Our Ultimate Guide to the 9 Best Air Purifiers for Every Space
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At a Glance: The Best Air Purifiers
Best Overall: PhoneSoap AirSoap X5
Best Smart Purifier: Coway Airmega IconS
Best Filtration: Medify MA-40
Best for Mid-Sized Rooms: Winix 5500-2 Air Purifier
Best for Small Rooms: Clorox Small Room Smart True HEPA Air Purifier
Most Quiet: Blueair Blue 411i Max
Best for Pets: Levoit Core P350 Pet Care Air Purifier
Best Desktop Air Purifier: IQAir Atem Desk Personal Air Purifier
Best Air Purifying Fan: Dyson Purifier Hot+Cool Formaldehyde™ HP09
Whether you’re trying to reduce your allergy symptoms, want to clear your space of smoke, or rid the area of unpleasant odors, an air purifier is an essential device to have in any home, to keep your air clean and germ-free.
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The best air purifiers suck up particles, filter the potentially hazardous ones, and blow fresh air into your room. Our editors have all tested various air purifiers over the past few years, and we’ve noticed a surprising difference in everything from how well we’re breathing, the lack of odors in our in living spaces, to how we’re sleeping a little easier at night.
But with so many air purifiers out there, it can be hard to know which one to get. Below, our guide explains what to look for in your air purifiers, and our recommendations for the best models we’ve tested ourselves.
In This Article
What Are the Best Air Purifiers?
How Do Air Purifiers Work?
Air Purifier Buying Guide: How to Pick the Best Air Purifier
What Are the Best Air Purifiers?
Looking for an easy and effective way to eliminate virus-causing germs and bacteria from your air? Here are some of the best air purifiers to buy online, which we chose based on factors such as filtration efficiency, coverage area, size, and more.
1. PhoneSoap AirSoap X5
$649.95
If you want a comprehensive way to clean the air in a large room in your home, the best option is PhoneSoap’s AirSoap X5.
PhoneSoap says its air purifier can clean an area up to 400 sq. ft., so it can cover an entire studio apartment, or a living room or bedroom. It uses a custom filtration system that the company says can block particles larger than 14 nm (Nanometre) in size (the size of Corona-viruses), which tend to get through even a traditional HEPA filter.
The AirSoap uses a custom made technology called Electric Wind, which creates a plasma field to kill bacteria, and uses collecting plates made of graphene to remove the polarized particles from the air. Because it uses this proprietary cleaning method, the AirSoap doesn’t support ionization.
We’ve found it operates about as “whisper-quiet” as it says it does, which is impressive for its size. The company says its air purifier is also more energy efficient than most because its fan runs at a slower speed. While we’ve seen a visible reduction in dust around our home, and its cleaning abilities are top-notch, one potential downside to the AirSoap X5 is also its size.
It’s 25.6 inches tall and 12 inches wide, which is larger than any of our other recommendations. But, if you only want one air purifier in your home, or need one for a large room, it’s your best option.
2. Coway Airmega IconS
$529 $699 24% off
Sleek and stylish, this Coway air purifier is truly the future of smart home upgrades, delivering the the same stellar cleaning performance, only a little smarter.
You’ll get the same three-stage filtration process that Airmega line is known for, except the company claims this model’s filter can capture up to 99.999 percent of nano-sized particles down to 0.001 microns (that’s even smaller than most allergens, bacteria, and viruses). That’s a huge upgrade, but what’s an even bigger upgrade are the added features.
The IconS is the first air purifier with a wireless charging station — located on top, the platter can charge up your smartphone or other Qi-enabled device (it’s mostly unnecessary, but adds a little more bang for your buck at this price point). We’ve used Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa to change settings and set a schedule with our voice and it’s pretty responsive. We also like how energy-saving air quality monitor automatically adjusted the fan speed to match the air quality in our room when we burnt a ham in the oven during the holidays (don’t ask).
The Airmega IconS can cover up to a whopping 700 square feet of space, making it great for a main living room small apartment. We like the gorgeous modern design, which also happens to be water and stain-repellent.
3. Medify MA-40
$199.99
This is, by far, the most powerful air purifier on this list, so if you’re planning on using one in a large space, this is the right choice.
It can cover rooms up to 1,793 square feet, which the size of a big living room, small basement, or studio apartment. Medify says its four-layer H13 TRUE HEPA filter can help remove up to 99.9% of particles down to 0.1 microns, and the medical-grade filter removes everything from smoke to pollen to dust mites.
