Pure 411+

Blueair. Cheap filters, washable pre filters and relatively cheap purifier. I had two 411+ but one died recently, it was on high 24/7 for 5 years. Part of their use is for white noise. The other in my office has had the same usage but still going. The charcoal in them kinda sucks but I cut up sheets of furnace charcoal filters and line the inside of them and replace that every two months. I work with a lot of art stuff, do a lot of printing and live with someone who sprays too much perfume so need the extra carbon though.

No commercially available purifier produces measurable ozone. None. Blue Air has no Ozone. Levoit has no Ozone. They may or may not be great for many other reasons but there’s NO OZONE.

Ok, so here's the breakdown. Everyone is freaking out about ozone. They have been for years now. Last-gen purifiers made ozone. A lot of it. Units like the "ionic breeze" literally reeked like a thunderstorm. They had mediocre filters, and giant (think 2 feet long and 6" wide) metal plates that spat out toxic levels of ozone. Modern purifiers fall into three categories: 1. No ionizer. These units are fully mechanical. Most of Coway's lineup falls into this category - zero ionizers, and therefore "zero" ozone output. *Full clarity - you are surrounded by ozone. Depending on where you live, ambient levels of ozone are anywhere from 15ppb (in the pristine wilderness of Canada) to 45ppb (most urban areas). Most people are inhaling, at any given time, 25+ppb of ozone. 24/7/365. Their entire lives. It's ... normal. It's how we exist on Earth.* ***Additional clarity - every electronic device produces ionizing radiation and therefore "potentially" converts Oxygen to Ozone. Your cell phone, your laptop, your TV. Motors produce MORE ionizing radiation. Brushed motors (cheap ones, think box fans) are the worst offenders here. How much ozone is really created by these devices? Not much.*** 2. Bipolar ionizer. Winix uses "plasmawave" which creates both polarities of ions, which effectively cancel each other out after a very short time and never have a chance to make any ozone. 3. Standard ionizer. Also known as a static electricity generator. This is a tiny (TINY - like 0.25" wide) static generator that charges the filter housing to make dust/dirt/particles stick better. This is what people fixate on, because remember those ancient purifiers? That made dangerous levels of ozone? Well, they were LITERALLY 1000-2000 TIMES BIGGER, and they produced like 100ppb of ozone... except that if you adjust for scale, that means these little guys are THEORETICALLY CAPABLE OF producing... like 0.1ppb of ozone, which when added to the ambient 25ppb you're inhaling all the time... doesn't matter. 3a. But wait... see, it isn't just the size of the plates, it's how they're configured. The old units were INTENDED to spit ozone into the air, it's how they cleaned air. Remember that ozone generators are SUPER EFFECTIVE at cleaning air. They're just also super effective at damaging your lungs. But even today, the ONLY way to purge a living space of old cigarette smoke smell... is an ozone generator. They're used by remediation crews after mold and other cleanups. But these new units... are engineered to only output static to the casing of the unit. Not spew it into space. So the worry is unfounded. 3b. And wait again! Go to youtube and run a search and you'll find people who have placed calibrated ozone meters into the output path of a coway 1512 (the only unit with an ionizer) with the ionizer turned on... and measured ZERO OZONE. Is it really 0? Or is it 0.1ppb which is too low to register? I'd argue it doesn't matter. 0.1ppb is the same as zero when ambient is 25-45 everywhere that people need a purifer. Also remember that this stuff decays. So even running 24/7 in an enclosed space, you'd need 100 ionizing purifiers to even raise the ozone level 1ppb on an ongoing basis. SO when I say "zero", "none", "safe" what I mean is "as safe as just walking outside because in your house the ozone levels are 5ppb lower than outside, and yet everyone recommends fresh air for your lungs... ... now ... the million dollar question. WHY DOES EVERYONE SAY THESE UNITS MAKE OZONE? Well, a couple reasons. 1. They conflate the old units with the new ones. 2. They assume that "ions = ozone". 3. They can't do math. 4. Some people report stuffy noses or sinus irritation around these units. The problem is that this isn't an ozone symptom. Ozone can THEORETICALLY cause respiratory problems. But in reality, most people can walk around outside after a thunderstorm (when ozone levels spike to 150ppb) without issue. Most people can walk through New York City (where ozone levels are well above 50 at all times) without devolving into a coughing fit. So... why do these units irritate SOME PEOPLE'S sinuses? Simple. Static electricity. Static air can irritate sinuses. It also dries the air out, which can irritate sinuses. My kids have Blueair 411+ units in their bedrooms. They refuse to switch to a Coway. They PREFER the air that way. And they've used them for years. I would NEVER put something in their bedroom running 24/7 that would hurt them. Because... this won't. There's no risk. (And an increase of 1/250th in POSSIBLE ozone levels ... that's just math. It isn't plutonium. It isn't going to hurt them, even if it does exist, which it has been measured NOT TO.) Hope this helps. It isn't the popular narrative, but it's the truth.

