budget.

    

Click here for more information and pricing on the Dyson Solarcycle Morph.