The downside is that the MA-40 measures 22 x 9.9 inches, which is nearly a foot taller than the next biggest air purifier on this list. Its big size means you’re going to want to set it up in one room, and leave it there. It’s also the loudest option we recommend, with a peak volume of 60db, so you may not want it to run all the time.
The buttons, located at the top, let you choose between four fan speeds, a one, two, four or eight-hour timer, and whether to enable ionization. There’s also a child lock feature, so your kid doesn’t mess with the settings.
If you want an air purifier for the biggest room in your house — or potentially your entire apartment — Medify’s MA-40 is your best bet.
4. Winix 5500-2 Air Purifier
$159.99 $249.99 36% off
Winix’s 5500-2 Air Purifier is a great option for your kitchen or mid-sized bedroom, with strong filtration performance and a no-frills design.
The air purifier is 23.6 inches tall, 14.9 inches wide, and 8.2 inches deep, so you’ll need a fair bit of space for it, but it’s rated to clean rooms up to 350 square feet. Although it doesn’t have the biggest range, this air purifier packs a ton of features like a smart sensors gauge the air, an auto mode adjusts the fan to filter the air as needed, and a sleep mode for silent nighttime operation.
The 5500-2 works at 27.8 dB on the lowest setting, which is perfect for sleeping, but doing that will make the air purifier less effective, though, so it’s a definite trade off. This air purifier doesn’t have an ionization mode, so you’ll have to rely exclusively on the efficiency of its HEPA filter, which still captures a respectable 99.97 percent of unwanted airborne particles.
If you’d like an air purifier that’s easy to operate, has a few key features, and is designed for mid-sized rooms, this model from Winix gets our recommendation.
5. Clorox Small Room Smart True HEPA Air Purifier
$69.99
If you have a smaller room, and don’t want to sacrifice the extras that come with pricier air purifiers with smart features, Clorox’s small room model is an excellent choice.
At 9.3 x 7.4 inches, it can cover rooms up to 200 square feet, which makes it an ideal choice for a bathroom or bedroom. The small size comes with a big advantage: it only creates 25db of noise on its lowest setting (that’s less noise than a soft whisper from five feet away).
Despite its small size, this air purifier holds its own in most respects. It uses the same type of True HEPA filter as higher-end models, capturing up to 99.97% of particles as small as 0.1 microns, and it easily connects to your Alexa smart speaker or the Alexa app so you can control it with voice commands.
Its buttons, which are located on the top of the purifier, let you turn it on, change its fan speed, and check its filter. One nice touch: you can also adjust the brightness of its power light, so it won’t disturb you at night.
6. Blueair Blue Blue 411i Max
$144.97 $169.99 15% off
When Blueair isn’t specializing in clearing your space out of pet hair and dander, the exceptionally silent performance combined with an intuitive auto mode of their Blueair Blue Blue 411i Max means you’ll barely notice when its running — but the air quality around your home will let you know its getting the job done right.
Using electrostatic filtration, the Blueair Blue Blue 411i Max works with the particle filter to remove 99.97 percentage of airborne particles down to 0.1 micron, like pollen, dust, and most importantly, viruses. When tested against particles from wildfires (where are larger, often 2.5 microns), the special fabric pre-filter could also remove up to 99% of them within 60 minutes.
This combination of filters makes it among the most remarkably quiet on the market, cleaning the air with a sound level equivalent to a soft whisper (18 dB on low). You’ll also get all the power of a top air purifier in one energy-saving package, since it runs up to 40 percent more efficiently than standard models.
While the auto mode can adjust to real-time conditions in any space based on a particle sensor, we recommend this purifier for medium-sized rooms like bedrooms, living rooms, or playrooms. For clean air without any distracting noise, the Blueair Blue Blue 411i Max can’t be beat.
7. Levoit Core P350 Pet Care Air Purifier
$129.99
What more can we say? Levoit’s Core P350 Pet Care air purifier has “pet” in the name, and you really can’t go wrong with the superior filtration performance of this choice.
Using a special H13-Grade True HEPA Filter, it reduces up to 99.97 percent of the harmful air pollutants pet owners are most concerned about, like pet dander, pollen, dust mites, and other allergens in rooms up to 219 square feet. While you won’t sweat the small stuff with this purifier, we’ve found that their fabric pre-filter was more effective than others at capturing larger things, like floating hair and pet fur.
What we like: Levoit added an extra “AirReComposition” formula to their activated carbon filter, which boosts the odor-busting power for super-strong pet odors, like accidents on left on the floor. It also has a special “Pet Lock” to make sure your furry friend doesn’t accidentally mess with any of the settings by touching the buttons, or bumping into the air purifier.
