At Blueair, we design our air purifiers to do one thing really, really well. Clean the air. Inspired by our Swedish heritage, quality and sustainability are at the heart of everything we do. It motivates us to look to independent testing and third-party standards as a point of proof for our performance. The information below shows how some of the most popular air purifier models from other brands stacked up against our Blue Auto family when put through performance tests.

We design our air purifiers to do one thing really, really well. Clean the air.

We know it’s hard out there - shopping for the right air purifier brand and comparing air purifier models can be difficult to get right. There are a lot of metrics to evaluate and many of the values appear to be the same. Most air purifier brands use a metric like, “removes 99.97% of particles” to communicate performance. This percentage is simply the efficiency of the filter or filtration technology. There are actually two key factors to consider when evaluating an air purifier's performance: 

1. 1. Efficiency - The percentage of particles removed by the filter or filtration technology. This is the % value mentioned above. 
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3. 2. Effectiveness - It must move enough air through the air purifier to reduce the pollution levels in the room over time. This is why the volume of air, or room size is important.

To evaluate efficiency and effectiveness, we look to the independent performance metric of Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) as defined by the AHAM Verifide® program and the ANSI/AHAM AC-1 standard for room air cleaners. CADR is measured in cubic feet per minute, and indicates the volume of filtered air an air purifier delivers, with separate scores for different particle sizes defined from smallest to largest – tobacco smoke (.09-1 microns), dust (0.5-2 microns) and pollen (.5-11.0 microns). The higher the CADR number for each pollutant, the faster the unit filters the air.

Clean Air Delivery Rate accounts for efficiency and effectiveness, it allows you to compare air purifiers on an even playing field.

Because the CADR metric accounts for efficiency and effectiveness, it allows you to compare air purifiers on an even playing field. Ensuring you’re not purchasing an air purifier with high-efficiency filtration that only filters a small amount of air or a model that filters a high volume of air but does not filter it very well. 

According to the EPA, “...to understand how an air cleaner will remove small particles such as those that make up PM2.5, tobacco smoke CADRs should be used as the most conservative estimate.”¹ We conducted testing at third party Intertek labs on our Blue Pure Auto air purifiers and top models from other brands to the ANSI/AHAM AC-1 standard for room air cleaners, and in the graph above we compared CADR for smoke particles. Additionally, model performance was measured at multiple speed settings, but we focused on the highest speed setting to give you an understanding of performance in the best-case scenario.

CADR can also be used to inform the recommended room size for an air purifier. The graph below shows the maximum room sizes for the listed air purifier models according to the ANSI/AHAM AC-1 standard and the brand's Self-Reported Room Size. The ANSI/AHAM AC-1 Size is calculated by taking the CADR for smoke and multiplying it by 1.55 to calculate a room size value (assuming 8 ft ceiling height) that will allow for the air purifier to reduce the particles in that size room by 80% and maintain that status.

CADR can also be used to understand an air purifier's energy efficiency. The EPA's ENERGY STAR certification program measures efficiency by using a CADR to Watt ratio. This comparison is depicted in the graph below:

At Blueair, we don’t sacrifice the amount of clean air our air purifiers deliver by adding multiple functions or 3-in-1 devices. Our high-performance air purifiers deliver a high volume of clean air for a full range of room sizes with minimal energy consumption and noise.

Discover Blue Auto, high-performance air purifiers with low energy consumption and low noise. Upgraded Auto models take a simple approach to air quality management with features like Auto mode and an LED air quality display.