The best air purifiers for allergies make breathing a bit easier for those with sensitivity to pollen, dust, and other indoor particulate matter. So many things can affect the quality of air in your home, including smoke, pets, plant pollen, and a handful of harmful airborne allergens and pathogens. Luckily, puffy eyes, sniffly noses, and constant sneezing don’t have to be something you or your loved ones have to live with. The latest in air-purifying tech not only cleans the air in your home, but does it quickly and easily. Here’s a selection of the best air purifiers for allergies available on the market right now.
— Best Overall: Coway Airmega 250S Smart Air Purifier
— Best with Cooling: Dyson Pure Cool Link
— Best for Large Rooms: Hejiko Air Purifier
— Best for Pets: BISSELL Air320 Air Purifier
— Best Portable: LEVOIT Air Purifier
How We Picked the Best Air Purifiers for Allergies
What makes a good air purifier for allergies? In many ways, any air purifier worth its salt cleans all airborne allergens with ease. Aside from that, here are a few aspects we considered when picking out the best of the best air purifiers for allergies.
Filtration: Just about every great air purifier on the market has a HEPA filter in it. HEPA means “high-efficiency particulate air” and is regulated by the EPA. HEPA filters remove up to 99.97 of dust, pollen, mold, and bacteria down to 0.3 microns. A HEPA filter filters out just about every single allergy-causing particulate matter in the air. Are other filters worth considering? Perhaps, but only if they can prove their filtration efficiency.
Efficiency: Air purifiers for allergies have HEPA filters that work, but do they work fast? After plugging them in, how long will it take before you find relief? The difference between a good air purifier and a great one is more incumbent on how quickly it cleans the air once you turn it on. The faster an air purifier cleans the air, the better.
Tech: In general, air purifiers run pretty simply. They feature an on/off button, and usually another button or switch to regulate speed. An air purifier is a simple device like a vacuum or a toaster, where more buttons tend to bog it down. Customizing settings and features shouldn’t require consulting a manual, and this goes double for devices with companion apps.
Design: Does an air purifier need to look nice to work effectively? Not necessarily. But in many cases, the best air purifiers for allergies work a lot of form into all that air-cleaning functionality. Better yet, you won’t have to worry about having an eyesore in the middle of your living space or office.
Coverage: Consider the room you spend the most time in at home for a second. How big is it? We don’t recommend getting a tape measure out, but just know that every air purifier on the market has a max coverage era that it can clean effectively. Sprawling living rooms attached to open kitchens may require more powerful, more expensive devices. The greater the coverage area, the better.
Best Air Purifiers For Allergies: Reviews and Recommendations
Best Overall: Coway Airmega 250S Smart Air Purifier
Why It Made The Cut: The Coway Airmega 250S air purifier isn’t just one of the best ways to clean your air, it’s one of the smartest.
Specs:
— Dimensions: 8.3 inches L x 18.5 inches W x 19.7 inches H
— Weight: 20.5 pounds
— Coverage Area: Up to 930 square feet
Pros:
— Easy monitoring with LED lights
— Pulls allergens, mold, and even viruses out of the air
— Attractive build-quality
Cons:
— Noisier on higher fan speeds
— Pricey
Despite the Coway Airmega 250S Smart Air Purifier’s retro flair, just below the surface lies a device with some seriously smart tech.
The control panel lies on the top of the device and doesn’t overcomplicate things with a simple on and off button, and a few other buttons that regulate fan speed and operation modes. Turning it on, a long LED light will flash one of four colors that give you instant insights on air quality, from “easy-breezy” blue to “put-a-mask-on” red. Even if the air quality is in the red, the Coway Airmega 250S works fast to clean large areas quickly. It can cycle the air in a 930-square-foot area from filthy to clean two times an hour and can clean the air in smaller rooms even quicker. Airmega contains a special multi-layered filtration system that not only gets rid of mold, dust, allergens, and viruses like COVID-19 out of the air, the activated carbon filter gives it another boost. Its carbon filter tackles pesky food smells, smoke, and all manner of pet odors. Swapping out filters is no more complicated than opening the device and sliding a new one in easily. just about every aspect of the device is user-friendly. The Coway IoCare app (available on Google Play and the App Store) lets you monitor your home’s air quality directly from your phone, or schedule an operation even if you’re far away from your device. Speedy as it is, this air purifier for allergies runs a little louder than on the faster speeds. Plus, it’s one of the more expensive air purifiers available. However, its reliability cannot be underestimated.
