In this article
Best air purifiers for 2022How we test air purifiersAir purifier buying guideAir purifier FAQs
Having an air purifier for home use can greatly increase quality of life for those who suffer from allergies or respiratory conditions, as well as people who live in dusty or smoky environments. Even if none of the above apply, having an air purifier for your home can simply offer peace of mind that you are breathing the cleanest air possible within your specific living conditions.
Air purifiers for home use are small appliances that use one or more of a variety of technologies to filter particulate matter out of the air, including dust, allergens, viruses, etc., recirculating cleaner air back into your living space. Air purifiers employing HEPA filters — defined by the U.S. Department of Energy as high-efficiency particulate air filters that are capable of removing at least 99.97% of airborne particles with a size of .3 microns — are the most numerous and most highly rated type available. Most air purifiers are equipped to handle one or two rooms, with a few models that claim to purify the air in an entire home.
After considering the space you need to cover, choosing a HEPA air purifier from among many popular models is largely a matter of budget and space you’re looking to purify. With that said, Honeywell’s Home Allergen Plus 300 XL ($230) tops our list as the best air purifier for most people. But there are air purifiers better suited for particularly large and small spaces, and given that an air purifier will likely live in your living room or bedroom, aesthetics may be just as important than bottom-line value. With these matters in mind, we’ve rounded up the best air purifiers for home use in 2022.
Best air purifiers for 2022
How we test air purifiers
We tested each of these models over the course of several weeks, evaluating their available features, ease of use, and noise level at various settings while looking out for any glaring operational problems. In the end, available power versus price was the biggest factor in picking the best air purifiers for 2022 but secondary considerations such as size, volume, sturdiness and aesthetics also played a part.
The field of air purifiers was narrowed based on some of our previous picks from the last round of testing, other models that were vetted by review sites, the newest models available by trusted brands and those that achieved extremely high user ratings (4.7 out of 5 and above) across a variety of retailer sites where air purifiers for home are sold such as Amazon, Target, Best Buy, Lowe’s and Bed Bath & Beyond.
Colin McDonald/CNET
Outside of a lab environment with controlled conditions and variables, air purifiers are difficult to test accurately in terms of how well they perform at cleaning the air. However, third-party certifications that do test these models in controlled lab environments are becoming standard practice, and you can expect that air purifiers with HEPA filters will filter what they claim to filter when used appropriately. Additionally, all of these brands show an AHAM Verifide Clean Air Delivery Rate, which indicates how much air can be processed in a given time frame, as well as the particle size various models are capable of filtering out of the air. (The smaller the particle, the more effective the air purifier.)
Best air purifiers compared
Model
Blueair Blue Pure 211+ Auto
Honeywell Home Allergen Plus 300 XL
Coway Airmega AP-1512HH
Blueair Blue Pure 411 Auto
Coway Airmega 400S
Coway Airmega 240
Levoit EverestAir Smart True
Size
20.5 x 13 x 13 in
22.3 x 20 x 10.8 in
16.8 x 18.3 x 9.6 in
6.7 x 7.9 x 7.9 in
14.8 x 22.8 x 14.8 in
16.7 x 22.8 x 8.3 in
18.9 x 8.5 x 23.2 in
Room capacity
550 square feet
465 square feet
361 square feet
190 square feet
1560 square feet
403 square feet
558 square feet
Settings
Low, medium, high, auto
Low, medium, high, turbo
Low, medium, high, auto, eco, ionizer
Low, medium, high, auto
Low, medium, high, auto, eco, sleep
Low, medium, high, auto, eco, sleep
Low, medium, high, auto, turbo, sleep
Special features
None
Timer
Wi-fi, voice control, timer
None
Wi-fi, voice control, timer
Timer
Wi-fi, adjustable vent
Replacement filter cost
$69.99
$34.99 HEPA filter, $29.99 pre-filter
$57.49 filter, $25 pre-filter
$23.99
$129 for 2 HEPA filters, $25 pre-filter
$84
$99.99
Energy draw
38W
Not available
77W
10W
66W
60W
70W
MSRP
$339
$269.99
$229.99
$139.99
$749
$299
$499
Air purifier buying guide: How to pick the perfect air purifier
The primary consideration in purchasing an air purifier for home use is how much square footage you’re trying to cover. Trying to save money by purchasing a smaller air purifier than what you actually need will just give you disappointing results. The air purifiers on this list all have extremely high proficiency, so any one of them will effectively clean the air in your home, provided they are the correct size and placed appropriately, and with the filters and pre-filters maintained accordingly.
After room capacity, the amount of space the device itself takes up may be important based on the geography of your room and where you’re hoping to put it. When considering your budget for an air purifier, you might also want to consider the cost of replacing the filter roughly every six months.