8. IQAir Atem Desk Personal Air Purifier
$399.00
Portable or mini air purifiers meant to be posted up on your desk don’t end to have the power nor the filtration of their larger coverage counterparts — for mighty air purification in a small package, we that’s why we recommend the IQAir Atem Desktop Air Purifier.
This purifier uses the company’s exclusive HyperHEPA filters to remove ultra-fine particles down to 0.003 microns. The filters are effective enough to remove airborne viruses and particles that are ten times smaller than a virus. What you get: 99% purified air to your personal breathing zone. The unique circular design is fantastic for airflow and everything can be easily monitored and adjusted through the MyAtem app.
It can cover up to 150 square feet of space, but with a perfectly unobtrusive design — overall, a great air purifier for your desk or small room.]
9. Dyson Purifier Hot+Cool Formaldehyde HP09
$849.99
The Dyson Purifier Cool TP09 isn’t just a regular air purifier — it’s a cool air purifier, quite literally doubling as a cooling fan when it’s not working overtime as an expertly-designed bacteria-eliminator. Frequently sold out, this popular Dyson model recently got a major upgrade in the form of a sensor that detects and eliminates formaldehyde from from your carpets and rugs.
When it comes to everyday filtration, the Purifier Cool TP09’s HEPA H13 filter is also 99.95 percent effective at removing particles down to 0.1 micron, and 99.97 percent of particles down to 0.3 microns. To prevent these pollutants from leaking back into the air, the body is also fully sealed, so what goes inside stays inside.
But what we love is the unique design, which Dyson says projects out powerful circulation so it can capture and draw in air that purifies all the far corners of your room. The same design can cool you down when needed with fan that runs 77 gallons of air through per second.
With additional smart capabilities like hands-free voice control and air quality monitoring on the app, the Dyson Purifier Cool TP09’s versatility is still unmatched.
How Do Air Purifiers Work?
An air purifier works by drawing air into its chamber and running it through a filter that captures germs, dust, mites, pollen and other potentially harmful particles from the airstream. The air purifier will then return the clean air back into your home.
The best air purifiers also use a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter that better captures unwanted particles from the air. Standard air purifier filters range from coarse to medium in terms of their design and filtration ability (similar to say, how a coffee filter works). These are among the most commonly used air filters in homes and workplaces today. But these standard filters, while certainly effective, are not as efficient as HEPA filters.
For example, there’s a difference between HEPA and True HEPA air purifiers — True HEPA air purifiers capture up to 99.97% of particles as small as 0.3 microns, which include allergens and odors. A purifier with a HEPA-type filter is capable of capturing 99% of bigger particles that are 2 microns or larger, like pet dander and dust.
These days, the best air purifiers can also help to absorb or filter out odors, say, from cooking or smoke. Some air purifiers are also equipped with heating and cooling settings, to function as a standup fan or heater when the temperatures change.
Air Purifier Buying Guide: How We Choose the Best Air Purifier s
There are many factors we considered when choosing the right air purifier for you; below are the most important ones, which we used as criteria while we were researching this list.
Size: Air purifiers come in all shapes and sizes, so we considered options that will stay in one room, and others that can be easily moved around. But trust us that oversized is okay when it comes to purifiers, since that means you’re likely getting a higher turnover rate of the air in your space.
Coverage Area and CADR: An air purifier’s size and power will determine how big of a space it can cover. Some work best for an office desk or bathroom (150-200 square feet), while others can clean the air in a large basement (800+ square feet). Our guide covers the entire spectrum (and it may make sense for you to get a couple of air purifiers for different purposes) but what’s more important is that all our picks have high CADRs (clean air delivery rate). This is how powerful the air flow is in relation to how many times the purifier can change the air over in a given room per hour.
Particle Size: Air particles — both good and bad — are measured in microns. The CDC says the most harmful air particles are between 0.9 and 0.3 microns because they can get through the human body’s natural defense system to damage your lungs, or get in your blood. We made sure that all of our air purifiers can filter out particles as low as 0.3 microns, so you don’t have to worry. These air purifiers help rid your space of everything from smoke to pollen to dust mites, and even smaller particles you may not be aware of.
Filtration System: Every air purifier uses its own multi-stage process to clean your air. They vary a little bit, but we focused on models that use a True HEPA (high-efficiency particle air) filter. It’s a fine mesh filter that traps unwanted particles to keep your air clean. These filters generally have to be changed every six months, but some advanced air purifiers have indicator lights that tell you when it’s time for them to be changed.
