best air purifier

The best air purifiers you can buy - The Advocate

Posted: 19 Mar 2019 07:52 AM PDT

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Fresh, clean air. You need it, but the environment doesn't always provide it.
If you've suffered long enough with sinus problems, allergies, or headaches due to pollutants in the air, it's time for an air purifier. Our top pick is the Coway Mighty Air Purifier.

You can go up to three weeks without eating. You'll survive three to four days, on average, without fluids. But it only takes six minutes without air to damage your delicate brain, and survival beyond that is unlikely. The air you breathe is the most pressing life necessity, so why not take as many breaths as possible of pure, clean air?

To accomplish that, you'll likely need an air purifier. Far too many of us live in areas with polluted outdoor air, and according to the Environmental Protection Agency, the air inside our homes can be even dirtier.

Common pollutants inside your home can include molds and fungi spores, bacteria and viruses, pollen, cigarette smoke, volatile organic compounds (VOCs emitted from carpeting, paint, and other construction materials), dust and pet dander, and fumes from air fresheners and other cleaning supplies.

Air purifiers remove some or most of those pollutants from your indoor air. They work by drawing room air in and through a filter or combination of filters, then blowing out fresh, clean air.

A good air purifier removes allergens, dust, gases, and other pollutants from the room air, leaving behind clean air for your lung's benefit. There are a lot of air purifiers on the market, though, and that's why we did the hard work for you. We've done our research, and gathered up the eight air purifiers we think do the best job of cleaning your air.

Here are the best air purifiers you can buy in 2019:

Updated on 03/19/2019 by Lulu Chang: Updated prices, added a new pick, and updated formatting.

Read on in the slides below to check out our top picks.

The best air purifier overall

Coway/Business Insider

Why you'll love it: Highly effective against indoor air pollution and reasonably attractive to boot, the Coway Mighty Air Purifier knows when your air is in serious need of cleaning.

We thought it couldn't get any better than the original Coway Mighty Air Purifier, but as it turns out, the best can still be beat — and by its younger sibling, no less. The new air purifier is smaller and more powerful than the earlier version. The Coway Airmega 200M has a four-stage filtration system that's capable of capturing 99.97% of particles in the air.

The purifier has a pre-filter, an odor filter, a true HEPA filter, and a bipolar ionizer inside that work in tandem to rid your surroundings of allergens and reduce odors. The air purifier comes with an air quality indicator that does more than tell you how your machine is doing. Rather, this feature continually monitors the air quality of your home, and automatically adjusts the fan speed and operation as necessary to help you make the most out of your purifier.

When no indoor air pollution has been detected for 30 minutes, the Coway Airmega 200 will just turn itself off to save energy. Of course, if you'd rather control the fans manually, that's fine as well. The purifier includes three fan speeds to help you adjust air output based on your own needs and preferences. You can also set a timer to schedule one, four, or eight hours of continual operation.

To ensure that you're always getting the most out of this system, the 200 has a filter indicator that alerts you when you need filter changes. The Coway Airmega 200 is well-suited for pet owners, who have to contend with pet dander and odors in their homes, but it's also great for smokers looking to reduce the amount of second-hand smoke in their indoor environments.

Whereas the original version was good for rooms up to 350 square feet, this new version is a bit more powerful and is capable of cleaning spaces up to 361 square feet. While that's not a huge difference in and of itself, the new Coway has the added benefit of being smaller than older options, which means it's less intrusive and even better suited for compact spaces. — Lulu Chang

The Wirecutter named the previous version as the best air purifier, praising not only its superior performance but also its reasonable price both at initial purchase and over the years as filters need replacement.

Pros: Compact, highly effective, automatic detection and power saving, four types of filtration

Cons: Slightly more expensive than the last version

Buy the Coway Airmega 200 at Walmart for $269

Buy the Coway AP-1512HH Mighty Air Purifier (previous version) on Amazon for $199.99 to $244.98

The best air purifier for allergies

Dyson

Why you'll love it: With the smarts to analyze your air before it gets to work, the Dyson Pure Cool will make your allergies disappear.

If allergy season has you living your worst life, then fear not: Dyson's Pure Cool Air Purifier is here to save the day. It's capable of actually calculating the amount of pollutants in your home, and then automatically adjusting itself to filter them out. Because let's be honest — you literally can't do that yourself.

While other air purifiers try to capture most allergens and pollutants, the Dyson Pure Cool ups the ante by removing up to 99.97% of the stuff that's making you sneeze and your eyes water. As a result, you'll likely notice considerably fewer symptoms after letting this purifier do its job for awhile — I certainly did, and so did my colleague Mara Leighton.

