Here’s the deal..
Mi Air Purifier 2 is a ‘smart’ product which essentially means you can connect and control it with your smart devices. It connects to your home Wi-Fi and runs with the ‘Mi Home’ app. The app enables users to check the air quality of a room in real-time. It has a 360° cylindrical filter with triple layer design that consists of a pre-filter, a HEPA filter, and an activated carbon filter that the company claims can filter out dust, plant pollen, pet fur and bad odour. The Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) performance of Xiaomi Mi Air Purifier 2 is 310 cubic metres per hour. Xiaomi claims that the Xiaomi Mi Air Purifier 2 removes 99.7 per cent of small particles PM 2.5 (per hour). The Mi Air Purifier 2 has air quality sensor, temperature sensor and a humidity sensor that you can check through the app and the app also monitors the filter's lifespan and sends a reminder when it needs to be replaced. The Mi Air Purifier 2 works with non-Xiaomi Android phones and iPhone as well.
Design
Xiaomi products whether it’s their smartphones, wearables or now home appliances have one thing in common, it’s immaculate design. The new Mi Air Purifier 2 is a sleek, modern and compact device that looks like a home speaker. It’s minimalistic in design with just 3 LEDs and one button. All three sides look identical lending uniformity to design, something Xiaomi strives for in their smartphones as well. Filter is installed from the back which has a simple press and open completely detachable lid. It weighs 4.8kg with the filter inside and the device measures 240 x 240 x 520 mm. The design is such that you don’t need to tuck this air purifier in some corner of the house, it blends in perfectly. It’s a total win on the design front. It’s simple, compact and beautiful.
Setting it up
Let’s just say you will take more time to download the app and register than actually installing the air purifier. It’s that simple. All you need is to fit the filter in the body after removing the plastic bag, the cylindrical filter that’s hollow in the middle slips in easily and just click shut the back cover. Power in the cord and you are done. Download the Mi Home app and get all the details about the air quality in your room. Use your phone to remotely control the device. It’s so easy that it makes you wonder if it’s any good!
Putting to use
Well, it kind of is. Mi Air Purifier 2 syncs seamlessly over Wi-Fi with your smartphone through the Mi Home app and you can use your smartphone as a remote control for the Mi Air Purifier 2. The app shows real time monitoring of air quality in the room and the air quality starts to show improvement in just about 10minutes. The app also shows humidity and temperature inside the room. The air purifier works on three modes, sleep, auto and turbo. When on sleep mode it is absolutely silent with noise level as low as 30dB, on turbo mode you can hear a low sound from the fan and if kept on auto mode, it will change from one mode to the other depending on the air quality in the room. It’s advisable to leave it on all the time, in terms of power the company says it consumes 4.8W which is what a light bulb would consume. Depending on usage and air quality the filter needs to be changed, the filter apparently works for about six months and in any case the app will alert you when you need to change the filter.
How much does it cost
The sale figures of their smartphones are testimony to how their pricing has worked for Xiaomi in India. The Mi Air Purifier 2 is priced at Rs. 9999, which is easily the most affordable air purifier there is in the market. It comes with the filter. The filter needs to be changed about every six month and it would cost Rs. 2499 for the filter. The air purifier and the filter can be bought from company’s website, mi.com and Flipkart.
Verdict is out
Starting from the time I installed it myself to controlling it with my smartphone the ease with which the whole system works is just amazing. It so simple and uncomplicated both in the way it looks and works. You can see the air quality improve in real time on the app. If you have smokers in the house you can certainly feel the difference with the smoke and the smell clearing out a lot faster. I could feel it worked as I allowed smoking in the house just to check the device! Air purifiers are not new to India they have been around for a long time yet it’s only now that the product range is seeing some traction but it will still be couple of years before people think of it as a must buy home appliance. Another big challenge for air purifiers is the affordability factor as it’s usually priced anything between Rs. 12,000 to Rs. 80,000. So if you decide to go for one, the Mi Air Purifier 2 priced seems like the best bet to be your first air purifier.