Loudness: Air purifiers use fans to suck in air, which means they’ll make some noise when they’re working. All of our picks have multiple fan speeds (the faster the speed, the louder the noise), but we took this into consideration in case you’re planning on running your air purifier while you sleep. To keep things in perspective, a conversation from three feet away is 60 decibels loud according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a division of the United States Department of Labor.
Ionization: This feature allows a purifier to charge air with electricity to attract particles down to 0.1 microns in size. Unfortunately this has two side effects: humans aren’t supposed to breathe ionized air, so it could irritate your lungs, and it puts off pollutants that damage the ozone layer. California banned air purifiers with ionization for this reason. Two of the options in this guide do support Ionization, but you have the ability to turn it on and off.
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1. Coway Airmega 300 Smart Air Purifier
In our book, Conway's air purifier is the best air purifier for homes and it's served me very well. Conway says its powerful filter works to filter out 99.97% of particles 0.3 microns in the air, including pollen, pollutants and other allergens. It's also powerful enough to filter out heavy smoke too, with some reporting a "clean" room in as little as ten minutes.
Conway says its air purifier is designed for rooms up to 1256 square feet (for reference, bedrooms can be as small as 70 square feet), but I've used it in much larger spaces and still noticed a difference. Measuring 12 x 8 x 8 inches, the air purifier is small enough that I've been able to move it to different rooms — even up and down stairs — with no problem.
The purifier has five speeds: smart, sleep, low, medium and high, and its fan noise doesn't go above 43.2db. I've been able to sleep while the purifier was on its highest setting, and can tune it out on its lowest one with no problem. Use the smart mode and put the air purifier to work, as it will automatically detect the air and lighting conditions in your room to adjust settings accordingly.
The power button turns it on and off while the speed button lets you switch between modes; the ionizer button enables its ionization mode. There is also a filter reset button that checks whether a filter needs to be changed, and the timer button lets you set the purifier to run for one, two, four, or eight hours.
Coway Airmega 300 Smart Air Purifier
2. Medify MA-40
This is, by far, the most powerful air purifier on this list, so if you're planning on using one in a large space, this is the right choice.
It can cover rooms up to 800 square feet, which the size of a big living room, small basement, or studio apartment. Medify says its four-layer H13 TRUE HEPA filter can help remove up to 99.9% of particles down to 0.1 microns. This medical-grade filter removes everything from smoke to pollen to dust mites.
The downside is that the MA-40 measures 22 x 9.9 inches, which is nearly a foot taller than the next biggest air purifier on this list. Its big size means you're going to want to set it up in one room, and leave it there. It's also the loudest option we recommend, with a peak volume of 60db, so you may not want it to run all the time.
Its buttons, located at the top, let you choose between four fan speeds, a one, two, four or eight-hour timer, and whether to enable ionization. There's also a child lock feature, so your kid doesn't mess with the settings.
If you want an air purifier for the biggest room in your house — or potentially your entire apartment — Medify's MA-40 is your best bet.
Medify MA-40
3. LEVOIT LV-H132
If you have a smaller room, and are willing to sacrifice a couple of extras for an air purifier that covers all the basics, LEVOIT's LV-H132 is an excellent choice.
It's 12.6 x 7.9 inches, and can cover rooms up to 129 square feet, which makes it an ideal choice for a bathroom or bedroom. Its small size comes with a big advantage: it only creates 25db of noise on its lowest setting. That's less noise than a soft whisper from five feet away.
Despite its small size, this air purifier holds its own in most respects. It uses the same type of filter as higher-end models, and has three fan settings. It does not have an ionization function.
Its buttons, which are located on the top of the purifier, let you turn it on, change its fan speed, and check its filter. One nice touch: you can also adjust the brightness of its power light, so it won't disturb you at night.
LEVOIT LV-H132
4. KOIOS Air Purifier
It's easy to think about air purifiers as an appliance you can only use at home, but what about when you're at work? This portable air purifier is great for a desk, side table or countertop.
KOIOS' air purifier has a cylindrical shape, and is only 7.5 x 6.9 inches, so it looks and feels more like the Amazon Echo than a traditional air purifier. It's 50db on its loudest setting, and only has a single button, which turns it on, and lets you cycle between its two fan speeds.
Its small shape and low volume makes this an air purifier you can keep at your work desk without bothering your coworkers. KOIOS doesn't say anything about its air purifier's coverage area, but that's not going to be a huge deal if you use it at close range.
If you're planning on using it at home, it'll probably work best in rooms that are roughly 100 square feet. if your room is bigger, you should consider another option in our guide.
