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 (50 parts per billion). No air purifier can do anything about allergens, bacteria, or viruses that have settled on furniture and other surfaces. To remove allergens such as levoit filter pet hair and pollen, you need a vacuum cleaner or dust mop. If you don’t want a large, intrusive rectangular air filter sitting out of place in your otherwise color-coordinated room, the Blueair Blue Pure 311 Air Purifier is a good alternative. The fabric pre-filter that covers it doesn’t just look and feel nice (and comes in different colorways), it works to remove larger particles from the air and has an activated carbon layer to absorb unpleasant smells.
Both models also draw far more power than their supposed equivalents among our picks, and both cost the same or more up front. Finally, the manual for the “large room” Z3000 does not offer CADR numbers, but with a claimed ACH of 2 in a 750-square-foot space, it’s barely half as powerful as our large-space pick, the Blueair Blue Pure 211+ (3.5 ACH in 750 square feet). Yet it costs far more up front, with a price tag of $400 versus a usual $300 for that Blueair model.
Basically, that corresponds to bedroom, living room, and open-floor-plan combined spaces, respectively. In simple terms, ACH represents how many times a purifier can circulate the volume of air in a given room in 60 minutes based on its maximum airflow, and it provides a standardized baseline for categorizing and initially comparing purifiers. We set 4 ACH as the minimum for a purifier to be considered adequate for each room size. Based on our years of real-world testing, we know that 4 ACH ensures rapid and nearly complete cleaning of highly and continuously polluted air—a big concern during, say, a nearby wildfire.
Positive customer reviews claim this product is effective for medium-sized rooms and a good value for money. However, negative reviews noted that the unit is large and does not blend in well in some rooms. The filter can take air quality readings every 5 minutes, and people can look through 4 weeks of data.
Indoor allergies and my experiences in graduate school definitely were in mind when I finally decided to purchase an air purifier after I moved to New York City. For proper filtration, use Certified Levoit Replacement Filter to keep your air purifier working to Air Purifier specifications. Unfortunately, the Levoit H132 didn’t quite live up to expectations when it came to testing how well it absorbed particles, consistently falling some way below the 99.97% expected from a device with an H13 HEPA filter. However, running the purifier for longer periods may yield better results. The Levoit H132 may not have all the bells and whistles of a smart air purifier, but its affordability makes it the ideal entry-level indoor air purifier.