Review: Blueair Sense+ Air Purifier

Blueair Sense+ Air Purifier

Price: Rs 45,000 (Spandeal.com)
Air purifiers are fast becoming a necessity today, with the ever-increasing level of air pollution and the air we breathe slowly becoming a serious health hazard. You can read more about the harmful effects of air pollutants and their ability to increase lung cancer risk in a study published over here. Thankfully, many manufacturers have already started bringing air purifiers to the Indian market. The Swedish air purifier company Blueair has also introduced the Sense+ for home use. I have been giving it a try for some time now, so it’s time to post its review.

Features

The Blueair Sense+ Air Purifier has a boxy design and looks somewhat like a regular PC cabinet, with similar dimensions: height of 49.2 cm, width of 47 cm, and depth of 17 cm. The unit is quite heavy at around 11 kg. It boasts of a very durable metallic industrial construction with a thick powder coating having a matte finish. Rated at 7-45 W, this unit is meant for a room with an area of up to 186 square feet (17.3 square meter), which should suffice most bedrooms. The unit features typically minimalistic European design, which is more appreciated in Europe, but may have difficulty in finding fandom in India.

The larger front side of the unit has the Blueair company name embossed complete with a round blue backlit LED as in the brand logo. The other large side has a handle to lift the unit. The housing has grills at the narrower sides where air intake happens via one, and filtered air is blown out of the other. The direction of air flow is indicated on the bottom surface, which is viewable only when you lay the unit on its side.

Dark toughened glass makes up the top surface of the unit. LED indicators for fan speed and Wi-Fi connectivity lie behind this screen in addition to motion sensors, which allow control of the unit via hand swipes. The unit defaults to switched off mode when plugged into the electric mains. Swiping your hand over it switches it to the first speed, swiping again to the second, then to the third, and then to switched off mode. There is no hard power switch or any button on the unit and the operation primarily depends on the sensors.

In addition to the sensors, the unit can also be controlled via the Blueair Friend mobile app for iPhone and Android. This lets you not only control the fan speed, but also set schedule of operation, use Night Mode to dim the LED, and toggle child lock, which basically locks out the motion sensor control, thus preventing accidental change of speed. The app first connects the unit to your Wi-Fi router before it can control the unit itself, since it does so via the same router. If you have the Aware unit, it works in conjunction with the Aware and Sense+ to automatically control the fan speed, depending on the detected air pollution level.

The unit features two multi-filters – one at the intake and one at the outlet, each featuring a HEPA filter and activated carbon pre-filter. These can be easily removed from the unit when they require replacement, by simply pulling out using handles provided at the bottom, which also serve as the stand for the unit.

How it works

The unit depends on a fan and filters to pull and purify air respectively. The fan operates at three speeds, which are set manually as mentioned earlier.

Each of the two filter units consist of the two parts: the activated carbon pre-filter and the HEPA filter. The main purpose of the pre-filter is to remove coarse and larger particles from the air being pulled into the unit. This, effectively acts to prevent such larger particles from reaching the HEPA filter as that filter is meant to remove smaller particles, thus balancing the load and increasing the life and efficiency of the HEPA filter. It also contains activated carbon to absorb and remove odours and pollutants such as volatile organic compounds, cigarette smoke, and other chemicals.

The HEPA or High Efficiency Particulate Arrestor filter comes next. This stops suspended particles as fine as PM 2.5 (particles that are 2.5 microns or less in diameter), thus further purifying the air.

The Sense+ contains two of these units for more thorough removal of air impuritites.

The filter at the air intake filters out the coarse particle. The central chamber ionizes the particles, then the outlet filter takes out these charged particles, thus letting out clean air without impurities. Blueair calls this HEPASilent technology.

Blueair states that the polypropylene fibers in the filter are waterproof and antibacterial to prevent bacteria and fungal growth.

Performance

Before we move forward, I need to provide a brief intro about air purity measurement unit and what it means. Air purity is measured in terms of suspended particle mass density and the unit is micrograms per cubic meter or µg/m³. This is usually divided into three categories depending on the size of the particles: PM10 (particles that are 10 microns or less in diameter), PM2.5 (particles that are 2.5 microns or less in diameter), and PM1.0 (particles that are 1 micron or less in diameter).

Of the above three, we considered PM2.5 because that is the category where pollutants are more deadly and also more likely to occur in indoor air. As a rule of thumb, 0-50 µg/m³ is considered excellent, 51-100 µg/m³ good, 101-150 µg/m³ slight, 151-200 µg/m³ moderate, 201-250 µg/m³ heavy, and anything above that is considered as serious health hazard level.

For testing purpose, I used incense sticks to raise the PM2.5 pollution level to around 400 µg/m³. Starting with a medium speed, the unit reduced the pollution level to under 100 µg/m³ in the first 15 minutes, and it was reduced to 0 µg/m³ in around 30 minutes. This is really fast. In practice, the usual PM2.5 indoor pollution level you are likely to encounter will be anywhere between 50 µg/m³ and 150 µg/m³ and this will clear up to below acceptable levels within the first 15 minutes of using the air purifier.

The claimed clean air delivery rate averages at 137 cubic meter per hour (204 for smoke, 238 for dust, and 255 for pollen), which is when the fan is spinning at the highest speed. The claimed air changes per hour is 5. The sound level is quite low and almost inaudible (29 dB) from a distance of 2 m when the fan is spinning at the lowest speed, but it does become noisy when the fan spins at the fastest (50 dB).

Power Consumption

The actual power consumption of the unit is lower than what the company advertises (45 W). The consumption at low fan speed is just 7 W, at medium fan speed is 15 W, and at high fan speed is 39 W. In practice, you will probably be using the medium speed for about 15 minutes and then switching to the low speed. This means very low electricity consumption. There is no timer feature, but it is possible to schedule when the unit should work via the mobile app. Also, Night Mode setting from the

My Verdict

The Blueair Sense+ Air Purifier definitely works as well as it claims to work, delivering healthy, clean air and improving the air quality. It is very easy to operate via motion control and even better via the Blueair Friend mobile app. It is very easy to operate and operates silently while consuming very little electricity. However, if you plan to go for it, you will have to break the bank for the exorbitant cost Rs 45,000 and it doesn't even come with a pollution sensor (you will have to invest in that unit separately). The company states that the filters require replacement every 6 months, which will set you back by Rs 11,000 every year (the filter set costs Rs 5,500). Of course, the company assumes non-stop usage, which will probably never happen in real life. The rated lifespan in hours, which is 4830 hours, and the fact that it is unlikely to be used non-stop, should give you a considerably longer filter lifespan. It must also be noted that the filter lifespan also depends on the level of air pollution at your location.

Air quality plays a huge factor in deciding the quality of your life and this is greater than what most of us can imagine. As someone who has been suffering from dust and pollen allergy since long, I have personally been able to experience the difference it makes with just a couple of hours of operation every night. In fact, I also noticed that the AC filters gathered almost no dust during the period of usage. If you can afford it, you can still go for it, but I would suggest waiting as better models are arriving very soon.


Pros: Purifies air fast, Very easy to use with gesture control and mobile app, Works silently, Consumes very little electricity, Built to last.

Cons: Very expensive to buy and maintain, No filter replacement indicators, Bulky, No built-in pollution sensor (Requires separate Aware pollution sensor for automatic cleaning speed control via feedback mechanism).

Ratings

Features: 3/5
Aesthetics: 3.5/5
Performance: 4.5/5
Value For Money: 2/5
Overall Rating: 3/5