Thanks to the 350-degree oscillation of the Pure Cool, purified air won't be relegated to a single corner of your room. Rather, you'll get practically comprehensive filtration, which likely contributes to its 99.97% cleansing rate. For easier control, the purifier connects to both the Dyson Link app as well as Amazon Alexa, so you can tell the machine what to do either with the tap of an app or with the sound of your voice.

When it's time for you to go to sleep, the night-time mode ensures that the purifier is quieter, and its LCD screen is dimmed.

Not only is the Pure Cool particularly effective, but it's also extremely well-designed. This is certainly one air purifier that you won't be inclined to hide from your guests. — Lulu Chang

Pros: Automatically adjusts to the level of pollutants in your home, great design, 10 fan speeds for variable volume

Cons: At $450, it's quite expensive

Buy the Dyson Pure Cool Air Purifier on Best Buy for $449.99

The best air purifier for large rooms

Blue Air

Why you'll love it: If you need an air purifier for a large room, the Blueair Blue Pure 211+ Air Purifier can't be beat.

Suitable for rooms up to 540 square feet, the Blueair Blue Pure 211+ Air Purifier is all about performance. It draws air in from every side for quick and efficient turnover of room air. The process happens five times per hour. It's super energy-efficient, as well, using no more electricity than a lightbulb.

An activated carbon filter removes dust, odors, VOCs, gases, and other lung irritants, while the particle filter captures just about anything likely to cause allergy or asthma symptoms. Plus, you get a choice of two washable pre-filters that slip over the entire outside of the device while adding a bit of style. You can choose from a blue or dark gray color, both are in the box. The pre-filter captures larger particles, such as pet hair and larger airborne particles.

Consumer Reports gives the Blueair Blue Pure 211+ Air Purifier its highest rating, citing its excellent performance at removing dust, smoke, and pollen from room air. Owners of the device mostly praise its effective and quiet performance, although a few outliers say it's noisy.

Pros: Particularly suited for allergy or asthma sufferers, good for large rooms, just one button to control the three speeds

Cons: A few owners complained it is noisy even on the low setting

Buy the Blueair Blue Pure 211+ Air Purifier on Amazon for $299.99

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

See Also:

SEE ALSO: The best humidifiers you can buy

Best indoor air quality monitors of 2019 - TechHive

Posted: 22 Mar 2019 04:00 AM PDT

By Michael Ansaldo

Freelance contributor, TechHive

| Mar 22, 2019 3:00 AM PT

Table of Contents

Research indicates 96 percent of homes have at least one type of indoor air quality issue. An indoor air quality (IAQ) monitor will report on the levels of common pollutants and other air conditions inside your home in real time.

The culprit could be anything from excessive dust to high humidity to emissions from household cleaners or building materials. The problem is, most people don't know there's a problem, and if they do figure it out—usually tipped off by allergy-like symptoms or more dramatic health effects—they don't know precisely which pollutant is causing it.

Some indoor air quality monitors will also track outdoor air quality to provide context for your indoor readings. The measurements are then displayed on a screen on the device itself as well as in a companion app on your mobile device. Most IAQ monitors will alert you to unsafe levels via an indicator light and/or push notifications to your smartphone or tablet.

Once you're aware something has risen to hazardous a level, you can take action to reduce it—usually by opening some windows. Some monitors will even trigger other smart appliances—such as an air purifier, a fan, or a dehumidifier—to help improve the air quality. Ultimately, a good IAQ monitor should provide enough clues for you to investigate and eliminate the source of your air quality woes.

Here are our current top picks for indoor air quality monitors. We've also included a guide to the pollutants a good IAQ monitor should track. And if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you'll find links to all of our latest IAQ monitor reviews.

Best indoor air quality monitor

This unobtrusive IAQ monitor plugs directly into an AC outlet and tracks temperature, humidity, CO2, and chemical pollutants. These levels are displayed in an easy-to-read app dashboard and are aggregated into an overall air quality score of Poor, Fair, or Good. You can select from five monitoring profiles, ranging from general comfort to monitoring optimized for allergy sufferers or newborn babies. Best of all, you can plug in a "dumb" appliance—such as a fan or a dehumidifier—and the Awair Glow will automatically activate it based on a schedule, when pollutant levels rise, or when someone enters the room.

