Dyson Airblade Tap washes then dries your hands, for £1,000

Dyson, the company that spelled the death knell for poor old Henry the Hoover, has invented a tap that both washes and dries your hands.

Erupting from the same stable of innovation as the British firm's Airblade hand dryer, the Airblade Tap uses an infrared sensor to identify the position of your mitts and fire water from the middle of those three prongs you see above, or in the video below.

Once your hands have been scrubbed to a fine sheen, the Dyson digital motor is activated, and blasts two 'high-velocity sheets of air', which dry your hands in 12 seconds, the company boasts.

The 'digital motor' is loaded with high-tech gubbins, including a bonded magnet, which is encased in a carbon fibre sleeve, obviously. The motor revs up to 90,000rpm in under a second, James Dyson and pals reckon, and cost £26.9m to develop. 

Short of having Johnny Five towel you down, Dyson's new bathroom gadget is probably the most high-tech method of drying yourself on the planet. It doesn't come cheap though -- you'll be paying £1,000 for the privilege of blasting your hands under this air-funnelling hyper-tap.

Moreover, there's one respect in which your current tap is almost certainly more capable. Dyson tells me you can't change the water temperature on the Airblade Tap -- instead the heat-level is fixed, set in place by the tap's installer. That's terrible news if you need a glass of icy water in a hurry, or need to run a firmly stuck salsa lid under the hot tap to loosen it.

Personally I'd wait until the Airblade Tap is installed as standard in every pub, restaurant and train station, as seems to be the case with its wall-mounted big brother. Incidentally, the original Dyson Airblade is also being given a refresh today, with 1.1kg shaved off its weight. A new 'Airblade V' hand drier is being introduced too, and sees you holding your hands underneath the machine, clearing them of liquid in 10 seconds.

If you simply must have the Airblade Tap in your own home, you can pre-order it from Tuesday 5 February.

Would you use this pricey water-dispenser, or are you perfectly content with your current tap situation? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook wall. I was thinking of a pun to end this article, but decided not to faucet.