As an asthmatic person, I love seeing 'hidden' smart air purifiers in regular furniture

I was diagnosed with asthma a couple of years ago, and one of the first things I bought, after a bunch of Ventolin inhalers, is a smart Levoit air purifier. I know that most studies don’t show a huge improvement in asthma when using air purifiers, but my asthma goes hand-in-hand with an intense allergic cough that gets triggered by the teensiest smell or volatile compound. Cooking? Yes, a bit. Deodorant spray? I might as well cough for 24 hours straight after a small spray. Smoking? I think you just want me to die of coughing.

Anyway, my point is that this Levoit air purifier has become a literal lifesaver in certain situations, including once when our boiler malfunctioned and spewed CO in the kitchen. Fun experience, that was. But the one thing I dislike about it is that it doesn’t really fit anywhere. Levoit wants me to give it some clearance all around to give its filter space — 360 degrees of it. So I’m supposed to run a cord to the middle of my room and let the air purifier stand there? I mean, I’ll do it if it’ll save my life, but it doesn’t look nice, does it?

This is why I’ve been fascinated by the idea of “hiding” air purifiers in everyday furniture, specifically side tables. Ikea does it, LG does it, and now SwitchBot — a smart home brand I’ve loved since I first tested its switch buttons in 2018 — is doing it too and taking it a step ahead by adding a wireless charger. If you’re ever going to appeal to a geek like me, embed a wireless charger and profit. I just love that.

A good air purifier for small to medium rooms

The new SwitchBot air purifiers come in two configurations: a regular cylinder (seen below) and a side table model with a wooden top and embedded wireless charger (seen above).

At its IFA booth, SwitchBot was showing off the air purifier’s efficiency in a closed-off glass box (thank heavens, I’d be dead otherwise). I got to see it clear the air of pet hair and a thick white smoke, all in a matter of seconds. Of course, the small air volume helps, but it’s a good demo to see how fast the air purifier reacts and how quickly it switches into its full-on mode to clean the air.

Plus, like with most air purifiers these days, this one comes with a bright light that indicates the air’s quality. If you see red, you might want to step away and let it do its thing. Or open the windows, unless there’s a fire outside. The light can also be manually controlled for a bit of ambiance, with three different intensities. And for those of you who don’t start coughing at every smell, there’s a small drawer where you can drop some essential oils to disperse with the clean air for a fresh fragrance around your home.

On paper, SwitchBot’s claimed CADR (Clean Air Delivery Rate) isn’t too shabby either. This is the most important air purifier metric you need to know; it tells you how many cubic feet or meters of clean air a purifier can deliver in a minute. Ideally, you want the number in m³/hour to be larger than the surface of your room multiplied by its height multiplied by five or more (to at least guarantee that it’ll refresh the air more than five times in an hour). It can also be measured in CFM (cubic feet per minute), and it should be larger than your room’s volume in cubic feet divided by 12 (to guarantee it’ll refresh the air every 12 minutes — or at least five times per hour).

SwitchBot’s CADR is 236 CFM, so it is suitable for 2832 cubic feet rooms or smaller. At an average height of 9ft, that means it can clean rooms up to 314sqft. But remember that this is at the highest fan speed. At lower speeds, it’ll refresh the air fewer times per hour. So this will do better in average-sized living rooms and bedrooms but isn’t suitable for large open spaces.

In comparison, my Levoit Core 400S is rated at 260CFM (346sqft), and the company makes more models that go up to 360CFM (480sqft) and 410CFM (546sqft). You should go for that kind of power if you have a larger area to clean.

SwitchBot wasn’t trying to fool me, though. The company’s reps were clear about this air purifier’s goal: pet owners in small to medium spaces. And for that, the 236CFM rating should be enough.

A bedside or coffee table with a few extra perks

I was surprised to see the nice oak tabletop material on the table version of the air purifier. The wireless charging pad is clearly indicated with an engraved circle. If memory serves me right (a lot of specs start mixing together during a tech show), this is a 10W charging pad, so it isn’t Qi2, but it’s enough if you’re just lounging around the living room or bedroom and want your phone to top up a bit. Or if you’re keeping it there overnight while you sleep.

Below it, you’ll find manual buttons to control almost everything about the purifier. There are three fan speeds, a lock, a power button, a timer, and three modes (auto, pet, and sleep).

The SwitchBot app opens up even more options, like an air quality indicator, historical graphs to show what your air quality has been like, customizable schedules, and more.

As I said, SwitchBot told me it’s aiming this air purifier at pet owners — the marketing materials and the Pet mode certainly back that up. But I can imagine it’ll be handy in any small living room or bedroom if you suffer from respiratory allergies like I do. And even if it looks like a bulky white cylinder, it at least serves a couple of extra purposes instead of adding one more single-use item to your home.

The regular air purifier and the table version are both available for pre-order on SwitchBot’s website for $219.99 and $269.99, respectively. And they should integrate with the rest of the company’s smart home products and your Google Assistant or Alexa setups.