The APS-200 PM 2.5 Air Purifier

I've got really bad allergies, so I got this on a recommendation from a friend. Here are a few things I've noticed a week after using it.1. The unit silently works in the background. What I mean by that it is not a large fan that will move tons of air. However, it's actively eliminating things in the air that aggravate my allergies. I started waking up breathing easier within a few days.2. It does make noise. I sleep with a fan on, so it soothes me to sleep. It's more of a hum, though.3. I'm not crazy about the yearly filter replacement, but I'll deal. I'll take it over not being able to sleep.I couldn't be happier with the purifier. As someone that's struggled with allergies for years I can tell you I only hope products like these continue to get better and better.

The replacement kit I received was used and so very filthy. It was supposed to be new never used but it was easy to tell how filthy it was by looking at the square on the side which is where the air flows through. They were some of the dirtiest filthiest filters I have ever seen.

This is going to be a weird review, I think.I am a huge believer in having the best area possible in the areas of your home that you spend the most time in. More than that, I also think that you need to properly maintain/replace the filters... which makes the consumables cost worth considering when buying a purifier. My experience is made up of Winix (x4), RabbitAir (x1), Coway (x1), and AllerAir (x1). How would the mega expensive Airocide APS-200 PM 2.5 stack up?The APS-200 PM 2.5 arrives in a non-descript outer box, and a retail inner box. From there, you open the retail box, and are presented with a 20 page product pamphlet and a Styrofoam cap. Under the cap you find the air cleaner (sitting atop another Styrofoam cap). The packaging is adequate for the rigors of imperfect delivery, and my item arrived with no damage or dysfunction.As for the unit itself, you get what looks to be a veneered outer cabinet, the purifier as an insert, and the wrapped-for-travel grille. The unit comes pre-loaded with two Airocide APS-200 PM 2.5 cartridges (also available on Amazon). Once you unwrap the grille, you can put it on the perimeter magnets. The grille is a nice piece of mid-century modern-inspired art, with attractive, stamped perforations and other design touches. The cabinet looks good, but perhaps s step or two what you'd expect for the price. Finally, the rest of the unit is mostly made of plastic, with the interior of mine being red (instead of the orange some have mentioned). While the plastic does kind of further the "mod" type styling, it is not as nice as the rest of the material selections.Now we are to the operation of the air purifier! Once you plug in the unit (with its soft-touch, no-kink cord), you can use the power button on the back of the unit to turn it on. Once on, you have access to three (possibly capacative) buttons that control the fan speed of the unit... and that's basically it for the features. There's no wifi connectivity and iOS/Android app. There's no pollution/particulates sensor. The last part surprised me, since there's an "auto" fan speed mode... in competing products the fan speed is controlled by the level of pollution in the air. With the Airocide the fan speed (in auto) is controlled by the amount of LIGHT in the room! Ugh. They opted for that because the fan is EXTREMELY loud for an air cleaner. In "low" mode, the cleaner makes about the same frequency and volume of noise as a laser printer that just finished printing. In "high" mode it sounds like a laser printer that's printing, except without the paper handling noises. The low mode creates a conspicuous noise floor, but it's not an offensive or grating tone. The high mode, on the other hand, will never blend into the normal sound of a room. Though I didn't get an SPL reading, it's loud enough to have to have to alter your conversation volume within 5-10 feet of the unit.Should you think that the solution is just to run the machine in "low" mode, I would just submit that air cleaners work best when at their highest fan speed. While the pamphlet with the APS-200 PM 2.5 stated that you could use this for ANY size room, a little digging showed that the manufacturer stated that 600sqft was their max (and that's going to be if you're on "high"). No mention of the number of air changes per hour or CFM.So far, I haven't really made a case for the benefits of the APS-200 PM 2.5. Well, the unit is pretty - even compared to RabbitAir cleaners. The other benefit is that the cleaner uses a combination of UV light and a special catalyst. I'm not sure how it performs relative to other solutions, but it is DIFFERENT. However, if you're down for the "NASA technology", then you may want this cleaner. The cartridges are timebombed, so you HAVE to replace the filters when the unit says to. The cartridges aren't cheap, but they're not outrageous, either. I don't love that there isn't a washable prefilter.UPDATE: I've changed my rating from 3 stars to 4 stars, based on the manufacturer's response to my review. I didn't understand that this was meant to be SUPPLEMENTAL to more conventional air filtration processes. Through that lens, the total COST to clear your air goes up, but you get a much more COMPLETE purification.

We bought the replacement kit, but it caused our unit to stop working. Lights flash after installation. We followed the owner's manual, watched a YouTube instructional video, etc. We're doing everything correctly. This item is defective. I purchased it a couple of months before we needed to replace the chambers. Now the return window is closed. : {

I bought 5 of these 9 years ago to put in each room. While the technology is great, the range of air that actually goes through these is limited to the immediate area of the unit. I had to also buy Germ Guardians for each room to make up for it. They are very noisy also. The replacement filters back then, were $99 a piece so I was spending $500 a year just on these units. NOW, the filters are $230 a piece and the units are sitting on my closet shelf for $0 a year.