Runner up

Radon is one of the most common and deadly indoor pollutants, and it can't be detected unless you're actively looking for it. The Airthings Wave Plus is currently the only monitor that tracks Radon in real time. While that alone makes it worth the investment, it also tracks levels of carbon dioxide and VOCs (volatile organic compounds). You can get a quick air quality status by waving your hand in front the unit—hence the name—or dig deeper into current and historical measurements on the easy-to-use mobile app. The Airthings Wave can also be paired with IFTTT applets to alert you to high radon levels by text message or by changing the color of your Philips Hue smart bulbs.

Top indoor pollutants

If our top picks don't match your needs, this guide will help you understand the most common air pollutants, so you can find one that does. Most IAQ monitors currently available can't monitor for all of these, so choose the ones that matter most to you.

PM2.5: Particulate matter, or PM, is a mix of particles and droplets in the air. PM varies in shape and size, but those of 10 micrometers in diameter or smaller can adversely affect your health because they can be inhaled. PM 2.5 refers to fine particulate matter—that with a diameter of two-and-one-half microns or less.

Sufficient exposure to PM2.5 can irritate the eyes, nose, throat, and lungs, leading to allergy-like symptoms and shortness of breath in otherwise healthy people. It can also exacerbate existing medical problems, such as asthma and heart disease. The World Health Organization considers PM2.5 the world's single biggest environmental health risk.

Indoor PM2.5 levels can be influenced by outdoor sources like vehicle exhaust, wildfires, and power plant emissions. But many indoor activities produce PM2.5 as well: Cooking, burning fireplaces, and smoking are just a few common sources.

VOCs: The acronym stands for volatile organic compounds, gases emitted from a variety of materials that can have short- and long-term health effects. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, concentrations of many VOCs can be up to 10 times higher indoors than outdoors.

Michael Ansaldo/IDG

The Awair app gives you an air quality score and breaks down the temperature, humidity, and CO2 and "chemicals" levels.

Sources of VOCs include many common household products, including hairspray, cosmetics, cleaning fluids, disinfectants, paints, and varnishes. Burning fuels like wood and natural gas also produces VOCs. Formaldehyde is onne of the most common VOCs and can be found in many building materials, including plywood, glues, and insulation. Formaldehyde is also used in some drapes and furniture fabrics. You can read more about formaldehyde and its sources in this article from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Short-term exposure to the low levels of VOCs can cause throat irritation, nausea, fatigue, and other minor complaints. Long-term exposure to high concentrations of VOCs has been linked to more severe respiratory irritation as well as liver and kidney damage. Products can emit VOCs even when they're in storage, though to a lesser extent than when they're actively being used.

Carbon monoxide: By now, most people are aware of the deadly effects of high concentrations of this odorless, colorless gas. But exposure to lower levels sometimes given off by fuel-burning appliances can also cause adverse reactions, including confusion and memory loss.

A few air quality monitors claim they can detect these lower levels. The only reliable way to be alerted to this notoriously hard to identify killer, however, is with a standard carbon monoxide detector.

Michael Ansaldo/IDG

The Airthings Wave can report on the CO2 levels in your home as well as any detectable radon.

Radon: Radon is a naturally occurring colorless, odorless gas that is the leading cause of lung cancer in the United States after smoking, according to the EPA. As it's a byproduct of the naturally occurring breakdown of uranium in soil, rocks, and water, it's ubiquitous both indoors and out. Typically, indoor radon levels must be checked using charcoal-based kits and require you to test your levels for up to 90 days. You then need to ship the kit to a lab for analysis and wait for the results.

An indoor air quality monitor with a radon sensor can provide faster results by monitoring levels in real time. Currently, the Airthings Wave is the only monitor in our guide with this capability.

Carbon Dioxide: While the effects of high levels of CO2 were long thought to be benign, research has found that concentrations as low as 1,000 ppm can affect people's cognitive function and decision-making performance.

The greatest source of indoor CO2 is people themselves, as it's a byproduct of our respiratory function. Coupled with poor ventilation, this commonly leads to high levels of CO2 in many homes. Fortunately, CO2 sensors can be found on most air quality monitors.

Temperature and Humidity: These levels can affect more than your comfort. High temps and excessive humidity promote mold and mildew growth. These can cause structural damage to your home and cause allergy-like symptoms in those with sensitivities. Monitoring these levels can help you prevent home and health problems and tip you off to potential sources like foundation cracks or leaks and poor insulation.

Air quality monitor reviews

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Michael Ansaldo is a veteran consumer and small-business technology journalist. He contributes regularly to TechHive and writes the Max Productivity column for PCWorld.

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