Ad| PerfectAir Sense Home / Office Air Purifier Review (sent for review by AquaPerfecta)

Aqua Perfecta are well known and respected for their water filtration, but they also make air purifiers, and we've been sent the freestanding air purifier, the PerfectAir Sense, to review. I've had a full 5 weeks to get to know my air filter. We've tested it properly and seen performance under different conditions. We've tried it in different rooms and positions, and at different times of the day and night... I love a proper review, so it's really a pleasure to have that luxury. 

Air purifiers filter out airborne particles such as pollen and pollutants, and they also actively clean the air, killing many different bacteria, and viruses - including the Coronavirus. The PerfectAir Sense is recommended for rooms up to 50m2, and the average UK home has rooms around 25m2, so this purifier would also do the trick for smaller offices. (The full technical specs are at the bottom of this post.)

EDIT: 19/07/21 - after using the Air Purifier during the recent UK heatwave, I have to add that this is brilliant for cooling too. I'll explain more below.

I also have a 10% Discount Code on all Air Purification from AquaPerfecta for all of my readers: thebrickcastle10

We live on a relatively busy bus route in North Manchester, but we're fairly suburban. Our air quality isn't actually too bad as regards pollution, instead our main air problem is pollen. We are surrounded by gorgeous trees, and the hayfever at times is pretty hard work. We were reviewing exactly at the time our Laburnum Trees were pouring pollen into our home, so we knew we had a great test for the PerfectAir Sense. We also are obviously in the midst of a pandemic virus, currently allowed to have visitors inside the home, and we want everyone to be as safe as we can sensibly manage, while keeping life as 'normal' as we can. 

Packaging is fairly minimal, but perfectly protective and easy to open. The unit itself is 706mm (28") x 410mm x 230mm, so it's fairly tall and slim, and weighs just 10.5kgs (23lbs). This is light enough to easily be moved by a single person. Because the unit is freestanding and only requires a plug socket, it can be used in most rooms and moved in seconds if required. 

It is a really attractive piece of equipment, and we've found it's actually quite subtle, because it's slimmer than most furniture and easily placed out of the way. It's also much sturdier than it first appears because of the weight at the base - you'd have to really knock into the purifier before it would fall.

 

Before you use the PerfectAir Sense you have to properly 'unpack' it. Although your purifier is complete and there are new filters inside, they're bagged to keep them clean during transportation and storage, so you have to open the purifier, get the filters out, take them out of the packaging, and then put them back in. Don't be daunted, it's ridiculously simple - there are even little tabs to show you which way they go. 

Before I even plugged the PerfectAir Sense in and turned it on, I was genuinely impressed with how nicely it's made, and how neatly everything sits together. The design is excellent, and the simplicity just perfect. Fitting the filters felt incredibly satisfying, which is a weird thing to say, but true. It just went together so neatly and smoothly. 

Once the filters are in place, there is also a water tank to fill for the built in humidifier with water filter. This is stored in a discreet pull out drawer on the right side of the unit. Again, it's incredibly easy to fill, not heavy or awkward, and intuitive, so even those people who don't read the instructions first should still get everything right... 

The first thing you notice when you switch on the purifier is the LED display on the top. Big icons, very clear, very easy to understand.

We're new to using an air purifier, and quickly discovered anyone can use the PerfectAir Sense. The controls really couldn't be clearer. You can control the purifier manually, scrolling through 4 fan speeds at the touch of a button, or select Auto, which will instantly raise or turn down the speed when required. It really does react quickly too - when 3 children run in from the garden, it knows.

There are options for UV and Ionisation, Sleep, Timer and a Lock - to prevent those little people changing the settings. There is also a remote control, so you don't even need to get up from the sofa.

The lighting is brilliant. You have a clear visual indicator of the air quality in the room, and the blue and green colours are actually much warmer than you might anticipate. The purifier emits a lovely low glow, so that you can even watch movies in the dark without spoiling the mood. You can also switch the lights off with the Sleep Mode, which is obviously ideal at night. 

In any mode, except maybe level 3 and 4 fan, the purifier is very quiet and unobtrusive. Sleep Mode  maintains an even, slow fan, with just a faint sound from the air moving (at 27.8 decibels according to the makers). We have at times run the purifier in the upstairs hallway at night, and even when you listen carefully, you can't hear it in the bedrooms. 

The technical details say that the PerfectAir Sense can clean 77 cubic metres of air a minute, purifying the air in a massive 46 cubic metre space in just 9 minutes. An average UK room is around 25 cubic metres, so this is impressively fast. Even when a room has very poor air quality, it's under 5 minutes before the fan slows down and you can barely hear it again. 

Although AquaPerfecta don't promote the PerfectAir Sense as having a cooling air function, it really does. There is a temperature display, but no option to adjust for temperature, and the cold water from the humidifier, and the fan, mean that it blows cool. 

