The Best Air Purifiers for 2023
Table of Content
And the fact that it maintained its high performance even on significantly overused filters gives us confidence in its long-term performance. At about $100, the Core 300 is inexpensive up front, but it is not an energy-efficient purifier, especially for its size. The Core 300 draws 34.6 watts on medium (and 31.8 watts on low), while the much more powerful AP-1512HH draws just 8.1 watts.
In a new section, we cover a few other purifiers that fit specific needs, including a purifier for handling VOCs, an especially energy-efficient small-space purifier, and a truly smart air purifier. Filtrete’s Smart Air Filters come built with a small, Bluetooth-powered pressure sensor that monitors the airflow, fan speed and air quality of your HVAC system. Smart Air is a social enterprise that creates simple, no-nonsense air purifiers and provides free education to protect people’s health from the effects of air pollution. We are proud to be the only certified B-Corp dedicated to fighting air pollution. If your air quality is bad and you don’t have an air purifier, an HVAC filter taped to a box fan is better than nothing. In 2017, we tested the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Link HP02 for particulate performance in the lab and in our real-world New York apartment.
The Best Air Purifier
In our 2014 test, the Rabbit Air MinusA2 SPA-700A earned middle-of-the-road marks in performance, cost of ownership, and noise. If the AM90 is unavailable, the otherwise identical Winix AM80 is worth considering. It comes only in dark gray, lacks Wi-Fi connectivity, and uses a one-year VOC filter in contrast to the AM90’s three-month filter. After years of claiming superiority to HEPA filters—statements it later withdrew—Molekule has released a filter that adds HEPA to its PECO technology. We’ve added a new section with more detail, and will be testing the filter in the future. The Ikea Starkvind Table With Air Purifier works effectively for small spaces and connects to your phone with an optional hub, for a smarter, more attractive way to breathe freely.
The theory is that ozone, which is highly reactive, neutralizes or breaks down pollutants. Setting aside the dubiousness of that claim, even low levels of ozone can be harmful . It’s crazy to introduce a new pollutant when the goal is to reduce pollution overall. Ionizers produce a small amount of ozone as a by-product, but as laid out by the strict California Air Resources Board, none of our picks with an ionizing function exceed the limit of 0.05 part per million .
What Makes an Air Purifier Smart?
The Blue Pure 311 Auto also stands out for its energy efficiency, drawing just 5.9 watts on the medium setting we recommend for daily use—even less than the AP-1512HH’s thrifty 8.1 watts. And it’s especially quiet on that setting, emitting just 33 decibels (versus the AP-1512HH’s 39 decibels) at a distance of 6 feet. Like many air purifiers, the AP-1512HH has an ionizing function in addition to its HEPA filtration. The effectiveness of such features is dubious, and it draws additional electrical power.
And with a typical up-front cost of $100, it’s the cheapest of our picks to buy—but it’s not especially energy efficient. That aside, it’s a compact, attractive machine, and its display-shutoff feature makes it especially suited for bedrooms. The Core 300 replaces our former budget pick, the Blueair Blue Pure 411, which the Core 300 outperformed considerably. With a CADR of 350 cubic feet per minute on high for smoke, pollen, and dust, it handily outdraws most purifiers in its price range and many competitors that cost far more.
Exceptional performance, modern style
For some reason, remembering to replace your home's air filters on time can feel like an impossible task. After all, you don’t necessarily see them every day, and indoor air quality can be a hard thing to notice if you’re not actively monitoring it. Not to mention the million other items you have bearing down on you from your to-do list. Smart Filters offer eco-friendly, reusable HVAC air filters built to last a lifetime. Our durable, rust resistant steel frame filters help improve the air quality in your home.
From HEPA filtration to ionic technology, we help you understand your options and select the best connected air purifier for your needs and budget. According to the EPA, indoor air pollution is one of the top five environmental risks to public health. Luckily, it’s never been easier to ensure that you are replacing your HVAC filters as needed. By using smart air filters, you can keep tabs on the life of your air filters. Purifiers work best in a contiguous space; if you want to clean the air in both the living room and a bedroom, for example, it’s best to get a purifier for each room or to move a single purifier around with you. However, that’s not always practical, which is why we gave points to lightweight purifiers with handles that made moving them from room to room easy.
LG PuriCare 360 Air Purifier
(We use smoke to test them, in fact, so our picks directly reflect their ability to remove it.) But in a wildfire event, purifiers are part of a larger smoke-mitigation strategy. It’s helpful to think of them as a central piece of a comprehensive plan, which we detail in a separate guide to the best wildfire preparedness supplies and strategies. Dyson says that formaldehyde is 500 times smaller than 0.1 microns, making it difficult to capture. Not all air purifiers can detect and break down formaldehyde (Dyson charges $100 more for models that do), so that's something to consider when mulling your options. Check out our individual reviews to see which contaminants each model detects and captures. Most air purifiers typically have sensors that measure the density of various airborne pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide , PM2.5 (particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns in size, including industrial emissions and tobacco smoke), PM10 , and VOC .
If you have specific concerns about VOCs, the HM400 is by far the best portable air purifier we’ve ever found. We do not prioritize smart functionality, which generally means receiving more information from and having more control of an air purifier via an app. We don’t consider smart functionality to be a necessity in an air purifier because our years of testing have proven that a good air purifier creates and maintains excellent air quality simply when allowed to run continuously on a moderate setting. However, we can see the appeal of having more information, and the ability to control a purifier remotely or by voice command may be helpful for some people. The Coway Airmega 200M is made by the same company as the Airmega AP-1512HH Mighty and is virtually identical to it in every important respect, namely the controls, noise, and performance. And like the AP-1512HH, the 200M lets you completely shut off its display lights, something we value highly for bedroom use.
The ions then actively attach to and break down airborne pollutants like bacteria, mold, and viruses before returning to the air as invisible water vapor. Sharp says the technology reduced 94% of E.coli bacteria, up to 87.7% of mold fungus, and 90.3% of MS2 virus in a closed laboratory over four hours. Aura Air's patented Sterionizer disinfection technique works in a similar way. The machines on this list combat airborne contaminants using High Efficiency Particulate Air filters, activated carbon filters, ionic technology, and/or UV light.
They are built to last a lifetime with expanded support, an air foil diffusing front grill to maximize air flow, and anti-microbial woven polypropylene self charging electrostatic fibres. By choosing smart filters, you are saving millions of paper filters from going into the landfill, and helping to save the planet. Tim Heffernan is a senior staff writer at Wirecutter and a former writer-editor for The Atlantic, Esquire, and others. He has anchored our unequaled coverage of air purifiers and water filters since 2015. In 2018, he established Wirecutter’s ongoing collaboration with The New York Times’s Smarter Living. Finally, the Air Mini’s cost-to-performance ratio on particulates put it badly behind our small-space pick, the Levoit Core 300.
Comments
Post a Comment