Best with Cooling: Dyson Pure Cool Link
Why It Made The Cut: It’s a cooling fan, it’s an air purifier for allergies: it’s both!
Specs:
— Dimensions: 7.7 inches L x 4.3 inches W x 40.1 inches H
— Weight: 7.9 pounds
— Coverage Area: Up to 999 square feet
Pros:
— Does double duty as a fan and air purifier
— App that provides detailed air quality reports
— Gorgeous and sleek
Cons:
— Expensive
Dyson products all suck in the best possible way and the company’s air purifier doubles as a cooling fan. And would you believe it: the Dyson Pure Cool Link excels at both purifying airs and providing a satisfying breeze.
Its filtration system works quickly to clean a large area of all airborne allergens including pollen, bacteria, and both human and pet dander. Whatever the contaminant, expect it to be filtered out down to 0.3 microns. A layer of activated carbon beefs up the power to filter out paint fumes, smoke from tobacco and cooking, and all manner of nasty odors. Using the Dyson Link app (available on Google Play and App Store) you can get real-time insights on air quality with detailed metrics. It even allows you to sync it up to Amazon Alexa and operate it using voice controls. Its fan is almost as powerful, with 10 different speeds, and automatically shut-off in the event that it’s knocked over. Like any great fan, it also oscillates. Unlike other fans, there are no blades here, making it safe for smaller humans and furry friends alike. The only downside here is almost ubiquitous with all other Dyson products: the cost. Gorgeous build quality and reliability come at a premium price when it comes to Dyson’s bagless vacuums, hair dryers, and even its double-duty air purifier/room fans.
Best for Large Rooms: Hejiko Air Purifier
Why It Made The Cut: With a little patience, the Hejiko Air Purifier can provide pristine air quality in massive rooms.
Specs:
— Dimensions: 6.8 inches L x 12.8 inches W x 21.7 inches H
— Weight: 14.1 pounds
— Coverage Area: Up to 1200 square feet
Pros:
— Covers wide open spaces
— Handy remote operation
— Operates quietly
Cons:
— Slow operation
Hejiko Air Purifier is small, but it’s seriously powerful. It’s so powerful that it can handle a room up to 1200 square feet in size. That’s larger than many apartments!
The efficiency is fairly solid with areas that measure 1,200 square feet and smaller. Granted, it will take an entire hour for the Hejiko to perform its air-purifying magic in a room that big. It can clean smaller rooms much quicker. A 320-square-foot room can be cleaned four times an hour, in fact. You can even leave it on in a bedroom while you sleep. A dedicated sleep mode makes your device run as low as 20 decibels so it won’t keep you up. For an air purifier in this price range, the filter in the Hejiko is surprisingly solid. It’s got multiple layers of optimized filtration including a pre-filter, cold catalyst filter, activated carbon filter, and true H13 HEPA filter. Nasty smells, harmful pathogens, and of course, every manner of allergy-causing pollutant won’t stand a chance. When the air quality gets especially bad, the Hejiko fan automatically speeds up, making it fairly smart for its size and price point. You can even run it for at least eight hours so it’s got serious staying power. That said, it does run a little slow, even if it does do a fairly thorough job.
Best for Pets: BISSELL Air320 Air Purifier
Why It Made The Cut: BISSELL Air320 Air Purifier is perfect for homes with furry occupants.
Specs:
— Dimensions: 8.3 inches L x 14.7 inches W x 25 inches H
— Weight: 18.25 pounds
— Coverage Area: Up to 1582 square feet
Pros:
— Commercial grade performance
— Easy to use filters, including ones just for pets
— Beautiful aesthetics
Cons:
— Difficult to move
Can an air purifier look attractive and be effective? Of course. In fact, more often than not, the more gorgeous a device is, the more powerful it is. The BISSELL Air320 Air Purifier is cool enough to qualify as a centerpiece.
BISSELL Air320 Air Purifier also boasts some of the strongest filters in the game, with three stages of filtration for seriously clean air. A pre-filter, activated carbon filter, and an H13 HEPA filter work in conjunction to rid the air of tiny harmful particles, volatile organic compounds, and even nasty smells: like say, from a litter box. In fact, this particular air purifier even makes dedicated filters for homes with pets that are extra great at capturing dander, dust, hair, and all manner of nasty odors our furry friends tend to make. Changing filters out is incredibly easy to boot, depending on how often you run the air purifier and how smelly your pets are. As previously stated, the gorgeous build quality of the Air320 is basically a guarantee of commercial-grade performance. It cleans the air, it cleans it reliably, and it cleans it fast. Its operating footprint is low, and it takes very little energy to run and operates at an almost whisper-quiet volume. Gorgeous as it is, it’s a little difficult moving it from room to room compared with other devices. However, this may be one you park in place for a good long while, making it one of the best air purifiers for allergies.
