Ionic Breeze Air Purifier
Sharper Image makes a line of products for air cleaning under the Ionic Breeze Air Purifier brand. These include a number of models, ranging in price from about $50 to over $200. It's based on an ionizer technology, which charges particles around the air purifier and causes them to adhere to surfaces nearby (instead of floating around in the air where you can breathe them).
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Ionic Breeze Air Purifier
This is a small, unconventional air purifier that relies on both ozone technology and an ionizer.
The Good:
Fairly silent - there's usually no noise unless you forget to clean it for awhile, and then humming has been reported by some people that goes away after you clean it. It has relatively low power usage, which is pretty good compared to a lot of the competitors - many brands can waste a lot of energy and pump up your electric bill significantly, but the Ionic Breeze Air Purifier probably won't. You also don't need to buy replacement filters, which is another one of the big expenses. You just clean out the permanent filter once a week.
The Bad:
One of the big "bad" factors for me is that Sharper Image has initiated (and lost) a lawsuit against Consumer Reports for a negative review of one of their products. This doesn't have anything intrinsic to do with their product, but it says a lot about the lack of confidence in the quality of your product when you think that you have to sue someone for saying something bad about it. It's also just kind of a jerky thing to do, and sort of baffling when you wonder what their lawyers were thinking. As for the product itself, it is kind of small - so you will need more than one if you have a bigger house or need multiple rooms to be cleaned. The Ionic Breeze air purifier also produces some ozone, which a lot of people will want to stay away from - but to my knowledge it isn't one of the brands being targeted as producing excessive amounts.
Specific Reviews - Ionic Breeze Quadra GP:
I have gotten ahold of an Ionic Breeze Quadra GP: Germocidal Protection, Professional Series. I'm currently testing it out and will update later with information on how well it seems to pick up dust and cat hair. A few things to note off the bat:
1) It is VERY quiet. I had to get up close to it to make sure it was on and working. Tested the air flow by holding my hand in front of it - it was definitely on. That is on the high setting. So if you're mainly worried about noise, this is the brand for you. I honestly have trouble telling if it is making noise or not, because when I listen I hear background hum from other stuff in the house over whatever noise it is making.
2) The size of this particular one is large. It is maybe two and a half feet high. It is fairly narrow, though, so you should be able to keep it out of sight if you want to.
3) When the germicidal protection feature is on, you can see a blue glow from the UV lights inside it. This might look weird in the dark.
UPDATE:
I've had the Ionic Breeze running for several weeks. One extra feature I liked was that it has a little light to tell you when it needs to be cleaned. Also, because you clean the filter yourself, there are no expensive replacements. After pulling out the little section that you clean, I ran moist paper towels over it and some very nasty, black dust came off on it. For a second, I thought it was grease or oil. I'm very glad not to have that in the air anymore. The section is basically three metal plates, and the air purifier ionizes the particles, which then stick to the plates. It only took a minute or so to clean.
The upside is that it seems to be catching very small, fine particles of dust and dirt. The downside is that I don't think it gets any of the bigger stuff. I've got another air purifier going in the house right now that filters out a lot of cat hair - the Ionic Breeze didn't seem to have any cat hair at all in it. That's not so bad, as you can vacuum up bigger stuff yourself, but I kind of liked it as a feature.
All in all, I think this is a pretty good product from my unscientific testing. It gets the dust and dirt you can't see or otherwise get out of the air with a conventional vacuum cleaner. I don't know how efficient it is, but it is obviously getting some very nasty stuff out of the air. Cleaning was easy, it's absurdly quiet, and the look is very "modern" so it's kind of cool to have around.
Top view of the controls.
A view of the filter itself once removed - you can see it's metal, and you just wipe inside the prongs.
The nasty stuff that I would have been breathing.
Ionic Breeze Quadra Air Purifier
Air Purifier Guide Main