Get unlimited access to everything VICE has to offer.

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

4 Magazines Delivered to Your Door

We independently evaluate all of our recommendations. When you buy through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more here.

The Best Air Purifiers for Wildfire Smoke, Allergies, and Whatever’s Floating Around In Your Home

Choking on wildfire smoke, pollen, and pollution? Breathe easy with these air purifiers, the best we’ve tested.

By Matt Jancer | Reviewed by Ysolt Usigan

Share on X (Opens in new window)X

Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Facebook

Share using Native toolsShareCopied to clipboard

What’s all this outdoor garbage doing floating around in your home, your safe space, your refuge, your castle? Do you really not mind that even when you’re lounging on your couch, watching HBO, you’re sucking diesel soot, dust mite carcasses, formaldehyde, and benzene into your lungs? You can do something about that, you know, and it’s as easy as plugging a trash-can-sized device into a wall outlet and stepping back.

That’s it. Aside from swapping the filter out once a year, maybe a bit more often, you don’t have to manage it, control it, or even think about it. The air purifier just runs in the background, unnoticed and a hell of a lot more independent than your cat. Or even your houseplant.

I’ve been reviewing air purifiers for over six years, and I can afford to be picky with my recommendations and exclude the merely “good” air purifiers. There’s no shortage of excellent models out there that’ll keep your family healthier and safer from pollution, both of the kind that invades from outside and those that tend to cluster indoors, such as a beauty products’ aerosols and VOCs (volatile organic compounds) emitted by fresh paint and new furniture.

Not only that, but wildfires are worsening nationwide. The West has been living with it for a while, but even the East Coast has been getting slammed the past few years from Canadian wildfire smoke wafting down. And yeah, your allergies really are getting worse, too. It’s not just your imagination. The American Lung Association talks about how the changing climate is making them worse for everybody.

Buy an air purifier now, because when the air worsens suddenly it’ll be hard to find one in stock, and it probably won’t arrive in time to keep you from breathing in a load of junk that should never be in your home in the first place, let alone your lungs. Me, personally? I always have a pair running in my home, 24 hours a day.

Quick List: The Best air purifiers

The All-Around Best: Coway AP-1512HH Mighty

For Large Rooms: Coway Airmega 250

Tiny-Office Companion: Coway Airmega 100

The Luxury Jack-of-All-Trades: Dyson Purifier Humidify Cool

For Big, Big Rooms: Honeywell Allergen Plus HPA5300B

The Silent Bedroom Air Purifier: Blueair Pure 511

For Attics and Basements: Coway Airmega ProX

I’d open windows and the front door, burn food in the oven (yeah, on purpose, totally…), and toss stinky, stanky, sweat-soaked gym clothes down in front of the air purifiers, just to let all the magic pollution of New York City waft into my apartment and see how the air purifiers dealt with it. Because I’m paid to be skeptical, I used a TempPro TP49 air quality monitor, a model I’ve found over the years to be quite accurate, to verify that air purifiers that said the air was clean weren’t just lying to my face and my lungs.

I also brought smaller air purifiers into my bedroom to see if they’re noticeable and distracting when trying to fall asleep, and I even tossed some dog and cat fur into the air. The cat fur came from an actual visiting cat, but the dog fur… yeah, I was just borrowing fistfuls of fur from a German Shepherd I knew.

the all-around best: Coway AP-1512HH Mighty

AP-1512HH Mighty (opens in a new window)

This is what’s lived in a succession of my bedrooms for nearly seven years, and it’s still going strong with typical Coway reliability. It’s never once given me a hiccup or needed repair. That’s 24 hours a day. And the Coway AP-15HH Mighty is quiet enough that on its lowest setting I can’t hear it when I’m lying in bed 10 feet away. Its automatic setting monitors the air quality constantly and ramps up the fan when it detects elevated pollution or dust in the air.

Coway’s True HEPA filter captures 99.999 percent of mold spores, pollen, dust mites, aerosols, dust, particulate, viruses, and pollutants over 0.01 microns, and the carbon filter soaks up odors, like pet smells and trash that’s overdue to be taken out. Lots of air purifiers will avoid mentioning that they’re not True HEPA and don’t meet these impressive specifications.

Mine is the Coway Airmega 200M, which is functionally the same air purifier with a different look. Unless you’re particularly set on the looks of one over the other, buy whichever is cheapest at the moment.

Coway’s AP-1512HH Mighty and Airmega 200M are ideal for rooms of about 350 square feet. Don’t pay attention to the way most air purifier companies rate their air purifiers’ coverage. They’re often too optimistic.........

© Vice