Looking for an air purifier?
You had just found the right place.
The demand for air purifiers had grown so much these days and with the recent Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, there are even more demands for air purifiers.
From this entry, I will recommend a couple of air purifiers that will suit certain needs or requirements.
If you are looking for a huge list of air purifiers, you are at the wrong place. You should visit Amazon instead.
Here, I only recommend what I think is best for you.
Below is a quick highlight of what you will get from this entry.
- Best Air Purifier
- Best Overall – Coway AP-1512HH
- For Big Room – Coway Airmega 400
- Best Smart Home – Levoit Smart Wi-Fi LV-PUR131S
- For Stylish & Cooling – Dyson Pure Cool Link TP02
- For Big Spenders – Molekule Air Mini+
- Buyer’s Guide
Best Air Purifier
Coway AP-1512HH – Best Overall
I personally picked the Coway AP-1512HH as the best overall air purifier here.
It is a HEPA filter and also comes with activated carbon and pre-filter which is what most typical air purifiers will bundle with.
The addition of the Coway AP-1512HH is that it also comes with the Vital Ion that is a function to boost the cleaning of the air and freshen the air.
The CADR rating is average at 232 and safe to cover as much as 350 sq ft easily.
One of the key deciding factors of picking this product as the best overall is due to high ratings and feedback from popular sites such as The Wirecutter, Tom’s Guide, TechGearLab and etc.
In addition to that, Amazon also rates this product as the #1 best selling HEPA air purifier on the site.
As for the price, the upfront cost of owning the product is less than $200.
On an annual basis, the filter replacement for both the HEPA and activated carbon filters only cost around half of $100.
Therefore, with the price, reputation, and features of the COWAY AP-1512HH, I strongly recommend this as the best overall air purifier for every situation that you need.
You can click on the link to buy from Amazon.
Coway Airmega 400 – For Big Room
To clarify, I’m not overselling Coway here but indeed the Coway Airmega 400 is one of the top air purifiers for a big room.
It covers up to 1,560 sq ft and on top of that, it comes with a dual filter (one set of pre-filter, HEPA, and activated carbon filters on each side).
On top of what the Coway AP-1512HH is capable of, the Coway Airmega is a smart air purifier where you can control the air purifier using your smart home applications.
Not only that, it has an air quality detection mechanism and it is smart enough to increase the fan speed of the air purifier when the air quality is poor.
Such wonderful features comes with a price to pay.
The Coway Airmega 400 may cost somewhere slightly less than $500 to start with.
Therefore, buy this product if you really need an air purifier that covers such a big area.
You can click on the link to buy from Amazon.
Levoit Smart Wi-Fi LV-PUR131S – For Smart Home Device
My personal top pick for the best smart air purifier is the Levoit Smart Wi-Fi LV-PUR131S.
Like any industry air purifier, it comes with a pre-filter, HEPA filter, and an activated carbon filter.
The ACH of this product is 4 at the size of 360 sq ft area which means that the product is capable of changing the surrounding air 4 times in an hour.
I would say that with this coverage area, you can only use this product for the bedroom only.
The plus points I like about this model is that it has the smart home functionality and it is also capable of integrating with the Google Home and Alexa solution.
In addition to that, this product is known as Amazon’s choice product on the site.
If you are looking for a smart air purifier, I will recommend the Levoit Smart Wi-Fi LV-PUR131S.
You can click on the link to buy from Amazon.
Dyson Pure Cool Link TP02 – For Stylish User
In my opinion, the Dyson Pure Cool Link TP02 has one of the coolest looking air purifiers around.
Well, not only the look, the air that blows out from the device is also cooling as well.
The thing strange about this device is that no one knows the CADR.
And I recently stumble upon an article from Blue Air regarding some research on Dyson air purifier.
In the research, it was found that 92% of airflow out from the device is non-purified air.
Hence, this is device is more of a fan than an air purifier.
This is probably the reason why no one was able to find out the CADR of this air purifier (I mean fan now).
Therefore, if you want something to look cool, something to gives you airflow around the house, the Dyson Pure Cool Link TP02 is something you should get.
But you are looking for a real air purifier, let’s not waste your money here.
And forget to mention, the Dyson Pure Cool Link TP02 is also an expensive device compared to the rest of the air purifiers.
You can click on the link to buy from Amazon.
Molekule Air Mini+ – For Big Spenders
Personally, I will rate that the Molekule air purifiers are one kind of expensive stuff around.
In their defense, they are not using HEPA, but PECO (some kind of cutting edge technology supposedly).
The key difference between HEPA and PECO is that the HEPA air purifier traps contaminants in the filter while the PECO version trap and destroy the contaminants.
It may sound more efficient or better but I personally don’t find that as an added benefit.
This is because the contaminant trapped in HEPA will not survive for long and will die anyway in the filter.
In addition to that, although the PECO air purifier capable of destroying the contaminants, but the filter needed to be changed as often as the HEPA filter.
In terms of long run maintenance, I don’t see any benefit to this.
Anyway, the cheapest Molekule that you can get from their store is the Molekule Air Mini+.
With this price, you can easily get sets of the Coway AP-1512HH air purifier.
Not only the start up cost is high, the maintenance is high too.
A single PECO filter replacement can go up to $150 per annum per device.
As a result, the Molekule air purifier is extremely expensive to start and to maintain.
The only obvious benefit is the PECO filter technology and some claim that the product looks cool and luxurious too.
If you are into the benefits above, this is the air purifier for you.
However, I wouldn’t recommend it as the cost is really high especially in the long run.
You can click on the link to buy from Amazon.
Air Purifier Buyer’s Guide
How I Pick Them
When buying an air purifier, always look for the HEPA filter air purifier.
This is because this type of air filter is capable of trapping viruses or contaminants as small as 0.3 microns.
This goes for all kinds of contaminants such as dust mites, viruses, bacteria, pollen, dust and etc.
Even in the case of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation, I had broken down the details of how HEPA capable of protecting against this virus.
The second thing I look in an air purifier is the activated carbon filter.
If you want to remove odor or VOC, you will need the activated carbon filter.
Having this filter ensures that the airflow from the air purifier is fresh and odorless.
Third, I will ensure that the air purifier comes with a pre-filter as well.
Remember that you cannot wash your HEPA filter.
Hence, you need to ensure that you have a pre-filter to filter out the bigger size contaminants.
This is to ensure that your HEPA filter only needs to deal with the small contaminants.
Lastly, I will look for air purification that fulfills the requirement of the size of my room.
For this, you will need to look at the CADR (Clean Air Delivery Rate) of the air purifier.
The minimum CADR that you need to look out for is determined using the 2/3 rule of your room size in sq ft.
For instance, for a 200 sq ft room, you will need an air purifier with a CADR of at least 133.
What To Avoid
There is a type of air purifier known as the ionizer.
It also helps to purify the air and the way it works is by generating negative ions into the space to knock down contaminants.
You can find all the differences between HEPA and Ionizer in this entry.
What I do not like about the ionizer is that it doesn’t really remove the contaminants but only knock it off to the floor.
The other thing is that most ionizers will generate ozone it will make a person’s lungs uncomfortable.
As a result, I would advise to avoid such type of air purifier and only go for the HEPA filter type.
Final Say
So, what do you say to the list of air purifiers above?
Hope I had wrapped up most of your challenges in buying an air purifier above.
Let me know what is your preferred air purifier in the comments below.
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