For many, air purifiers have become an integral part of the bedroom. These are basically simple machines that improve the quality of life by reducing airborne allergens. To be addressed as a great air purifier, it should be powerful enough to clean the air in a large living room and at the same time be quiet in the bedroom. But not everyone wants an expensive model. If you are sure about the room size you will use the air purifier in then opt for an inexpensive model.
A few things to remember before purchasing an air purifier. The word HEPA goes around quite a bit. HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) air purifiers remove fine particles from the air, rapidly taking care of most common airborne allergens. Air purifiers can’t help you with allergens such as pet hair and pollen that have settled on furniture or other surfaces; to tackle this, use a vacuum cleaner. HEPA air purifiers should be efficient at removing smoke particles from the air.
So what did we get in the Zunpulse Smart Air Purifier, which was sent in for review? The filter type you get here is pre-filter/composite carbon cloth filter (HEPA + Activated Carbon). Coverage area is 14 to 24 m³ while particulate CADR is 200 m³/h. CADR or Clean Air Delivery Rate is an important figure and it is the volume of filtered air per hour. The larger the value, the better it is; experts generally recommend air purifiers with a CADR rating above 150.
The Zunpulse air purifier has a practical design but at the same time it’s smart looking and fits in almost any environment. It’s a rectangular tower with air ducts on the top. The front fascia is a mesh plate holding the filters. It can easily be opened and the filters taken out. While using, ensure nothing is kept on top of the air purifier because clean air is pushed out from the top. Compact and weighing a few kgs, it can easily be moved around a room.
If you are wondering if there is Wi-Fi support, it’s there and it comes handy if you live alone and want to get the purifier going before you reach home. It took us a couple of tries before the purifier latched on to the Wi-Fi. Plug the purifier to a power source and instead of turning on the machine, hold down on the Wi-Fi button for five seconds until the icon begins to blink; then it takes a minute or so to connect.
What I liked most is the LED display, which comes in the shape of a bar. At a glance, all the required information is available — fan speed, WI-Fi connectivity, parental lock, and AQI levels. There is a also a light indicator — red indicates a high level of pollutants in the surroundings, orange means it’s trying to get things under control and green is the best.
Bigger question is, does it work and work well? I have an open, old-style house, so it’s quite difficult to stop polluted air from coming in. I installed the air purifier in my home office and then closed all the windows. The purifier reading started with 483 and after one hour it was showing around 110-150, which is pretty good considering the room is on the larger side with high ceiling. For the most part, I kept it on auto mode, which made the machine barely audible. Cranking up the speed turns up the noise slightly but it’s not loud make one angry. This is important because most people use air purifiers in bedrooms and you wouldn’t like a noisy companion.
There is basic app support
Cleaning the filters is easy
A few things I found missing. The AQI data that’s offered is limited to PM 2.5 level in the air and the app doesn’t show anything extra as far as air quality goes. There is no chart to map the AQI level over a few days. These may not be important to many users but such metrics help when you want to track the air quality over a period of time.
With CADR being 200m³/h and coverage area around 300sqft, the machine does a good job keeping the air clean in the bedroom or even in the home office. The machine came close to showing the green indicator in the home office most of the time while in the bedroom, it was mostly in the green zone.
You can also look at products from rival brands — Xiaomi, Philips or something like the Coway AirMega 150. What Zunpulse Smart Air Purifier offers is great design, hassle-free functioning, it’s quiet and delivers what it promises. All it now requires is more tech chops on the app front.
At a glance
The info panel has a clean look
Device: Zunpulse Smart Air Purifier
Price: Rs 16,999
High notes
- Easy installation
- Good for medium-sized rooms
- The air purifier remains quiet most of the time
Muffled note
- The app doesn’t offer enough details about air quality