Levoit LV-PUR131 Air Purifier with True HEPA Filter, Odor Allergies Eliminator, Air Cleaner for Large Room, Dust, Smoke, Mold, Pets, Smokers, Home, Auto Air Quality Monitor, 322 sq. ft, US-120V

We have been looking for an air purifier for quite some time, but always running into the same issues with this type of product. Mainly they are a fire hazard. Or way over priced for what you get, or un-user friendly and bulky. So, I just happened to be doing a little research and found this brand. First off there doesn’t seem to be a fire hazard, the price was reasonable, you can easily move from room to room if needed, and a nice plus it was pleasing to the eye. Long story short…I took a chance and bought this one for the main traffic area and also purchased the smaller version for a back bedroom. We received both systems within a couple of days, after a brief review of the instructions they were setup and working perfectly and sooooo quite. Just as described by the seller. We’ve had them running constantly for about 4 days now. And we have experienced a dramatic reduction in the amount of dust and all the yucky, scary things you can’t see. We aren’t waking up coughing, stuffed up sinuses or a dry scratchy throat. Needless to say we are resting a lot better. In the end we liked this product so much that I purchased 2 more and probably will buy one for my son-in-law who suffers terribly every year from allergies.

Had an unpleasant surprise when my purifier, which has been working fairly well in the two months I’ve had it, popped up the “change filter” indicator light on me. A representative from the company told me that it’s based on running time, not the condition of the filter, so if the air quality is still good it can be reset. Upon checking, the filter was still in pretty good shape, so I’ll keep resetting and see how long until the performance degrades. It’s still doing a fine job cleaning the air and I haven’t had any other issues with it.

 Please check out my video review of this product as well here on Amazon but a more in-depth review is found below.

***UPDATE***
The company has left me a message on this review stating that the filters are now available here Levoit Air Purifier LV-PUR131 Replacement Filter, True HEPA & Activated Carbon Filters Set, with that news I will increase my review from 4 stars to 5 stars. The unit is still working great and is on AUTO mode continuously. I will update again with any new developments but so far I like this product.

I purchased the Le Voit Air Purifier with True HEPA filter because air quality in my home is important to me and my family. I have allergies along with every member of my family so I wanted to keep my indoor air quality as clean as possible. I do not have an HVAC system, I have baseboard heat and window air conditioners currently. My biggest air quality issues are dust, pollen and other allergens. My neighborhood has a lot of fireplaces and I can usually smell the burning wood inside my home from small air leaks throughout the home or when I open a door the smoke smell comes inside.

I purchased a True HEPA filter by Honeywell Honeywell 50250-S True HEPA Air Purifier, 390 sq. ft. first and I liked it but thought it was a little too loud for my newborns room so I found this Le Voit Air Purifier was similar in price and stated performance so I bought this unit. Both have multiple filters and both have the highly sought after true HEPA filter. The Honeywell HEPA filter states 3-5 year life with vacuuming of the filter which is nice. I doubt you can do that with the Le Voit but time will tell how long both filters should last or at least until both are ineffective. The Le Voit comes with an activated carbon filter which is nice for eliminating smells and bacteria. The Honeywell says the prefilter is carbon activated as well but the Le Voit looks like it contains more carbon in it.

I haven’t had either unit long enough to comment on overall effectiveness but I can still describe my likes and dislikes of both. I like that the Le Voit is quiet. This unit on HIGH fan speed is similar in sound to the Honeywell on low fan speed. Both units have 3 fan speeds with the Le Voit having a Sleep Mode fan speed which is very low and quiet. The Honeywell does not have a Sleep Mode. The Le Voit also has an AUTO mode meaning it will stay in the lowest fan speed mode, Sleep, when it detects excellent air quality but if it detects contaminants in the air it will automatically adjust fan speed to try and eliminate the contaminants. This is a really nice feature for those who want to have a HEPA filter run all the time but don’t want to spend a lot of money running at a higher speed or do not want a loud filter all the time which is not automatically adjusting on the fly. Both units have really good instructions and are both set up in less than 5 minutes. The Honeywell has a longer cord which is nice but also has a challenging design.

The Honeywell is completely round so you really can’t place it flat agains a wall, it is almost more suited to a corner if you have an available one and it also states that it should be a few feet away around all sides so you really can’t or shouldn’t tuck it next to a wall. On the other hand the Le Voit is boxy and can be placed next to a wall due to the intake being on the sides and the air is pushed out the top. The Le Voit is similar in size and shape to a small paper shredder for a home office. It looks nice to with the ultra white plastic construction and the slick touch sensitive top.

Some of the concerns I have with the Le Voit are valid. First there is really no replacement filters available as of yet. The manufacturer is working on getting those available but as of yet they are not. Second this company is really unknown to me so I have reservations about warranty, product quality and overall support of the product. The third is the claim of over 300 square feet of air cleaning ability. On high with a brand new filter this should be the correct claim. The filter is said to have a CADR (Clean Air Delivery Rate) of 135+, the Honeywell in comparison is listed at 250 where the higher the number the more filtering can be accomplished. The Honeywell says it can completely exchange the air in a 392 sqft room 5 times in a day so I believe the Le Voit should be able to exchange a room of 322 sqft once a day on high setting.

Some of the technical details are a follows:
The Honeywell consumes more electricity than the Levoit when operating which was confirmed using a Kill-A-Watt:

Honeywell
Off – 0.00 amps; 0 watts
Low – 0.76 amps; 93.3 watts
Medium – 1.31 amps; 149 watts
High – 1.56 amps; 190 watts

Le Voit
Off – 0.02 amps; 0.5 watts
Sleep – 0.07 amps; 3.9 watts
Low – 0.14 amps; 11.0 watts
Medium – 0.25 amps; 21.2 watts
High – 0.44 amps, 37.9 watts.

What is interesting and what I do not like is that the Le Voit has power going to it even when off so you are better off running this unit on sleep mode or auto mode then having it completely off unless you unplug the unit. Both units consume what their packaging says they should for highest power.

Overall I like the Le Voit. It has a lot of advantages over the Honeywell with the multiple speeds that are automatically controlled and the super quite sleep mode along with run timer. It also has a better form factor being square for easy placement against walls and furniture. The newness of this filter puts me at edge and the lack of replacement filters available right now too have me slightly worried so I am sticking with 4 out of 5 stars for right now. I can say right now this is a recommendation but I would wait until replacement filters are available before purchasing because it is an investment at current list price of $160.

I almost left them a bad review… So I plug in the unit and everything looks great: it’s super quiet, everything as described. I put it in the “auto” mode and the light is blue, which indicates that air quality is good. I live in Los Angeles and with all the talk about how our air is terrible, I expected to see the light to turn–at the very least–green or yellow. So I was just wondering if the thing was even doing anything? I left it on for another day. The first time I realized it’s actually working was when I was cooking fish and there was quite a bit of smoke in the room. The light went from blue to green to red in a matter of minutes and the unit became noisier and it was obvious it’s working hard. As soon as the smoke cleared, it went back to it’s normal, quiet, state. But the best came in about three days. I noticed there was significantly less dust on my TV stand. Normally, it’s all dusty in 3 days or so. There was hardly any dust in a week. So, it definitely works in filtering out dust, which is a win-win in my book: less cleaning and cleaner air to breath!

This worked for 3 Months after which the fan started to make a grinding noise. The filters were changed and the sensor was cleaned following the manufacture’s recommendations. The fan continued to degrade and became unusable.

Totally satisfied! Well worth it. A family of 5 w/ 2 smokers and everyone noticed a great increase in the quality of clean, refreshing air. Some of us have allergies and the Levoit Air Purifier has made a big difference.