I do have some allergies from dust and pollen. I tried an ionic type air cleaner, which required constant cleaning, and it did not do very much. I also duct taped a high-quality furnace filter to a square fan, which works, but I know it’s not a safe way to air purify. At least the house has a furnace that we can pop those high-quality filters into. It’s great when the furnace is running when it is cold out, but to leave the furnace fan running during the summer is not. The furnace is loud. It’s also pulling in air from outside so, living on a busy road, we sometimes get exhaust fumes or skunk smell. And it’s a waste of electricity if you need it only in one or two rooms.

When I received the Philips 2000i Connected Air Purifier to test, I suspected it was going to be an over glorified fan with a high-quality filter. Well it does have a high-quality filter and a fan, but I under estimated what the Philips 2000i Connected Air Purifier can do.

The Philips 2000i Connected Air Purifier is designed to do rooms up to 277 square feet, so the machine is a little bit bigger than I thought it would be. It’s Sci-Fi look sees a shiny plastic white body, matte  finish black top, and a round opening on the front with a multi-colored LED circle in it. The top has touch sensitive buttons to turn it on, select fan speed, air purification modes, display on and off, timer and filter reset.

As you will see in the video, there are three filters in the unit: a coarse one that catches large particles in the air, like cat hair and dust bunnies; an active carbon/charcoal filter to reduce smells and gases; and a HEPA filter that removes dust, allergens some bacteria and viruses as small as .3 microns. According to Philips, the unit captures 99.97 per cent of particles.

Turning it on, the unit’s multi-colored lights light up and turn blue if air quality is good. As the air gets poor with particulate, the colour will change to purple, then to red when air quality is poor. It will also display a number from 1 to 12: 1 being clean. You can manually set the speed of the fan, from sleep mode to turbo speed, which is great when you are doing house cleaning.

Within the first hour of use, I started to see big differences in what the Philips 2000i Connected Air Purifier can do compared to a furnace filter or any other air purifier I have used in the past. Built in the side of the unit is an air quality detector. It determines what speed the purifier should run in while in automatic mode. For example, since I am usually working away at the computer in my bedroom, I have it set up close to the foot of the bed. During the day, you don’t realize how much dust settles on your bed sheets. As I get my bed ready, just the movement of the comforter had the Philips 2000i Connected Air Purifier detect poor air quality. The fan sped up to deal with the dust and allergens I had just put into the air. Not only did it do this with me doing up my bed, but it often when I was cooking, cleaning my room, folding clothes, after taking a shower or even having the window open to let in what you assume is fresh air into the house.

Having the Philips Air Purifier automatically adjust itself to the conditions is something that a furnace or other low-end air purifiers can’t do. When the air is clean, the unit operates with hardly any sound. When it detects the air quality becoming poor, it will flip through different speeds to one that will deal best with the conditions. The top speed, which you can manually set as turbo mode, is loud and like a furnace fan running. You can also manually change the mode to an extra-sensitive allergen mode, or to the extra-powerful bacteria/virus mode.

For the first several weeks, I left it in auto mode, even as I slept. Tossing and turning around in bed while sleeping would send particulates into the air, which would kick it into higher gear. It did make it hard to sleep since. I would then just put it into sleep mode, which also turns off the display lights.

With the forest fires that happen in BC and Alberta, the air quality gets to the point where my eyes start to itch. Rob and I had left the windows open in the house to let it cool over night, but in the morning, you could smell the smoke from the forest fires throughout the house.  When I put the Philips 2000i Connected Air Purifier back into auto mode, it showed how poor the air quality was. I closed all the windows in the house. Within several minutes, it brought the air quality in the room back to good, and the smell of smoke vanished.

Maintenance of the filters is easy. The pre-filter that catches things like cat hair can be washed, and you will get the notification once a month to do it. The Active Carbon filter lasts about six months and the HEPA Filter lasts about a year. When you get the notification that the filters need to be replaced, you have 14 days to replace them. After that, the air purifier will stop operating and automatically lock itself. You also need to clean the air quality sensor every two months with a damp cotton swab.

This model comes with Wi-Fi support, which uses a third-party app, so you can access all the air purifier’s features from your Android or iOS based smartphones or tablets. There is an identical model of the Philips 2000i Connected Air Purifier that does not have the Wi-Fi feature, for a little bit less than the full version. The convenience of being able to control it from anywhere in your house or while in bed is the tradeoff.

The Philips AC2885/40 Series 2000 Air Purifier goes for about $450, whereas the Wi-Fi/Connected model Philips AC2889/40 Series 2000I goes for about $480. You can buy a two-pack of Active Carbon Filters with a HEPA filter for about $150. If you are living in a place – like a condo or apartment – where the only air you get is from opened windows, this should be something on your radar. If you have allergies I do recommend it. I have only needed to pop allergy pills once this year so far, and it was because I was outdoors for most of the day. When I am in the area where the air purifier is, I don’t have any issues. There are no ozone smells coming from it like some other units, just clean air.

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Contributor Steve Polyak |

Topic Philips | Product Review |