I’m still very new to the home automation game but I’m slowly building up the number of devices I have and with a pregnant soon to be fiance I think an air purifier as well as an air quality sensor/monitor would be a nice addition so I am looking to see if anyone has any recommendations for either that won’t break the bank. I’m located in the U.S. and have a aeotec hub and and Alexa pop. Thanks in advance
it doesn’t has to be smart, usually air purifier has a sensor built-in and they adjust the performance according to it values. Search for the best performance/noise level
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AIR PURIFIERS
- We really like the Levoit air purifiers. Excellent quality, reasonable price. Quiet. The genuine replacement filters are expensive but we do use them over the less expensive alternatives available. Right now we have small ones two bedrooms and one of the large ones in a 20 x 20‘ family room.
Their effectiveness was proved when there were wildfires near us, and the sky was literally orange and the air was so polluted that our smoke detectors went off!
The large Levoit kicked in automatically and was able to clear the air in the Family Room back to “good“ levels in about 35 minutes. You could literally taste the difference as you went from that room to elsewhere in the house.
They work well with Alexa. The only integration with smartthings is through Alexa routines, but that’s adequate for us.
https://www.amazon.com/LEVOIT-Purifier-Allergies-Core-400S/dp/B08R794ZMX
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Samsung has several model lines, including bespoke and blue sky, which are listed in the SmartThings app, but they’re out of my price range. Hopefully if someone has one, they’ll post.
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the app also lists a bunch of Miro models, but none that seem to be sold in the US.
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as you noted, there is a Meross model, which is available through the Meross/SmartThings integration, but it’s not sold in California where I live, so I’ve never tried it.
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ikea has a couple of models, but while there have been lots of requests for an edge driver for the Starkvind model, my understanding is that no one has yet written one because SmartThings itself does not as yet provide reporting for particle density, so, in early attempts, it just came in as a generic sensor. Again, if someone has this working, hopefully they will post.
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Tuya makes some air purifiers, but I haven’t seen any integration reports except through Smart life scenes.
i’m sure other people will have other recommendations, this is a popular device class.
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STANDALONE AIR QUALITY SENSOR
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The only one listed in the SmartThings app is Air365 , which I have been unable to find in the US.
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aqara. At our house, we use the aqara battery powered air quality sensor because we like its Display and accuracy, but we are using it with an Aqara hub in HomeKit. We like the fact that it’s quite small, but other people might prefer a larger screen.
https://www.amazon.com/Aqara-Pollution-Temperature-Humidity-High-Contrast/dp/B094R8RBWT/
As @Dennis notes below, there is a community-created custom edge Driver for it. Note that it may take a few hours for all of the data fields to get updated.
- Tuya. There are over a dozen different Chinese brands selling rebranded versions of tuya air quality sensors. Some of these work with smartthings with a custom driver, but it can be tricky to set up. Hopefully people who are using those will post. They are definitely inexpensive: I don’t know how accurate they are.
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I have the Levoit smart air purifiers.
I don’t have an Air Quality sensor, so I just leave my Levoit smart air purifiers in Auto mode and let their built-in sensor control the fan speed.
They connect using WiFi and are controlled through the VeSync service using the VeSync app. The VeSync service connects to Alexa through the Alexa VeSync skill. First, Alexa provides voice control of the air purifiers which is nice. As for SmartThings control, I installed Alexa virtual switches on my SmartThings Hub to control the air purifiers power from SmartThings Routines which trigger Alexa Routines that control the air purifiers on/off power through the VeSync skill.
An example of my Routines are, I have Alexa turn off the air purifier and the associated SmartThings virtual switch when I tell Alexa GoodNight which triggers an Alexa goodnight Routine. Then in the morning when the living room light comes on, a SmartThings Routine turns the virtual Alexa switch On which triggers an Alexa Routine that turns the air purifier back on in the morning.
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Thank you again. As always you’ve been super helpful. I am leaning more towards an Alexa compatible purifier because it seems like there’s more options. I was looking at levoit because I saw it mentioned in a different post but I was thinking maybe a smaller mode like core 200s to start in the bedroom because my entire apartment is less than 800 sq ft although I might be upgrading to a 2 bedroom soon now that I have a baby on the way but even then I read that having one in each room is better than one large one so I still think maybe starting with the smaller model.
The air quality monitor I’ve had serious trouble finding but once I started leaning more towards an Alexa compatible purifier I started looking more at the Amazon air quality sensor. I know it’s not what you have so you can’t give me a review or anything but have you heard anything about it?
