四年前，我在北京的时候不停的咳嗽，当时的我想呼吸清洁的空气，但是我找到的所有的市面上空气净化器都特别贵，所以我用一个风扇+滤网和一个绑带制作了我第一台DIY空气净化器。
它长的不好看，但是我用一个激光测试仪做测试，发现这个玩意可以去除我房间里的颗粒污染物。
这个DIY有效， 但也有一些缺点：
首先，它有点吵。开高档的噪音跟大牌空气净化器的高档差不多，但是大多数空气净化器在高档的时候都算很吵。
第二，有点麻烦。必须用绑带把滤网和风扇固定到一起。我看到过几个人做的不对。
第三，DIY的风力不是很强，尤其是要穿透HEPA滤网。如果能用更强的风扇，可以提供更多的清洁空气。
现在， 我有了一对可以横扫这些问题的机器，而且这两个机器很牛。它们是我的第一对非DIY空气净化器。让我们会会大胖和小胖这对兄弟吧。
好吧好吧，事实上，这两兄弟其实很“单纯”。就是一个很大的风机和超级厚的HEPA滤网放在一个铁盒子里 。其实所有的空气净化器也是风扇和滤网放在一个箱子里 。但是胖子兄弟有更强大的风机和滤网。这意味着：
一个小胖的出来的洁净空气量等于2.2台Blue Air 203和2.2台IQ Air Health Pro。
那么多空气被吹出来，肯定很吵吧？其实这两个“坏男孩”确是出奇的比Blue Air和IQ Air还要安静。
跟之前一样，我在真实条件的房间做测试，然后把数据公开给大家。以下是大胖在Smart Air把办公室34平方米的测试数据。
经过这么多测试，有几次我问“这开了吗？”因为实在是太安静了。测试了一个月之后，我买了几台送给朋友。
这样难以置信吧。怎么又强又安静呢？原因是HEPA特别胖：
滤网那么胖的话，风可以从非常大的面积吹出来。原理比较简单，想象一下用吸管用力吹气，然后再想象一下用大号那么大的东西来吹气。
另外，这个叫Paddy的家伙设计了风机和风道，而且他是航空工程师。他对自己设计出的机器十分自信，他甚至假装在这台超级安静的机子旁边看书。
这也意味着他知道空气流动学，并且他设计出了效率很高并且很安静的机器。
所以胖子兄弟，又高效又安静，那就很贵吧？ 然而：
我算了一下小胖可以清洁最高达到85平方米的空间。这个包括大多数公寓和房子。为了更大的空间（比如办公室，健身房，咖啡厅），大胖可以净化135平方米的空间。另外，因为大胖的HEPA滤网比小胖的更大，大胖就更安静。
我写这一篇文章的同时，我想道歉：文章中有显露出向大家售卖商品的意图。我与Smart Air团队一起工作这4年以来，我从来没有从中获利一分钱。我有自己的一份全职工作（现在我过着一般教授们的生活），所以我花费自己的时间和Smart Air一起 在印度和蒙古通过DIY沙龙传播空气污染知识和提供低价的空气净化器。
所以在这篇文章里我可能显得和之前有点不一样，是因为我很兴奋！从几年前我制作的第一台DIY，积累的测试和数据支持我最初的想法，做出像Blue Air和IQ Air一样高效但是价格低廉的产品是有可能的。数据让我们的选择更多！
我还是忍不住要做一个动态图
Hi
I’m reading and checking your side, as I have been working on improving the smoker’s respiratory health situation, especially for heavy smoke, during my search I found there is a link missing from your site ( so I wonder if you can send a new link regarding the issue) https://smartairfilters.com/data/blast-blast-mini-test-data/
Regards
Dr. Kimo
Hi Kimo,
Thanks for pointing out this! We have updated the link in the article. Here is the new link where you can download the data. Breathe safe!
https://smartairfilters.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/10/compiled-data-for-online.xlsx
WOuld really love to see this on amazon or some sort of affiliate program so I can promote it
Thanks John, sounds like a great idea! We already have the Blasts on Amazon India (they’re called the Ladakh and Ladakh Mini there). Which country are you based in and where would you like to see the Blasts for sale?
