As the population of earth is increasing and the environment getting more polluted, getting a breath of fresh air has become a luxury even at your own home. But with air purifiers, you can replace the dusty smelly air of your home with fresh, clean air.
Aside from removing dust particles and unpleasant odors, air purifiers also remove VOCs, contaminants, pet hair, and pollen and improve sleep quality significantly.
You can even carry the plug-in air purifiers to ensure clean air wherever you go. And more recently there are even energy-efficient versions of them too. So without further ado, let’s know more about air purifiers.
- Are Air Purifiers Worth The Expense?
- How Much Energy Does An Air Purifier Use?
- Best Plug-In Air Purifier For 2023
- How To Turn Traditional Air Purifiers Into Energy-Efficient Air Purifiers?
Are Air Purifiers Worth The Expense?
Air purifiers are pretty expensive devices. Depending on the brand and features, the cost may vary. Even still a good air purifier will cost you from over a 100$ to a couple hundred bucks. When you are spending such money on something it should provide enough benefits to offset the price.
So let’s see the benefits of having an air purifier and if they are worth the money.
Protection Against Air-Borne Disease
Common flu and airborne disease that spreads through the pathogens floating in the air, air purifiers fight against them. Most air purifiers come with a true HEPA filter that removes these tiny pathogens, mold spores, and aerosol particles. As a result, common flu and bacteria cannot spread from one family member to another by floating in the air.
Especially during the recent covid pandemic, air purifiers played a significant role in keeping the living air clean. While it can’t entirely eliminate coronavirus, it sure helps minimize the risk.
Improves Sleeping Quality
Studies prove that having an air purifier can significantly improve the quality of sleep. It eliminates bacteria, dust mites, allergens, pet hair, etc that might trigger allergies or hay fevers. Subsequently, coughing, sneezing, watery eyes, and sore throats also improve significantly since the sources are eliminated.
Without these disruptions, you can get much better sleep and be more energetic during the day.
Relieves Symptoms Of Asthma
Especially for people with asthma, having an air purifier is essential. It manages the air quality by neutralizing anything that can trigger an asthma attack such as pollen, pet hair, allergens, dust, etc.
Plug-in air purifiers are also easy to carry around so you can take them anywhere with you and be safe anywhere.
Helps With Any Unpleasant Odor
No one wants any unpleasant odor in their home. But more often than not, the air at our home can smell like cooked food, smoke, cigarette, paint, aerosol spray, air fresheners, etc. In addition, odor from different VOCs is also pretty common in households which can hamper your cognitive function.
Air purifiers filter these aerosol particles and remove odor by replacing the space with fresh air, clean air
Removes Harmful Chemicals
Heavily populated and highly polluted areas have many harmful chemicals in the air that ends up mixing with the indoor air. These contaminants and chemicals are extremely hazardous to our health and can cause multiple health complications including respiratory problems, asthma, and lung disease.
The multiple filters in the air purifier filter these chemicals out of the air and purify the water back to clean.
Helps Reducing Allergens
Allergens are common particles that float around in the air. Especially for people with allergies, these allergens are responsible for triggering the allergies and causing respiratory problems.
However, HEPA filters in air purifiers can even neutralize 99% of these allergens.
How Much Energy Does An Air Purifier Use?
A typical plug-in air purifier uses anywhere from 10 to 140 watts of energy. Taking the average which is around 50 watts. Plus they also consume a little bit of power even on standby mode which is about 0.5 watts on average.
That being said, you are most likely to spend around 10$ a month with the air purifier running full-time.
Best Plug-In Air Purifier For 2023
Here is a list of some of the best plug-in air purifiers of 2023.
Winix 5300
The first product on our list is the Winix 5300 plug-in air purifier. It has a 4 stage filtration system that consists of a mesh pre-filter, a true HEPA layer, a true HEPA filter, and plasma-wave technology.
The plasma-wave technology ensures protection against most airborne bacteria and flu viruses.
Not only that it also provides real-time monitoring and color-coded light to indicate different air quality. You can also utilize its sleep-wake mode which adjusts the settings accordingly to ensure deep sleep at night.
What We Like
- 4 stage filtration
- Provides real-time air-quality Monitoring
- The HEPA carbon sheet is easy to replace
- High CADR (Clean Air Delivery Rate) rating
- 4 stage filtration
What We Don’t Like
- Doesn’t provide remote control
- Quite heavy
Greentech Plug-in Air Purifier
Greentech has more than one plug-in air purifier. Among them, we especially like the ultra-compact plug-in air purifier due to its small size and portability. It has a high area coverage and is perfect for any small rooms or bathrooms. They are also extremely convenient to travel with.
With its activated oxygen and ionization, it fights off any pet dander, pollen, smoke, allergen, and other contaminants. Despite not having any true HEPA filter or mesh pre-filter, this is a pretty good product for its size and price.
On top of it, they don't need any filter replacement, so maintenance is a piece of cake too.
What We Like
- High size-coverage ratio
- Highly effective against pollen, allergen, and other contaminants
- Eliminates odor and smoke
- Small and compact
- No filter replacement required
What We Don’t Like
- Doesn’t include an ultrafine particle filter
- Obstruct access to the nearest outlet
- Emits a slight smell of ozone
GermGuardian GG1000
GermGuardian is known for its no-frills portable plug-in air purifier. Their GG1000 model utilizes UV-light technology to fight against airborne bacteria and germs. Unlike most other air purifiers with UV-light technology, this one doesn’t require the bulb to be replaced once every month.
Being easier to maintain than most air purifiers, this is an excellent choice for the whole house scenario.
What We Like
- Powerful protection against bacteria and germs
- Doesn’t require frequent UV-bulb replacement
- Real-time air quality monitoring
- Portable
What We Don’t Like
- No true HEPA filter
- The coverage ratio is not particularly high
- Makes a bit of noise
- One fan speed
How To Turn Traditional Air Purifiers Into Energy-Efficient Air Purifiers?
Smart air purifiers are energy efficient and can perform a lot of activities that traditional ones can’t. However, they cost quite a hefty sum and if you already own a traditional air purifier there is no point in spending big bucks on another.
In fact, you can turn your traditional air purifier into a smart one with a simple energy-monitoring smart plug.
We can take a product from EVVR as an example which is the EVVR Energy Monitoring Smart Plug & Relay. It's a small combination of a smart plug and relay that can connect the air purifier to an outlet. As a result, you can control the air purifier like a smart device.
The features that it provides are,
- Provides real-time energy monitoring on how much energy is being used
- Can turn on/off automatically through schedules and provides remote control
- Compact design provides space-saving feature
- Detects and eliminates vampire load
- Compatible with Apple Homekit
- Can be paired up with voice assistant Siri
- Provides thermal and overload protection
- Saves energy with Magnetic Retention Relay
Conclusion
Once you have used an air purifier there is no going back. And to have a clean dust free environment at home and lead a healthy everyday life, it’s almost crucial to have an air purifier.
For a device that's on a significant amount of the day, it's best to turn to more energy-efficient options. To learn more, feel free to visit EVVR!