Some air purifiers including the Coway Airmega 400 are designed to purify rooms as large as 1,500 square feet.
David Priest/CNET
Types of air purifiers
While this list consists only of HEPA air purifiers, which are the most available and highest functioning models on the market, several of them utilize more than one type of filtration technology. In order to better understand those aspects of your air purifier, or if you want to consider another type of air purifier, here is a breakdown of all of the different methods of air purification technology:
HEPA air purifiers: Standing for “high efficiency particulate air,” air purifiers with HEPA technology use a fiberglass filter that traps particles of a certain size out of the air.
Activated carbon air purifiers: Where HEPA filters manage solid particles in the air, most of the air purifiers on this list also include activated carbon technology, (which is the same thing as activated charcoal,) whose porous nature helps filter gasses or volatile organic compounds, out of the air. Gasses in your home air typically present themselves as odors from pets, cigarettes or cooking.
Negative ion air purifiers: Ionic or negative ion air purifiers work by using high voltage to give an electrical charge to particles or molecules in the air, which causes them to clump together, and then seek out positively charged molecules with which to bond. Certain models that utilize this type of technology also include a positively charged collector plate that the ionized particles will stick to, taking them out of the air. (Without a collector plate, these particles are no longer circulating in the air, but may slang on surfaces in order to be cleaned or vacuumed out of your home.) Most models employing this technology don’t utilize fans, which requires more time to filter the air in a room, but also make for extremely quiet conditions. Molekule and Dyson make popular models that utilize variants of this type of technology.
UVGI air purifiers: “Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation” air purifiers are similar in mechanical function to HEPA air purifiers, in that they use fans to recirculate the air in order to purify it quickly. Inside the device, UGVI air purifiers rely on shielded ultraviolet light to neutralize dust and allergens. This type of technology is not available in air purifiers for home use, however, and is typically employed in larger systems available for public settings such as office buildings.
There’s a good amount of research and expert guidance that goes into choosing the best air purifier for you and your family. First consider how much you can comfortably invest in air purification. Will you need an ionic air purifier or a full home filtration system? Do you want a purifier with an activated carbon filter? I’m here to answer those questions and help you sort through your options.
Are home air purifiers even necessary?
For some people, having an air purifier in the house may be more of a necessity than a luxury. If you live in an area where allergy season tends to wreak havoc or where wildfires and smoky skies are common, an air purifier can seriously help improve the breathability of the air in your house. However, with so many different models on the market, it can be difficult to know which is the best air purifier for your home and your needs.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, plus an increase in wildfire activity, we are all becoming more aware of air quality. (Arguably severe allergy sufferers have always been aware of air quality.) While having an air purifier isn’t a failsafe against COVID-19 — you are more likely to get the virus from repeated close contact with someone in your home than from particles lingering in the air long enough to get filtered out — they can be especially effective for those with asthma or allergies.
Air quality is a real concern for many Southern California residents with smoke from wildfires and smog having been linked to numerous respiratory diseases.
Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images
Depending on your living conditions, if there are numerous pollutants affecting the air in your home, the cleaner air and increased airflow that air purifiers provide can potentially make a big difference for the quality of life (and air) of those in your household. If you’re thinking of getting an air purifier and want additional reassurance, it may be worth speaking to your doctor or allergist.
Related reading: Do air purifiers protect against COVID-19? What about wildfire smoke?
Air purifier FAQs
HEPA stands for “high efficiency particulate air” (filter) and is a type of filter standardized by the Department of Energy for filtering particulate matter of a specific size out of the air by utilizing a maze of interwoven glass fibers to trap those particles. HEPA air purifier models use fans to suck air into the device in order to trap microscopic particles in the air, which can include dust, bacteria, viruses, pollen, smoke, and mold, and recirculates the clean air back into the room via a vent. HEPA standards are different in the U.S. and Europe, with the U.S. standard requiring HEPA filters to filter 99.97% of particles 0.3 microns in size out of the air. Coway includes an excellent breakdown of this type of filtration on its website.
Air purifiers do not affect the level of oxygen in the room in any way. Your air purifier is recirculating the air already in the room and cleaning it by passing it through a filter where microscopic, solid particles are removed. It is neither removing nor adding additional oxygen into the space. Air purifiers are also not the same as freestanding air conditioners, though the increased airflow from an air purifier may make the air in your home appreciably cooler.
Firstly, you want to make sure to put your air purifier in a room that is equipped to handle, size-wise. As for placement within the room, a central location will make for the most efficient air purification. In order to avoid tripping over it, however, it’s fine to put your air purifier in a more discreet location, just be sure to understand where its input and output vents are located and make sure those pathways aren’t blocked. Near doorways and vents that are also creating airflow may help with your air purifier’s efficiency.
