Research shows that air pollution reduces life expectancy of Indians by 9 years. Air pollutants are known to cause asthma, allergies and obesity in kids. While we can wait for macro economic policies to change things overall, there are little things that we can do to make ourselves feel safer - and using an air purifier is one of them.
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In this video, I’ll walk you through a guide of how to select the right air purifier using the exact same parameters I highlighted in my video comparing various air purifiers less than 20K. In this video, I’ll showcase how the Dyson Air purifier could meet many or all of these parameters that we will discuss and why I selected this one.
Let’s start with the most important aspects of an air purifier - the filtration system. After that we will cover the usability and convenience aspects.
THE FILTRATION SYSTEM
The filtration system is the heart of any air purifier and you have to get this right.
First thing to consider is the type of HEPA filter - this determines the size of the particles that can be collected. Different vendors will use different definitions like HEPA style filters, true HEPA filters, H10, H11, H12, H13, H14 filters and so on. You need to buy one that is atleast a true HEPA filter OR H13/H14 filter - which are the best for air purification. The Dyson Air purifiers use an H-13 HEPA filter which can capture particles of less than 0.1 micron. How small is 0.1 micron you may ask? Your hair is 70 microns, a dust particle is less than 10 microns, bacteria is 1-3 microns, smoke is 0.4-0.7 microns and corona virus is less than 0.1 microns. So in case you are wondering - no air purifiers don’t really capture coronavirus.
In addition to the type of HEPA filter, you need to look at the efficiency which determines how effective they are at collecting allergens and pollutants. Many air purifiers in the market will be around 99% - 99.97% efficiency - the Dyson is at 99.95% efficient at capturing ultrafine particles such as allergens and pollutants
Another aspect within filtration is removal of odors and volatile organic compounds. The HEPA filters do not help with this. For this you need an activated carbon filter. The Dyson Air purifier also has an activated carbon filter to remove gasses and odors - especially smoke and paint other odors.
And the last aspect of the filtration system is the pre-filter. Having a pre-filter increases the life of the HEPA filter by capturing large particles that could clog the HEPA filter. In general these prefilters are washable and hence don’t have any ongoing costs. Dyson Air purifiers do not have a pre-filter.
The filtration system is the most important part of an air purifier. So getting this right is absolutely important. Since Dyson has both the HEPA and the carbon filter - it can sense and report senses and reports 4 different pollutants - PM2.5, PM10, VOCs, NO2 - in real time. It is also one of the few air purifiers that are certified asthma and allergy friendly by Allergy Standards Limited
The filtration system is also the one that has an ongoing cost as you need to replace the filters frequently to ensure best performance of your air purifier. So let’s also take a look at the costs of the filtration system.
Most air purifiers require change in the HEPA filters about once a year. Anything higher is great - lesser ongoing costs. Anything lower means more costs. The Dyson Air purifier has an indicator which shows when the filters are up for replacement - so you can follow that schedule. Filter replacement is approximately once in 12 months if you are using it for 9-10 hours in a day, longer if used for fewer hours. Together, the filter replacements cost about Rs. 5000.
USABILITY
Next let’s talk about the usability aspects
For a large room - having an air purifier with oscillation will help to project the purified air across all corners of the room. To experiment with this - I kept the air purifier in non oscillation mode for 2 hours and then tested the real time stats in different parts of the room - as you can see, the stats on the farthermost part of the room are quite high. With the oscillation mode, the stats on every corner of the room are within a 10-15% limit of the central area of where I kept the air purifier. So the oscillation can be useful - especially for larger rooms. <needs to be validated after demo>
Let’s talk about the flavor of all home appliances these days - having a smart app to manage and monitor the appliance. The Dyson has an app where we can monitor the indoor and outdoor air quality directly through the app. We can monitor the 4 main types of pollutants - PM2.5, PM10, VOC and NO2 in real time. We can also view data related to temperature, humidity, and filter life. We can also schedule the start and stop of the air purifier remotely, set different modes directly from the app itself. Scheduling is particularly useful if you want to set it to a few hours before you reach home or before sleep time. In addition, it also integrates with Alexa - so you don’t even need to lift your hand to operate it with the app :D
If an app is not convenient, the remote can be used for performing most of these operations as well and the machine itself has a display that shows most of the metrics that are shown on the app.
CONVENIENCE
In addition to the core filtration and usability aspects, there are a number of good to have aspects - that may be considered if it is relevant for you and your usecase.
If you are looking at purifying a fairly large room - this air purifier is ideal as it covers an area of upto 600 sq ft - which is the highest amongst the air purifiers I have reviewed in the past. With the oscillation capability - it is able to cover the entire room evenly - as highlighted earlier. If you buy an Air purifier that has a smaller coverage, you may require multiple air purifiers for a larger area.
If you live in an area that can get fairly cold - or if you are like me who can feel cold even when it is 15-20 degrees centigrade, you can get an air purifier that also has a heater - Yes, I could have gotten an AC or a separate room heater and gotten a much cheaper air purifier - but since I don’t plan to use an AC in the room this air purifier will be used and don’t want too many equipment - this heater in the air purifier is just a bonus. If this is not for you, you can go for a plain air purifier like the Dyson TP04 without a heater as well which is available at a lower cost.
The Dyson air purifier also has a fan that can be used for cooling. Remember this is not an Air conditioner - so don’t expect the cooling that you get from an AC. If you want the purification without the coolness that comes from the air purifier - it has a diffused mode that essentially purifies from the back of the machine without cooling.
Air purifiers can be loud in the first few hours when the bulk of the purification is done. Dyson air purifiers have a sound level of XXdb - which is lower than most air purifiers. The dyson has a night mode which can be used for minimum sound and light. Not many air purifiers have this capability as well.
Dyson has an extensive warranty of 2 years. It is fairly energy efficient in normal non heating mode using only 40W of electricity but in the heating mode, it requires 2.25KW of electricity.
There are a few aspects that you need to keep in mind before purchasing this model:
While most other air purifiers do have a CADR or clean air delivery rate which determines how quickly a room can be purified, Dyson does not publish that as it claims that measure is inadequate and not accurate for measuring purification of large rooms - so that measure is not available for comparison with other models. But Dyson does publish it’s own testing standards which you can view on their website.
This model - i.e., the Dyson Air Purifier HP04 needs you to have a 16A socket for this model as it has heating. If you don’t have that, consider getting a model without heating.
Don’t expect it to be used in place of an AC for cooling. The cooling is just using a fan and not true air conditioning.
Hope this was useful in helping you determine how to select an air purifier and how the Dyson air purifier is superior - if you have the budget for it.
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