Edit 19/07/21 - The UK is currently experiencing a 30 degree heatwave. We have used the PerfectAir Sense in the day and at night to cool our home, and it's been excellent. There is a good draught which would easily be equivalent to a desk fan, and if you turn up the unit to level 3 or 4, you really do have a great breeze. Last night we had the unit on low in out bedroom until around 10pm, when we set it to 'night time mode', and at that point it was 27 degrees in our living room, but only 22 in the bedroom upstairs, and it did have a knock on effect of helping cool the whole upstairs. 

In order to clean the air, there are 8 stages of filtration which "will capture around 99.97% of airborne pollutants". These include:
A pre-filter (catches hairs and larger particles)
HEPA 11 filter (filters out tiny grains, pollen, dust, many types of bacteria)
Washable activated carbon filter (absorbs pollutants)
UV-C 254 virus killing technology (kills viruses, including COVID)
Negative Ion Technology (removes particles, kills bacteria and has also been shown to kill some viruses)

So what did we think of the PerfectAir Sense?
We had a specific problem with pollen, and tested out lots of different potential pollen-busting solutions, starting with the purifier in the lounge during the day. It definitely helped, and by the first evening everyone was less congested, but we knew we could do better. I tried the unit in my bedroom overnight and it worked brilliantly for me and my partner. We slept absolutely fine, it's incredibly quiet. You obviously have to close the window, which I've never really done, so it did leave me with a compromise - and wasn't of much benefit to the children (who weren't in my room overnight).

We've realised before that the airflow in our house heads to the landing at the top of the stairs, and we assumed it would be a daft place for the purifier because it's too big a space unless all of the doors are closed, but one day when my son had a friend visiting in his bedroom we thought we'd try it. 

The air quality in this area of the house was incredibly bad. We knew our trees cause a hearty layer of yellow dust everywhere, but this is an early evening in late May. Well within 9 minutes the purifier had turned itself down and the air quality was good.

When we leave the purifier on Sleep Mode overnight, we've also noticed a clear difference. We've woken up able to breathe, and see, and all of those other important things. It also helps very much with hayfever symptoms when we use it in the living room, especially in early evening. We genuinely are very impressed at the clear difference it makes. In fact, since we've started using the PerfectAir Sense my partner hasn't woken everyone up at 6am with a hearty morning cough.

I've put together a short video review, which shows just how easy it is to use the PerfectAir Sense, how easy it is to replace the filters, and how quiet the air purifier is when it's working. 

Overall the PerfectAir Sense is an incredibly user-friendly air purifier, which is remarkably quick, unobtrusive and reliable. It looks good, it's nice and quiet, and it does the job. Genuinely the air feels fresher and cleaner, less 'heavy', and the proof we needed was right there, at the time we could really put it to the test.

Our purifier will mostly live in the lounge, which is the room we all use most often, and where it will hopefully also be of use should COVID enter our home - not only to help prevent spread, but also in case of illness, because sitting in a room full of virus doesn't help anyone get any better. It is so portable, and so incredibly useful, that we've moved it around several times already.

The PerfectAir Sense is one of a range of Air Purifiers from AquaPerfecta. The rrp is £995, which is a big purchase, but in my opinion will get you exactly what you hope for your money. The sensors react instantly, Auto really does work incredibly well, and the remote control is a handy little feature. It is a very attractive purifier, and it'll slip nicely into any room, and quietly and reliably do it's job without you having to worry about it. 

You can find out more about the whole range of PerfectAir Air Purifiers
on the AquaPerfecta website - and don't forget to use the code: thebrickcastle10 for 10% discount on ALL Air Purification (excludes sale items). 

Product Specifications:
Size - 706 x 410 x 230 MM
Weight - 10.5KGS
Power - 75W
Room area - 50m2
Noise level - 62dB
CADR - 450m3/hr
PM2.5 removal rate - 9.97%
Bacteria removal rate - 99.97%
Formaldehyde removal rate - 99.97%
Remote control
Intelligent mode
Sleep mode
Child lock
VOC smart sensor
Air quality indicator
Purification stages - 8
Fan speed - 4
Timer
Auto mode
Pre-filter
HEPA filter
Activated carbon filter
Cold catalyst filter
Photo catalyst filter
UV-C 254 virus killer
Negative ion technology
Laser dust sensor
Free standing
Filter replacement reminder

I did my research for this review, and a couple of posts I found very helpful are below: 

BreathingSpace - choosing an air purifier for hayfever

Montreal Classrooms with/without Air purifiers - COVID case comparison.

PerfectAir Sense specifications page

If you have any questions about performance, then feel free to ask, either on social media @thebrickcastle or by email.

We were sent our PerfectAir Sense Air Purifier for review. I was not paid, nor was I given any instruction on what to write - these are all my own words. It's a real review. As a goodwill gesture Aqua Perfecta have offered me a small thank you payment if you use my discount code - which was offered on July 30th (so did NOT influence my review).