Alen - BreatheSmart 75i

Apart from the CADR rating and energy consumption. Here are other things that pushed me to Alen for a home. Build quality warranty: I had a panel failure 2 years after purchase and Alen got me a replacement quickly. filter replacements cost (frequency) Easy of pre filter cleaning. Noise With that being said. I initially bought a Winnix from Costco in 2019 for allergies but it was too small for my home so I went with an Alen breath-smart 75i Christmas time 2019. Both run basically 24/7 medium speed but the winnix has been getting in rough shape now. A lot more mechanical noises like squeaky fan noises and while’s its occasional it’s annoying to have to go mess with it time to time. Would I buy a winnix again? Depends on my use case. It would be more of guest room thing that doesn’t run often. With that being said. I live in CA and when the fires are in the area it can be a slap in the face walking out of your True HEPA filtered home air into fire are lol.

Alen is the best of that group by far. And especially since this is r/BIFL - they offer a lifetime warranty as long as you buy your filters from them (or authorized 3rd party) Remember, get a unit bigger than you think you’ll need so you don’t need to run it on full blast constantly and be overwhelmed by noise - another plus for Alen is that they are insanely quiet. I have a 45i and 75i and they are excellent. The VOC filter has a crazy amount of carbon in it too to help with smoke. I believe they are also one of the few manufacturers that publish their carbon numbers in their filters. A lot of others don’t.

Alen is another brand to look at. Very quiet. Their 75i would be a good fit to not have to run it on high all the time. Plus you get a lifetime warranty if you buy filters from them or authorized 3rd parties.

Alen 75i and 45i air purifiers. Well worth the money and comes with a lifetime warranty. 12-15 month filter life.

Alen 45i in the bedroom and Alen 75i in our main living room. Total game changer and best investment I have made in the last several years.

I started out looking at IQAir, expanded my search, and somehow ended up on ALEN BreatheSmart 75i. It was a while ago so I don't recall every consideration between the two. And the way you describe odor filtering sounds similar to my situation: no particuarly strong source, but I wanted something a little more effective than a flimsy charcoal prefilter. The ALEN is working well. I usually have it on automatic fan control. It spins up if dust gets kicked up, the toaster runs, or it's a low air-quality day. I wouldn't completely rely on that, though: I also manually crank it up from time to time.

Just be aware of the medify filter costs long term, they soon add up compared to the other brands on the list. For smoke I would choose the 75i or EverestAir both have good amounts of carbon compared to the others.

I eventually went with the Alen BreatheSmart 75i for my home, and it's been solid.

So I was just reading another thread about how Levoit doesn't respond to warranty claims and that their units may even be emitting VOCs.. so can't say I would recommend them at all. I like some of the Coway products but I've had a few in the past that allowed a lot of air to flow around the filters which in essence made it next to useless but they do make a decent quality filter, not sure if those issues were ever resolved. Currently my favorite basic air purifiers that aren't smart but just clean air are the Oransi Mod+ line. They just run and are quiet at 50% speed, they move a ton of air and are reasonably cheap. They don't auto sense anything they just run. They do absolutely nothing for smells, but if you're looking for something that will cut down on dust and hair then I'd try one of these. They do have a very strong plastic smell right from the factory but so do a lot of other alternatives.. it dissipates in about 48 hours of running. On the super high-end I would recommend the Alen Breathesmart 75i or 45i but they are very expensive but in this case you do seem to get what you pay for I have nothing negative to say about these at all they are absolutely amazing.

I think the clean air kits can be useful in certain situations. They are probably pretty good at picking up larger particulate so for pollen or something they probably do a decent job. I haven't looked at those kits for a couple of years so things could have changed but at the time the fans they were using were mostly PC fans in series. The only real problem I have with that is that those fans were never intended to be pusher fans. Meaning that they aren't designed to push or pull through a media like a filter. So I would be skeptical of their numbers they claim. Also at the time I was looking they were only using 3M 1900 filters, have they changed to HEPA filtration now? Like I said it's been a few years. ... Alright I just took a quick look and nothing much has changed.. they are still using Merv 13 media.. and I quote from their website: "Clean Air Kits produce 5-10x less noise than HEPA purifiers at max capacity." Well of course they would! They are pushing through significantly thinner filtration media! Alright so for large particulate, like viruses or pollen these would work fine. If that's all your concerned about or need then in that situation they are great. For a DiY solution and in situations where you need a quieter solution it is probably a good solution. Now the thing to understand is that Doctors and researchers are finding out that it's the super small particulate that does the most harm to the human lung. The only way to capture that is with either a Merv 19 rated filter (like our Oransi) or a True HEPA 13 filter. Medical grade HEPA 14 is the best of the best but is harder to find. There is only really one air purifier on the market that had a True HEPA 14 filtration and that was the Aeris Medical Pro or Aeris 3 in 1 with the Medical Pro filter, unfortunately they are only available used or refurbished in America right now because the company is restructuring. I have owned so many air purifiers at this point it's crazy and there are only a few I would really recommend for people that actually work and work well. Those would be the Oransi Mod+ and it's smaller version if you need something for like a office. The Allen Breathesmart 75i is amazing. Even on high you can barely hear this thing running it's truly a wonderfully engineered product but you pay the price for it. They aren't cheap, on occasion you can catch them on sale or refurbished on eBay for a third the price. The Aeris 3 in 1 is still my favorite air purifier and probably the best air purifier ever made to be honest.. it's just very hard to get right now. The best thing is to actually have more than one air purifier situated throughout your house. That way they don't have to be running on high so they are quieter and for every purifier you add you increase your total CADR. The second most important thing in my opinion is the price of the replacement filter, sometimes that gets overlooked. Once you start adding multiple units you have to remember you will need multiple filter purchases per year and that adds up. For me personally I just want a plug and play solution at this point in my life but if I had a restaurant or an office where people gathered I would seriously consider the clean air kits. Sorry this got rather long winded.. hope it answers your questions.

