I tried improving air quality in our home with a Philips Air Performer 8000 3-in-1

Last year I wrote about the worrying number of microplastics found inside bottled water, which we’d been drinking instead of tap water. What I’d never really thought about until recently, was the air we’re all breathing inside our home too.

Maybe it was the discovery of asbestos in our attic that got me thinking about this, or perhaps it was having our chimney swept and thinking about all the particles that were coming from the chimney as they did so. It might even have been the fact that every summer my wife and daughter both suffer from hay fever.

Whatever it was, I then started reading a little about air purifiers, and – thanks to the wonder of technology known as “cookies” the ads started popping up on my computer.

One thing I noticed about some of the better air purifiers on the market was that they came as 3-in-1 devices, with the ability to work as a heater and a fan, as well as purifying air. I decided to take the plunge and opted for an Air Performer 8000 series 3-in-1 Air Purifier. Here’s how our experience went.

Using the Air Performer 8000 as a fan

Since we purchased the Air Performer during the summer, the first feature we tested out was the fan. Our son’s bedroom faces south and becomes uncomfortable in summer, even with his blinds closed. It’s not the largest room in the house and within moments of switching the Air Performer on, the room began to cool down noticeably. Not only did the cool air come quickly but it felt different from the bladed fan we were using previously. The air came in a constant stream from the Air Performer’s bladeless fan rather than the gusts that came from our old fan.

I then tested the fan downstairs in our living room area, which is open-plan and much larger than Harrison’s room. Since this area is more spacious, I activated the rotation feature of the Air Performer, so that it could blow air in all directions rather than focusing the air flow directly toward one person. Again, the cooling effect was felt pretty much immediately, especially when I increased the speed to suit the size of the room. It’s probably worth pointing out at this point that the rotation can be adjusted anywhere between 45 degrees and 350 degrees, to suit the needs of the room you’re cooling or heating. Since I had the Air Performer in the centre of our living space, I used the 350-degree option, but had it been against a wall it would have made more sense to use 180 degrees. All these options can be selected easily enough using the remote control or an app, which - once you’ve figured out how to use it - has far more detailed information on the air purity as well as the controls.

The Air Purity Function

The next functions we tested were the purifying functions. As I noted earlier, both my wife and daughter suffer from hay fever, and my wife is particularly sensitive to impurities in the air all year round.

It might sound obvious, but this was the main reason we wanted to invest in a quality air purifier.

Unfortunately, the best air purifiers aren’t cheap, and the Air Performer is no exception. Also, as well as the initial outlay, having an air purifier running in every room of the house doesn’t seem like the most economical idea either, so my plan was always to move the unit from room to room, using it for longer periods in the rooms that needed it most, which I anticipate being our daughter’s bedroom and our bedroom.

I imagine I’m not alone in this, so I’ll point out the plusses and minuses for the Air Performer for anyone planning to use it in this way. The obvious minus for using the Air Performer as a mobile fan, heater or air purifier is its size. It’s pretty big, measuring around 105cm in height and reasonably heavy at around 8.5kg, which means the kids aren’t going to be able to move it around. I was able to move it easily, thanks to the bladeless design creating an oval at the top that makes a pretty good handle to carry it by. It feels sturdy enough to do so, and I’ve had no issues doing this so far. However, the Air Performer is still not the most portable unit in the world and negotiating stairs took extra care, as there’s plenty of potential for tripping on it.

On the plus side, the sensors on the Air Performer send very detailed information to the app, and give real-time feedback on the quality of the air and any pollutants in the vicinity. A great example of this in action was when I recently burned a cake in our oven and (after the smoke alarms had stopped beeping) I noticed that the Air Performer was a lot louder than it normally runs. I checked the app and sure enough, the air quality had deteriorated, and the Air Performer was working harder to clean the impurities out of the air.

What exactly does it clean?

For those of you that are suckers for specifications and numbers, the Air Performer has a CADR (Clean Air Delivery Rate) of 270 m3/h(1), which means 270 cubic metres of air every hour. This is enough to thoroughly purify and protect rooms up to 70 square metres from pollen, dust, harmful gases and odours as well as viruses, bacteria and other pollutants. The NanoProtect HEPA filtration, is able to remove 99.97% of particles including exceptionally small ones. It also uses an electrostatic charge to attract the particles, this means that it’s able to clean up twice as much air as traditional HEPA H13 filters and deliver better energy efficiency. The filters are also fine enough to remove the smallest known viruses, which is comforting to know as winter kicks in and the kids are bringing all sorts of coughs and colds home with them.

But does an air filter make a noticeable difference? Well according to my wife, it does. She swears that she sleeps better and is less stuffy during the night since we’ve had the Air Performer. Interestingly, we left the Air Performer in our daughter’s bedroom for a couple of weeks in September and when we returned it to our own bedroom the air quality was registering as poor, which was no great surprise to my wife as she said that she’d really noticed a difference while the Air Performer had been out of the room. Psychologically it’s also really reassuring having the app assure us that the air quality is good, and notifying us of any change in quality when we move the unit from room to room.

The heating capability

Now that temperatures are dropping, we’ve used the heater a few times to quickly heat our living room while we wait for the central heating to warm up. The Air Performer is incredibly quick to heat up, and within 3 seconds we can feel the warm air blowing from it. The temperature can be set for anywhere between 1-37°C and there are 10 heater speeds to choose from. We only use the heater for short periods, usually less than ten minutes, but for those that want to use it as a primary heater there is an auto mode that allows you to heat your room efficiently with its energy-saving algorithm that senses and adapts for the best results.

The verdict

I’m sure it might be entirely possible to filter the air in smaller rooms with a much smaller – and cheaper – air filter than the Air Performer. But the ability to quickly heat or cool almost any size room, as well as clean the air of even the largest of rooms and get real-time feedback on air quality, made the Air Performer stand out to us.

At the £499 we paid I couldn’t afford one in every room, but they’re currently on offer at £409.64 and having one in the home at that price is definitely worth the investment, especially if someone in your home is sensitive to allergens or pollutants in the air.