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Stiftung Warentest: Various air purifiers compared

23.2.2024

Translation: machine translated

The StiWa team scrutinised a total of nine models from Philips, Dyson and Co. The appliances were first tested with new filters and later after artificial ageing. You can find out how the individual products fared here.

Fine dust, pollen and virus-carrying droplets: Air purifiers are designed to suck these airborne particles out of the room. They are an important tool, especially for people with allergies. The Stiftung Warentest has analysed which devices you can rely on in a new round with nine models, including seven pure air purifiers and two with an additional fan function. The evaluation criteria were:

The air purification
Handling (installation of the device and replacement of the filters)
Safety
The environmental impact (electricity costs, filter consumption)

The air purification category carried the most weight in the overall rating. How well the devices cleaned the air was first tested with newly inserted filters and later after an artificially provoked ageing process: this was induced with the smoke of 100 cigarettes and was intended to simulate the condition after several months.

The ranking

The first two places were taken by the models from Bosch and Trotec, each with a score of 2.3. The Kärcher AF 30 was also rated "good" (2.4) in third place, scoring 2.7 in the air purification category. It received good and very good marks in the evaluation criteria of handling, environmental properties and safety.

Air purifier

CHF219.–

Kärcher AF 30

30 m²

The Rowenta Intense Pure Air and Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier were both rated "satisfactory" with 2.8. This was followed by the AP40 Pro model from Ideal: it achieved a 3.5.

Air purifier

CHF410.–

Rowenta Intense Pure Air

36 m²

Air purifier

New

CHF129.–

Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 Lite

43 m²

Air purifier

CHF563.20

Ideal AP40 Pro

50 m²

Air purifier

CHF410.–

Rowenta Intense Pure Air

36 m²

New

Air purifier

CHF129.–

Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 Lite

43 m²

Air purifier

CHF563.20

Ideal AP40 Pro

50 m²

Somewhat strikingly, the air purification performance of the Xiaomi and Ideal models was positive at 2.1 (Xiaomi) and 1.8 (Ideal). However, their overall rating was dragged down by poor scores in other categories. In terms of handling, Xiaomi scored 3.2 and Ideal even scored a poor 4.9. According to StiWa, this was due in particular to its poor operation and faulty air quality display.

The two devices that can also be used as fans were the Dyson Purifier Cool Formaldehyde and the Philips Air Performer 7000, both of which scored 2.6. However, although they had a good fan performance, they were behind the other devices in the air purification category.

Air purifier

Dyson Cool Formaldehyde

33 m²

Air purifier

CHF257.–

Philips 7000 series AMF765/10

70 m²

Conclusion

Almost all of the models presented were able to perform well as air purifiers with fresh filters: "After 20 minutes, they reduce the amount of particles in the air of a 16 square metre room by 90 to 98 per cent," as StiWa found. The Dyson alone is said to collect only 73 per cent of aerosol particles from the air, making it the worst performer in this task. The second test showed that some devices weaken after artificial ageing. The concentration of unwanted airborne particles in the air increased: only the models from Bosch, Trotec and Levoit are said to have filtered well during this use.

It is also striking how different the operating costs for the air purifiers are. These can range from 69 to 238 euros per year. They result from the electricity costs and the costs for new filters. Stiftung Warentest based its calculations on a daily running time of eight hours and an electricity price of 40 cents per kilowatt hour. The models from Rowenta, Ideal, Dyson and Philips performed poorly in this comparison. <p

Header image: DG FotoStock/Shutterstock

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