Best Portable: LEVOIT Air Purifier
Why It Made The Cut: The LEVOIT Air Purifier is small and light enough to take anywhere and everywhere you need allergy relief.
Specs:
— Dimensions: 8.7 inches L x 8.7 inches W x 16.25 inches H
— Weight: 7.48 pounds
— Coverage Area: Up to 547 square feet
Pros:
— Lightweight and portable
— Multiple filter choices
— Sleek and sturdy
Cons:
— New purifier smell leaves much to be desired
Air purifiers under $100 are occasionally dicey, but the LEVOIT Air Purifier is a solid, albeit small entry. Small is a feature, not a bug here, considering the possibilities for portability.
It’s just under eight pounds and small enough to tuck under your arms to move from room to room. You can stash this model in many backpacks and suitcases as well, in case your destination has less-than-great air quality. There are plenty of ways to customize the LEVOIT Air Purifier, with four different filter styles to suit your needs and lifestyle. There’s one for pets, toxins, smoke, and a standard multi-purpose one too. Despite its size, it’s almost as powerful as devices twice its size and can clean a room as large as 1,200 square feet in as little as an hour. The LEVOIT purifier operates whisper quiet too, especially when you run it in Sleep Mode. It has the same great air-purifying capabilities as the big boys and will pull everything from lint, pet fur, VOCs, allergens, and bacteria out of the air. Even harmful and pesky household smells are sucked up and done away with because of its activated carbon filter. Sadly, it won’t suck up its own smell. The LEVOIT Air Purifier gives off an unpleasant odor when you first operate it. Sure, the smell dissipates after about a few weeks of regular use, but it’s an odd bug to be sure. The value and the versatility may be more than worth the minor and temporary inconvenience.
Things To Consider Before Buying an Air Purifier for Allergies
Maintenance
If you own a Brita jug, you know quite well what can happen when you don’t replace a device’s filter. Air purifiers can cause speedy relief from indoor allergens and pathogens, but only if you regularly change out their filters. Luckily, “regularly” is relative. You only need to change out a filter after about six months. If you use it intermittently, you can get away with changing it out after a year of use. We recommend buying a replacement filter with whatever device you end up buying and stashing it in a hallway closet along with the batteries and lightbulbs.
FAQs
Q: Do air purifiers really help with allergies?
Yes, air purifiers can help those affected by allergies. A 2018 study found that using a HEPA filter air purifier in a bedroom helped improve people’s allergic rhinitis symptoms.
Q: What is better for allergies: a humidifier or an air purifier?
In general, an air purifier is better at relieving allergies than a humidifier. Humidifiers help alleviate symptoms, but air purifiers remove allergens from the air.
Q: Where should I place an air purifier?
The best place to put an air purifier in the room is in a place where you do the majority of your breathing. The air purifier will clean the air around it first, so it helps if you’re near the device if you want to experience quick relief from allergies.
Q: Should I sleep with the air purifier on?
Many air purifiers have dedicated sleep modes, so you can definitely sleep with them on to clean the air of harmful allergens while you snooze.
Q: Do air purifiers work with windows open?
An air purifier will work with the window open, however, it will operate much less effectively. As new air comes in from outside, it will likely bring new pollutants with it, slowing down the time it takes for the air purifier to completely clean the air in any given room.
Q: How often should I change my air purifier filter?
Depending on how often you use it, an air purifier’s filter should be changed out every 6 to 12 months.
Final Thoughts on Air Purifiers for Allergies
Are you tired of feeling not your best every time the seasons change? Investing in one of the best air purifiers for allergies may provide easy relief to you, your family, and even your pets. The Coway Airmega 250S Smart Air Purifier is our overall best pick, for being powerful and user-friendly. It doesn’t look too shabby either, but the pet-friendly BISSELL Air320 Air Purifier has it beat on looks. For an affordable and portable entry, the LEVOIT Air Purifier packs some great features in a small space.
This post was created by a non-news editorial team at Recurrent Media, Futurism’s owner. Futurism may receive a portion of sales on products linked within this post.