I am based in South Africa and my audience is mostly American and European, and I do get some Indian visitors as well. I will see how I can work with your Indian amazon links for now but Amazon links for the U.S and E.U will be awesome. Thanks for reaching out
I think comparing the product to Blue Air is not relevant anymore as companies such as Xiaomi and Mijia makes it more affordable now, and have a pretty accurate automatic mode which is more friendly than these pick up devices for industrial use (and which i would not guarantee how safe their components are are they must be for domestic market)
You’re right Flax! Many new purifiers have come on the market in the past few years which as you say have a much lower price. The Xiaomi purifiers are a good example of lower cost purifiers on the market! Although one of biggest downsides of the Xiaomi – which we spent a long time fine tuning for the Blasts – is the noise level. The Xiaomi gives a CADR of 310cbm/hr, but at a whopping 69dB. That’s pretty unbearable for most people. The Blast Mini on its lowest setting gives a CADR of 340cbm/hr, at a noise level of just 44dB. We’ve tested the Xiaomi in the past, you can read up on the Mi 2 here!
Hi.
For years I’ve been using 3M Filtrete cut out sheets on my air conditioners and on the backs of electric fans. Saw a Blueair 205 on sale recently, got interested, and decided to research more on air purifiers. Came upon your site. Great products!
However there are some important errors you made in the comparison calculations. It appears that you compared the Blast Mini and Blast CADR using **cubic-meters-per-hour** (585 and 890 m³/hr) to the Blueair 203 and IQ Air Health Pro 250 using **cubic-feet-per-minute** (155 and 259 cfm respectively, according to their websites).
So instead of the Blast Mini being equivalent to 3.8 Blueair 203’s, it should only be 2.2 (585/263=2.2). And instead of 2.2 IQ Air 250’s, it’s only 1.3 (585/440=1.3). I’m sure it was an honest oversight, but I suggest you change the marketing materials and documentation for this. I know it’s a lot but best to be correct.
Also, I couldn’t figure out how the 85 m² (Blast Mini) and 130 m² (Blast) areas were computed. Based on the AHAM recommendations of 8′ ceiling, the Blast Mini is good for 50 m², and Blast for 75 m². I think it’s another volume/time unit conversion issue. They’re both 1.7x less than your published areas, which coincides to 1.7 m³/hr = 1 cfm.
Is there an actual standard that most manufacturers follow to compute for effective area?
Hi Sam, great insights！ You’ve sure done some good digging work! The CADR values we got for the Blue Air came from the AHAM official website, double checking it again, it seems there’s a bug with their website whereby if you change the ‘units’ to ‘metric’ it still outputs the CADR of the BlueAir 203 as ‘155’. Having checked the BlueAir official website, you’re right: the CADR is 155cfm or 263cbm/hr! IQAir value is a little bit more difficult to decipher. IQAir doesn’t seem to give any CADR values (either in cfm or cbm/hr) for their machines, so in order to get an estimate for the CADR, we took the stated ‘airflow rating’ from their official website (in Chinese), and multiplied this by 0.6 (air purifier manufacturers and our tests have shown that CADR roughly equals 0.6 x airflow). I’ve updated the graphics and information to state that the Blast Mini is equivalent to 2.2 BlueAirs (and IQAirs – unchanged) and the Blast is equivalent to 3.4 Blue Airs. Thanks for pointing this out!
Regarding your question what standard manufacturers use to compute effective airflow, there are typically two standards followed. The AHAM standard which can be found here and gives the formula Roomsize (sqft) = CADR (cfm) * 1.55 (this is the one you refer to)
The other more common standard now in China is to use the formula taken from the National Standard GB/T 18801-2015, it’s all in Chinese, but if you scroll to page 24 you’ll see the formula S = (0.07 ~ 0.12)Q. This is saying Roomsize = between (0.07 x CADR) and (0.12 x CADR). We used this as a basis for our areas and then extrapolated based on the real world tests we’ve done in Beijing. So Blast Mini area from the Chinese standard = 585 * 0.12 = 71sqm, which we’ve found to be 10-20% conservative so rounded to 85sqm. The same is true for the Blast: area = 890 * 0.12 = 107sqm, for which we’ve found to be 10-20% conservative. Some explanations for why our tests show different from this could be that: 1) the room heights we normally see are slightly less than 2.4m (which is used in the Chinese standard), 2) most of our tests were done on days when pollution levels were <200µg/m3, the Chinese standard is based on 300µg/m3 (which typically only occurs 3-5 days a year somewhere like Beijing) and 3) that despite most people thinking to the contrary, most houses we've seen in China are reasonably well sealed, so air leakage isn't a huge problem.
