This nifty gadget from Samsung could be a secret weapon to stop nasties coming in your house. There’s just one big downside.

What tech can you buy to help avoid a stuffy nose? Well, an air purifier can take pollen, dust and other pollutants out of the air, which may be of assistance. And Samsung’s trying to make air purifiers stylish, recently launching their Bespoke Air Purifier range.

I got my hands on Samsung’s latest Bespoke AX53 Air Purifier, which interests me for a range of reasons. Firstly, after the Australian bush fires, air purifiers became a popular option to aid in filtering smoke in the air. Additionally, air purifiers have become an important part of the prevention of Covid-19 spread indoors.

Although Samsung’s Bespoke range doesn’t quote any virus protection, they do house the HEPA filters which have been known to offer the most effective air purification. And now I can own an air purifier that fits in with my decor? That’s kind of awesome.

The AX53 is pretty big though, coming in at 380x438x406mm (WxHxD). Though, that factors into its ability to pull more pollutants out of the air than smaller air purifiers. In fact, this one has fancy ‘3D Surround Air Purification’, which is just a special way of saying that the unit has five-way suction and it can powerfully pull air in from the top, sides, bottom, back and front.

It is, in fact, a pretty crazy unit on the inside. When setting it up you have to unwrap its multiple filters that are housed in the device. This includes the dust collecting filter to catch ultra fine dust, pet deodorisation filter to reduce odours, pre-filter to trap large dust particles and a pet mesh filter on top to collect pet hair. With all of this Samsung claims its HEPA filtration removes 99.97 per cent of larger and ultra fine particles including some odours and pet hair.

Have you ever had sunshine streaming in through your window and then noticed a ludicrous amount of dust particles floating all around you? This is something I’ve seen all too often and in my house of chronic snifflers it was great to have this turned on and know it was drawing these excessive particles out of the air. In fact I feel as though I noticed a lot less dust was covering my surfaces, at least near the purifier, during the time it was on and the air really seemed more fresh.

What I also enjoyed about this device was how quiet it was when turned on. It does have a more breezy, audible mode where you can really tell its taking in a large volume of air quite quickly, but there’s also a ‘WindFree’ mode. This mode doesn’t create any excess cool airflow around it and is extremely quiet which is a great mode to run in the background when you need to concentrate.

The machine, overall, is really smart. It can be controlled with touch buttons on the outside (simple things such as on/off and mode selection) or through Samsung’s SmartThings app. You can use the app to turn the air purifier off remotely, monitor the air quality with particle readings or be told whether the air is “unhealthy” or “healthy”. There’s also a simple display on the air purifier itself which shows you the concentration of particles in the air and how large they are.

Is it worth the price tag?

It’s the day and age where an investment in an air purifier doesn’t seem silly or unnecessary anymore. In fact I’ve been living near a building site so it’s something I really appreciate right now. I’ve also heard many raving reviews about people who use air purifiers to improve their quality of life when suffering with allergies and sinus problems.

I’ve really appreciated the quality of this device and user experience. It seems robust and I would hope it will last a long time, however, I’m finding it hard to justify the price coming in around $1200.

If money is no object, this is by all means the best looking air purifier on the market (as most honestly stick out like a sore thumb and look pretty obscure). Maybe one could argue that because it’s heavy duty and suitable for rooms up to 53m², the cost may balance out as you won’t necessarily need to own multiple air purifiers depending on your use case or floor plan. I suppose if you plan to make this kind of appliance a part of your daily life and you care about style, then this is definitely an air purifier to consider.

Elly Awesome is an Aussie tech and lifestyle vlogger | @ellyawesometech | YouTube

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