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Comment by vintermann | Hacker News Reader

There's been some people pushing air quality hard lately, not least dynomight, a blogger who seems to have getting on HN's front page worked out pretty well.

Not that I have anything against it. I got an air purifier myself over these discussions - it seemed like a fairly cheap and easy thing to do in the time of covid, without worrying too much who's behind any possible influence campaigns.

And of course I noticed that my indoors air quality was excellent, except when I was cooking. And I don't even use gas, I use an old non-induction electric stovetop. It's hard to get temperatures right.

Considering getting both an induction stove, and a better sensor that could track CO2 too. After a year with air purification, and after the first bout of a cough-cold in a year, I feel like I appreciate the service my lungs give to my body. Nice to take better care of them (it's time to change that HEPA filter too).

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> I got an air purifier myself over these discussions

I’ve been investigating this and the market seems crowded. Do you have any research that you did to help you decide? What model did you go with and why?

Sorry for the digression, but I think a random HN reader’s pick is more useful than SEO’s Google results or ConsumerReports or Wirecutter.

Purifiers are all about the filters, anything else is pretty much just marketing BS.

On that note, Ikea has some air purifiers[0] that aren't very expensive and use HEPA filters with optional carbon filter to remove smells. They have basic ones and 'smart' ones in different form factors (even one that is a table!). We have cats and it really helped removed the cat smell from out house.

[0] https://dynomight.net/ikea-purifier/

I got some Electrolux thing with HEPA filters. It looked nice, was on sale, and didn't do terrible in the tests I could find. The filters are expensive, though - probably unnecessarily so, and the app integration thing is kind of iffy. I have a lingering suspicion that if I replaced the filters with something "unapproved" it wouldn't start, and I hate that sort of thing.

But maybe I'm just being paranoid. There was some sort of notice about source availability on request, so I think it uses GPL software in there somewhere.

In short, I should have done better research myself. But at least it works.

I went with the IKEA purifiers myself (ironically the very ones dynomight, mentioned by GP, talks about here: https://dynomight.net/ikea-purifier/).

I've poured a couple dozen hours into researching this space, and ultimately came back with a conclusion that what matters is:

- To have a HEPA filter, and

- Something that pushes air through it, and

- If you care about VOCs (whether for health or smell reasons), add a non-shit carbon filter (I say non-shit, as apparently some vendors sell "carbon filters" that have very little activated carbon in them).

All those purifiers that claim to have 5+ different modes of filtering are, to be very charitable here, delivering at most a very tiny improvement in some scenarios, at the cost of much inflated price. It's better to spend that money on getting more air pushed through HEPA filters faster.

I'm really happy with Mila and their most expensive filter (charcoal filled). Get or make your own sock for the filter to extend the life of the filter. Make sure to clean the sock/filter regularly, I just use a shop vac on it.

I'm not in the market myself, but I would strongly consider buying these evolutions of the Corsi-Rosenthal Box (aka filter taped to a box fan):

https://www.cleanairkits.com/

HEPA-type air purifiers are increasingly laden with features that add no value, like poor air quality sensors, wifi connections for Alexa/Google assistant, ozone generators that everyone says to disable, bright lights and LED displays, and proprietary filters.

The Clean Air Kits products use commodity parts with as few electronics as necessary, and operate in the way that most people recommend: non-interactively and continuously running at a single speed. They are physically smaller, quieter, and use less power than the other commercial air purifiers.

Ah, this looks like what I should have gone for. It makes sense that PC fans are very well optimized for silence, effectiveness and energy consumption. Cheap, standard filters would also be great.

Charcoal filters, though, seem like they may be worth it in a home as opposed to in a classroom setting. There are unavoidable smells in our daily lives.

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