Yeah you’ve REALLY drank the kool-aid haven’t you? My master suite is 400sqft. And I run a Coway 250 on medium. Keeps the place pristine. Not loud at all. Filters last a year. Kids bedrooms at my house have Blueair 411’s on low all the time. Air is great. Spare room winix 5500-2, quiet. Guests sleep great. Main floor has an IQ Air, runs on speed 2-3, quiet and efficient. My air is pristine. All these solutions work as advertised. All cheap solutions. All work as advertised. I didn’t have to duct tape, program, or do ANYTHING other than turn them on at speed 2 and wait for the air to be clean. No arduino. No apps on my phone. Nothing. The users you are quoting are confused. Smart plugs have no place in purification, neither do apps, sensors, or anything else. Get a unit - any unit. Purifier, CR box, fan with a filter duct taped to it, whatever. Turn it on. Run it 24/7/365. That’s it. That’s the way to clean air. Period. No apps. No smart plugs. No automatic modes. Just put it at whatever noise level you’re ok with and wait for the air to clear.

1. You don’t really want an app. It is t useful in any way. Why? Because the sensor on the unit isn’t accurate, so the app won’t really tell you if your air is clean. Also because the only way to clean air is to run the unit on a constant speed 24/7. So unless your use case is very specific (vacation home, away for long periods, etc.) then an app isn’t helpful. 2. Shark is junk. Levoit cleans air just fine but is not HEPA, if that matters. Blue air is the best of the three, also isn’t HEPA but has a static generator which bothers some people. 3. Consider winix or Coway. They’re better in every way.

I’ve literally never had this problem. I know some people have it all the time. But I have winix, Coway, blueair, and iq air running in my house and have never had a filter that smelled bad. The IQ air filters give off a sweet smell sometimes but it passed quickly. I suggest you run the purifier outdoors on high until the smell fades. It is transient. The actual materials don’t continue to emit an odor.

You’re looking at this all wrong. I don’t want to cast aspersions on the website you were looking at but let me talk about a couple things. 1. No unit under $700 has much carbon so don’t worry about that. If you’d like a LITTLE carbon then Winix 5510, Coway 150/250 and Levoit Vital 100/200 are great options. 2. The Winix 5510 being “worse” than the 5500-2 is absolutely true. But the 5500-2 was the ABSOLUTE BEST in its class and price point, so that’s a high bar. The 5510 is a fine unit. 3. Blue Air units (except their pro line) generally aren’t HEPA, in fact almost zero round units are, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t great units. I recommend BlueAir highly. My kids all use them exclusively. Just size it accordingly and keep the sock pre-filter clean. 4. Reddit sentiment analysis includes many subreddits and is … skewed. I mod r/airpurifiers and over there we have a recommendation list and it’s pretty consistent.

What this guy said. We’ve got a couple Blue Air units in the house. They work great. But if you don’t like ionizers (some people find them disagreeable, due to the static charged air), just get a Coway. ;)

I second the Blueair purifiers. I have the 211+ non auto in my living room and the smaller versions in my bedrooms. I've had the 211+ running for about ten years and still going strong. The smaller ones I had to replace recently. I got the table top Mini Max through Costco in a 2-pack and I regret that size. I'll get the smaller standing 411 ones again next time.

I also have two blue air 411 for each bedroom. Can't recommend them enough. They just do the job and filters are pretty cheap. 

Unfortunatly, i had at Blueair 411 formabout 5 years in the bedroom. It just stopped working. So I replaced it with the newer 511