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Review: Meross's Smart Air Purifier Offers HomeKit Support at an Affordable Price
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I guess it makes sense to have heating, lighting, A/C - or anything else that you might want to run on a timer or thermostat - controlled centrally from a computer or phone so you can set your time programmes with a nice GUI, or turn them on/off remotely if your travel plans change. And implementing basic WiFi isn't that expensive nowadays.
There's "connected devices" as in basic, practical home automation vs. "connected devices" as an excuse for your dishwasher to need a monthly detergent subscription, your fridge to report your eating habits to Metagooglezon or your mug to email you when your coffee is getting cold, or for the whole thing to turn into a brick when the company goes bust and shuts down their servers (not sure if that's the case here...).
But you don't answer the question!
AC, heat, light it makes sense to keep on a timer/sensor because
- they use a lot (or at least noticeable) amounts of energy
- it doesn't make sense to have them active when no-one is in the house
Air purification doesn't match either of these.
- it uses extremely little energy (unless you have a massive industrial system, or a terribly designed system)
- it usually makes sense to leave it always on, because even if people are not present, it's collecting dust from out the air, dust that would otherwise settle all over the house and make it slightly dirtier and messier. Depending on your house, it may also be continually suppressing smells or VOCs that might otherwise embed themselves in whatever fabrics are around.
I’m not sure what answer you or others are exactly looking for, if it’s not for you — it was important to me, when buying purifier, for them to be Homekit enabled. Why? I had several HK devices that already measured and exposed temperature and air quality (amongst others) to HK. When I got the purifiers, I simply set up a quick automation in Home to turn adjust levels up or down in relation to the air quality data in HK. This took minutes and I never thought about it again — has been an effective, great use case! Anyone could add A few of these easily and affordably if they wished to do something similar.
That smoke can be a real problem. A nightmare if you have health issues and likely a source for future health problems.
You may want to consider having a blower door test done on you house and then seeing what can be done to stop the infiltration.
Don’t know if it would work for you but have see a process where they pressurize a home and then use a machine which sprays a mist of caulk into the air that get sucked into the source of the air leaks and seals them up.
Found the following online.
- Speed 1: Airflow of 40 CFM with 150 sq ft coverage.
- Speed 2: Airflow of 75 CFM with 281 sq ft coverage.
- Speed 3: Airflow of 130 CFM with 488 sq ft coverage.
- Speed 4: Airflow of 170 CFM with 638 sq ft coverage.
- Speed 5: Airflow of 200 CFM with 750 sq ft coverage.
- Speed 6: Airflow of 300 CFM with 1,125 sq ft coverage.
And don’t forget the lights on top that start flashing an angry shade of red when IQAir recommends you change one or more filters.
Moreover if your air purifier is not going anything to kill bacteria (UV-C, not creating ozone) then it’s not a good product.
Capturing just to be released by any tiny vibration, recall it’s .3 microns capture, when removing a canister is a fools errand.
I think they answered the question.
Here is my take anyway. Customers nowadays think "smart" product means "good" product. So even if they aren't techies like us here, they'll go into a store and ask "is this smart?" and the store rep can say yes since it is a connected device. Companies make devices "smart" sometimes just as a marketing tool.
What do you use HomeKit enabled air filters for? I have an air purifier for reducing indoor allergens (dust, mostly), but I generally just leave it running 24/7 and don’t really understand why you’d want to selectively control fan speed or power status.
I dunno about that one. I have a dust allergy. Sure that means I can expose myself to dust when I clean the filter, but I can prep up with disposable gloves and a disposable mask before I go to clean the filter, which is genuinely useful for me even without anti-bacterial features. Oh sure, dust isn’t going to kill me, but it will make my eyes water and itch and causes congestion when exposed to my airway and hives when exposed to dry, cracked skin. So having the ability to don PPE before taking care of the filter is a great thing.
I got an Air purifier and for the price I do not see any difference. I thought it will decrease dust around the house but it does not do that.
It seems those purifiers clean extremely unseen air particles that I am not sure if they do or do not harm the human. In addition for it to be effective it needs to be on higher speeds and higher speeds means noise. So you have to choose, noise or cleaner air.
It seems those purifiers clean extremely unseen air particles that I am not sure if they do or do not harm the human. In addition for it to be effective it needs to be on higher speeds and higher speeds means noise. So you have to choose, noise or cleaner air.
The issue is not only biologicals, it is small particles that ultimately get all the way to alveoli then come to rest there. The term of art is PM2.5
Good filters do not just catch these particles "on the outside", to be released when the filter is replaced. Sure, visible dust (mm-sized) sits on the outside of the filters and visibly falls off, but that's not the dangerous stuff! The dangerous stuff is micron-sized, invisible to the naked eye, and captured by the winding twisting air paths within the filter.
Once again, as I said, plenty of people seem to imagine they will live forever and don't care about this. If you are routinely burning candles in your house, for example, you're routinely creating PM2.5.
But some of us have seen what growing old, then dying, with bad lungs looks like, and would rather avoid that.
You can buy sensors that display PM2.5 or PM10 levels (along with other things like VOCs or CO2 levels) for like $30. (Not "smart" sensors; if you want connectivity that will cost a *lot* more; but a basic box that plugs in the wall and shows the result on an LCD screen.) Once again you can claim these are scams, but they are scams that are good enough to go up when they should go up, and down when they should go down.
The thing is, why not just keep the air purifier on 24/7? Like I said, the energy costs are negligible.
I don't deny that you can create these sorts of sensor/response feedback loops in HomeKit; I have dozens of them for lights and temperature. I just see zero value in this particular loop, given the essentially non-existent downside of leaving an air purifier on 24/7.
Don't people just set these and forget these? No turning off and on again regularly. Like others, not sure why you need this to be a connected devices, sounds like you are just paying more for something to feel more technologically advanced when the advancements probably don't offer anything that actually benefits you. I see things like A/C and heat in the house, lights and things you use daily, this makes no sense to me.