We spend 90% of our lives indoors – and increasingly, we spend that time at home. There’s a growing awareness of the importance of home air quality on our health and happiness: pollution doesn’t just exist outside and often, indoor air quality is worse.
If you want to breathe cleaner air in your house, getting an air purifier is a solid investment. Air purifiers with a high-quality HEPA filter have been proven to reduce the amount of pollution in the air, although they’ll never remove it all entirely.
We’ve reviewed some of the best air purifiers around, so you can find the one that’s right for you. While we can’t conduct lab-style testing to verify manufacturers’ claims, we can tell you how they work, which types of pollution they work best against, if they’re noisy or quiet, if they’re easy to move around and if we think they made a difference to air quality.
Some of the air purifiers are dedicated appliances, others are multifunctional and also heat or cool the air, or dehumidify it. Some have displays for air quality information and others are app-connected. All of them have been taken home and tested in our homes.
1. Jya Fjord
Pros
- Three air purity measures
- Easy to move, thanks to its wheels
- Smart features
Cons
- No remote
- No handles
- No ioniser
The Jya Fjord is one of the best looking air purifiers we’ve tested. It’s also one of the most comprehensive, with a four-stage purification process. The first layer is a pre-filter for hair and dust mites. The second layer is a HEPA H13 filter for airborne particles such as dust, pollen, mould spores and bacteria. The third layer is activated carbon for smells and harmful gases, such as tobacco smoke and formaldehyde. To top this all off, there’s UV sterilisation to kill bacteria and viruses in the appliance.
Jya states that the Fjord will deal with zones from 31m2 to 54m2. Its Clean Air Delivery rate (CADR) is 450m3 an hour, and for the TVOC CADR, 150m3 an hour.
It has a touchscreen control panel, with a display that’ll show you the air quality in terms of either PM2.5, PM10, or TVOC.
It also has smart features. It’s Apple Homekit, Google Assistant and Alexa compatible. Also, via the app, you can monitor your air quality in the longer-term, with daily, weekly and monthly graphs.
There are four operation modes, including a whisper quiet (18.8dB(A)) sleep mode.
2. PurOxygen P500
- Remote control
- UV sanitiser
- Ioniser
Cons
- Not smart-enabled
- No fan adjustment on sleep mode
- No wheels
The PurOxygen P500 is functional looking at best, but its four-layer filtration system is powerful.
There’s a prefilter for particles one micron in size and larger: dust, hair, and dander. The HEPA HII filter catches particles above 0.3 microns in size and 95% to 99% of particles below 0.3 microns. Next, there’s an activated carbon layer. The final layer is cold catalyst filtration, to control VOCs (harmful and smelly gases). It’s also equipped with a negative ion generator and a UV light.
It will clean spaces from 150-550ft2, so 14m2 to 51m2, and it will clean up to 550ft2 every hours, up to 1650 ft2 in three hours.
There are no smart features but it comes with a remote control. The unit itself also has a light indicator to give at-a-glance air quality information, as well as a numerical indicator.
It’s available from a number of places in the US, but if you’re in the UK, you can only buy it from Amazon, where its price is extremely high.
Read our full PurOxygen Air Purifier P500 review
3. Dyson Autoreact
- Sleek, premium design
- Impressive cooling capabilities
- Protects from gases and pollutants in the air
- Quiet performance
Cons
- No onboard controls
- No companion app or other smarts
Dyson’s latest combined air purifier and fan is as stylish as you’d expect, with a small footprint compared to most air purifiers, which tend to have a blocky design.
Dyson claims that it can generate up to 290 litres of purified air per second. In typical Dyson fashion, however, the brand has issues with Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) as a measurement of how well air purifiers work in real life. So it’s hard to be sure that all of the air that it’s moving is being effectively cleaned and it’s difficult to compare it against rival appliances. However, in our test, it effectively cleaned a room of smoke after cooking.
It has a replaceable glass fibre HEPA H13 filter to filter toxic and smelly VOC gases, as well as 99.95% of particles as small as 0.1 microns. And the whole chassis meets the HEPA H13 standard to keep trapped pollutants inside.
The colourful on-unit display shows PM 2.5, PM 10, VOC and NO2 depending on what’s detected in the air. It’s also a very effective fan, which you’ll appreciate when summer comes. There are no smart features, but it comes with a remote. Our one design bugbear is the lack of controls on the unit itself, which would be handy.
You can also check out our reviews of the Dyson Pure Cool Tower and the Dyson Pure Cool Me.
