This new series of portable air cleaners also includes a VOC Sensor that actively monitors the surrounding air. Honeywell Air Purifiers can help capture airborne particles while improving indoor air quality. When you consider that 90% of our time is spent indoors, this can be especially important. The largest exposure to particles and allergens can occur indoors.
Whole-house air purifiers are a more advanced or complete solution than standard replacement furnace filters. Our air cleaners work efficiently to capture more airborne particles from the air passing through the filter. They require minimal maintenance, with no replacement filters required. The Mila air purifier is a notable entrant in the nascent category of truly smart air purifiers. When we tested it in October 2020, it delivered excellent performance on smoke particles, virtually identical to the performance we got from the Coway Mighty.
We later learned that many of the company’s advertising claims were found to be baseless, and Molekule subsequently retracted almost all of them. (You can read about the saga in our reports from February and June 2020; the Air was then known as the MH1.) That year we also tested a Molekule Air Mini and judged it to be similarly poor. It’s easy to forget the occasional obligation of replacing your purifier’s filters—so set a calendar reminder. Purifier manufacturers typically recommend replacing them annually, but check the manual; some models call for less frequent or more frequent replacement. If you specifically need to address high levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), we recommend the Austin Air HealthMate HM400. Like our other picks, it uses a HEPA filter to capture particulate pollutants.
Air purifiers are fundamentally simple machines—little more than a fan and a filter. Yet a well-designed purifier can capture virtually all airborne allergens, such as pollen and mold spores, as well as bacteria, viruses, and smoke. All Honeywell air purifiers come with a permanent true HEPA filter, an Intelli-Check Monitoring System, and patented SurroundSeal technology.
We’ve tested many Dyson purifiers over the years, most recently (2019) the Pure Cool TP04 and Pure Hot+Cool HP04. Neither model measured up well against our top pick, the Coway Mighty. We have also found no evidence that the fan function on Dyson purifiers makes them superior to other purifiers in the distribution of filtered air throughout a room. In fact, our years of testing have shown that any appropriately sized purifier will deliver filtered air rapidly into the farthest corner of a room. The Oransi Mod+ is an impressive purifier meant for large spaces.
The Blueair Blue Pure 211i Max, meant for large spaces around 500 square feet, is a stellar performer, reducing smoke levels in our test room by more than 99.9% on its high and high-medium settings. In spite of the power, it’s extremely energy efficient and quieter than you’d expect. You can shut off the display honeywell purifier while it runs, which helps if you’re light sensitive while trying to sleep. Its air-quality sensor reads your room’s particulate-pollution levels at 1, 2.5, and 10 microns (aka PM1, PM2.5, and PM10—broadly equivalent to smoke, dust, and pollen). An app remotely monitors its readings and can control its settings.
Many of today’s air purifiers feature an Auto mode that adjusts the fan speed based on the air quality. Though it’s Energy Star-certified, the Honeywell HPA300 True HEPA Air Purifier doesn’t have an Auto mode and had high power consumption in our tests. Despite its negatives and costs, we strongly recommend the Honeywell PowerPlus True HEPA Air Purifier because it can effectively and efficiently remove particulate matter and VOCs from the air. It has minimal maintenance needs, and the filters are widely available. I have tried dozens of air purifiers, and this is the one I use in my home. To test air purifiers, I light an incense stick in a 200-square-foot room, burn it for 15 minutes, and then turn the purifier on and run it on high for two hours.
And the quality of the sound was rough and whooshy, versus the Mighty’s steady white noise. The Medify MA-40 performs similarly to the top-pick Coway AP-1512HH Mighty, but it’s much louder, honeywell humidifier at 52 decibels (above our 50-decibel definition of “quiet”) on its medium setting and 42 on low. The Coway measured 39 decibels and 31 decibels (nearly inaudible), respectively.