BLUEAIR Air Purifier for Small Room, Bedroom, Home, Cleans 926 sqft in one hour, HEPASilent Air Cleaner for Pets, Allergens, Virus, Dust, Mold, Smoke - Blue Pure 511i MaxENERGY STAR

This review is for the two 211+ (not automatic) units I've had since 2020. Initially, I purchased these after the devastating wildfires in the Pacific Northwest when people were sealing off their windows with tape and using box fans with furnace filters on the back in a desperate attempt to remove the wildfire smoke that had infiltrated all our homes. And with three not-small dogs anyway, it just made sense.Five years in now, I can say that I have been EXTREMELY satisfied and impressed with both of my BlueAir 211+ air purifiers. The initial setup and subsequent maintenance is effortless. You take it out of the box, put it's little prefilter on the base, drop in the air filter, pop the top of the unit containing the fan back on, and forget about it for a while. I replace the filters about every 6-9 months, and wash the prefilter cover way less often than I should considering the amount of dust it very efficiently sucks up. With one in the living room and one in the main bedroom, I have both ends of my home more than covered, as with the two combined, they are rated to filter more square feet of air than the size of my house. I've literally had them both running *nonstop* for the ENTIRE five years I've had them, and haven't had a single problem with either of them. Once in a while I'll come home to find that during rambunctious play or a particularly assertive barkfest at a delivery person, a dog butt has grazed the power button on the one in my living room enough times to turn the unit off. Kept on low, the fan is incredibly quiet and barely perceptible if at all. The only reason I notice it's been turned off immediately when I come home because the living room smells noticeably different when the purifier hasn't been running; the air smells comparatively stale and decisively more like dog than when it's running. I also noticed and appreciated their impressive performance in 2022 when once again, my city was infiltrated by wildfire smoke from fires that were literally hundreds of miles away. The air quality outside was dangerously high, but inside my home, per my thermostat app, the air quality was normal. This was particularly impressive considering it was literally snowing ash outside, harkening back to the much closer terrifying fires of 2020 that nearly breached city limits. Having these in my home gives me piece of mind that I'm about as protected as I can be against airborne pollutants like smoke, dust, pet dander, and the occasional cooking-adventure-gone-awry. Eventually when these do stop "biting the dust" as it were, I'll gladly replace them with the newer model that has the power button on top and the ability to turn off the power indicator light, which I desperately wish my older model had for my bedroom unit.

So far so good, first day. Easy set up. Unboxed and plugged in. Easy buttons and instructions, took one minute to figure out. Love the air quality light on the front that changes colors. Has three fan speeds, automatic setting and a night time mode. Not terribly loud on high, sounds like pleasant white noise, actually like it. Cleans the air super fast. I have allergies so this is awesome. It has an app that tells you when you need to buy a new filter which is super cool (every 9 months). You can also control it from your app. Like it better than the ion ones. I got this one because of the excellent reviews online. And it gets rid of mold with a proper HEPA filter, better than the cheap ones. I bought two of these, one the bedroom and one for the main living area. I'm suspecting mold in my hvac system and bathroom. This is giving me peace of mind while I wait for the testing company. And I'm already breathing better hours later and so are my cats. I needed this anyway. Highly recommend.

This is a review of the 211+ (not auto) product.I purchased this to take the place of a Winix 5500-2 that I moved to a smaller room. I did a fair amount of research before deciding on this model. I wanted something under $300 that could filter a larger room. Consumer reports and the Wirecutter both rating this model very highly (in the case of CR this model was only beat out by the Blueair Classic 6XX model and that one goes for nearly $800 right now and is only somewhat more powerful.The unit is very simple. It’s a large fan in an attractive white housing with a slightly larger white plastic base that houses the main filters inside. There are two different colors of the washable external cloth filter in the box. You can use whichever one you prefer. My unit had a reasonably bright blue one and a dark gray one. It’s nice that they give you 2 of them. They only give you one of the large internal filters.The power cord is attached to the back of the unit, so if you break it or a pet chews the cord, the whole unit will have to be replaced. That’s a shame.The unit itself is made mostly of plastic, which makes it light and easy to move, but it won’t stand up to abuse. If your kid sits on this, it will break.I find the size to be good. It’s not really enormous, as some large room purifiers are, but it will take up more floor space than the Winix 5500-2 (but it isn’t as tall).The unit pulls air from all 4 sides, so you can’t stick this right up against a wall if you want the best performance. The clean air comes out the top of the unit.As for the sound at full power, a noise meter registers 64 dB right at the top of the unit wheee the air comes out. To put this into perspective, my Winix 5500-2 registers 74 dB at the air release when it is also on full power. The Blueair’s sound is noticeable, but it is very even and is decent white noise at top speed. I haven’t had a problem falling asleep near it. The Winix can be annoying at full speed.At the lowest speed for both the Blueair and Winix, they register at 42 dB measured from the same spot as before. You’ll have a hard time hearing them at this level unless the room is really quiet.The Blueair really moves air well. At top speed, you can feel the air moving in all parts of the room. It will make the room feel a bit cooler. It is noticeably better than the Winix 5500-2 in this regard.Controls: there’s one button. You tap (not press) it to control fan speed or turn the unit off. The top rim of the button lights up with a pretty bright white light to let you know the fan speed.The one thing I miss with the Blueair 211+ is there is no automatic mode. The Winix 5500-2 offers this and kicks the unit into higher gear if air quality is poor. It’s not a deal breaker, but I do appreciate the feature so you can save money but still have very clean air. There is a newer version of this Blueair that does offer automatic mode with air quality sensing. If you want that go with the 211+ Auto model. The price difference wasn’t worth upgrading, but you might catch it on sale.The Blueair does not have a remote control like the Winix 5500-2, and that I definitely miss, especially without the automatic mode.The cost of replacement filters seems about the same as other popular air filters and they offer a wide variety of colors for the external filter.A word about putting on that external filter. It goes on like a sock, but in order to stay in place, you have to put the filter material over the top part of the bottom white plastic unit. This means the filter will cover the latching locations where the top part locks into the lower part. I find this makes the security of the latching not as good, but it works well enough to keep the two parts together.The Blueair is not very heavy and I find it easy to move (though you may want to move the two halves separately if you find it awkward).As for air quality, Consumer Reports seems to be correct. It has done wonders for reducing allergens and smells. It also does this without the trendy but potentially problematic negative ion generation that some other filters offer. I find this to be a pro for the Blueair. I don’t need more ozone in the room.I did not have any odd smells from this unit, even with my nose up close. Based on other reviews I may have gotten lucky or perhaps they’ve improved the production process.All-in-all, I find this a great unit for the price.