My wife bought the small machine and the large machine to mitigate wildfire smoke. We live in Oregon and have been in hazardous air for over a week now. I was so excited to get this machine and get it working. We have a 3-year-old, a puppy, my wife has asthma, and I do not smoke or drink so experiencing the wildfires here has been a miserable experience and maintaining a healthy environment for my family is very important to me.
We plugged our small machine in our bedroom at approximately 5 pm on 9/16/2020, got the app connected and the machine running. I have masked off our bedroom window and also our attic access lid in our closet behind a closed door. I closed both vents to our central AC to limit any exposure to the room. The machine immediately detected ‘Very Bad’ air quality in our bedroom. That was to be expected due to the hazardous concentration of pm2.5 particles in our air right now.
I was so excited for this thing to get to work but it operates like someone going a million miles an hour in fancy clothes that is all talk and accomplishes absolutely nothing! About 30 minutes after plugging it in it detected ‘Bad’ particles in our room, which I saw as an improvement. It then went back to ‘Very Bad’ about a minute after that. We have been running the machine on its highest setting since approximately 6 pm on 9/16/20. It is now 4:36 am on 9/17/20 and the particle level detected is still very bad. Our bedroom is 143 square feet, I would expect the device to perform beautifully in this space.
I was so confused so I decided to do my own research online and discovered that several people are having the same experience that I am, that this thing is an overpriced and basically non-performing device that is pleasant to look at compared to other air purifiers that are much more affordable and that actually work. The Wirecutter has a great YouTube review. The other one-star reviews in this forum are the ones to pay attention to. I don't believe any of the excellent reviews based on my experience with this product. I am so disappointed in this product, especially knowing that my wife dropped a ton of money on two machines for our home and I come to find out that they don’t work. We will be sending both machines back and praying for better weather in Oregon over trying to use this machine. What a joke this thing is! And...everyone is in the same boat, scrambling for clean air and all other models that actually have good reviews, that work, and are affordable are all backordered. As frustrated as I am to find these reviews I am even more upset with myself for not doing this research sooner and having never purchased these gimmick machines!
Length of Use: Less than 3 months
Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend