In case you didn’t know, Xiaomi sells more than just smartphones and related gear. Their product line includes home appliances, such as rice cookers. They also already have two generations of air purifiers. I recently bought the newer Mi Air Purifier 2, considering how it might be useful in our annual haze season, and thought I’d share a quick review on it.
The Mi Air Purifier 2 has quite a nice sleek design. It’s not slender as some other air purifiers aim to be, but it has this functional, industrial, look that is both simple and beautiful. It’s squarish cross-sectional area of 240 x 240 mm is smaller than a sheet of A4 paper. It stands 520 mm high, and weighs 4.8 kg including the air filter. The design draws air from all sides of the unit, through a large circular air filter, then pushes it out upwards from the top.
The plastic case looks a bit like metal from a distance, although you can easily tell it’s not when you look at it up close. The Mi Air Purifier 2 can easily fit into a corner of your living or working space without being an eyesore.
Compared with its first generation brethren, the Mi Air Purifier 2 is shorter, and up to 40% smaller in volume. However, the smaller package is still quite powerful, delivering 330 m3/h Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) in standard mode, which is 81% of the first generation’s 406 m3/h CADR. In active mode, the Mi Air Purifier 2 can do 388 m3/h CADR. Xiaomi says it can effectively clean the air in a 23 m2 room in just 10 minutes.
That large circular filter is 200 mm in diameter and 293 mm high. It comprises a PET primary filter, HEPA filter, and activated carbon adsorption filter. It removes large particles, 99.99% of 2.5 micron particles, 99.3% of 0.3 micron particles, and 91% of formaldehyde and other harmful substances. It’s sounds like it’ll deal with our annual haze situation quite well.
Operating the Mi Air Purifier 2 is really simple. There’s essentially just one button to turn on and off the device, and to select the motor speed. Auto mode selects a speed based on the air quality. It can do that because the Mi Air Purifier 2 has a built-in PM2.5 air quality sensor.
Night mode runs the fan ultra quietly, perfect for the bedroom when you’re sleeping. There’s practically no noise in this mode. The last mode, the favourite mode, fixes the fan speed at maximum by default. The speed can be configured through the Mi Smart Home app.
This brings us to a really big thing about the Mi Air Purifier 2. It’s a smart device. It has built-in Wi-Fi. It’s only 2.4 GHz though, no 5 GHz support. Using the Mi Smart Home app, available on both Android and iOS, you can remotely control the Mi Air Purifier 2, including turning it on and off, and controlling the fan mode, and adjusting the speed of the favourite setting.
The app also lets you read the PM2.5 air quality sensor data, so you can tell how clean the air in your room is. There’s also temperature and humidity sensors in the Mi Air Purifier 2 that you can read from the app. If you want to check your filter status, the app tells you that too.
The smart part of the Mi Air Purifier 2 might be quite interesting. But the air purifier itself is otherwise mostly quite basic. There’s no ionisation function, no UV light, and interestingly, not even a timer to automatically shutoff the air purifier. Perhaps the timer capability can be built into the app at some later time.
There is a second button, located on the back of the Mi Air Purifier 2. it is used to dim the LED indicator lights, or to turn them off altogether. You can also control that from the smartphone app. This is great for those who don’t like the distraction of LED lights at night when you sleep.
Xiaomi only sells the first generation Mi Air Purifier in Singapore, but you can find the Mi Air Purifier 2 though other local sellers for around S$200.
Conclusion
The Mi Air Purifier 2 is a perfectly functional and good looking air filter appliance to deal with haze filled air.
Pros:
- Looks good
- Fast and powerful fan
- Remote control with smartphone app
- Built-in PM2.5, temperature, and humidity sensors
Cons:
- No ionisation, no UV
- No auto-shutoff timer