How often you need to change the filter on your air purifier depends on several factors, not the least of which is how polluted your air is to begin with, and how often and at what speed you are running your air purifier. Most air purifiers have a multi-step filtration system, including a prefilter in addition to the HEPA filter, which in some cases may be washable, and is used to capture large particles such as pet hair. Taking good care of the prefilter will help extend the life of the HEPA filter. Most of the brands on this list recommend changing the filter every six months. A few suggest 1 year, largely depending on the size of the HEPA filter and the prefiltration system. New filters and prefilters can often be purchased from the same retailers that sell the air purifiers, or they can be purchased through the brands’ websites, some of whom offer subscription programs for replacement filters at a discount.
The short answer is yes. HEPA air purifiers capture virus particles, removing them from the air. But don’t count on air purifiers to protect you from virus particles if you’re cohabitating with a contagious person. When CNET spoke with Dr. Richard Shaughnessy, the director of Indoor Air Research University of Tulsa, in 2022 he said transmission of COVID usually happens due to close contact with an infected person. If you’re sitting on a couch and chatting with someone who is infected, an air purifier across the room isn’t going to remove all the harmful particles exhaled before they have a chance to reach you.
Dyson’s $550 air purifier doesn’t offer a CADR rating at all.
David Priest/CNET
Other air purifiers we’ve tested
In addition to our picks above, other HEPA cleaners such as the $100 Levoit Core 300, the $74 Bissell and the $100 GermGuardian all offer only so-so power for their prices. The IQAir HealthPro Plus wasn’t among the devices we tested, in part because we were looking at more affordable options. But IQAir’s $799 air cleaner is one of the few devices on the market to contain multiple kilograms of activated carbon, which will filter out odors and gaseous pollutants much more effectively than most consumer air cleaners under $1,000.
The Holmes air purifier is a cheap option for your desktop.
David Priest/CNET
Two devices feature an ionic filter: the Coway AP-1512HH mentioned above and the $175 Sharp FPK50UW. The Sharp’s CADR rating is only 259 square feet, which is significantly lower than Coway’s and not great for the price.
Are Molekule and Dyson air purifiers worth the money?
You may have heard of another air purifier called Molekule, which grabbed headlines for its attractive design and proprietary filtration technology back in 2017. But the Molekule presents a complicated problem: Its maker claims its proprietary PECO air filter destroys airborne particles much smaller than 0.03 micrometer, but it filters air at such a slow rate that, even if the company’s claims are accurate, it cleans the air very inefficiently compared with HEPA air purification models (as Consumer Reports rightly pointed out in its highly critical 2019 review).
Molekule was forced by the National Advertising Board of Review to retract misleading claims it made in its advertisements.
David Priest/CNET
We have tested but don’t currently recommend the $500 Molekule Air Mini Plus as a result of these problems as well as a 2020 decision by the National Advertising Review Board to force a retraction of many of Molekule’s misleading advertising claims. That said, the air purifier does appear to address a problem that most HEPA filtration cleaners simply don’t: the presence of gaseous pollutants in the home. Such pollutants have plenty of sources, whether from paint, furniture, cleaning solutions or even some composite boards. For that reason alone, Molekule’s eye-catching brand is worth keeping tabs on — especially since the company merged with AeroClean, a pathogen elimination technology company, in October of 2022.
Dyson’s devices offer a similar but slightly different problem. Some of its air purifiers, such as the Dyson Pure Cool TP04, which we also tested, use a HEPA filter, but provides no CADR. A Dyson spokesperson told me, “CADR as measured by some current methods is not an accurate representation of a real home,” and thus the company has developed its own testing procedures “to replicate a more realistic setting.” That includes a testing room that has over double the footprint of AHAM’s testing rooms, along with nine sensors placed around the space (versus AHAM’s single sensor). The Dyson TP04, perhaps unsurprisingly, performs well according to Dyson’s own metrics.
In addition, the Dyson TP04 air purifier features a handful of extra goodies, including an oscillating fan to help circulate clean air around larger rooms, an app with home air quality data and a small but nifty display. Our tower fan reviewer really liked these features of the TP04. But is all that worth the price bump from, say, Coway’s purifier?
For most people, the answer is likely no — especially considering that Dyson’s devices haven’t stacked up especially well against the competition in third-party testing, such as Wirecutter’s, where the TP04’s performance was in line with the far more affordable Blueair 411.
Still have more questions about air purifiers and whether you’re ready to buy one? Check out our full air purifier FAQ for more info.
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