At Smart Air, we try and find a good balance between these 'official' numbers and what people will see in reality (all of which we back up with data), this way we hope to provide information that's more meaningful and relevant to people. If we can help stop people from overbuying and overspending on air purifiers, whilst still making sure people are breathing clean air, we'll do so!
Paddy,
Thanks for the reply! Your explanation for the area standards was very clear. Made it easier to compare purifiers and realized to really just depend on a combination of CADR, price, power and sound level.
I found the IQAir specs on the linked pdf on their website at https://www.iqair.com/international/home-air-purifiers/healthproseries.
Hey, respect for your personal story, and obviously an awesome product development!
I’m smoking, that’s why I want to buy one of that air purifiers…
I also thought about an DIY project, and design my own, by this way I found your website…
Can you send me some price infos, and shipping in the EU, Vienna, Austria, please?
Wish you all the best, kind regards,
Sebastian
Can your purifiers be sent to Taiwan? Do they have 110v version?
Hi Jian-Hong! Paddy here in Beijing. The motors we’re using are currently 240V only, but if you’re looking to order a larger quantity of units (more than 20) we can make sure they include 110V motors that work in Taiwan. Get in touch with us at [email protected] if you do
What about O3 emission of this new model?
We had the Blasts tested by a 3rd party testing lab, they tested for O3 (post is in Chinese). Here’s what they found:
Put simply, the purifiers are not giving off any O3 (as we would make sure before creating any new purifier!)
Love your DIY filters, used both types in different places I lived in China. These are awesome products at awesome prices. Hope you can get some market penetration with this and start earning yourself a salary!
Thanks Alex, always great to hear people are using Smart Airs to get clean air! Figuring out how to spread the word on the Blasts is now one of our biggest challenges, fingers crossed!
Interesting that you talk about surface area. Could we get the same effect by running more than one DIY? Maybe one in each corner of the room. I would love to buy a Blast but live in Thailand so I imagine the postage costs would be high.
You’re spot on, if you double the number of DIYs in your room, you’re effectively doubling the amount of clean air your room is getting, so it would be good for twice the space! It all comes down to the ‘airflow’ or CADR of the purifier. You can see a comparison between the purifiers we have on this page: https://smartairfilters.com/cn/en/smart-air-purifier-pamphlets/ The Blast has as much clean air as almost 11 DIYs!
Any chance of adding at least one similarly priced air filter (¥1500-2000) to your comparisons? The newish Blue Pure 211+ and Phillips 1000 Series are popular units targeting the same segment as the Blast Mini so either would both work.
I’ve had great luck with my Cannon DIY and am excited to see you expand your product lineup. Keep up the good work!
For sure Aaron, we’re actually in the process of comparing the Blast and Blast Mini to more similarly priced purifiers. What we’ve found is that they’re still far more powerful and more importantly much quieter. We’ll have the data out soon!
Interesting! What is the CCM for the Blast and Mini ?
We haven’t done CCM tests for the Blast and Blast Mini yet, but based on the total area of the Blast and Blast Mini HEPAs (22sqm or 11sqm) the CCM is most likely to fall into the P4 range (highest). We want to start doing longevity tests to determine this!
Exciting! Would you kindly summarise from the data, a few points:
– I see the noise level for the Blast and Mini on the loudest settings, but how loud are they at other settings?
– What is the effective CADR at those other settings?
Thanks!
Please also add the DIY original air purifier and the Cannon to the charts.
Hi Joseph, you can find more information on the individual pages for the Blast/Blast Mini, or on this page showing a comparison of all the 4 purifiers in the Smart Air family:
https://smartairfilters.com/cn/en/smart-air-purifier-pamphlets/