4. Dreo True HEPA
- Small
- Quiet
- Portable
- Good range of settings options
Cons
- Better suited to smaller rooms
- No smart features
Dreo’s True HEPA Air Purifier is a neat black cylinder measuring 25 x 25 x 38.6cm / 9.84 x 9.84 x 15.2in. It’s small and light, it’s easy to move around or find a spot for. Being a small appliance, its filters are less pricey than rivals as well.
It has a clean air delivery rate (CADR) of 176 cubic feet per minute or 300 cubic metres per hour, and an effective range of 273 sq ft or 25.4m2. This means it’s good for smaller spaces only. We think it would work best beside your bed or desk to help with symptoms of hay fever or dust allergies. It won’t disturb your sleep or work either, as it’s very quiet in use, with an operating volume of 20-54 dB. On its lowest setting, that’s very quiet indeed.
It has an H13 True HEPA Filter, which will trap 99.97% of particles down to 0.3 microns, an ultra-fine nylon pre-filter to capture larger particles, and an activated carbon layer which will get rid of bad smells, smoke and harmful gases like VOCs. This makes it a good all-rounder.
It doesn’t have smart features, or any kind of display beyond a coloured LED to indicate air quality.
Read our full Dreo True HEPA Air Purifier review
5. Zigma Smart Aerio 300
- Can cycle clean air multiple times an hour
- Compatible with H14 filters
- UV-C lamp and negative ionisation
Cons
- Loud at faster fan modes
- Can’t disable annoying chime
- AI mode is exclusive to Zigma app
At 350 x 220 x 495mm, the Zigma will take up a a reasonable chunk of space. It’s not a design-led appliance either, although its patterned grille prevents it from being a completely featureless white box. But it’s powerful, with the ability to clean a space from 23-40m².
It has a 5-in-1 filter system with an H14 HEPA medical-grade element that filters up to 99.97% of fine dust, pet hair, mites, air pollution, PM 2.5 (pollutants smaller than 2.5 microns) and ultrafine particles under 0.3 micrometres.
That’s backed up by an activated carbon filter that helps remove lingering smells like pets, kitchen smoke, cigarette smoke as well as neutralising formaldehyde and other harmful substances. Plus, there’s a UV-C LED bulb that aims to kill viruses and bacteria that pass through the appliance.
The Aerio 300 has a Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) of up to 330m³ an hour, allowing it to clear up to a 1580 sq ft space within an hour. It also has smart features, and it’s reasonably priced as well.
Read our full Zigma Smart Aerio 300 Wi-Fi Air Purifier review
6. Breville 360° Light Protect Air Purifier
- Attractive
- Portable
- Good for personal use
Cons
- No air quality display screen
- No remote control
- No smart features
This compact air purifier is only 38cm high, so you could stand it on a desk or bedside table. It’s also perfectly portable, with a carry handle on top.
It has six stage filtration, including a HEPA H13 filter and an activated carbon layer for gaseous pollutants. There’s an optional UV light to help to sterilise the inside, as well as an ioniser.
Its CADR rates are 191 m3 per hour for smoke, 190m3 per hour for dust and 205m3 per hour for pollen.
It’s easy to use as well, with a straightforward control panel and corresponding indicator lights. You can set a timer to switch it off after 4, 8 or 12 hours, turn on a night light and dim the indicator lights in night mode. On its lowest setting, it’s only 33dB, so it would be ideal to stop a room getting stuffy while you sleep without disturbing you.
But there’s no display to show pollution levels, so if you want to monitor your home air quality, it won’t be right for you.
7. Meaco Arete One dehumidifier (25l)
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- Quiet
- Easy to use
- Portable
- Dual use
Cons
- Pricey
- Featureless design
The Arete One is a dehumidifier and air purifier specifically designed for use in the UK. That means it’s designed to fit into a smaller space and to work best in temperatures between 5° and 35°C. It has concealed wheels and a carry handle, so it’s easy to move around. It measures 60cm x 35cm x 25cm.
We tested the 25L Arete One, which can extract up to 25L of moisture from the air per day at 30°C and 80% relative humidity, which is high performance. It has an easy-to-read control panel but what makes it even easier to use is that it will intelligently adjust to the moisture level in the air and you won’t need to tweak it at all. It’s very quiet in operation at 42dB.
You can also use it in air purification mode, without the dehumidifier. It’s equipped with a washable dust filter, plus an optional medical grade H13 HEPA filter and charcoal filter.
If you want an air purifier but your home has problems with damp or condensation, or if the air gets damp when you air dry clothing, the Arete One is a solid, dual-function option. But unless you have a serious mould problem, you can opt for the smaller size and save some money.
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