Clean air is all the rage right now - for obvious reasons - and a smart air purifier has plenty of benefits beyond remote control from the couch. You can get real-time feedback in an app as to what pollutants are in your air and connect to smart home systems and voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple's HomeKit.
Read this: Ikea Trådfri Guide
But air purifiers are big and bulky, and while not always unattractive, finding a good spot to put them can be problematic. That's why we're quite excited about Swedish furniture giant Ikea's first smart air purifier: Starkvind.
Available in two versions, the Starkvind comes built into a coffee table as well as a standard stand-alone purifier. We're all about making smart tech blend into your home and not get in the way - so Ikea's inventive approach here is a good one in our books. Although how effective it will be with a minimal amount of surface area exposed remains to be seen.
The standard Starkvind Air Purifier comes in black or white and costs $129 and the coffee table option, which comes in a dark or light finish, will set you back $189.
The Starkvind joins the flat-pack-furniture king's dumb air purifier, the Fornuftig, which costs $59. (Ikea's promised smart air-purifying curtains don't appear to have materialized).
For that extra cash, you're getting a more stylish look and the ability to connect the air purifier to Ikea's Trådfri gateway ($35) to control its five fan speeds remotely, as well as schedule it using the Ikea Home smart app.
An auto mode adjusts the fan speed correlated with the amount of PM2.5* in the air with a built-in air quality sensor. You can also see readings of current indoor air quality in the app.
There's no word on which smart home integrations will be available, but Ikea's other smart home products work with Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit, so there's hope this will too.
The Starkvind is designed for room sizes up to 215 square feet and has a 3-filter system that captures large particles such as hair, dust, and pollen as well as 99.5% of smaller airborne particles, including such as PM2.5 particles.
There is also has a filter on board for gas cleaning, which absorbs formaldehyde and other VOCs and helps eliminate smells from cooking.
The Starkvind arrives in stores and online at Ikea.us this October.
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