Battle of the Smart Dryers: Two Next-Level Tools Under $400

Buying a dryer that costs as much as your smartphone isn’t for everyone—but let’s face it, there are those of us who think great hair is just as essential as our daily mode of communication. For those who want to upgrade to a smart dryer with all of the bells and whistles, two new options are here to smooth, straighten and dry hair at warp speed, Judy Jetson style.

Contender #1: Gamma Professional IQ Perfetto Hair Dryer 
Price: $399
Features: The IQ is the lightest, smallest, most powerful hair dryer we’ve ever seen. Weighing in at 10.4 ounces, it’s just a tad heavier than the average smartphone. You’d never know by its super quiet sound that it contains a 110,000 RPM motor. 
What It Does Best: Its sleek, lightweight body make it the perfect blower for professionals who frequently battle a sore arm from all day drying, or for fast, powerful at-home styling that won’t take up a lot of room on the vanity. This little wonder can also memorize personal settings, so you only have to push a button to get the same combination of speed and heat for every single blow out.

Contender #2: Tineco Moda One Smart Dryer 
Price: $299
Features: Made by a company known for their impressive vacuum technology, the Tineco Moda One, with it’s iLoop smart sensor technology, is on autopilot to give you smooth blowouts without any added heat damage. An LED light ring that loops around the dryer changes colors to denote whether hair is wet or dry and how much moisture is contained in the strands. The magnetic attachments are a nice touch and the accompanying smartphone app contains more pre-programming modes for use with kids, pets and cooling features.
What It Does Best: It can self-adjust to choose the perfect heat and airflow settings to dry hair while keeping it healthy, bouncy and shiny. However, with just the push of a button you can choose the max airflow options to feel the full effect of this impressive dryer.   

The Final Verdict: The name of the game is features. I happened to have my stylist present while testing out both blowers for the first time. From both a professional (her) and novice (me) standpoint, we agreed that each dryer was has features that make them worthy of a spot on the bathroom sink. Both blew our socks off for different reasons, so the choice is really up to what the user needs. For the purposes of this showdown, we’re going to call it even. Each smart dryer has its own merits and both get 5 stars from us as they’re major 2020 upgrades from the plug and play dryers of our past.