(I hope I did a better job of creating this thread and using the proper tags this time)
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Yes, one of the things we like about Levoit is that they offer several different sizes and models. As I mentioned, we have the smaller ones in two bedrooms, and a large one in the family room.
We do keep the bedroom doors shut all night, so they do really need their own air purifiers.
The family room opens to the kitchen, and that door is kept open almost all the time. The large one does a good job of eventually clearing the kitchen as well, it just takes longer.
You probably already know this, but don’t get one that generates ozone. (I don’t think Levoit makes any of those.) at one point those were popular because it was thought that they had health benefits, but it is now known that they actually have a negative impact on health, and infants in particular can be affected.
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That’s what I have in a 16x15 bedroom. The VeSync app also allows disabling the display lights so there’s no glow from the unit at night. In fact, I use another SmartThings Alexa virtual switch to control the 200S night light when my SmartThings bedroom motion sensor is is activated at night.
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If im being honest I didn’t even know there were air purifiers that produced ozone but from what I know about ozone being used as a disinfectant and oxidation agent in pools I would never get anything that pumped it into my house
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I have one each of Samsung AX60R5080WD and AX90R7080WD. They connect to WiFi and works fine with SmartThings.
They are set to automatically adjust fan speeds depending on the air quality measured by their inbuilt sensors and I have SmartThings routines that turn them on/off depending on whether someone is in the room or windows/doors are open or not.
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Samsung would be ideal but all the Samsung models I’ve seen have been way more than I’d want to spend on an air purifier
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As an owner of a Samsung air purifier, my recommendation is to stay away from them. To be clear, I love my Samsung air purifier and its features but Samsung no longer provides replacement filter kits for any of their air purifiers. Take a look around the Web and you’ll see innumerable angry Samsung air purifier owners who have been searching for replacement filters. And if you do find any filters for sale online, they’re usually being sold by scalpers who know how rare they are.
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Thanks for the info Samsung is definitely not an option now
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Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be a problem where I live (Thailand) - at least not yet. But maybe I better stock up in case that changes. Thanks for the heads up!
Do you mind if I ask which model levoits you have? I just ordered the core 200s for the bedroom and the plasmapro 400s for the living room and I might get a bigger one when we switch to a 2 bedroom
We have two “300s” and one 400s.
The 200s doesn’t have auto mode (where it turns itself on and adjusts speed based on its own air sensor) and the 300s is a newer model that uses less energy than the 200s so we went with those. (We’re on solar power, so every watt counts). But the 300s is considerably more expensive upfront.
There’s a comparison chart on the Levoit site:
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Consider yourself lucky to live in a location where filters are available and can be bought at, or near, MSRP. Maybe you could point me in the direction of where to find a few genuine CFX-H1001 filters, and I’ll decide if the price is worth the cost of international delivery.
Now that you mentioned it, I should probably revise my recommendation, since the filter stock shortage is affecting globally-specific regions. With that being said, if there is a reliable availability of reasonably-priced replacement filters in your country, then I totally recommend buying a Samsung air purifier for ST integration. In fact, I’ve been so happy with my AX300T9080W that I had ordered a Bluesky Compact from Amazon but canceled when I realized the replacement filters for that model were nowhere to be found, either.
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Speaking just for myself, I wouldn’t get the plasma models. That’s a new feature which internally generates ozone, which then has to be filtered out again before the air is released back into the room.
I understand the idea of it (to actually remove more particles from the air), and it’s certainly better than the ones that intentionally release ozone into the air, but I just don’t feel comfortable with it in practice.
A good HEPA filter with at least a 2 stage system (which most of the Levoit models offer) is sufficient for my needs. 
If you’re interested in the engineering that goes into air filters, and the various different types:
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Well dang it I should’ve asked before I ordered lol I didn’t realize the plasma model was still using ozone I was just focused on not getting an ozone generating one. I should’ve read more than just the levoit description. And the 200s doesn’t have auto mode but with an air quality monitor I still should be able to create a routine to turn it on when the air quality monitor reads below a certain value right? The no auto mode isn’t a huge issue to me and I got the 200 for like $40 on eBay so if I end up not liking it then it’s not a huge loss. The plasma one was $125 but it hasn’t shipped yet so I might be able to still cancel the order do you think I should cancel it and get a different one? With a baby on the way I don’t want to put anything harmful into the air especially from a device meant to remove harmful things from the air!
I would cancel the plasma, but that’s just me.
If you get an air quality sensor, then, yes, you can use that instead of a built-in auto mode sensor.
—JD always reads the Manual before buying the product Roberts 
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