The ‘Progress’ hood hair dryer has been a top seller for decades. Its striking design is a common sight in many a pool locker-room. Franke Aquarotter updated the ‘Progress’ in 2019. The new line called Franke F5 was exhib­ited for the first time at the ISH 2019 trade show. It impressed not only by the new ion tech­nology, but also with its new styling and cool color accents.

“It was impor­tant to us that the new F5 hair dryer should look like its prede­cessor,” says Franke Aquarotter product manager Torsten Foels. “The dryer enjoys a high recog­ni­tion value among our customers.” So the new gener­a­tion also features the familiar color-contrasting drying tray. It is now avail­able in the modern colors pearl gentian, basalt gray, signal red, lemon yellow, and white.

Long-standing coop­er­a­tion

Franke’s tech­nical coop­er­a­tion with ebm-papst goes back to the 1980s. ebm-papst helped inte­grate the fans into the previous Franke hand and hair dryer models, supplying the fans too. In 2015, Franke decided to convert the old brush-driven motor in the hair dryer, at the time branded ‘Progress’, to a brush­less EC motor. “The old motor needed a lot of main­te­nance. We opted for a better tech­nical solu­tion that also offers added value to our customers,” explains Foels.

Another feature was also inte­grated into the new product. “The secret ingre­di­ents are ions,” Foels reveals. After bathing, damp hair is posi­tively charged, and would curl. Drying under the F5 hood hair dryer nour­ishes the hair with millions of tiny, elec­tri­cally nega­tively charged ions. They not only ensure that the surface of the hair is smoothed, but also that the hair dries signif­i­cantly faster – and at lower temper­a­tures.

The new gener­a­tion F5 hooded hair dryer from Franke Aquarotter: beau­tiful thanks to color accents and stylish shapes, effi­cient and low-main­te­nance thanks to EC tech­nology from ebm-papst. Photo: Franke Aquarotter GmbH

The nega­tively charged ions are gener­ated inside the hood hair dryer by a two centimeter sized high-voltage gener­ator. A powerful R1G133 blower from ebm-papst driven by the new EC motor blows them onto the hair. Franke Aquarotter bene­fits from the dura­bility of EC tech­nology, as it guar­an­tees long main­te­nance inter­vals.

“A brush-driven motor has a service life of about 3,000 to 8,000 oper­ating hours,” explains Jens Duchow, ebm-papst’s Berlin regional manager. “Whereas an EC motor will run for about 45,000 hours.” In addi­tion to the motor, the F5 was also fitted with a new compact impeller to opti­mize air flow and provide users with a feeling of comfort and well-being.

Retro in design, digi­tally state-of-the-art

The new F5 hair dryer is also well adapted to modern-day needs thanks to some other features. A height adjuster, offered as an acces­sory, provides infi­nitely vari­able adjust­ment over a total of 60 cm, and comes with protected cable routing. The hair dryer is conve­niently acti­vated by an infrared sensor, so it switches on as soon as someone is standing under it.

Also cutting-edge: Its statis­tical data can be read out and analyzed remotely. That allows contin­uous moni­toring of the dryer’s perfor­mance. After all, pool users need to know they can keep on enjoying the expe­ri­ence of standing under the drying hood, and emerge with perfectly blow-dried hair, every time.