If you're looking for the best value for a space that large you should look at the Lifubide Y1000. For what it is it's hard to beat. AirDoctor is fine but their units are a bit noisy and their filters are expensive. iQAir is great but it's noisy on its highest level. Wanted to like MedifyAir but had a horrible customer service experience with them and not only that but they would not confirm that their filters were actually HEPA nor would they tell me the amount of carbon in their filter they said that was a company secret.. so that to me means they lied.. just not a fun company to deal with at all. The Dyson are basically just big fans, they do help with formaldehyde but that's about it, they are way overpriced for what they are and boy their customer service is on a whole new level of hell.. I won't ever recommend a Dyson to anyone ever again. Blue air I'm not a fan of and their always on ionizer isn't wonderful. My favorite air purifiers are Alen Breathesmart 75i, super quiet, moves a ton of air and is also super expensive. I also really like Oransi Mod+ but their air purifier prices have doubled recently so it's hard for me to recommend them anymore, for what they charge there are better alternatives.

The problem with most is they're too loud so you run them on a low speed which is pointless, which makes the best the one that moves meaningful cfm: Alen 75i

The "handles everything" purifiers (with *no* humidifying) would be the IQAir HealthPro Plus XE and the Alen BreatheSmart 75i with the "Fresh" filter. The purifiers I mentioned in **bold** (Winix D480, Levoit Vital 200S Smart Air Purifier, Winix 5500-2, and the Coway Airmega 240) are *particulates air purifiers only*; these have small amounts of activated carbon for gases/VOCs. Ensure Smoke CADR equals your room's area. Blueair is a particulates air purifier with an always-on ionizer to electrostatically charge the filter media. Models have little activated carbon for gases/VOCs. I have one more suggestion for VOCs/gases. You could buy a few [Oransi TrueCarbon filters](https://oransi.com/products/airmend-truecarbon-filter) only and attach them to the front of a few box fans. Each TrueCarbon filter has 3.2 lbs. of potassium permanganate (KMnO₄) sprayed activated carbon and is $79. I would keep the fan(s) on a medium to medium-low setting.

I’d yank the Levoit units off this list unless cost is your biggest driver. While the Everest air is a good unit, the core is just not. It will clean air at first but it is cheap and the filter cost will add up over time. The lack of real pre-filters really kills these things. From your list, Medify is excellent. As is Coway 400. IQ Air will filter better than any of these units… but moves a lot less air doing so. I own one and I love it but I fully admit it lacks airflow and is VERY expensive. Alen is also good, you can optionally equip them with extra carbon which is nice. You won’t regret any of these purchases tbh.

[Alen Purifier with pet filter](https://alen.com/products/alen-breathesmart-75i-air-purifier) We have two of these filters (one upstairs and one downstairs). I’ve had them for about 5 years and would absolutely buy another one if needed. I run them both 24/7/365 and have to change the filters about every 2 years. We have two dogs and two cats. Of note- I bought my sister the 45i because of the space it was servicing and it required much more frequent filter changes. It was really helpful for her son’s asthma so we upgraded them to the 75i and they don’t have to change filters nearly as often.

I have a couple Alen that I’ve had for 5 years. I got two large and two medium. The large ones run forever before needing a filter but the medium seemed to need filters more frequently. I would buy the 75i again hands down.

Levoit core 600s, coway airmega 300/400, medify ma125, dyson tp10, alen air breath smart, winix t810/5500. Any of these are great, so you can pick based off of design preference and location. Ones that intake from all sides work best in center of room, others are fine up against a wall. Dyson works well as a fan or circulator too. I also live in a larger open air loft style apartment with a cat. I have a Dyson in the upstairs bedroom for the fan feature, levoit 600s in kitchen for cooking because that thing moves alot of air at max, winix 5500 in bathroom and by litterbox because it is best bang for buck, having carbon pellets for odor at low price.

Alen is the best. True hepa (yes, this matters), absolutely silent, legit CADR. Coway and Winix are right behind them. Anything with true hepa (h13) is worth your money. Everything else is not.

We have an Alen breatheSmart. I like it. It’s sensitive to changes. It reacts as soon as we light a candle or cook. We change the filter once a year.